Pros
flexible hours, for the actual work involved the pay is reasonable (you get paid for all booked time, not just student hours), the lesson material is easy to understand without much preparation.
Cons
It is possible to book into a lesson slot up to a minute before the lesson time - meaning you have no time to prepare. Although teaching material is given to you, it's often the wrong level for the student and you are unable to provide an alternative. Some students don't speak any English and don't even try. Teachers aren't required to speak Mandarin, but students expect that you can. I'm glad I speak some basics, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten anywhere. Customer Service sucks - rather than working in-screen, you have to open a new skype/QQ, wait for them to add you and then explain your problem. A lot of them don't answer the teacher once they've found out the student is trying or cancelling. Some don't answer at all, and the system times out after 2 minutes - meaning that you can't do anything (you can only click the button once). QQ is a horrible interface that is not constructed for online teaching, full of bugs and not practical (especially when sharing audio). It makes sense to stick with what customers know, but skype or Inclass are competent, and unused. No one helps with technical issues - my QQ doesn't send invite requests to students, so I have to contact customer service every time in order to get them to phone the student, to add me. This then means if I need other customer service, I cannot ask for it.
