tutor

consultant

english teacher

english as a second language teacher

dancer

iTutorGroup

I have worked for iTutorGroup now for three years. In the past two months, they have made changes that are grossly exploitative and unfair to their teachers. 

It started off as a dream job, with flexibility to work from home and set my own hours. The compensation was generous, and it significantly increased when you did an outstanding job. 

However, iTutorGroup has clearly become overstaffed. They are designing systems whereby their teachers fail in order to have an excuse to shed workers and introduce new workers at lower rates. I am disgusted and appalled with their out of control, hyperperfectionistic, unrealistic standards. They have set performance standards such that, when students leave you feedback on a 1 to 10 scale, the only acceptable rating is a 10. Literally, if you get less than a 10, say you get quite a few 9s, your average drops, and they threaten to fire you. On top of that, only 20 to 30 percent of your students will ever leave feedback at all. This means that you will not even be evaluated on 70 to 80 percent of your work. The company allows total discretion to students as young as 5 years old to ruin your standing with the company. They don't offer the students the option to leave you a 9.2, say, or a 9.5. It is totally arbitrary which students will leave feedback. They are basing it on automated ratings which measure likability, not learning. You can be a perfectly good, hard working teacher with perfect attendance, and it will not matter at iTutorGroup. My own average dipped to around 9.5. They sent me monthly progress reports telling that I was in the bottom 20 percent of all consultants. These numbers are exaggerated, and they will cherry pick data from the system to paint you in the least competent light. They only started doing all this after Covid hit, and the market became flooded with applicants. They routinely manipulate my numbers, and they are often showing up differently in their company-generated reports than what they allow you to see in your portal. It's manipulative, unfair and dishonest. I got my monthly average up to a 9.66, and a vindictive 8 year old left me a 1, crashing my totals. I was still in the "satisfactory" zone by the time they issued our monthly progress report, but they still classified me as a failure because they chose to use the last week's sessions average. It's total nonsense, and it makes teaching extremely stressful.

This has created a culture of grade inflation, as teachers are afraid to correct students and cannot accurately assess them in their feedback reports. We are afraid of retaliation and losing ratings. Therefore, more and more students are shunted up levels they are completely unprepared for, making teaching them a nightmare. 

Furthermore, after cracking down on us with this extreme system, the company pitched an entirely new service agreement to us. They said it was voluntary, and we could opt to keep our existing contracts in place. When I read it, I was disgusted. They raised the minimum performance standard from my current 8.8 out of 10 to a 9.5 out of 10 while taking away bonuses for good performance. They reduced hourly base rates to be below what I was already achieving after longevity bonuses. They removed the longevity bonus system in favor of a system based on perfect attendance and hours worked. So they literally put forth this new agreement with all kinds of lies and spin and tried to coerce us into signing. The actual changes would mean being held to even higher standards of unattainable perfection and working for less money. Despicable. Ridiculous. Lies. 

When I did not sign the contract, and when I complained about the unfairness of the ratings system, the company retaliated by refusing to schedule me hours. This means that I can book 10 hours, most of which are my regularly set schedule with them, and now they only give me about 6 hours of work. Meanwhile, I have to sit there by the computer in case they randomly fill in a blank part of my schedule, essentially being on call for zero pay.

Do not work for this company. They are actively trying to screw people and see how much they can get away with. Stay away. 

Once you get use to the system, It is a really good gig. It really depends on your efforts and skills. You can't expect it to be like teaching or tutoring at a school. You have a base rate and it's up to you to get client satisfaction. It is an educational platform, but it's also definitely for profit and is based on how you make clients feel. I prefer working with adults, so that is what I do exclusively now, but I worked with kids in the beginning. 25 minute classes were paid $7 each with no bonus, so $14 and hour, which is more than I could make at any job I am qualified for in my city. It is sad, I mean I have a Masters degree, but it isn't applicable to any jobs in my hometown. I got paid twice as much in NYC but had to commute for over an hour and ended up spending most of it on transportation, rent and food because I worked several jobs and was out all day. I am honestly able to save just as much working online because I don't have to leave the house. When I first started, I was frustrated by this job because I expected to earn more, but I have come to realize that you can't just show up and go through the material and expect to get 10's from all the students. You need to have presentation skills, charisma, make connections with students and make them feel like they are learning and enjoying themselves. Then at the end you have to do some shameless self-promotion and remind them to leave you a good rating. If you are confident in yourself, you don't have to tell them to give you a "10", I am one of the people who feels awkward doing that, just remind/beg/convince them to leave any feedback at all. This company allows you to cancel literally any time, which works great for me since I have a baby and my husband's days off are always different. I have learned a lot about China and made great connections with people. Teaching on the platform is exciting and uplifting. I am a naturally grumpy person and I thought I would hate having to pretend to be enthusiastic or convey any energy, but I realized that it actually makes me feel better to put in this effort, "fake it until you make it". I am not earning as much as I want or need, but it is the best I can do right now, it is helping me to survive at a difficult time in my life and when I start studying for a new, hopefully more lucrative career, it will be my part-time income. The business model may seem unfair for teachers, but they really do listen to our gripes and try to take into account our issues. I have worked for 3 other online teaching platforms and I like Itutorgroup the best. They may base our pay on student ratings, but that is common amongst other companies. They also forgive any low ratings you get, up to a point because they understand that students may be upset about their own technology issues or just don't like your personality or hair... they can see when it is a fluke or when you are actually not very well-liked as a teacher. itutorgroup is super easy to get into and then it's up to you to make something of yourself. In this day and age of Instagram models and people getting rich off of youtube, it is something of a popularity contest, but also students and parents of students will expect you to have knowledge and answer their questions about English and to see and feel that these classes are helping them to improve. You can think of this almost like a commission job, but at least you get base pay. I have worked jobs that ONLY pay commission and ended up working for free. Or maybe you can think of it like being an Uber driver or Doordash, things like that, which depend on client ratings. If clients like you, they will choose you again. I personally prefer to stay home and talk to people rather than drive all over town picking up fast food. It's also not impossible to get a high wage for a class, I have gotten over 30 dollars for some classes that went particularly well. I have always been paid on time. This job isn't for everyone and you should have realistic expectations. 

First of all, I apologize in advance for the long comment I'll leave. I don't even know where to begin. I worked at this company for more than 3 years and watched how it's going down, slowly but surely, from highly reputed and reliable to ridiculous and clownish. Any change that they have made through all those years was worse than the previous one. Don't you think for even a moment that this is an educational company and you'll be hired to truly teach English! This is a perfidious organization which the only goal is to make money by charging the clients with high prices and exploiting the employees who receive peanuts for their hard work. And you'll be even more humiliated when you face their so-called "bonus" system. Yes, you have so many opportunities to earn extra money... but if you totally ignore the fact that your bonuses have nothing with your work or experience, knowledge, education, or anything reasonable. They depend on pure luck. It means, all your hard weekly or monthly work can be destroyed by someone's bad mood that day. The children are usually unsupervised and without proper equipment, but that is your fault. They are competent enough to give you any ratings and judge your skills because they pay and you are nothing but a trained monkey in a circus. You should write honest feedback for students, but of course, you can't, someone can get offended and can punish you with a bad rating. They can also choose their level, and it is your fault if the student puts himself on the wrong level and can't understand basic English or thinks that material is too easy. The company's motto is: "learn English anywhere, anytime" and that literarily means it's your fault if the client doesn't have a good Internet connection or proper equipment. You'll get a bad rating and deal with consequences. For example, the client (child) is illiterate and has clicked on rating 1 after the session- your fault. The client doesn't have headphones and he can't hear you because he is at the airport, for example, or on the train, with poor wi fi, nevermind- your fault. Bum, bad rating. You are a bad teacher. The worst part is, no one will review the situations I mentioned above (and there are so many of them!). The whole system has been automated and you get an automated message after the system has detected your bad rating. The warning message about how you should take "more training courses" and get better or you'll get fired. But, here comes another trick. Your rating is lower than it should be, and you will not be scheduled with enough sessions to fix it as soon as it's possible! You should be aware that the rating system includes ratings from 1 to 10, and you are supposed to maintain a weekly rating of 9.5. Now imagine how cunning is that when the clients can blame you for everything. They are not obligated to rate you, and the number of non-rated sessions is usually very high, which makes the whole situation more difficult for you. They also offer you a new contract from time to time, and each one is worse than the previous; you can avoid accepting it for a while, but, guess what, your booked hours will remain unscheduled, and your students will magically come back when you click the "accept" button. Or maybe you'll get a direct warning about account termination if you don't accept the new contract soon enough. Finally, I quitted two months ago and found another company, and I am still angry with the fact that I didn't do it earlier. There are enough good companies around, where the teachers are treated fairly and with respect. I also feel sad because iTutor was a good and stable company a few years ago. It is really sad how people who are in charge now can not see farther from temporary profit. I wish it can be changed in the future.

- I was hospitalized due to a near-death experience. I had worked a full day before this (approx 70 USD). My reports were a few hours late because I was on a drip barely alive in hospital, when I felt better, I completed the reports (just a few hours late) - iTutor refused to pay me for this day, refused to accept the evidence of my accident/hospitalisation and had absolutely no sympathy. In addition to this, they rejected my cancellation of lessons for the next few days FIVE times, regardless of me telling them I could not work due to hospitalization, their live support just kept telling me "we really need your support". The live support then (multiple times) removed said future lessons, only to leave them open, allowing them to be rebooked, I believe this was a tactic to make me pay fines for not attending the sessions.

- Company will take away a full day of lessons, last minute, take yesterday for example, I was seeing my partner off to the airport before I could see him again, this was a special moment, but I had to leave early to work. I checked my schedule at 4pm, my session for 5pm was still booked, I got home at 16:30, my lessons for the entire evening were cancelled bar one. They can do this, and you get NOTHING, no compensation, nothing, however, if you cancel YOUR sessions within 4 hours, you will have to pay a fine.

- Rating system is broken, 6 year olds have influence and power over your livelihood. I had a young teenage boy who was in a grumpy mood come to my lesson, refuse to partake in the lesson, and then left me ALL negative reviews - nothing was done by the comm centre staff. I also had an adult class of 6 people, I had one 26 year old student make a FORMAL COMPLAINT that he did not have enough speaking time, which resulted in iTutor sending me a personal written warning email with threat of suspension / firing *this was within my first week, this man had enough time to speak, he was just angry because the class was so large, he should have paid for one on one sessions**. 

- If you cancel, the system / algorithm starts to take away your lessons at a whim, however, they will cancel lessons whenever they see fit, you get nothing. 

- If there is a technical error on their part, (IE their website not working) even if you send them proof, they will not accept it. If you are switched (cannot log into your lesson) you will pay the full fine (sometimes USD) EVEN if it is a problem with their website. I once could not log in, despite using my house WiFi, phone hotspot and portable WiFi device, they refused to accept the proof and fined my regardless.

- They advertise bonuses for working specific hours during specific weekends, you will not receive any of these bonuses and will be ignored when you send emails to the comm centre asking where your bonuses are. 

- In regards to the bonus system, the lifetime and monthly hour bonuses are entirely inadequate, you barely benefit at all. 

This company will not treat you like a human being, you are just a number to them.

I've been teaching at this company for about 18 months now, but I have a master's and 20 years experience in ESL. Everyone should be aware that this company caters mostly to children but adults as well. You can teach one, the other, or both. I am speaking only about the adult side.
First of all, the scheduling is very flexible and user-friendly. Plenty of hours if you want and easy to change with reasonable notice. 6 unexcused absences in 6 months and you are gone. I have challenged one absence (due to a system technical error) and it was removed.
Overall, you will have little to no communication with the company. There is a knowledge-base QnA system which can be helpful for common issues but it's mostly full of whiners. Some of their complaints have merit; most do not.
Students do give feedback (1-10) and/or leave a personal comment (rare). High ratings have no impact on your salary, but they probably help you with the algorithms which assign classes, etc. My few low ratings were mostly due to technical issues (audio, etc.) or the materials (if I didn't finish every single page! The last page only has "thank you").
Teachers are expected to rate the lessons and individual feedback and ratings for students as well. This is clearly a formality and takes 5 minutes although the company no doubt promotes this as a selling point.
The main con: the materials are very very poor. IMHO, a good 75% of the lessons are rubbish. For example, sometimes the lesson is a reading comp lesson, not a speaking lesson. Hard to kill 45 minutes asking the students what they just read. Most lessons are topic-based which can be interesting, but many are too general, repetitive or just plain boring. 
On top of that, students are not well sorted (12 levels). The other day I had 2 students (top level, 12) who struggled just to read the text, let alone discuss it. These 2 were both true level 8-9, not 12 at all. This can cause real issues with time management, especially if there are 4-5 students and poor lessons, which will affect your ratings. Not giving equal speaking time is a frequent complaint.
Bottom line is, as an experienced teacher, I understand these issues and I accept them as part of the bargain. I can relate to the students and adapt, extend, etc. as necessary to use the full time efficiently. I would imagine that this might be quite difficult or frustrating for younger / less experienced teachers especially when, despite your best efforts, ratings are low due to poor lesson plan, inefficiency due to different levels, audio issues, etc.

I taught English with this company for 1.5 years. It was subpar as you get classes assigned up to an hour before class begins. If you are already in class, you wouldn't realize you've been assigned an additional class. This gives the teacher no time to prep. The pay is 100% based on ratings of the students. There is no way around the rating system. I got top ratings and was always in the top percent. It only takes one student to have technical problems and give you a low score based on THEIR technical difficulties. Your pay will reflect that.  The company does not want you to ask the students for ratings. However, if you don't, your payment will stay at the base rate. More than half of the students can't be bothered to rate you and your pay will reflect that as well. In addition, they suck their teachers in to convert students into demo classes. Teachers don't have a choice and many of them see their average wages drop because their pay is completely based on whether or not the client converts. If you look at ITG facebook posts, many teachers are trying to figure out how to get out of doing demo classes. 
The best part of the job is the pay is usually consistent except for two times when we were paid late. If you live in an area where you have frequent power outages, storms, or fires, stay away from this company. They don't excuse these things more than once. I've seen teachers fired because of that. They also are very shady with their hiring practices. They will show you one contract and hire you on to go through their onboarding process. As you finish that, they give you a completely different contract to sign. The second contract pays much less than the first one they originally show you. 
I would only recommend this job if you were extremely desperate for money or needed the online teaching experience. They will hire anyone. 
The advertisement on the job sites says 18-34. That is unrealistic even with a Masters degree. Most native teachers get 7-8 per 25 min class unless you are stuck in demos which is 7 for the whole 45 minutes. Or you get 7.50 for a 45-minute adult class if none of your adult students decided to rate you. If they do rate you, your pay depends on the quality of those ratings, and how many rated you. Anything below a 9/10 is unacceptable. You will need to maintain a 9. 6 to stay off of probation I think.

I used to be a full time Elementary teacher in Louisiana, United States of America. I quit my job when COVID started because I was not able to be around the sweet children and go visit my mother who's immune system is comprimised. I saw the ad for iTutor Group and it changed my life. First, you do ONE mock session. Once you pass, then you do your training. They not only have you read slides, watch videos, but they also have personal sessions with experienced or seasoned trainers to help you on this journey. I am not going to sugar coat this experience, as you are only allowed 6 absences, but that is when do not show up to your class.  You can always cancel a class, but you do get a penalty fee if it is last minute. You get four free passes that you can use for emergencies. I love the freedom, low stress, and the opportunities. iTutor supports me fully. If I do not do such a great job the students will tell me in their ratings. This helps me to be the teacher that the student wants, not the principal or the district. I do not have yearly subjective ratings from a school administrator, staff meetings, long PD that I have to do over the summer. I have opportunities to be a recruiter and promote the company. If I need help and can not find it on the training PD sites, then I can reach out to my iTutor group family on youtube cahnnels and facebook websites. I do not have to get up early, put on make up, carry tons of work to school anymore. I do not have to spend my paycheck on school materials, supplies, decorations, TPT products, or gas. I do not have to be exposed to illnesses brought in by kids. I do not have to get out in bad weather.  I simply turn on my computer, wear a red polo, and teach. It is all about teaching.  I also do not have to deal with the stress of fitting into a certain school culture, being subjected to obervations, or talk to the parents after class hours. I love this job.  It definately outweighs the brick and mortar concept of school by far. I would definately recommend this company to anyone and everyone. One more thing I want to add....You can take your computer with you. You can use a virtual backdrop. No need to have to decorate your house. You just need props to help you in class.

I will start with the few positives of this company, which include a flexible working schedule, good communication (if you had an issue) and nice students. 

I loved this job at first, I was doing 25 minute lessons and was earning £14-£16 per hour. I did do some 45 minute sessions too, with mainly adults and again I did enjoy these, even though the pay was significantly lower; I was paid a base rate of £7 with the potential to earn more if the students gave you a good rating, however most students don’t rate you, so you end up just getting the base rate or a little higher. The pay structure makes no sense at all. 

I then got put on the demo sessions after about 1 month and this is where it all started going downhill. The demos paid me a base rate of £6.92 per hour but if a client signed up I got an additional bonus of £27, the problem was that I was barley getting sign ups, even though nearly all of my demo ratings were 10’s, but it is obvious something wasn’t working. At the time I enjoyed having the balance of demos and lessons as demos require no planning and I did like doing them. 

As time went on my schedule became filled with more demos, to the point that my whole schedule (10 hours per week) consisted of them, with no regular lessons. Even if I picked up extra hours, they would usually be demos, so as a qualified teacher I was pretty much working for £6.92 per hour and at times these demos were non-stop. I averaged about 4 sign ups a month so made a bonus of just over £100 on average, but this still works out at a shocking wage, which is way below the minimum wage in my country. 

I emailed them asking for less demos but they said the system does the scheduling, so I emailed again saying that I never signed up for this and that when I joined the company I was told I may end up doing some demos but not all the time (i did not get a reply), so I feel like the company lure you in under false pretences and put you on the demos to pay the lowest wage possible. 

In the end I’d had enough, I was no longer prepared to work really hard and be paid below the minimum wage, I felt like they were taking the mick, big time! I now work for another platform and the pay is good and consistent and I certainly have no regrets about leaving I Tutor Group- they do not value their teachers and pay them poorly. 

I would not recommend

The company was taken over at the end of 2020 and all employees given the opportunity to sign a new contract. Longer term employees saw a Very significant drop in their pay, to the point people started to leave. I did not sign... but March 2021 I received an email telling me if I did not sign the new contract I would be fired. I signed and started to get more classes, but the pay is almost half what it used to be. I feel absolutely no incentive to stay. The company is full of dirty tricks. I recently got another email ' congratulations' (this usually is their way of hiding the next bad deal they are trying to sell you) you have now been promoted to teaching a new type of class, with 100-300 students. You have to answer their questions in the 'chat box' while you teach too, so you can interact and explain things they don't understand. Great.
This company started going down hill a long time ago - I (and others I spoke to) were getting almost no classes booked, sometimes for months on end, with little response from management.
Go for another company - seriously, everyone I have spoken to has, from the beginning, had so many complaints, including grammatical and spelling mistakes in the lesson material, or just hideously awful material, some of which is actually offensive... I could go on. 
Anyway, do yourself a favour and don't bother.
I'm now leaving the company, and not a moment too soon. They have absolutely no respect or regard for their teachers - we're just fodder in their money making machine, and unfortunately we're not benefitting from their profits either, quite the opposite.

I worked for iTutor nearly a year and a half. Things seemed to go well at first, but then your performance as an instructor weighed on the pay you received, and if you received additional hours/bookings in the future. Management is practically non-existent. You're lucky to receive help if you ask for it. Sometimes students will suffer from lagged internet connections, or latency issues and blame you for their internet speed problems. You receive ratings which, in group classes, are usually low due to multiple students talking at once--and guess who gets blamed and receives flak for it? That's right! You do.
The company boasts opportunities for advancement, but seeing it in person is exceptionally rare. If you wish to work here, be prepared to feel unappreciated, handle complaints that you cannot dispute, and feel like you're tossed to wolves instead of being properly trained in regards to the teaching platform and demos to being in new clients.
There is also a community board where other consultants can speak with one another, but most of the posts and comments are composed of lengthy amounts of bickering between instructors...avoid the chatroom like the plague.
So there you are. Ready to teach kids and most likely receive a poor rating due to their internet speed and connection issues? Ready to be ignored and all questions given to management ignored? Ready to be promised advancement only to receive a "do not reply" email stating that your ratings weren't high enough to qualify for a raise when they really were? Then great! Go waste your time at iTutor! They are always hiring for a reason!

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