Beijing-based 51talk Recruiting More Online English Teachers In Philippines

[Davaoeno 36,769]

ONLINE English education platform 51Talk is aiming to increase its number of Filipino teachers from 16,000 to 100,000 within the next five years, as demand for online foreign teachers in China continues to grow.

“Our plan is to recruit about 100,000 online Filipino teachers in the next five years… We already have 16,000 teachers…” said Jack Huang, founder and chief executive officer of 51Talk, during a press conference at Shangri-La at the Fort on Tuesday.

“We are going to recruit more Filipino teachers. We believe that Filipino teachers are the best online English teachers in the world,” he added, noting the company needs 1,000 to 2,000 new teachers every month.

51Talk is planning to add more training centers in the Philippines. There are training centers in Baguio City, Angeles City, Quezon City, Pasig City, Cebu City, Bacolod City, Imus City, and Davao City.

Jennifer Que, vice-president for 51Talk’s Philippine operations, said they have partnerships with PLDT, Inc. Globe Telecom, Inc., and Converge ICT Solutions, Inc. to establish centers in areas where the telecommunications firms can provide fiber connection.

51Talk officials said they want to develop the internet infrastructure in the Philippines to improve the online teachers’ connection with online English learners in China.

Last May 2018, 51Talk signed a manifestation of commitment and support with the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) to use their facilities for training and other programs for teachers.

“We will also provide some trainings to the people who use the centers… So, online English teaching training or language specific or, in this case, we can support the teachers that are using the center,” Ms. Que told BusinessWorld.

Established 2011 and was launched in the Philippines in 2012, 51Talk is an online English education platform in China. It is the first Chinese online education company listed in the New York Stock Exchange.

The Beijing-based company is also present in Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Jinan, and Suzhou in China. It currently has ten million students in China, and is seen to further increase as more Chinese households invest in education and the English requirements for students rise. — Vincent Mariel P. Galang

https://www.bworldonline.com/beijing-based-51talk-recruiting-more-online-english-teachers-in-philippines/

[+Salty Dog 60,237]

1 minute ago, Davaoeno said:

.... We believe that Filipino teachers are the best online English teachers in the world"...

 

He obviously never dealt with a Customer Service Rep at a Filipino Call Center... 

[+RogerDuMond 12,833]

9 minutes ago, Salty Dog said:

He obviously never dealt with a Customer Service Rep at a Filipino Call Center... 

I much preferred Sprint's Filipino customer reps to those from India or the American reps that spoke Ebonics.

[Jester 3,453]

30 minutes ago, Salty Dog said:

He obviously never dealt with a Customer Service Rep at a Filipino Call Center... 

I got a chuckle from that but my experience with P's call centers has been very positive.  I will guess it is better in the US than in the PI's. 

[Cgu 512]

This is very good for the Philippines, specially Cebu. The voice call based call center have to transition to knowledge based call centers and this is one of the areas they can replace the slow decline in voice call based centers (there are other areas where strong growth is still fueling Cebu) 

It pays good, but its hard, since you have to work mostly weekends and evenings (when friends are going out), but you make 50k-80k (hard work though).

Edited December 12, 2018 by Cgu

[wondersailor 536]

Did I miss something? I read that they are hiring Philippine English speaking teachers to teach Chinese English. Who is going to teach the Pinoy understandable English? It is obviously about money. They don't want to pay native speakers what they are worth. They will get what they pay for, if their lucky.

 

[+RogerDuMond 12,833]

4 minutes ago, wondersailor said:

Who is going to teach the Pinoy understandable English?

I know quite a few Filipinos who speak very understandable English, although I would hazard a guess that a large number of them went to private schools.

[GBT62 760]

3 hours ago, Davaoeno said:

“We will also provide some trainings to the people who use the centers… So, online English teaching training or language specific or, in this case, we can support the teachers that are using the center,” Ms. Que told BusinessWorld.

great - more trainings 

 

[Cgu 512]

1 hour ago, wondersailor said:

It is obviously about money. They don't want to pay native speakers what they are worth. They will get what they pay for, if their lucky.

All business is about money. Call centers were setup for serving English speaking customers by Convergys (Concentrix), Accenture, IBM etc. in the Philippines (and they did not get native speakers), but most were US companies. This is a Chinese company trying to tap the Philippines knowledge market, so "same same, but different" as they say here.

Native speakers are free to get the job (pays around 15USD/hour), it is home based work. 

I hope it works out for the Philippines, will provide good paying jobs.

[liquido 1,421]

12 hours ago, Cgu said:

It pays good, but its hard, since you have to work mostly weekends and evenings (when friends are going out), but you make 50k-80k (hard work though).

They make more than doctors and nurses here......Who needs all that useless college here? Just get a native english tutor and you will be financially rewarded  for years to come..

[Kabisay-an gid 6,479]

13 hours ago, RogerDuMond said:

I much preferred Sprint's Filipino customer reps to those from India or the American reps that spoke Ebonics.

 

Agreed.

I had conversations with Filipina customer service reps in the past, when I was a customer of Sprint and Vonage. They were easy to understand and pleasant, and had no problem understanding me.

Whereas some of the the Indian csr's I've dealt with through Amazon were barely understandable and had rather drab personalities, and at least a couple were unable to understand what I was trying to tell them.

 

[MickyG 278]

the days pldt had an on line customer service it was very much hit and miss. Now they have outbound sales agents and they are dire

[BossHog 35,404]

16 hours ago, Cgu said:

Native speakers are free to get the job (pays around 15USD/hour)

Got an American buddy who does this teaching Chinese kids English thing online. He gets 18 bucks for every twenty-minute lesson. He does it from Alona beach on Bohol. Just stacks up six hour blocks at a time and powers through it. Supports his lifestyle just fine with that.

Personally I wouldn't have the patience to talk to some Chinese kid for more than twenty seconds, but hey, whatever.

[MickyG 278]

1 minute ago, BossHog said:

Got an American buddy who does this teaching Chinese kids English thing online. He gets 18 bucks for every twenty-minute lesson. He does it from Alona beach on Bohol. Just stacks up six hour blocks at a time and powers through it. Supports his lifestyle just fine with that.

Personally I wouldn't have the patience to talk to some Chinese kid for more than twenty seconds, but hey, whatever.

Which chinese online company is that

[BossHog 35,404]

https://t.vipkid.com.cn

He's a very good teacher though and has earned the highest ratings possible. Has an education degree from Penn State. He used to work for me in Korea but prefers to be in the Phils now.

The thing is they're very strict and you get rated by both the parents and students on every lesson. But if you do it well the remuneration is nothing to sneeze at.

Of course in Korea we were paying native English teachers 80,000 KRW an hour but you get paid a premium for teaching live and having to put up with living there. Doing it from a shack on the beach in Bohol is a cut in pay but one he's willing to take.

 

Edited December 13, 2018 by BossHog