Online teaching companies that also hire non-native speakers


The demand for online English teachers is increasing. Although many of the jobs are advertised towards English native speaking teachers only, there are however, still several companies out there that also hire non-native speakers who are highly proficient in English. Let’s take a closer look at which online teaching companies also hire non-native English-speaking tutors.

If you’ve thought about starting your online English teaching career, then you’ll likely have come across some of the various job boards and job postings out there. One thing you might have noticed is that the phrase “native-speakers” is often mentioned in the job requirements.

This may feel a little disheartening at first, especially if you are a non-native English teacher – but don’t worry. It’s easy to get tricked into believing that there are no opportunities for non-native speakers, but that’s simply not true. As long as you are fluent in English and have a neutral accent, then it can be possible to teach English online. Aside from finding your own students for private tutoring, there are actually quite a few online English teaching companies out there that are willing to hire non-native speakers.

Basic requirements:

First off, no matter which company you decide to apply for, there are a couple of things that you should keep in mind when it comes to getting started.

English level and accent

Online teaching companies will want to have confidence in your English language fluency. Not all companies will require this, but it’s common for schools to ask non-native teachers for an English proficiency certificate. This is a certificate to show how fluent you are in English. Such schools might require you to have a C2 level on the CEFR test (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages).

You could start with the free EF SET test here: https://www.efset.org/ and could also look into IELTS/TOEFL tests which are more rigorous English fluency exams.

To increase your employability as a non-native speaker, you might also want to examine your accent. Everybody has an accent of some kind, including native English speakers. However, schools are less willing to hire people if they have strong non-native accents. This is because their students will want to learn to speak more like a native speaker (it’s quite logical). This means that it would be a good idea to spend some time reflecting on your own accent and finding ways to neutralize any particular traits that could be undesirable. Although it may feel a little bit awkward at first, we recommend that you record yourself speaking and then play it back to assess areas for possible improvement.

Teaching equipment

To teach English online there are also a few base items you need to secure first to be able to teach both professionally and efficiently.

Requirements:

  • Desktop or laptop computer
  • Headset with microphone (noise-cancellation microphone preferred).
  • HD webcam
  • Stable and fast Internet connection
  • Quiet, clutter-free and well-lit work area
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate

Online Teaching Companies – The List (2022)

Let’s get down to business and have a look at which online teaching companies you could potentially work for as a non-native English teacher in 2022. You might want to bookmark this page as we’ll update it from time to time.

51Talk

51Talk is owned by China Online Education Group, which is one of the biggest online teaching companies in the world. Having among the largest amount of students and foreign tutors in the world, they teach kids and adults using their own developed material in 1 on 1 lessons, as well as group lessons. They predominantly hire English teachers from the Philippines, but other nationalities are also welcome to apply, as long they have a neutral accent.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with neutral accent
  • Teachers from the Philippines preferred
  • Bachelor’s degree or above
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate meriting
  • 1 year teaching experience

AmazingTalker

AmazingTalker is a Chinese company with a lot of freedom, as they let their teachers set their own rates. They hire both native speaker, as well as non-native speakers that have an English degree. If your proficiency is high enough, then you are also able to teach other languages in addition to English. Their platform offers classes in 46 different languages, including German, Italian, French and Spanish. However, most of their students take English classes.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with a degree in English or a similar degree
  • Native English speaker
  • Bachelor’s degree or above
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate meriting
  • 1 year teaching experience

Cafetalk

Cafetalk is a popular online teaching platform that is currently used by +46,000 students around the world, with a vast majority of them located in Japan. Their lessons are designed to make online lessons fun and inspiring for both the student and the tutor. By using their own interface, they are able to easily manage and carry out all online lessons in a super easy way. They offer a wide arrange of online classes in addition to English language classes. So if you possess any other skills besides English teaching, then it might be a good company for you to check out.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with neutral accent
  • Native speakers
  • Tutors who speak Japanese, Chinese or Korean
    and/or have lived in an East Asian country are especially welcome to apply.
  • Bachelor’s degree or above
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate is meriting

Cambly

Cambly is an online teaching platform that is based on an informal teaching environment, and it’s different from other platforms such as EF and Learnlight. The majority of the people that you will be talking to, already speak English at some level. So it’s not uncommon that they are just looking to practice and enhance their conversational skills. One of the main advantages of teaching English online through this platform, is that you can just chat with students about casual topics in an informal way. You can also set your own hours, and no previous experience or certifications are required in order to tutor students.

Requirements

Getting your TESOL/TEFL certificate:

To teach English online you’ll need to have an accredited and recognized TESOL/TEFL certificate.

If you haven’t obtained your TESOL/TEFL certificate yet, then you can do so by enroling in our 120-hour TESOL/TEFL course here through the button below. The course is  guaranteed to be approved by all major online teaching platforms.

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COREnglish

COREnglish is an online English teaching company offering online teaching services to students in Latin America. They hire both native and non-native online English teachers. Their mission is to evolve the way English is learnt by making it more convenient, practical, effective and easy. This is done by evolving beyond the traditional learning methods and instead adapt technology and develop new learning methods. This allows their platform and services to be both functional and high-end. They also work with partners such as WaiJiaoYi and TOPICA native.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with neutral accent
  • Native Speaker
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate
  • No teaching experience needed, but preferred.
  • Degree in any field (Preferred)
  • Can be a university student pursuing a degree

EF – English First (EF Education First Subsidiary)

EF English First is a subsidiary to EF Education First, which have been active in education industry since 1965. They are a well established global company with over 52,000 employees worldwide and offices in over 50 countries. EF believe in opening the world through education and connecting people from around the world by breaking down the barriers of language, culture and geography. Being a EF tutor offers a lot of freedom, as their lessons are held on their own platform with their own developed lesson plans. They offer group lessons, as well as one-on-one lessons.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with fluent English (C2 level)
  • Bachelor’s degree (any field is ok)
  • Prior teaching experience is meriting, but not necessary.
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate

Engoo

Engoo (Formely Bibo) is an online teaching company based in the Philippines that provides English teaching classes to students from Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Brazil, Russia, Spain, as well as other parts of the world via online video services. Their teaching schedule is flexible, as tutors are free to select which time slots to open for students. As a tutor with Engoo you will mostly be working with Japanese students of varying ages, proficiency levels, and backgrounds. Teachers are not required to come up with their own lessons, since all the materials are provided by the company.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers proficient in English
  • Native speakers
  • At least 18 years old
  • English Proficiency Essay Test
  • ESL teaching experience is not required
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate is meriting

Fluentbe

Fluentbe is a Polish company focusing on teaching English to Central European students (children, teenagers, adults). Being a tutor for Fluentbe offers a lot flexibility, as you are able to work from the comfort of your own home with flexible work hours. They will also provide you with lesson plans and teaching resources, so that you are able to focus on being an passionate teacher, which is something they put a lot of emphasis on. Their classes take place online in 1-on-1 or in groups sessions with a maximum of 4 students.

Requirements

  • Polish, Czech, Slovak, Spanish non-natives speakers with neutral tone preferred
  • Native speakers
  • Bachelor’s degree or above
  • Min. 1-year teaching experience of English to foreigners
  • Online teaching experience is meriting
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate

Ginseng English

Ginseng English is an online language school that delivers English classes to students all over the world. Their goal is to provide students around the world with easy access to online language classes. Ginseng English accepts tutors regardless of their first language, as their main driving force is to create a diverse staff through fair hiring practices. No matter what race, gender, religion or language, Ginseng English are always on the lookout for the best teacher. Their lessons are not 1-on-1, but rather you will be teaching a class of students from various locations around the world. Their ideal teacher is someone who is able to design and deliver a fast-paced and engaging lessons while implementing the use of technology.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with fluent and neutral tone
  • Native speakers
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate preferred
  • Bachelor’s degree or above
  • Prior experience teaching English to adult

iBestTeacher

iBestTeacher is a Chinese subsidiary of Baifenshuo Education. They are a professional ESL teacher recruitment company that helps match teachers with job positions and training for Chinese online schools. This means that they do not offer classes themselves, but instead they focus on providing stable and efficient work opportunities for quality teachers all around the world. iBestTeacher are currently recruiters for 16 Chinese online schools, as well as over 100 domestic schools. They also claim to have successfully placed over 10,000 teachers into ESL jobs online or within China.

Requirements

  • Non-Native Speakers with neutral accent & idiomatic level English
  • Native speakers
  • Bachelor’s degree preferred
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate meriting
  • No experience required, but meriting

iTalki

iTalki is one of the most popular online language teaching & learning platforms in the world. And it’s not just for English, but many other languages as well. It is a global language learning community that connects students and teachers for online language lessons.  It’s an excellent platform for teachers, as you get a lot of opportunities to show why you should be selected among all the available teacher. Being a relative open platform, you have a lot of opportunities to choose your own schedule, which means that you can give as many classes as you want (no monthly minimum/maximum). You can also set your own prices, and if you speak other languages you could also teach those too. There are over 100 languages can be taught on iTalki!

Requirements

Professional teacher

Community teacher

iTutorGroup

iTutorGroup, also known as Pinganhaoxue (PAHX), is a Chinese online education company that connects teachers from all over the world to students in Asia. Their student base ranges from professionals from the age of 19-65, down to Jr. clients aged 6-18. They have a lot of students studying to improve their English for future overseas studies, as well as a way to strengthen their CV. iTutorGroup will provide you with all the materials needed for your classes. They also offer a very open scheduling policy where you can decide your own schedule and hours, giving you a lot of freedom.

Requirements

  • Non-native speaker at an idiomatic level
  • Native speakers
  • Bachelor’s degree or above (Education majors preferred)
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate
  • Min. 1 year teaching experience (Online preferred)

Increase your employability with a TEYL certificate:

Build on your TESOL/TEFL skills with extra TEYL training for teaching English to young learners.

As young learners make up the majority of online English classes, it can help to more deeply understand how to teach them.

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KK Talkee

KK Talkee is an online teaching company that prides themselves in providing international learning experiences to Chinese children. They do this by using world class virtual classroom software, as well as passionate and qualified teachers. KK Talkee offer a wide selection of ESL Teaching Jobs, by providing 1-on-1 online full immersion language classes. They are looking for teachers that are highly skilled, result orientated and can help lead their students towards a successful career.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with native level neutral accent can be considered
  • Native speakers preferred
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate
  • No degree required
  • Teaching experience is meriting

Latinhire

Latin Hire is an online recruitment agency that works with a multitude of schools who are looking for online tutors for various subjects. They hire both native speakers, as well as non-native speakers with neutral accents. Although, they prefer that their English teachers are bilingual in Spanish and/or Portuguese, as the vast majority of their students are from the Americas. Latin Hire are a very organized and highly professional school with an efficient hiring process. This means that if you fit their requirements, then you can start teaching in no time, as you do not need to recruit students on your own. With the right qualifications, you are also able to teach other subjects as well.

Requirements

  • Bilingual English teachers speaking Spanish and Portuguese preferred
  • Non-native speakers with neutral accent
  • Native speakers
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate meriting
  • No degree needed
  • Prior teaching experience preferred

Learnlight

Learnlight is an EdTech company that offers teaching solutions to digitally develop students language, soft skill, and intercultural training. With ground-breaking EdTech in combination with highly proficient trainers, they are able to offer EdTech solutions to over 500,000 learners across 180 countries. As a language tutor, you will be working using their virtual language training solutions in a wide range of languages. With the right qualifications you are also able to teach Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese and Russian, in addition to English.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with neutral accents & high English proficiency
  • Native speakers
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate
  • Min. 2 years’ language teaching experience
  • Advanced level in a second language preferred

Lingoda

Lingoda is a successful online learning language platform that focuses on live teaching and virtual classrooms in which students who want to learn a language are connected with tutors. The company currently has up towards 70,000 students and around 1,400 teachers. Teachers are able to plan their own schedules, rather than being assigned lessons. Students are able to request teaching levels for their lessons, since there’s always a wide selection to choose from. Classes typically consists of 1-5 students.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with neutral accent and C2 level proficiency
  • Native speakers
  • Min. 2-3 years of valuable teaching experience
  • TESOL/TEFL meriting
  • Can legally work as a freelancer

Nicekid

NiceKid is one of China’s most famous online English teaching companies. They use the Online Partner Learning teaching method, which have attracted many proficient English online tutors. Teaching for NiceKid you’ll be providing an opportunity for Chinese students to interact with the wider English-speaking world. Their classes are arranged with max. 2 students per teacher, meaning that as a tutor, you’ll be able to pay great attention to each student’s needs. You also don’t have to worry about teaching materials and interactive teaching tools, as that is provided by the company.

Requirements

  • Non-native speaker with neutral accent & high proficiency English
  • Native speakers
  • Must have teaching experience
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate
  • Degree preferred but not required

Novakid

Novakid is an online English teaching platform focusing on tutoring  4-12 years old children from Russia, Turkey, Poland, Spain and Germany, and many other countries. Their mission is to provide affordable high-quality education to children all around the world. They have a unique and interactive program that’s been designed by experienced and qualified teachers and methodologists in order to create a intuitively learning  environment for children. This can help the students learn English as if it was their native language. They offer flexible work hours and they will also provide you with their own course curricula.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with bachelor’s degree or higher
  • Native speakers
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate
  • Min. 1 year teaching experience with children
  • Prior online teaching experience is meriting

Palfish

Palfish is a popular online education provider that offers online English classes to students mainly in China. They have their own interactive app, which has a wide variety of subjects related to English to choose from. When applying with Palfish it is recommended that you make sure that you first have a TESOL/TEFL certificate, as this is one of their base requirements. As a teacher you are able to set your own rates, and you don’t have to be a native speaking teacher to work on Palfish as a regular teacher, although it is preferred by the company.

Requirements

  • Non-native speaker with high fluency and neutral accent can be considered
  • Native speakers preferred
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate
  • Prior English teaching experience
  • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

Preply

Preply is an ed-tech company with the goal to build a global human-to-human online tutoring platform. It is an online education platform where you can create your own tutor profile to market yourself to potential students. This means you’ll have to schedule your own lessons by yourself, as Preply does not take responsibility for providing teachers with students. This gives you a lot of freedom to tailor your teaching experience exactly the way you want it.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with clear accent
  • Native speakers
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate meriting
  • Excellent communication skills
  • No teaching experience needed
  • No degree required

TOPICA Native

TOPICA Native ,which is a subsidiary of TOPICA Edtech Group in Vietnam, is an Online English Tutoring platform focusing on teaching spoken English to university students and working professionals. According to themselves, they claim to have more than 50,000 students from Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. They mainly hire non-native teachers from the Philippines, but other nationalities are also welcome to apply. Before your classes, they will provide you with their own lesson plans, so all you have to do is make sure you are prepared before starting your classes.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with neutral accents
  • Teachers from the Philippines are preferred
  • Native speakers
  • Bachelor’s degree needed for non-native speakers
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate needed for non-native speakers
  • No prior experience needed

Verbling

Verbling is an online teaching platform where students can take English lessons with professional teachers. They offer a fast-paced and competitive online teaching platform for several languages besides English. Their main goal is to connect language students with competent language teachers for private lessons through live video chat. They strive to have language teachers online 24/7, in order to cover all of the time zones globally. This means that there will be a lot opportunities for you to fill out your schedule.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with fluent and neutral accent (C2 level)
  • Native speakers
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate is meriting
  • Need prior documented teaching experience
  • Can teach other languages than English

WaiJiaoYi

Waijiaoyi is a modern educational company located in Beijing, China. The company uses state of the art green room technology to offer a new variant of language learning to students across Mainland China. Their teachers work in their interactive virtual reality environment, where they can interact with characters and elements in order to engage the students through fun games and activities. They are providing online English teaching services to schools and language centers all over China, meaning that there will be a lot of job opportunities for their teachers.

Requirements

  • Non-native speakers with fluent and neutral accent
  • Native speakers
  • TESOL/TEFL certificate is meriting
  • Passionate and energetic tutors

Summary

As you’ve probably realized by now, there are plenty of opportunities out there for you to explore if you are a fluent but non-native English teacher. The above-mentioned online tutoring platforms all offer online teaching opportunities for both native-speakers, but most importantly also for non-native English tutors. We hope that this list will serve you well when looking for your next online English teaching job.