www.91waijiao.com

They're calling it "disruptive".

The site is just starting. They hire native speakers in their own countries to, I guess, be tutors by VoIP.

http://www.91waijiao.com/


So there goes your job. Or at any rate, there it goes until you go back "home".

In the UK there are companies which pay IIT graduates to tutor A Level mathematics so the business model does have a precedent but if there was a market for this it would already be a thing.

Surprisingly few students actually want to learn English in such a communication intensive environment and those who have the reason to do so, and cash to support it, are probably going to be put off by the lack of quality control which will be endemic to this kind of setting (I am not saying all online tutoring is bad but QA isn't exactly a strong point of the middle kingdom).

I don't see many Chinese parents shelling out cash for this though because, well, the internet in China is for cheap shopping, porn and gaming.  The notion that anything serious could take place online is anathema to my students (it takes a long time to get them switched on to L1 resources because of this and if they won't read a newspaper I sure as hell don't see them paying some dude to Skype with them). 

91Waijiao Connects Chinese With Foreign English Teachers, Gets $4 Million Funding

Education site 91Waijiao is a learning platform that connects Chinese of all ages with foreign English teachers. It’s a neat idea to disrupt China’s ‘English as a foreign language’ (EFL) market, which is said to be worth over $2 billion per year. Investors seem to agree as 91Waijiao has attracted $4 million in funding from William Ding, CEO of Chinese internet company Netease. He now takes an effective 20 percent stake in the online education startup. 91Waijiao is founded by one of China’s top female tech entrepreneurs, Rose Gong, founder of the country’s top dating site, Jiayuan. She had already invested about $650,000 of her own money into 91Waijiao before it launched, and she has vowed to plough in a further $1.6 million in due course. Rose told Chinese media over the weekend.


Internet dating meets English learning. It's just so... right.

Why hide it?  We should cut them out of the market before they even get off the ground: topless female English tutors would make money.

They wants the whiteflesh...

Online language learning is where things like facebook and twitter could excel, if they weren't controlled by corporations and banned of course

I used to work for a dotxom startup in Beijing that did this very thing. I managed a force of work at home moms (and non moms, but that's what they are usually called, WAHMs) who delivered IELTS lessons from the USA. It was very successful, both for the students and the CEO of the startup who sold it to an American company. We had our own platform, no Skype. It was very unique and yes, "disruptive." Work at homers in the States were cheaper by far than Beijing FTs would have been.

And it's one-to-one lessons? Or tutorings. Whole actual programs delivered by voip and webcam? What's the pay?

Also, how long does the average employee last?

CP where I worked sessions were 15 minutes each and basically a "trainer" (we didn't call them teachers because they weren't actually teaching) would go through an IELTS script for a practice oral test. The trainer would have a screen on their computer with prompts to read and the student would answer questions as the trainer clicked through prompts based on those answers. When the student made an error the trainer would click a box and write feedback. When the session was done the student would get a recording of the session and the trainer's comments would pop up in a box when he got to the part in the recording where he made a mistake. It was mostly IELTS but there were some other formats as well.

The lines were open in the morning and evenings and students could call as many times as they wanted. We paid per session and I believe it was about $5-7 if I recall correctly. When we hired people we didn't require prior teaching experience, just a clear speaking voice and a decent score on a grammar test we'd designed. People liked it a lot and tended to stick around. If they did really well we promoted them to head trainer. They had Internet discussion forums and stuff to talk about the job. I had to do QQ, listening in on calls and has to reprimand occasionally for trainers getting too chatty.

That sounds really interesting, LD....are they still running, and bigger now?

I have been teaching online for the last 4 or so years.  I teach Korean kids 1:1.  I teach 5x15 min lessons/week.  Actually I teach some 25x3 and some 38x2 and 1 student 3x50 min lessons.  I work 6 days a week.   

I could probably take on more students but .....   I think I am retired so .....   

So 15-minute sessions is the norm? That's interesting. (I don't know why it's interesting, exactly, but it is.)

I think the 15 min is because the student doesn't have time to get bored.  I try to get the students to go to longer times.  I know one mother thought 25 min lessons were too long but agreed to 20 min lessons for 3 days and 1 lesson of 15 min. 

I have taught online in several companies. Most were 1 on 1 but I also taught groups a couple of times.It was fun but more tiring than you might think.One hour is definitely too long for a 1 on 1.You have to be very prepared with your material and check all the equipment well.Some online schools use interactive whiteboard,and of course on skype you can share materials with students.IT's fun and innovative but doesn't usually pay that well (esp with Chinese students) THere is a company called LanguageSpirit that is mostly Chinese kids I think.

By the way useless company.Tried to contact them about working for them.She set a date to interview me on skype.After I waited around all morning she came online and said sorry can't do it now.Tried to set another date all inconvenient for me cos of time zone difference.Today I was supposed to talk to her.Tried to contact a few times,skype was all fuzzy but she didn't even apologize or say anything when I chatted in the chat box...  long story short-don't waste your time.