PalFish - teach English to a HUGE Chinese market

PALFISH
Honest review by teacher "Mr.Daddy"

PalFish app works on
Android, iOS and limited features
in your PC browser.

I have been scouring the web for over a year, applying for some jobs, and not bothering with others.

My situation is very specific. I need to satisfy the following criteria:

• Flexible hours
• Good pay rate (minimum wage in Australia is $14 USD per hour), as I have six kids to feed
• A slow internet connection is acceptable
• No locked schedule

Straight off the bat, most schools fail on one or more points. That’s why PalFish works so well for me.

However, there are SO MANY features on the PalFish platform, that it works for anyone - including non-native speakers (assuming they have a TEFL-equivalent qualification and decent English).

YES, you heard correctly. Non-native teachers are WELCOME! My best mate from Russia even teaches Russian and English on PalFish. I have encountered some very popular teachers from Serbia, the Americas, Holland and pretty much anywhere.

PalFish is MUCH more than just a teaching platform. There are multiple ways you can make money, and I mean LOTS of money if you’re clever.

The most standard way to earn on PalFish is to simply be online and turn on “Start Tutoring”. This works fine if your per-minute rate isn’t too high, or if you’ve already got a ton of followers who love you and want to talk to you.

But, let’s delve a little deeper and discuss each monetised feature.

SETTING UP
Once you download the app, get verified and are ready to tutor, you need to attract some followers. It’s a bit like Facebook or YouTube, where you need to post “Moments” (more about that soon) in order to showcase the kind of person you are. It’s kinda like advertising.

You need to decide how much to charge per minute (in Chinese Yuan - ¥). Start low until you are in high demand. If your rate is low enough, you will immediately get callers.

Now you need to decide when you’re available for students to book lessons or Freetalk sessions with you. Set your schedule in half-hour blocks. You can change these WHENEVER and HOWEVER OFTEN you want, without penalty - as long as nobody has booked a slot. I LOVE this kind of freedom.

Note, however, that if students book lessons with you, there need to be enough slots available so that they can schedule their lesson.

FREETALK
This is the standard way to make money. Basically, you are online waiting for students to call. Nothing new here, lots of apps have this feature. However, keep in mind that PalFish is probably THE biggest app in China. There are literally millions of students using this app, so you’ve probably got a higher chance of finding students.

LIVE
Everyone on PalFish will tell you that doing regular FREE LIVE lessons is a must. This is true, as lots of students join a free live lesson to check you out. If they like you, they “Follow” you, meaning that every time you update your “Moments” (which is like your Facebook feed) they get a notification.

Getting yourself in front of students is key to getting bookings for Freetalk and for your Lessons and Seminars.

Once you are confident in presenting live shows, you can make paid live shows that you think are valuable enough for people to buy.

HINT: Make them cheap or nobody will buy it. So a ¥2 30-minute live lesson might sound too cheap, but if 20 students enrol, you’ve just made ¥40.

I have seen GOOD and BAD examples of Live lessons. I’m guilty of doing bad/hopeful ones, trying to charge too much before having enough followers and without doing enough FREE live shows.

Some of the current

LIVE shows and replays

I’ve seen popular teachers doing ¥5 shows with 300+ students (do the maths!)

The BRILLIANT thing about live lessons is that once it’s over, it stays on PalFish where additional students can pay the enrolment fee to watch the replay. So a good Live will continue to pay royalties.

During a live show, people can type their questions, but not talk audibly.

Other features include:

• Pay to ask: You can set a fee to answer students questions. If you answer the question, you are paid. If you don’t get around to it, the student keeps their money.
• Donations: Just like Twitch, Patreon etc, students can send you a donation (yes, even during a free live). Don’t forget to say Thank You!

Note: If you do not want to run the app on your Android or iOS you can use a browser version of the Live class platform. This makes using your PC or MAC to conduct a Live lesson possible (and much more versatile).

LESSONS
Here is where you can get creative and sell niche lessons on any topic your imagination can concoct. You upload the slides/photos for your lesson, set the price, write a catchy blurb about your course and start selling.

Your lesson undergoes a screening process, but as long as it’s not terribly bad, it should pass. From there, you share your lessons with your followers and in other groups and try to sell it.

A point of difference about lessons is that they stay active, meaning you can sell, resell and sell again! You have an option to restrict “one per student”, which is useful if it’s a discounted lesson, or not the kind of material you’d teach twice to the same student.

SEMINARS
This is a somewhat new feature that allows you to conduct a seminar for your nominated fee. These are unique in the way that your seminar is like a group class, with up to 6 students - each being able to speak, write on the whiteboard and interact.

The seminar is set up and scheduled for a certain date. If one student joins the seminar, you are committed to running that lesson. More students can join that lesson, up to a maximum of six students (so ultimately, you want all six spots filled, so you can get a maximum return).

This means, if you have a ¥25 seminar that lasts 25 minutes and 4 students join, you make ¥100 for running that seminar. Not bad!

OFFICIAL TEACHERS
PalFish is hiring Official teachers. You can apply through the app and organise an interview and demo class.

There are huge benefits for being an official teacher, in that they really promote you, send the students your way, give you lots of trial students and provide all the course material.

There is a tiered payment system where the more 25 min classes you teach, the more you are paid per hour. The base rate is ¥50 per 25 min class, PLUS an extra ¥5 if you are on time to class (i.e. ¥55 per class, or ¥110 per hour).

You will also get a nifty PalFish T-shirt at some point (I don’t know when, since I’m not an official teacher).

MOMENTS
As mentioned earlier, Moments is like your Facebook feed. Keep adding your news, video blogs etc to your feed in order to get students interacting with you and following you. This is your key to attracting them to your future Live events, lessons and knowing when you’re online for a Freetalk session.

ABOUT STUDENTS
What kind of teaching method you choose will influence the kind of students you get. With the advent of their Official Teachers, PalFish is focusing on young learners, so the bulk of those young students will choose official PalFish courses.

However, parents still may find non-official teachers, especially if you have lessons that interest their child.

On the other hand, there is a huge population of teen/adult learners on PalFish, and these guys are more likely to use Freetalk, Live lessons and Seminars. They will pick and choose lessons that grab their attention, and Freetalk with teachers that are cool and interesting.

Like most Chinese platforms, students are usually online during the peak period, Beijing time, and this is the recommended time to be online. However, there’s a possibility adults will call at any time, so keeping yourself online will give you a higher chance of catching a student who’s browsing the teacher list.

SUMMARY
I’m super impressed with this professional app. I’ve watched it grow over the past year and it’s blowing competition out of the water (I’ve tried PopOn, Nicetalk and others).

If you have time to promote yourself, build a following and maybe even become an official teacher, you can make a good wage.

Clever entrepreneurs can even make a small fortune.

There is so much more to the app, and more being developed with every new release.

There is a referral program, so if you refer other teachers or students, you are awarded ¥20 when they join. For that reason, I hope you will use the following link if you decide PalFish is for you. This is my affiliate link.

Once you’re on the inside, I’ll get a notification and I’ll say “HELLO”. I’ll also guide you through the app.

JOIN NOW

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