What: Magic Ears allows native English-speakers to earn money teaching English to Chinese kids online
Expected pay: $18 to $26 per hour
Husl$core: $$$$
Commissions & fees: NA
Where: Nationwide
Requirements: Must pass screening interview; have high-speed internet and Skype; ESL credential; teaching experience (experience outside a traditional classroom is considered).
Review:
Magic Ears enlists freelancers to teach English to young Chinese kids. Teachers are expected to work from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Beijing time during the work week, and between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. (Beijing time) on weekends.
Beijing is roughly 12 hours ahead of New York time, so U.S. teachers are often working in the wee hours of the morning or late at night. If that suits you, Magic Ears pays a bit better than the other two English-teaching gigs.
Specifically, Magic Ears pays $9 to $11 per half hour in base pay and offers $1 hourly bonuses for showing up a few minutes early and for teaching at peak times. There is also a less well-defined “performance bonus.”
Teachers also say that MagicEars’ is more hands-on, providing more advice about your teaching style. (The curriculum is set. What you add is personality and props.) That’s something teachers either love or hate.
The site also will pay you to refer additional qualified teachers to Magic Ears at a rate of $10 per resume.
Our recommendation
Since the job is almost identical to the other teaching positions and this one pays more — and has many good reviews — it gets our highest rating in the category. However, there is no prohibition against signing up for all three, so we’d suggest that you also check out QKids and VIPKID.
What their teachers say: (From Glassdoor)
I have been with ME for 8 months now and they are nothing short of phenomenal to work for. They not only care about the students but they truly care about their teachers. They put so much work into listening to us and to making us better teachers. They are always reachable, pleasant and respectful. They never penalize you for being sick!
I absolutely love working for Magic Ears! They are friendly, accommodating, helpful, fair and kind. The company provides helpful feedback and pays great! They have a very diverse teacher pool.
There was one time that I had to take care of my daughter and had to cancel my classes that day last minute, MagicEars staff was super supportive and gave out all my classes WITHOUT ANY PENALTY or even a word of blaming. Being a single mom with 2 kids, it really meant a lot to me.
They want you to be in the classroom 10 minutes early as part of the bonus. The thing is, this is not just part of the bonus, it is an expectation. If you are not there 10 minutes early (I could only be 5 min early because of teaching classes with my other company), they will blow up your phone. They want you to be on camera at least 30 seconds early as well.
Competitive pay. Diligent feedback. Great online portal. Friendly staff. Particular about details, will point out even little areas you need to improve. The hiring process takes a while, but again they are working to be the best and they want to make sure you will fit well with the company.
You will not have a chance to teach if you are a person of color, country, cowboy-ish or other ethnic looking people, or with “slight accent” that Management classifies as a non native or neutral speaking.
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“You will not have a chance to teach if you are a person of color, country, cowboy-ish or other ethnic looking people, or with “slight accent” that Management classifies as a non native or neutral speaking. ”
Having lived in China I know that this can be the case from time to time and online as well but the way you word almost means that you take it at face value. Yes the Chinese can be quite racist but the fact that you do not criticize this hiring policy and instead imply “Hey this is just the way they work” means it has your tacit approval. At least have the balls to disown this kind of policy they have rather then write a glowing review about how great they are and then end it with a racist message at the end of it. You’re not racist but why support a company that you deem great when you knowingly understand their prejudice. If you want to recommend a company or want people to subscribe to your blog then have a backbone as well. I’m not white and I made a whole lot more money teaching the Chinese than most other highly educated white folks when living in China and teaching online. I had to work harder to overcome their notions of what they think I was and you should really work hard to so lazily recommend a company that accepts people based on looks only.
Totally agree!
“You will not have a chance to teach if you are a person of color, country, cowboy-ish or other ethnic looking people, or with “slight accent” that Management classifies as a non native or neutral speaking”. Am I reading this correctly?
“You will not have a chance to teach if you are a person of color, country, cowboy-ish or other ethnic looking people, or with “slight accent” that Management classifies as a non native or neutral speaking”
This is NOT true seeing that I am a FILIPINO, who just got hired. I am not Caucasian however I am native born Canadian. This article does not depict the company.
You should know that magic ears makes a point of hiring maybe 1 percent of the POCs who apply to their platform. You may have been lucky to fall in that 1 percent. It used to be zero percent up to a year ago, so please consider who you are defending. Just because you didn’t experience it doesn’t mean the other 99 percent of POC applicants are not being treated in a racist way.
The company also opened up their platform to applicants from territories other than the US and Canada for the first time just a few months ago. However, even though they claim to want applicants with a neutral accent, they are hiring people from Australia, South Africa and other major white majority territories with extremely thick accents.
However, they don’t accept ANY applicants from native English speaking territories that have a high black population, even when their accent is neutral sounding. None at all.
You should do your research before defending such a horrible company. The information about them is actually super easy to find. And remember that your sole experience does not speak for entire communities that Magic “Racist” Ear excludes.