The Complete Guide to Teaching Online with PK Fish

PK Fish is an exciting new ESL company and one of the best online English teaching employers on the market right now. They offer a very generous pay rate, guaranteed hours, and great teacher support. If you think you might be interested in working for PK Fish, you’re in the right place.  

In this guide, we’ll explore all the must-know PK Fish information like pay, scheduling, job requirements, classes, and more. We’ll also be walking you through the hiring process and sharing some PK Fish reviews. Let’s get started!

About PK Fish

PK Fish (WuHao) is a newcomer to the online ESL market and was only recently founded in 2017. However, they’ve grown quickly and have already become one of the biggest and most successful English learning platforms in China with over 5,000 students and 1,000 teachers.

Part of the reason for this success is their fresh approach to online ESL teaching and learning. They aim to offer the highest standards of education and focus on small group classes, which they believe is crucial to helping students to acquire real English communication and cooperation skills. They also follow Gagne’s nine levels of learning and the flipped classroom approach to teaching.

Unlike other companies, PK Fish recognizes that their teachers are their biggest strength and understands that happy teachers are good teachers. For that reason, they have some of the fairest policies and best support systems of any current online employer – all of which is great news for anyone looking for an online teaching job.

What are the requirements to teach for PK Fish?

PK Fish will only consider applicants that can commit to at least 6 hours of work per week, have a Bachelor’s degree AND meet at least ONE of the following three criteria:

• Hold a degree related to Education
• 6+ months teaching-related experience (this can include things like childcare and youth tutoring)
• Relevant teaching certification (CELTA, TEFL, TESOL, or teaching license)

Aside from that, you’ll also need to be able to demonstrate a few personal qualities, such as excellent communication skills, creativity, organizational skills, and computer proficiency.

Unfortunately, PK Fish only hires tutors from North America. If you’re a native speaker but you’re not authorized to work in the US, Canada, or China, you might want to apply for a different company without these requirements (like SayABC) instead.

If you don’t have a degree but you’re currently studying towards one, your application may still be accepted, as long as you meet all other requirements.

What about tech requirements?

To teach with PK Fish, you also need to have a:

• Computer/laptop with a webcam (or an external webcam)
• Headset with microphone
• Stable internet connection (4 Mbps upload speed & 10 Mbps download speed minimum)
• Quiet, clean space to teach from

Now let’s move on to the good stuff – the pay!

What does PK Fish pay?

PK Fish advertises a basic pay rate of $15-$18 per 40 minutes, which works out at $22.50 – $27 per hour. The rate you’re offered depends on your credentials and performance in the trial class. Right off the bat, this is a very competitive pay rate, but it gets better. PK Fish also offers a bunch of bonuses that can bump up your earnings, like:

• Performance Bonus – $3 USD per class when you complete 18 classes in a row without any problems (complaints, lateness, etc).
• Busy Bee Bonus – $50 USD monthly bonus for completing 60+ classes, or 24+ classes during in-demand time slots
• Active Teacher Bonus – $100 quarterly bonus for teaching 126+ classes in 3 months

They also offer other participation and performance incentives. 

What’s also great is that PK Fish pays teachers for their time, not for their classes. In other words, you’ll still be paid for standby time during your fixed class schedule even if your students don’t turn up. 

The maximum is you can teach with PK Fish is 18 hours per week. If you were to teach all 18 hours at the specified hourly rate, you’d earn $405 – $486 per week. Not half bad, right? Teachers are paid in US dollars via direct transfer and are responsible for their own taxes.

What is the interview process for PK Fish?

We’ve broken down the hiring process for PK Fish step by step below. The whole process shouldn’t take longer than a couple of weeks, and you’ll even be reimbursed for your time if you’re successful. PK Fish pay hired teachers $30 for the training and mock lesson. 

Application

The first step is to send off your application. You can do this either via an online application form or by email. For the former, visit this page and fill out your details. Alternatively, send an email to recruitment@wuhaotech.com with your email address, resume, and application date.

Skype Interview & Demo class

If your application is qualified, the next step is to arrange a Skype interview, which will also include a demo class. A recruiter will interview you for around 15 – 20 minutes and ask you some basic questions about yourself and your teaching experience. After that, you’ll be asked to deliver a 10-minute demo lesson. You’ll be provided with the materials for the demo lesson ahead of time so that you can prepare.

Teacher Training

You’ll be notified within 3 days about whether or not you’ve passed the interview. If you did, PK Fish will arrange some ‘teacher preparatory classes’ for you to learn more about the job. They’ll teach you about things like how to use the platform, the curriculum, what’s expected of you as a teacher, and all the other important stuff that you need to know. The whole training process lasts around 3 hours and will take place on the PK Fish platform.

Mock Class

The final step in the applicant assessment process is the mock class. After your training, your trainer will schedule a mock lesson for you. This won’t be with a real student but it will be with a PK Fish staff member who will be pretending to be a student. You’ll have time to prepare for the lesson in advance. The trainer will be assessing your ability as you teach, and you’ll need to score over the pass mark to be offered a teaching position

Contract Signing & Profile Set Up

If you nail it, you’re in. All that’s left to do is to sign your contract, set up your profile, and open up your time slots for teaching. After that, you can start teaching real classes and getting paid!

What is working for PK Fish like?

One thing that’s great about working for PK Fish is that they give you a fixed, stable working schedule. You can choose your own availability by opening up any slots you want to work during PK Fish operating hours, which are shown in the table below.

Once you’ve opened up your time slots and been assigned to classes, you’ll teach those same classes every week for three months. This means you have the opportunity to get used to working with specific students and can really see their progression over time. It also means you’re guaranteed payment for all the classes in your fixed schedule. The only downside is that it’s not super flexible. You’re locked into a set schedule and can only change your availability every three months after the unit has finished.

Lessons are 40 minutes long and take place on the PK Fish interactive platform, which is awesome. There is no lesson planning required as the learning materials are built into the platform slides, but you might want to supplement it with your own visual learning aids and props. 

On the platform, you’ll be able to see all your students, draw on the screen, give out rewards, and more. There are interactive stories and animated characters, songs, games, and activities within the slides that make the lessons fun and engaging. You’ll learn how to use the platform during your training, but if you’re curious, here’s a video sneak peek from the PK Fish YouTube channel.

PK Fish reviews

To find out if PK Fish is really as good as it sounds, I scoured the internet to find PK Fish reviews from teachers that have worked there. To be honest, I’m pretty impressed with what I found.

Usually, reviews from online teaching companies tend to be very mixed, and there’s usually a lot of negative ones floating around. For PK Fish, however, the vast majority of them are positive. Their overall score on Glassdoor is 4.⅗, and an impressive 87% of reviewers would recommend them to a friend. Here’s one glowing review from a very happy teacher.

And for balance, here’s one from a not-so-happy teacher too.

Resources & FAQs

Here are some commonly asked questions about PK Fish.

Can you teach for PK Fish without a degree?  

No, unless you are currently a university student working towards a degree.

Do you have to be a native speaker to teach with PK Fish? 

Yes, PK Fish only accepts native English speakers with North American accents.

Do you need a TEFL to work for PK Fish? 

You do not need a TEFL if you also hold a degree related to Education or have at least 6 month’s teaching experience. If you don’t meet either of these criteria, you need a TEFL.

OK, that about covers everything you need to know about teaching for PK Fish. As always, feel free to let us know your thoughts and questions in the comments. If you’re still not sure that PK Fish is the right company for you, check out our other guides to teaching English online to explore your options. 

Good luck!