Lingostar
Lingostar Review
Lingostar <—- (Click here to Apply) is based in Singapore. They do 1 to 1 classes with mostly Chinese children. They are looking for native English speaking teachers or Filipinos with a Bachelor’s degree and a TEFL/TESOL/CELTA certificate. Teachers must be available to teach at least 10 hours per week during peak hours (5 to 9pm during weekdays and all day on weekends). Pay starts at $7 USD per class (30 minutes) for native speakers. After three regular students, you will get $7.50 per class, after 8 regular students, you get $8 per class. You get a raise for every six +/- 2 regular students until a maximum of $20 USD per hour. Filipino teachers only get paid $3 to $6 USD per hour.
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7 Comments
Dugen
I’ve worked with a number of companies over the years, so my review is based on 7 years of online ESL with Asian students.
LingoStar:
The bad:
BIG Number One is the cancellation policy. It is the worst, by far, that I have seen in the industry. The client can cancel up to two hours before class, and you get nothing. Nothing. If they cancel between 2 hours and class time, you get about 25-30% (on average) of the class payment. A no-show require you to stay in the class for 15 minutes (of a 25 minute class) and you get about 40ish%.
I had a student that signed up for five days a week, and would cancel 2 each week. She really only wanted 3 times a week, but wanted to be able to choose which weeks those were.
Dugen
Wrong button. Here is the rest.
I’ve worked with a number of companies over the years, so my review is based on 7 years of online ESL with Asian students.
LingoStar:
The bad:
BIG Number One: is the cancellation policy. It is the worst, by far, that I have seen in the industry. The client can cancel up to two hours before class, and you get nothing. Nothing. If they cancel between 2 hours and class time, you get about 25-30% (on average) of the class payment. A no-show require you to stay in the class for 15 minutes (of a 25 minute class) and you get about 40ish%.
For example, I had a student that signed up for five days a week, and would cancel twice each week. She really only wanted 3 classes a week, but wanted to be able to choose which days those were.
I’d guess that the overall cancellation rate is about 20%. What that means is that on Sunday, if you are looking at your classes for the week, and you have 50 classes booked, 10 are going to cancel. Of those ten, the majority will be a few hours before (today, May 18th, I had 7 classes booked and 3 cancelled). You will, of course, pick up classes as the week goes along… and will end up with 44ish.
Number Two: As others have mentioned, there do not seem to be many actual humans who work for the company (see my IT clarification below). The response rate to “teacher.support” is definitely less than 20%. I’ve learned that sneaky subject headings provide the fastest response. “A parent asked me…” “what our vacation policy is.” hehe
THE GOOD (in NO particular order):
and there is a decent amount…
Number One: The payment structure is very clear, and the booking rate is good. Pay depends on the number of “Active Regular Students” that you have. I got to level 6 after 7 months. ($9.50/class). Don’t be turned off by the number, as the schule allows for a lot of classes to be taught. For example: BJT Peak is generally 5 – 9pm. Many other companies offer 40 minute classes with a ten minute break. This allow for 6 classes during this time, but you can teach 8 with LingoStar. In addition, 4:30, and especially 9:30, are very popular. It is not too difficulty to teach 10 classes (five hours) in a day ($95 for me).
Number Two: The platform and materials are solid. If you have taught anywhere before, this is a walk in the park. Bonus: if you happen to work with Oxford English “Brighter Ideas” in an academy, the material follows.
Number Three: Let’s put these together. The lack of humans working for the company means that no one is ever watching your class (no micromanaging). If you are getting parent complaints, the the problem isn’t LingoStar. Also, the IT department, when you have an in-class issue, is generally great. LingoStar might emply an outside company for this, as when I ask for help with corporate, they say that all they have are a few email addresses.
In conclusion:
The cancellation policy is severe (though I have had worse).
There are no people to talk to (though if you are an experienced online teacher, this might be a significant benefit).
No wasted down time between classes (ten minute breaks between each class, TOTALLY add up).
If it wasn’t for the cancellation policy, I would recommend this to everyone. If you are the type that sees ten consecutive classes and thinks “If one happens to cancel, that might be okay.”, then jump onboard.
There is a referral bonus (though only $50). If anyone has any more classes, or is interested, I’d love to share my referral code with you.
Nicci
Hi Dugen
I worked for Lingostar last year but I had some health issues and had to leave. They said if I wanted to resume employment I could apply again. I did this today but it would not go through and said: This account already bind!
I have written to the recruitment but as you say it is very difficult to get a reply.
Any suggestions?
Alison
Lingostar is the worst company. Their platform is designed well but you never deal with a real person, its all automated messages and they find every reason to not pay you. I opened a ton of slots and had parents booking and cancelling up to 10 minutes before class with no sort of payment for the late cancellation. I had no real students for over 2-3 weeks and then I accidentally overbooked myself and decided to take a no show bc it wasn’t worth the $2.50 for the trial class. They hit me with a $10 no show and nothing for all the no shows and cancellations ! The only company honestly that you could end up in the red rather than making money. My word of advice is to find another company. In the same time I worked for Lingostar I made $1,000 USD between two other companies and am at -$2.50 (negative !) with LIngostar !!
NTOMBI
Hello I trust that you are good and well , may I please ask if you mind sharing the other two companies that you worok with
Sue
They do not pay for finished classes ,deduct money if you didn’t use enough puppets or manycam,or clown like crazy…I don’t recommend this school.No admins ,only robots and automatic messages but they know how to cheat.
Rudy
Hi Filipino Teachers, We have $122 / month Internet, our housing is $3,000 per month, Other utilities tack on another $400 per month, and we have to pay taxes at 28% to 40% of our earnings. Any questions?