iTutorGroup Employee Reviews about "native"

Pros

They have a decent platform and your colleagues are always ready to help. The kids are great, but I think you will find that with any Chinese company.

Cons

The curriculum is terrible. Basically, anyone can write curricula; it doesn't matter whether s/he has experience or not. Even if the lesson has flagrant errors, you still have to teach it, or be penalized should a student complain. The company doesn't care about qualifications. You get paid according to where you live. For example, you could have Ph.D in Education or Applied Linguistics, twenty years of experience, and be a native speaker, but if you choose to live in the Philipines or Thailand, you could make 2 or 3 dollars an hour. However, if you live in the States, for example, and have a Groupon TESL certificate (120 hours), chances are you will be making 10 times what the Ph.D is making. I've never seen such a disregard for quality. In addition, they are quite punitive to their teachers- there is no grace period to learn the ropes. You basically have to sink or swim.

Pros

The schedule is flexible. However, if you make any adjustment in your schedule or take any time off you immediately lose 10% of your pay which is given as a "prefect attendance" bonus.

Cons

Low pay ($2.00 USD per hour for native English teachers outside US for 45 min classes ) They tell you that 45 minute classes are rare, however, this is not true. In addition, you can teach up to 6 adults or 3 children in a 45 minute session and you have to complete an extensive report on each student that attended for an effective pay rate of $2.00 USD and hour.

Pros

I have made decent money there in the past (but that seems to have changed for the worse).

Cons

1) Rating System Your income and employment status with the company is based a completely capricious, unchecked and unappealable ratings from often angry kids or frustrated parents. Yes, they remove the lowest 3% of ratings from your penalty fees (they actually deduct your pay based on this), but these ratings do continue to stay on your permanent record, lowering your overall average. That means you'll loose raises and possibly your job in the no-so-long run. I have stellar ratings and even I lost a pay raise once because of basically two vindictive 8 or 9 year olds who gave severely low ratings in the same week, because they didn't feel like doing English after a day at school (can you blame them?). I make classes as entertaining and fun as possible. My 9.8 average dropped to 8 something overnight and I nearly was suspended. In one case, the kid had fun in class, but the parent obviously thought fun doesn't equal learning and gave a punishing rating and including every negative comment imaginable. If you like to be humiliated, this is the job for you. 2) Pay Pay is based on location not on your experience, your qualifications, your being a native speaker, or your skill, enthusiasm, charisma or any intrinsic quality you may have as a teacher. You may get a good service agreement if you're in the US, CA, UK or some other cities in the EU. If you're not in those places, you'll be paid well below minimum wage even for your region (try $2 an hour of which you could even be deducted pay). Why so many people from low paying regions (Serbia, Croatia etc) even apply, is a bit of a mystery. 3) Bait and Switch You'll be given a full schedule initially, but as soon as you reach 1000 hours and your raise is coming up, suddenly everything will change (at least from what I've experienced and seen from others). You'll be put on "demo" classes which pay very little and can be quite stressful. Your normal bookings will suddenly drop. It's like you're working for a different company. In my case, my service agreement suddenly changed and my salary was permanently lowered AFTER I was hired. I nearly quit on the spot. As this lower payment was only for adult classes and I was assigned to teach kids, I decided to stay. I had no idea at that time that some kid's classes would also pay that adult wage, as do demo, as do many things. They obfuscate these important details as much as possible. I had to work for months and months before these serious payment issues began to affect me. Not a welcome surprise.

Pros

First month was fair and I enjoyed the company. I had what I would call a fair split of the 45min classes ($8/hr) and 30min classes ($16/hr). I taught about 50 regular classes and had about 8 of the really lame $8/hr.

Cons

Now I'm into my second month...and all they seem to give me is the borderline criminal 45min classes. I've taught about 30 classes this month and 15 have been 45 minute classes. They have brought my pay average down to almost 11 dollars an hour for the month. This is unacceptable as a fully qualified US native teacher and if it continues I will be taking my business to another online company. I refuse pouring my soul out for the same wage I could get working at Mcdonalds. I have a high average (9.61)...because I know the PR people monitoring this page LOVE to run to the "youre just not one of the best teachers excuse."

Pros

If you don't get any complaints from students, you can earn an OK amount of money if you work a lot of classes. And I mean a LOT of classes.

Cons

They have an automated system to allocate students to teachers. However, if you get a complaint from a student about your class, you will be put on stand by. This means that you will get NO classes unless the schedulers give you a class. I started with them and after 4 days and 25 sessions, I had one complaint so they stopped all my bookings. They are very unethical to do this to new teachers. My performance rate was 8.96 so not THAT bad. They said most teachers get a performance rating of 9.6 but I don;t think they really care what the performance rate is so long as it is not under say 8.5 or so. It is plain wrong! OK, if you consistently get complaints and bad feedback from students then perhaps you should not be teaching at all. But if you are a good teacher and get 1 or 2 complaints, it is unethical to stop the teacher's bookings as ITutor Group have entered into an employment contract with the teacher and should not discriminate bookings based on a few student complaints. A lot of the adult/business lessons for 45 mins are not good lessons. They are basically reading texts with one or two new words which the students need to learn. This is followed by a few questions on each page. These lessons have obviously been written by a Taiwanese businessman and NOT a native ESL education expert. A lot of them are pretty the same, boring kind of texts and there is hardly ANY grammar or functional English. It is basically just a discussion with students about the text. Pay: You get the same base rate for 2-6 students as you do for 1 on1 which is 6.92 per 45 mins. They should make the base rate more depending on the number of students in class. If you have 6 students in class the base rate should be 15.

Pros

There are zero positives about this company.

Cons

Because iTutorGroup is a profit orientated business, the students are clients, and therefore are invited to rate the teacher. This means the teacher is dependent on the fickle moods of the student. For example, if, as is often the case in China, the student is forced to attend the class by parents, he or she may be unhappy, and that reflects on the teacher's rating, which in turn affects performance rating, and subsequently pay, conditions and hours. The students are not visible in that in most cases, they do not have to show their faces on camera. So, you have to work out which student is speaking, since you cannot see his/her face. This creates ineffective interaction. There can be up to six students at varying levels in a teacher's class. For each student, the teacher must give feedback. For example, if the teacher puts in three hours of teaching, that calculates to around 24-36 feedbacks. The feedback must be done the teacher's own time., and is unpaid It can be time consuming. Time is one factor which any teacher at iTutorGroup will be using, since you will find yourself working many hours to make ends meet, given the low rates of pay. This is tiring, and demoralising. A good quality education service, gives teachers good pay rates, and therefore the teacher can work fewer hours and subsequently prepare better quality lessons. As to the job title, which is that of 'consultant', it is not actually a consultancy role. According to Collins dictionary, a consultant gives expert advice, and is therefore a specialist. This role does not call for a specialist in language training, but a mere native speaker who entertains students. The position is advertised as an 'working from home' and 'flexible hours' opportunity. This translates as being an insecure post, where the company gains the teacher's utilities, such as computer, lighting, heating, and services for a very low rate. By the time the teacher has paid for the cost of the utilities working from home, completed feedback and prepared sessions, she or he is working for free. It is a good deal for iTutorGroup. iTutorGroup is hiring low quality, low paid native speakers and placing the moniker of 'consultant' on the people they hire. The client ends up paying for a poor quality learning experience. In my personal case, my salary was not paid, and iTutotGroup created many obstacles, passing me from one department to the other, hoping to avoid payment. Avoiding payment, low pay and poor conditions, is a result of the teacher not having any employment rights. The status of self -employed, along with the company being registered in another country exacerbates the teacher's lack of employment rights. iTutorGroup was formerly known s TutorABC, and it was rebranded, but is registered as the latter at this time of posting. The owner of iTutorGroup, Dr. Eric Yang, claims to be passionate about education. Well, if he issue passionate, why provide a poor quality service to both teachers and clients? In my opinion, his prime and only motivation is profit. As to positive reviews of iTutorGroup, they could be from teacher-recruiters. Teachers are encouraged to recruit new teachers constantly, for commission. As there is a constant hiring process, there is a high turnover of receipts. This equates to a low quality company.

Pros

Flexible scheduling Ability to work 24/7/365 Students assigned to you. You can start working ASAP.

Cons

There are so many things abhorrently wrong with this company that it is hard to determine where to begin. Unlike most other online English schools, they pay you based on location. This means your base pay will be as low as $2 per class (which can be 45 minutes) or as high as $8 per class (for USA, Canada, and UK-based teachers). It doesn't matter your nationality, education, or experience - ONLY where you are currently based out of. Any bonuses you can make are a percentage of your base pay based on student ratings, and students are not at all required to rate you. If there are technical issues on the side of the company or a 4-year-old has a bad day, be prepared for a bad rating and a DEDUCTION from your pay. In addition, the ratings system is very one-sided. You will NOT be paid for the class if you do not leave feedback and rate each student. But as I said before, students are not required to rate YOU. Because of this, if you rate a student fairly and leave honest feedback, a student can retaliate and leave you a bad rating because they do not like what you rated them. This is because they can see your rating and feedback of them BEFORE they leave you a rating and feedback. This makes retaliatory ratings common and forces teachers to leave positive feedback for all students regardless of performance. Furthermore, your base pay isn't based on number of students in class. You can make the same base pay whether you have 1 student or 6 in a single class. You may get more bonus IF they rate (and rate you WELL), but it is highly unlikely you will get anything near what they advertise for pay. I had two identically-sized classes, one class I made $18, and the next I made $5 because in the second class nobody decided to rate. And the company BANS you from asking for ratings. They will suspend your account or fire you if you ask (you may only remind them to leave you “feedback”). Living in Mexico and working 50 hours per week for a month, my average hourly pay came out to $8/hour, with a 75% rating response rate and an average rating of 9.8 out of 10. That means I made $1,600 for a solid month of more than full-time employment. Management is non-existent until there is a customer complaint and they will never take your side if there is ever a complaint. Today during a Demo lesson, I had a company EMPLOYEE send me the comment, “you can show your real face, it looks you are not a real man." Here I am trying to get clients and make money for the company, and THAT is the comment you send to me? And yes, I do look like a “real man” whatever that is supposed to mean. Despicable treatment of their teachers, rampant racism (though not atypical for Chinese companies), and completely apathetic and indifferent to problems. An insanely unfair ratings system. Lesson plans that are so poor as to be completely comical, and the students will rate you low for the quality of the lesson plans you have nothing to do with. You’ll get a lazily-written, non-interactive ten-slide PPT for a 45-minute adult lesson. Good luck with that! This company is absolutely horrendous - basically a sweat-shop for those they can take advantage of by paying low base rates (they DO hire non-native speakers which is how they are able to exploit so viciously; however, you will see some of their teachers have terrible English because of this). Pay was a week late last payroll which they blamed on a myriad of reasons. Overall, one of the most awful employment experiences in my 20 years of working professionally, and I was easily able to find a couple new online English schools that offer much better pay and benefits. I cannot stress this enough - do NOT work for these people.

Pros

Get to work at home and don’t have to travel

Cons

Overstaffed and Unprofessional support system , Most of the management are not native speakers so they are Very sensitive to what you may have to say or advice even when reporting an issue which may not be your fault they are most likely to perceive your feedback as you are looking down on their culture or people as a whole and in return be rude , arrogant and even ignoring the situation or problem at hand , it’s their way or the high way this is mostly because of their insecurity and lack of people skills as English is not their native language ,so try to be extra sensitive and voice your opinion in the most polite way you can Pay scale is almost nothing for 45 minutes for any consultant with a passport other than the United States or United Kingdom