With the rapid globalization brought about by advancements in technology, English has now become the de facto lingua franca for any international traveler or businessman. However, there are several countries around the world that have difficulty learning how to communicate effectively in English, with the biggest group being the Chinese. The growing middle class of China and the growing affluence of its citizens has prompted schools to start teaching English as a form of communication with other cultures. However, the classroom approach, while allowing Chinese people to pass standardized English tests, does not solve the matter of communicating with other English speakers effectively.
This problem prompted Jack Huang and Sue Ting to create a company that aims to teach English through an immersive one-on-one approach between student and foreign teacher. Today, 51Talk is the biggest online English language teaching company.
The Philippines is 51Talk’s base of operations for teachers. According to Ting, Filipinos are best-equipped to teach English to Chinese clients “I got to know that the Philippines is the top English speaking country in Asia, and the Filipinos’ English proficiency is very high as evidenced by the rapidly-growing number of call centers in the country. Filipinos are extremely passionate and very familiar with Western culture, making them the perfect choice to be English language teachers for Chinese students,” she shared.
Today, the company has over 8,000 Filipinos working as English language online teachers. “We go through hundreds of resumes daily, and select only the best candidates, with preference to teachers with teaching experience. They need to undergo a stringent recruitment process, with the final test being an actual teaching demo with a live client. After that, we provide multiple training sessions every month to ensure that our teachers can pass on the best knowledge to our students in the most effective way,” Ting explained.
One of the biggest draws of 51Talk as a company is that it allows its teachers to work from home and create their teaching hours based on their schedule and needs. One of 51Talk’s core tenets is flexibility. Clients can choose what time they want to take lessons and how frequent these lessons are. This also extends to their English teachers. This high degree of freedom makes 51Talk attractive to professionals who have spare time on their hands.
For those who want to make a career out of it, 51Talk allows teachers to move up in rank using a star system. “When someone starts out as an English instructor, they are given a one-star rank. After completing a set amount of lessons and in-house training modules, they can move up in rank, all the way to five-star. The best performing teachers can even earn over P80,000.00 a month or more than P1 million in a year,” Ting said.
51Talk continues to lead the online English education industry by providing a high volume of work opportunities—noble English teaching jobs with competitive earnings in the Philippines.
To learn more about 51Talk, visit www.51Talk.com/ph