Whales English
Whales Review
Whales English is an online teaching school based in China. They used to be called Sprout 4 Future. The school is designed for English learners between the ages of 3 to 18. They have a registered student population of over 70,000 and they are still expanding. They have an average of 2 students per class. The unique group class model offers students and teachers stability and the chance to form lasting bonds and connections. With a student renewal rate of over 83% throughout all courses, they’ve also been recognized as the most sought-after program.
The Work:
- The Pay: $18-$26 per 50-minute class taught, plus performance-based bonuses. Pay rate varies from level to level and from class to class
- The Classes: 50-minute 1 on 2 full immersion English language class
- The Curriculum: REACH HIGHER adopted from National Geographic Learning, and OXFORD READING TREE from Oxford University Press
- The Bookings: Parents select teachers. Whales English does not assign classes
- The Timing: Available to teach minimum 8 hours during the peak hours
- Working Hours (peak hours): Weekdays: 6:55 PM – 9:00 PM Beijing Time; Weekends: 9:10 AM – 12:20 PM 6:55 PM – 9:00 PM Beijing Time
Qualifications:
- Contract Length: 1 year
- Education Required: Bachelor’s degree
- Certificate Required: TESOL/TEFL/CELTA
- Native English Speaker from the USA, UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand
- Experience teaching kids (minimum of 1 year)
- Desire to engage and inspire young learners
Why Whales English？
Competitive Payment
Earn an average of $1500 per month plus performance-based bonuses. Typically, the number of classes the teacher teaches increases threefold in the second month and fivefold by the third month.
Job Security
A fixed schedule and stable income enable the teacher to bond with students and watch them grow through a wide range of levels. Our unique group class models bring greater possibilities and prospective.
Professional Development
We’ve partnered with National Geographic Learning and Oxford University Press, and we offer free tailored training and resources for every teacher. Additional career opportunities are also available (evaluator, trainer, etc.)
Personal Support
Each teacher is paired with designated support staff for personal and individualized support. The Whales English Facebook group is a reservoir of teaching tips and ideas. A valuable space that connects teachers to global peers, responsive admins.
To apply please click here and fill out the application.
Please leave us your comments and review of Whales English.
35 Comments
Todd Andrew Pruden
I was at DaDa and this is like heaven compared to them. It is double the pay at Whales.
Alex
I have a question. Is it possible to teach using a tablet ? I mean if I need soecifi program
Penny
Whales responded to my initial application and then “after much consideration” rejected me before the next step, didn’t even get an interview. My resume indicates that I am TESOL certified with over 30+ years of experience as a Speech Pathologist (B.S/M.S.) in addition to volunteer work in a Dual Language classroom including teaching reading to native Spanish speaking children. I have worked in every conceivable setting and with ages preschool through geriatrics. I am wondering if they are discriminating based upon my age (67). Oh well, their loss, I am sure there are better companies but any feedback would be appreciated.
zzzzzzzzzz
I trained for everything 0 hours in two weeks no response- was promised hours and there is no reply to my inquiries. VERY strange.
Kayla
I’ve been working at Whales for the last 8 months, and am planning on giving them my 30 day resignation notice by the end of this week. I would warn teachers to avoid this company. They’ve been on a massive hiring spree in the last few months where they have been luring teachers in with lucrative weekend bonuses and incentive bonuses. They have drastically reduced weekend bonuses and you need to be booked with at least 13 classes/week in order to qualify for any incentive bonuses. They give few teachers 13/classes a week, and I’d be surprised if brand new teachers got any more than 5-7/week, with the way they are hiring right now. In the 8 months that I’ve worked at Whales, they’ve only paid me a bonus for 3 months. For most of my time at Whales– I had 11-12 classes/week, just enough for them to not pay me a bonus.
I currently have 24 classes/week, but at this point I dread my Whales classes. They also have a group of “evaluators” watch and critique a random class every month, and they give you a monthly observation score based on a single class. There are no clear evaluating standards, and you can teach in the same way and get wildly different scores, depending on who is evaluating you. I have never received parent complaints and no one has ever contacted me about my performance– but in the last few months, I’ve been getting significantly lower scores than when I first started at Whales. My teaching style has not changed. I believe they give lower scores in order to keep your average below the score needed to qualify for a raise. So not only are most of their bonuses unattainable, their raises may also be unattainable. They give teachers a “stable schedule” but this is for their benefit, not yours. What “stable schedule” means is that if they need you for 3 classes/week– you have to be available for 3 classes/week for several months. It doesn’t mean that they fill up your hours and your schedule.
Their curriculum is also tedious, boring, full of grammar mistakes, the classes are too long for any child under age 8/9 (and about half of my students are 5-8), they have you use Zoom to teach group classes and there is next to zero technical or fireman support. They are not professional. They want you to confirm your schedule in an email every week, but they can and they will change the dates/times of classes at the last minute. Sometimes the same day. This has happened to me several times, and it left me scrambling trying to cancel classes at my other company, to accommodate Whales. I finally told Whales that the weekly schedule I confirm in emails is final– knowing that my tone might have them downgrade me from one of the popular teachers to someone they will ignore, fire, etc. I just don’t care anymore. I drank the Whales Koolaid and kept thinking– next month I’ll get a few more classes, I’ll get the bonus, it’ll be worth it soon, etc. I’ve also been forced to sub classes when I was not available. That was the last straw for me. I am not letting some rag-tag clown company like Whales hurt my other contracts.
Anon
The rating system is common practice amongst the ESL companies, iTutor for example has a completely opaque rating system and you’re just supposed to trust that it’s actually the students who are giving the ratings, they also have paid shills who work for the company on facebook posing as English teachers who outright lie and constantly sing the companies praise in their facebook groups.
The rating system is a pretty smart way of controlling and manipulating teachers though isn’t it? Wales English does it, iTutor does it, I’m guessing probably every company that has student rate the teacher is guilty of ratings manipulation in order to hire, fire, and raise or lower salaries of popular or unpopular teachers.
Steven
So far, my experience has been pretty good. I’ve just been hired, starting at $20 an hour. They’ve been really thorough in their feedback both over email and in my mock class. I even screwed up my initial one by not fully preparing and they gave me a second chance interview which went much more smoothly. For the mock class, they don’t give you a lot to work with, but I think that’s the point. I was easily able to go for ten minutes, longer actually by bringing in extension questions. They explained zoom during the interview but didn’t make it mandatory for me to use it other than just sharing my screen etc, so I didn’t bother using the annotation options for the mock. I’ll let you know how it goes in a couple of weeks, but so far, I’ve either been very lucky with my experience, or some people on here have been horribly unlucky.
Whale.Curious
What’s your experience been so far?
Adam Jovanovic
I did a job interview with Whales English just recently. I screwed up my mock class because I didn’t know how to get all the materials to show up in the class. The interviewer didn’t explain until towards the end of my mock class that I had to press a button for the materials to show up. So I was skipping between slides expecting the other information to appear(gaps feels) but it just went to the next phase of the class. When that happened I was confused, wondering where the rest of the target language gap fills were. So I didn’t show the parts of slides with the other target language I was supposed to have taught. The guy was very unhelpful, almost saying things that derailed me a little and he didn’t ask me any questions at the end, just asked me whether I had any questions. I would have expected him to ask things about my personality etc or more details about my teaching experience. I got the feeling he was just going through the motions and probably doing interviews on mass.
STCB
Okay, so I had an “interview” (for the lack of a better word) with Whales. The interviewer came online, asked what time it is for me and after a few more seconds, asked me to start the demo. NO explanations on how to operate Zoom, which is a horrible platform. I thought that they at least walk you through it at first. But that was expecting too much. I have been a teacher since 1995 and I was amazed how they expect to cover a 10 minute demo class with “hop, jump and swim”! That is it! I have taught for so long and know that you never start teaching beginners with verbs. Anyway, after having loads of problems on Zoom (the interviewer, Dido remaining silent and completely unwilling to help), I began the demo. There is no way I could have done 3 verbs for 10 minutes. When I finished, she rudely said the demo should have been 10 minutes long (how long do they expect teachers to hop, jump and swim actions for so long??). She then asked me my name and proceeded to say things that I could not understand at all because she has such a heavy Chinese accent. These Chinese companies have recruiters who don’t speak English properly to interview English teachers!I did not expect to get hired and sure enough did not, thankfully because to me, it was an indication of how carelessly the company runs. You just have to figure out Zoom by yourself and teach nonsensical concepts. The curriculum, if there is one at all, could not have been designed by any self-respecting educator. I feel sorry for the students.
Egalitarianism2020
Yep, my interview had a similar experience. I had to teach ‘he has’ + ‘he doesn’t have’, and I screwed up because when I taught the demo, the slides weren’t showing all the information in the PPT they sent us in the initial job interview email. It wasn’t until towards the end of the demo that the interviewer says, ohh you should have been teaching the language before you get the student to practice examples and that I should have been pressing this button to get all of the slide information to appear, which would have meant I would have pre-taught all the specific language. By the time I figured out how the platform works, e.g. how to get all the slide information to appear, the demo was basically over. Then the guy interviewing me didn’t ask me any questions really about me, just like 2 questions max, and then proceeded to ask me if I had any questions. Perhaps my nerves got the better of me, but I think it would have helped if the interviewer had explained how to get the materials to work, he just said do the demo now, expecting I knew how it all worked. How the fuck would I know how it works, I’ve never used their platform before!!!! Anyhow I work for EF atm and they pay me $45 an hour to teach online so I can’t complain about that!!!!
Emma Brown
I started working for Sprout in February 2019. I just handed in my notice. Their platform is terrible. Their whole system is terrible. Clunky and non-intuitive. I’ve worked for other companies too and by comparison this company is awful. I’m an intelligent, qualified person but often made mistakes due to the many bitty little things you have to remember to do. In addition, I feel they con customers. Their trail classes are all singing all dancing but their actual classes are low grade. I refused to teach them eventually. I would rather take a pay cut (they pay me $22) and work for someone who knows what they’re doing than continue to work for Sprout. I would not recommend this company to anyone. AVOID!
Youwishyouknew
– Their platform is crap. I’ve taught for a few ESL companies and Sprout/Whales English/Rouchi literally has the worst platform ever. Trial lessons are taught using a ppt presentation, while non-trial lessons are taught using pdf files. You have to download a bunch of files for each lesson, the ppt or pdf and a bunch of audio files that you have to play during the lesson, video files for the lesson as well, and then make your own rewards system (obviously because they do not have an inbuilt rewards system, since they don’t have a proper teaching platform). You use zoom to share your screen with your student (yes, you share your screen with your students). Sometimes, you randomly lose control of your cursor (the platform is shit).
– They actually have the audacity to rate your lesson based on your use of zoom. YOUR PLATFORM IS SHIT, how dare you? If they had a good platform and rated your use of that, I would understand, but trying to create a smooth transition between pdf or ppt files, audio files, video files and rewards (if you’re using a digital rewards system) is a nightmare and simply not possible. The absolute worst part is that their video files are just copies of videos that you can find on youtube. I really do hope that they actually have the permission to use these videos, because they might have a big problem on their hands pretty soon. So you are sitting there, singing for 1.5 to 2 minutes with the children (well you are singing and the children are staring at you). I’m not sure who thought this was a good idea. Children who can barely speak English should not be made to listen to a 2-minute-long song in English. They WILL NOT remember anything from that. Videos should be at the maximum 45 seconds with the hook being repeated several times, but that would mean that they actually have to create their own material, you know.
– I had an interview with a woman who clearly had a very strong Eastern European accent (try as she may to sound American) and she is supposedly a “Native English speaker”. LOL. Who did they think they were trying to fool? I don’t think they realise that white skin does not automatically equal Native English speaker. The Chinese children and parents may not notice her accent, but as soon as she said “Hi, how are you?”, I smiled to myself thinking, “yeah right, native English speaker my arse”. I suppose this is good news for non-natives. Apply to them, they would probably employ you.
– Their support system is trash. The so called firemen barely speak English and I’ve asked for support several times and have gotten conflicting information, and sometimes no help at all. You are expected to sit in the classroom for the entire 50 minutes if students don’t show up (according to one fireman), and according to another, you can stay for 10 minutes and leave. They clearly have not trained their so-called help staff using the same manual. It’s ridiculous.
– Once again, their platform is the highest level of rubbish I have ever seen. I will be quitting when I finish the current unit I am teaching, because I can’t tolerate being “assessed” on my teaching skills by people who do not know the difference between ‘in’ and ‘to’ (yet claim to be “native” English teachers), nor using such an awful platform.
Linn
It is not the platform that teaches the students, it is the teacher. In all of my teaching years the textbook or in online classes the platform serves as a guideline. I would not think that Whales English would discourage extension. If one was left with a book in t B&M classroom that class would be horribly boring. likewise for the online classroom. For the beginning learner the platform might be all they can handle.
Leslie
I’m in the demo process – and I’ve done this before, I’ve taught a long time, and so I’ve seen how this is done well and poorly by several companies. You’re required to download quite a lot, prepare quite a bit, and this is all unpaid. I’m surprised to find that my example class was given by someone who speaks Spanish or Portuguese as their native language. To a native English speaker it’s obvious- immediately. I’m having difficulty following him at times, and I’m surprised to find Sprout hired a non-native to teach ESL – to Chinese students. Now, if the teacher were a Chinese native – that might be understandable. Just a little bizarre 🙂 I’m thinking the platform “Zoom” isn’t as awesome or dynamic as some… so after reading the reviews here I’m hesitating about whether or not I should finish with this process. It’s time consuming –
Todd Andrew Pruden
I am a little confused… you expected to teach a demo class to someone who speaks perfect English? Why would they need YOU then? You are teaching a none native speaker. Duhhhh!
Jerusalem Teacher
Disorganized; Right hand doesn’t know what left hand is doing; Dishonest company; Doesn’t pay teacher referral bonuses; Keeps most teachers under 13 classes per week in order to not pay monthly bonuses; NEVER PAID ENTIRE FULL SALARY EARNED EVERY MONTH, AND ALWAYS SAID IT WOULD BE PAID THE NEXT MONTH.
THEN THE NEXT MONTH IT WAS NEVER PAID, AND EVERY SALARY WAS SHORT AND NOT PAID. NEVER PAID TEACHER REFERRAL BONUSES OF 123 NEW TEACHERS REFERRED – NOT ONE HIRED?? No response to attempted communication EVER; Attempted to change schedule for months with no response so I was stuck teaching 1 hour per day and could not change this schedule, and would have been penalized with financial fines if I didn’t show up; Teaching Quality Reviews entirely arbitrary with reviewers expecting every teacher’s style to conform (like a robot) to their subjective style; Teaching Reviews expect teachers to teach all students like robots even though every student is individual with different level of English ability; Class curriculum is poor and full of mistakes in English; Entirely dependent upon your Class Support (CS) representative, and bad luck will stick you with unprofessional, lazy CS; Class Support (CS) representative assigned to me could not speak/understand/write English; CS was lazy who encouraged me to quit from first days with her so that she could work less; CS could only manage 3-4 word sentences when she bothered to respond (and usually did not respond); Cowardly way of dealing with teachers to take away Regular Classes (without notice after you have committed to those classes and that schedule) until I have now been squeezed out. I am down now to one class per week, and encouraged to quit (but I have to give 30 days notice and stuck teaching 1 hour per week else I pay penalty) – yet they can cancel classes without notice, and pay you nothing. TOXIC MANAGEMENT, UNPROFESSIONAL CHINESE SLAVES WHO SEE YOU, TEACHER, AS WELL AS STUDENTS AS A NUMBER… THERE IS NO INDIVIDUALITY ALLOWED IN THIS CHINESE CULTURE.
Katharina
Hey everyone, I read about this teacher “Jerusalem Teacher” on Facebook. Something you should know: he got fired for hacking the Whales English system and stealing student information. I’m sure Whales English isn’t the perfect company and like everywhere there are issues, but I’d question a person who does such a thing.
Anon
You should probably post links supporting any allegations you’re making directly about a person.
Megan Karson
I am personally very pleased with this company. They are stable, predictable and professional. I have personally experienced excellent communication. I feel like because they offer fixed classes and you have the same students every week for a fixed number of weeks, they need to discourage flakiness, you know? They don’t want teachers who want to take the weekend off once a month if you are scheduled for weekend classes. They do allow leave with the proper notice. Everything is spelled out very clear for the teachers. So if you are a teacher who actually wants to work and stick around for a while, they reward you accordingly. If you’re interested in applying: https://teacher.rouchi.com/#/employ/create?channel=referral&referred_by=teacher1001337
I hope this information was helpful!
Sb
Hi Megan! Do you know if the Bachelors degree and state teaching certification are none negotiable? I ask because I only have an Associates. However, I have close to 10yrs of teaching experience from kindergarten to 12th grade. Again..”no”….I do not have a bachelors degree or state teaching license. I was attempting however, to obtain a TL through the state I was living in at the time. It was during the No Child Left Behind Act. That’s when people are hired to teach only the curriculum that they have degree in….Associates or Bachelors. So I was hired by that as a Chef Intructor because my Associates is in Culnary Arts. Unfortunately life happened again and I didn’t finish working on my state teacher licensure. I was in the process of getting it and back in college in my 30s to pursue an official Bachelors degree in Secondary Education. Again, life happened and I ended up not finishing my degree also. I’m probably a year away from my bachelors but I’m financially held back from completing it at this time.
One last thing….. I’m an ESL In-home volunteer tutor and I visit and teach immigrants new to our country at their homes. I also have a TEFL Certificate specifically for teaching online….and I have experience with actually teaching English online in the past. I’ll be taking the in person 120hr In Class TEFL Certification this summer in Mexico.
Okay…
Thanks for the feedback.
Chelsi
I am currently working for whales and I do not have a bachelors. I do have a TEFL certificate though. It’s worth just applying and giving it a try. Overall, they have been a really great company. They give you constant feedback which is great and I have a person allocated to me so if I need to ask questions or have any issues, I can go straight to her through Skype. It feels a lot more personal than some of the other companies I’ve worked at where you feel like you’re just another number in their system. Since you have the kids for 25 weeks more or less, you do create a bond with them and can have better rapport. There’s news that there is going to be a new platform (will no longer be using Zoom) so I think that’ll be good and a little easier, especially since there’s a rumored reward system already added in.
Teresa Lopez
Apply at Open English! Your experience will be valued there!
Jerusalem Teacher
DON’T CLICK ON THAT LINK! SHE IS JUST TRYING TO GET TEACHER REFERRAL COMMISSIONS! HOW SILLY OF HER SINCE WHALES DOES NOT EVER PAY FOR TEACHER REFERRAL COMMISSIONS. DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS LYING, STEALING, THIEVING, DECEPTIVE COMPANY!!
ANON YMOUS
I think I would characterize this as: Enter at your own peril. I had an interview w/ Sprout and they did not show, they did not respond to emails and basically, nothing. I sent about 10 emails to my contact: Yuvia, previous, during and post them-standing-me-up. I also posted a message on their website so someone could get back to me. So, basically, I went and waited and waited to give a demo and NO ONE to this day has gotten back to me.
This company is related to Whales English, where I ALSO had a demo, missed it, apologized, and did not try to reschedule.
Coincidence?
Here’s another big thing: if you look at some of the terms and conditions for working it’s like they really don’t want to give you what they are giving you. Why do I say that? Well, paying $20 an hour is great, but then taking a class and a half’s worth of pay (for example) for taking a leave (even w/ 2 weeks notice) seems onerous. It’s not slavery, but it IS like being indentured. This is the 21st century!!
So there you go! Communication isn’t a strong suit here. And this IS for teaching, isn’t it? Well, what’s wrong with the picture I just described?
ANON YMOUS's hiring manager
A bit hyperbolic no? This just isn’t accurate…
Here is the service agreement;
Asking for leave
A request for leave should be submitted on teacher portal http://teacher.rouchi.com/. Asking for leave shall lead to cancelling lessons, explaining to students about the change, and affect your
paid teaching hours.
For short-term leave
If a teacher applies for 1-2 days of leave prior to the scheduled lesson, it shall be regarded as normal short-term leave with no deduction in payment. The precondition is the teacher need to submit the leave request through teacher portal at least 3 days prior to the scheduled lesson, and such requests
are allowed for no more than twice in every 6 months.
For long-term leave
If a teacher applies for 3-14 days’ leave (no more than 14 days) prior to the scheduled lesson, it shall be regarded as normal long-term leave with no deduction in payment. The precondition is the teacher need to submit the leave request through teacher portal at least 14 days prior to the scheduled lesson, and such requests are allowed for once in every 6 months.
Penalty Policy:
1. No more than 2 times of the above leaves can be allowed in one month (no matter what kind
of factors caused, such as sick, tech issues etc.). And for the 1st month after starting teaching,
teachers are not allowed to take any long-term leave. Otherwise, for the above cases, 10% of
the monthly pay will be deducted
Todd Andrew Pruden
Then don’t take leave!!
marko
Hello,
I do not have experience and I don’t know nothing about US and Canadian educational system. Do they need any proof of it, can I lie, do they check all what you say?
JenAG
Yes they will and why lie? If you have never done it or don’t know how then teaching children is probably going to be hard for you and this is a skill that ESL learners benefit from. If you have teaching elsewhere as an experience then the only requirements are normally native sound and ability to use the style of speaking from North Americans.
dee
Marko, you’d be found out pretty quickly, especially if your spoken English is like your written English. (i.e., several mistakes)
Todd Andrew Pruden
I don’t know nothing? Do you mean I don’t know anything? You definitely should not be teaching English. Don’t lie. Just choose a career that is NOT teaching!!
Liz
I currently work with Sprout and so far so good. They actually asked me what my offer was and I was able to get $20 an hour with ease. Also they have other bonus that come on your check as well and get reviewed for a pay raise based on performance or just being with them another year or 6 months. They don’t bug you too much and you are able to do trainings at your own pace with attending a meeting all the time. I personally like the platform and the ability to teach different curriculums unlike other companies out there that have the same curriculum showing the same characters in different situations. The curriculum is a little dated but the kids won’t see a difference as long as you make it fun and animated. I heard you can make up tp $40 an hour over time and that where I would like to head eventually. Even if I have to do teacher trainings. But let’s see how long it will last. Good luck to you all and God Bless you.
Amanda
Hello Liz,
Thank you for the insight. I also just got hired by Sprout, but haven’t actually started teaching yet. I just had a few questions maybe you can answer? Do you know if trial class teachers get a steady flow of work or is it really dependent on who decided to book with you? Also, is it fairly fast to get booked right away or will it take some time. Any other useful information would be greatly appreciated. thanks!
Alyson Rhodes
What kind of “platform”?
lee Lepper
I interviewed with Sprout and did a demo lesson. The platform is highly interactive. I have a BA, TESOL. a cerifificate in teaching Young Learners English as well as 17 years in the ESL business expereince. The offer was 18 bucks an hour. Did not take it because i thought the platform was BS. Think it could be a great company if you want to work with that kind of platform.