Job Discussion Forums

bluetortilla · Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 815 Location: Henan

I found one site from NOVA (a Japanese English ed. company) called 'Woman.' It's a Skype English site run out of Cebu City for, who would not suppose I guess- lonely Japanese men??

Anyway, minimum wage in the Philippines is about 2 USD an hour and from their prices it seems that's about what the women are making.

Other searches yielded similar, ridiculously low prices, like 95 yen for 25 minutes. Teachers from lots of different countries too. But I couldn't crack the prices further without actually signing up for a free lesson.

So what gives here? They must be charging some bigger prices for 'texts' or something. You can't get person to person attention for 2 bucks an hour anywhere. Can you?

One reason I'm asking is that if I were, in the future, to teach English over Skype I'd want at least $30 USD for one hour, or $15 USD for 30 minutes. I know there are teachers out there who would teach for as low as $15 an hour, but that's still way more than two bucks! I'd like to know a good justification for charging a higher price. There must be a hidden cost at these sites...I think...

suphanburi · Joined: 20 Mar 2014 Posts: 916

bluetortilla · Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 815 Location: Henan

likwid_777 · Joined: 04 Nov 2012 Posts: 411 Location: NA

White bakla might be a marketable niche to the Japanese customers Laughing

MuscatGary · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2014 4:33 am Post subject:

Wasn't Nova the company that went bust after not paying it's teachers for several months and leaving them stranded in Japan?

plumpy nut · Joined: 12 Mar 2011 Posts: 1652

Yes that was them. I showed up for an interview for them in San Francisco in September of 2007 only to find out that they collapsed a month later. The people that were left stranded by the company, I believe most of them were given other English teaching jobs in Japan by the government.

mfinna · Joined: 21 Mar 2012 Posts: 32 Location: SE Asia

Have heard of a market out there for Japanese business types, specifically. Apparently, they simply want to practice free style conversation over Skype. Presumably with a native speaker, but maybe these days a Filipino might be good enough with good value for money. Filipinos certainly find work in SE Asia as teachers, often side by side with native speaking teachers, albeit often at a lower salary.

As far as what they are probably getting from the Japanese students, would reckon it's on par or slightly lower than 20-25 USD per hour. A google search for "learn English online skype" will have quite a few results with teacher profiles and their fees.

-Fin

plumpy nut · Joined: 12 Mar 2011 Posts: 1652

There are times when that's enough for me. You could work in Bangkok Thailand online, provided you could find a decent enough Wi-Fi line Rolling Eyes

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arentol · Joined: 28 Mar 2006 Posts: 2

I've lived here in Cebu for 8 years. Some observations:

The vast majority of foreigners here in Cebu are Korean -- not too many Japanese and more Koreans here than Caucasians -- and most of the English-language schools here cater specifically to Korean students.

In other words, Koreans come here to learn English because it's cheaper for both tuition and cost-of-living.

Hope this helps.

Aren

P.S.: Just realized that I've been a member here for over 9 years and this is my first post. Better late than never! Very Happy

EFL Educator · Joined: 17 Jul 2013 Posts: 988 Location: Cape Town

A British colleague of mine who retired from EFL teaching lives in Cebu and he told me that Filipinos (not native English speakers) are needed to teach English there....and that native English teachers are not wanted or needed.He mentioned that TEFL wages are very low (something like $350 a month for full time Filipinos) and that the cost of living is quite expensive. His advice is just come to Cebu for a holiday or retire there with SAVINGS! Shocked