The Effectiveness of Online English Tutoring

by Klarenz Krisotffer M. Quiones

Background
According to Wikipedia (2013), online tutoring is the process of tutoring in an online, virtual environment or networked environment in which teachers and learners are separated by time and space. Online English tutoring is a new form of technology in teaching the English language where the high-end Internet connection and computers are used to open a video chat, usually through Skype. Having English classes online is an effective way to improve ones reading, writing, listening and speaking skills in the comfort and safety of ones home.

Profiles of online English tutoring websites in the Philippines

The de facto language of commerce in the globalized world is English. This is the reason why people in most developing countries, especially in Asia, would like to learn the English language. The Chinese (which includes Taiwan and Singapore), the Japanese, and the Koreans are the most avid learners of English. In fact, thousands of Koreans visit the Philippines annually just to learn English. There are many benefits of such educational trips. Firstly, they get to enjoy a foreign trip while learning an indispensable language at the same time. Secondly, getting a private English tutor in Korea will be very expensive. In the Philippines, they will just have to spend about KRW 2,650 (about PHP 100) per hour of tutoring. That is indeed cheap compared to the fee for private tutoring back in South Korea. Thirdly, they

get the best English tutors in the country, usually graduates of the University of the Philippines, for such a low tutoring rate. There are also many Filipinos who would like to immigrate to English speaking countries such as the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. A requisite in order to be accepted as immigrant is proficiency in the English language, that is, in reading, speaking, and writing with comprehension. Hence they also avail of the services of local English schools and private tutors. There were many private Filipino tutors who are offering their services in the Internet. Unfortunately, it seems that there is no English tutoring website that is Philippine-based yet because a cursory Googling of such website yielded nil result. Currently, all online English tutoring websites are based on the country where they recruit their students. This has something to do with trust since it is just natural that students will trust websites that are based in their own country so that they may sue it if it runs away with their pre-paid tutoring fee/tuition. In turn, these online tutoring companies simply recruit their tutors from the Philippines, usually U.P. graduates, because we are renowned in Asia for our proficiency in English. By using the Filipino graduates, online schools can effectively undercut Englishconversation classes offered in the highly competitive market of English tutoring in the host country. The tutor and the student is matched up and the English conversational lessons to learners is conducted online via Skype Internet telephone service. This paper will discuss only four such websites which are foreign based but with Filipino crews. In Japan, there is the the Pikt Corporation and Rarejobs Corporation. Company Name: PIKT Corporation

Address: Date of Establishment: Business Description: Website: Paid-In Capital: Representatives:

2-28-10-2262 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0013 JAPAN November 19, 2010 Internet English lesson service http://www.pikt.jp/philippines/ 3 million yen MD Moin, founder and CEO Tabassum Ahmed, Director Bernadette B. Sadsad, Head of PIKT Philippines

Main Banker:

The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd.

This online school is relatively young at about two years old, but growing rapidly. Founded by a Bangladeshi and a Filipina who were on a study visa in Japan, it has about 50 tutors today from the Philippines, which includes graduates from the University of the Philippines. English conversational lessons is conducted via Skype Internet telephone service. The tutors work four or five hours a day for a monthly salary of about JPY 45,000 (PHP 20,000), which is a reasonable salary considering that the tutor has flexible working hours and is working in the safety and comfort of his/her own home. PIKD hires applicants with the following requirements and qualifications: Must possess at least a bachelors degree in UP, Ateneo, La Salle or UST. Must have an American/ Neutral English Accent. Must be proficient in written and spoken English. Must have at least 3 years work experience.

Excellent in speaking English, ideal in grammar knowledge, and with good vocabulary skills.

Must be patient, flexible and dynamic in teaching Japanese with diverse cultural background.

Has passion for teaching and friendly to foreign students. Can work with minimal supervision. With pleasing personality. Must be computer literate and knowledgeable in using SKYPE. Preferably with Call Center work experienced. Must be willing to provide a maximum of 5 hours a day and at least 4 days a week. Must have stable internet connection preferably DSL or Cable internet line ( NO USB modem please ).

Must be responsible, punctual and good in time management. Undergraduate applicants will not be entertained.

Company Name: Representative: Date of Establishment: Business Description: Website: Philippine Office Address:

RAREJOBS Incorporated Tomohisa Kato, CEO November 1, 2007 Internet English lesson service https://www.rarejob.com/professional/ 5th Floor Sunnymede IT Center 1614 Quezon Avenue

South Triangle, Quezon City Landline: (02) 442-3942 Telefax: To be able to apply as a RareJob Tutor, one must: (02) 442-4213

be proficient in English and capable of teaching it be professional when it comes to work have a PC, a stable, non-USB internet connection and a headset be an undergraduate or graduate from one of the schools in Rarejobs List of Accepted Universities/Colleges (The list enumerates over 200 schools all over the world)

Like PIKT, Rarejobs offer flexible working hours and is home-based work. A much older online school, it boast of being the No.1 Online English school in Japan in terms of its number of students and tutors. With over 2000 home-based tutors, it has indeed a huge number of online learners. Indeed, a cursory inspection of its Japanese website displayed a gallery of pictures of about 2,000 Filipino tutors of ages ranging from 20-40 years old. Tuition fee ranges from JPY 3,000-8,000 depending on the package the learner chooses. Rarejobs offers a much higher salary package for its tutors. A part-time tutor can earn as much as PHP 25,000 per month. Of course, the income depends on the number of hours taught by the tutor and the tutors hourly rate which is based on your qualifications and lesson evaluations. Salary is given to the tutors on the 10th day of every month through bank transfer, either at BPI or PNB.Online lessons are held from Monday to Friday, 5:00PM-12:00MN and Saturday to Sunday, 8:00AM-11:00AM and 7:00PM-12:00MN (Philippine Time). The flexible

schedule enables the tutor to manage their own schedule and choose how many days and how many hours they will work per day. In Korea, there is Ontue orporation. Company Name: Address: Date of Establishment: Business Description: Website: Representatives: ONLINE ENGLISH (Ontue) Corporation 411-6 Daeseong-dong, Gimhae-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, SK November 19, 2010 English Tutorial and Online Education http://www. http://ontue.com/?mid=home Song Jae Ho, President

Its website boast 14,867 online tutors from the Philippines, but it is dubious at best. Like Rarejobs, Ontue has a gallery of pictures of Filipino online tutors. However, Ontue is different in many ways from the other online tutoring websites. At Ontue, the tutors post their picture and personal information and the learner selects the tutor he/she likes on the gallery. The selected tutor is contacted via Skype and they haggle on the tutoring price as well as the number of hours. The learner pays Ontue and the tutoring begins until the agreed number of tutoring hours is consumed. The payment scheme is based on a point system where the learner rates the tutor through a point system. A learner can give a minimum of 40 points for a minute of tutorial session up to a maximum of 200 points. A thousand points is worth a US dollar. In 2007, the tutor gets as much as 80% of the tutorial while Ontue gets the rest for acting as conduit between the two parties. In February, 2008, the tutors share is down to 50%. A tutor is required to accumulate at least 12,000 points (USD 12) before the tutor will be paid via Western Union. Worse, if the tutor failed to reach the 12,000-point mark within six months, the

earned points is forfeited in favor of Ontue. If a tutor is not able to fulfill his/her commitment, then Ontue refunds the student or let the learner pick another tutor from the gallery. In China, there is 51Talk. 51Talk recruits Filipino tutors with the following qualifications: Must be a 4-year course graduate. Fresh graduates are welcome. Have an exceptional command of the English language with excellent English pronunciation. Have at least six months of ESL teaching experience. Have the patience and the passion to educate students. Have integrity and professionalism. Have DSL line with speed of at least 1 mbps Only Filipino citizens will be entertained.

The tutoring job is described as follows: Teacher will teach Chinese students via Skype at home. Teachers are expected to prepare lesson plan and fun activities for each lesson. Teahers are required to go online 30 minutes before the class. Teachers must evaluate the students performance by making a lesson memo.

The parent website, http://www.51talk.com is written in Chinese script and has no English translation. On the other hand, their recruitment website, http://www.51talk.com/tutor/, does not say much about the company. It only list their contact information as follows:

Email: 51talkrecruitment@gmail.com Phone Number: 02-709-5600

Most online tutoring websites only offer reading, speaking and writing English skills. In the reading module, the subject must have a course outline or syllabus to guide both students and instructor step-by-step. In the speaking module, a conversation in English is initiated between student and tutor where the students pronunciation is corrected. In the writing module, the student will listen to the instructor to take down notes. Should the instructor gives test to the student, it is either the student types the answer and send it to the instructor or answers orally. Actual statistics on the number of enrolled students is impossible to get since these internet companies often hide their income to cut their tax payment to the government.

Teaching technology
One-to-one In one-to-one communication, the instructor privately teaches his or her only student whenever he or she is available. This may be done in a video chat. One-to-many Meanwhile in one-to-many communication, the instructor must have a high-end Internet connection to open a general video chat with his or her students. It is difficult to do so because of bandwidth limit. According to Cover and Thomas (1991), one-to-many

communication is done with a unique type of one-to-many link, supplying multiple paths from one place to many places. In online tutoring, it is called broadcasting. (Sheldon, 2001)

Grading and evaluation system

Usually in online tutoring websites with track record such as Rarejobs, both tutor and students are evaluated. At Rarejobs, the conversation between student-tutor is recorded for

evaluation by a Rarejob education staff. Thus Rarejob has a way of monitoring the progress of the student as well as evaluating the competency of the tutor since the recorded session will reveal any error in grammar, mispronunciation or any ethical transgression of the tutor. The tutor is also required to be polite and must encourage the student to go with the lessons until mastery of the English language is achieved. On the other hand, the tutor is the primary evaluator of his/her student. In a learning situation such as this, there is no passing or failing grade, only recommendation to proceed to the next higher level. Hence from basic English, the student progresses to the intermediate level, then to advanced level, and finally to the mastery level. Usually a qualifying written and oral test is administered to the student online to determine if the student is ready for the next level.

Conclusion
Online English tutoring is heavily dependent on convergent technology and is manpower intensive. It works best if the technical infrastructure that is relatively affordable exist, the students are computer literate, and there is a pool of quality tutors who is willing to teach for less. It is the opinion of the author that as much as four students may be handled effectively by a tutor online if the connectivity is really good.

Bibliography
Cover, T. M., & Thomas, J. A. (1991). Elements of information theory. Hoboken, NJ: WileyInterscience. Online tutoring. (2013). Retrieved February 23, 2013, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_tutoring

Sheldon, T. (2001). Encyclopedia of networking & telecommunications. New York: McGraw Hill.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2012/02/16/news/filipinos-teach-english-to-japanese-viawebsite/#.US5rnjc1odE