I think it's an unethical company
I used to work here. This is my opinion as a former teacher What is the best part of working at the company? The students are almost always lovely and they work very hard What is the most stressful part about working at the company? - The way they treat the children. Call me naive (I've only ever worked with adults before), but I was shocked by how poorly the company responded to signs of physical abuse. I know there's not much they can do in these situations, BUT the way they talked about these situations really gave me the ick - in my opinion they talked like they cared more about the loss of money than the child in question's welfare. The final straw for me was when I reported that one of my students was being slapped and my manager said "We have no right to interfere in how parents educate their children. We can only remind their parents to use more appropriate methods."(Again, I have screenshots to prove this). Anybody with any smidgeon of safeguarding training knows what a poor response this is, this is like number 1 on the list of things not to do. I understand this is a common problem for this industry, but this company seems particularly bad because they always seem to take the parents' side. Moreover, I despise the ways they make you in the ways rate the child (with stars, like they're a restaurant), and because of how they encourage you to nitpick the child's performance by offering immediate feedback in lessons. They also expect you to teach all the content to fit perfectly into the 25 minutes regardless of how long the slideshow is (some are 50 slides plus) or how difficult it is for the child. I have had lessons where very young children were slapped by their parents on camera, were close to tears, or were left totally alone with me a stranger without parental supervision. Again, might be naive, but this is not the kind of environment I want to work in. - The pay. Definitely do not work for them if you British, Canadian, or European: you will be earning below minimum wage. Be aware that when you get into this job you will only be making 13 USD and hour (or less). This is, I understand, on the low end for this industry. If you are more than one minute late you are docked half a lesson's pay. If you are more than two minutes late you are docked 20 USD. I have screenshots of company policy to prove this. There is no monetary compensation for if a student cancels on you last minute (i.e., morning of the lesson). If they don't show up, you only get half the lesson fee, which is $3. (These are normal for the industry, but they are still poor practice in my opinion.) Apparently you used to be paid for reviewing homework - not anymore. Every day I would teach, I would have to have a low end estimate of what I would make - there were often times that I would make only about half of what I thought I was going to make because of last minute student cancellations. If you must work in this industry, there are many other companies that in my experience are far less punitive (I recommend BlingABC, they pay about the same as LingoAce but they don't deduct). Lastly, in my country for a little while they lied about how much you get paid on here (they said "from £13.46", when actually it should be "from £7 an hour". I do not think it is possible, or it least it seems very difficult, to make £13.00 an hour at this company). I reported them recently and they changed it. I have screenshots to prove this too. There are many other issues (please heed the other reviews) but this alone should be enough to dissuade you from working for them, especially if you're in one of the countries I listed above. What is the work environment and culture like at the company? In my experience, poor. In the past, they have sent me some replies to emails that I have considered very rude (when I was appealing my first deduction, they refused it with a three word message that just said "please do math". Again, I screenshotted this). Also I think they are very inflexible with the course materials. You must teach everyone the exact same materials the exact same way, even if they are struggling. Having said that, I think the course materials are good. What is a typical day like for you at the company? Very stressful. I love teaching, but with this platform, if I have 10 classes booked in I'm almost guaranteed to only get paid for 8 of them due to cancellations or students not showing up. On a bad day less. I have never been paid full fees for all my classes.