Iboux Review Summary

Iboux is an Irish-Brazilian education company hiring Native Speakers in English, French and Spanish to teach adults and children 1v1 or 1v2 in 30 or 60-minute classes. They pay $8-15 an hour, want teaching experience, either a teaching certificate or degree, and 20 hours availability a week (with 15 guaranteed).

Iboux Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Guaranteed number (15 hours) of classes per week
• Class materials and personalized study plans are provided by Instructional Designers
• Teachers are supported by an Academic Advisor

Cons:

• Only open to Native Speakers of English, French and Spanish
• Must provide 20 hours availability a week
• Relatively low pay has been reported
• Teachers are paid in Euros so subject to currency conversions
• No control over how you teach/methodology

Is Iboux Legit?

Iboux is a legitimate online teaching company that has been in business since 2012, with headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Dublin, Ireland. Since then it has helped ‘tens of thousands of students from all over the world’ learn the languages of English, French and Spanish with a curriculum that is compliant with the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). It utilizes over 170 teachers and academic advisors located across 20 countries, whose satisfaction is evident by a low staff turnover rate of less than 1%. Underlining the company’s legitimacy is an Iboux Trustpilot score of 4.8 out of 5 from over 800 reviews, demonstrating that students are also overwhelmingly satisfied with the tuition and service they receive.

What Is Iboux Education?

Iboux Education is an online platform that allows people to learn English, French, and Spanish from Native-Speaking teachers. Most students come from Latin America or Europe.

The classes are largely one-on-one and are 30 minutes long, unless the student wishes to take a class in conjunction with a friend, in which case they pay for a 1v2 class lasting 60 minutes.

Iboux offers a Young Learners (YL) curriculum, specifically designed for children between 5-11 years of age. For adults, there is also a dedicated Business English aimed at levels B1-C2

Iboux Virtual Lessons – How They Work

Students take a free introductory class lasting 30 minutes to allow for a baseline of competencies to be assessed. Students may purchase 30-minute classes in packages of 10, 30, 60 or 90, while the 60-minute classes are bought in quantities of 20, 60, 120 and 180. These classes can be scheduled at any time the student wants and have no expiration date. 

Iboux students are given a choice of 4 teachers who are matched by their profile and schedule, and the students may cancel or change their classes with 24 hours’ notice. Iboux teachers set their own availability within the blocks of Early Morning (6am-9am), Morning (9am-12pm), Afternoon (12pm-3pm), Late Afternoon (3pm-6pm), and Evening (6pm-9pm).

Lesson plans, teaching materials and class outlines are provided, and Iboux uses the LearnCube virtual classroom, with the company providing this video testimony regarding the platform’s functionality:

To provide an insight into how an Iboux lesson is typically conducted, here is a video recording of one of their English Intermediate classes:

Iboux Salary Information

The Iboux pay rate is not openly advertised by the company, which is always a little suspicious and usually hints at disparities based on location or nationality rather than qualifications and experience. While the company pays in Euros, we have had it reported that Iboux teachers receive the equivalent of between US$8-$15 an hour.

Iboux Hours

Iboux teachers are able to choose the days and hours they wish to work, within the windows of Early Morning (6am-9am), Morning (9am-12pm), Afternoon (12pm-3pm), Late Afternoon (3pm-6pm), and Evening (6pm-9pm). However, they must offer 20 hours of availability each week, with the company guaranteeing that at least 15 hours of these will be filled.

Iboux classes last either 30 minutes (for one-on-one) or 60 minutes (for one-on-two).

Iboux Requirements

• English speaker
• Native Speaker in the language being taught (English, French, or Spanish)*
• Language teaching certificate OR a relevant university degree
• Some teaching or tutoring experience
• Must be available for at least 20 hours a week

*Most Iboux teachers come from the USA, UK, France, Brazil and other Latin American countries, though location is not important so long as you are a Native Speaker of either English, French or Spanish.

How to Become a Teacher for Iboux – Iboux Application Process

To apply to become a teacher for the company, visit the Iboux website and complete the application form with the following information:

• your first and last name
• email address
• your native language
• whether you grew up in the country of your native language
• list any degrees or certificates you have and in what fields
• hours of availability including weekends
• availability to start
• why you are interested in teaching online
• provide two professional references with professional email addresses
• upload your resume

Once this form has been sent, you will receive an email confirming that you will be contacted if and when a job becomes available that matches your profile. 

Iboux Reviews

There are not a huge number of online reviews about Iboux. The Iboux Glassdoor page gives the company an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5, with 85% willing to recommend them, though comes from just 8 reviews (at the time of writing). Below is a summary of the positive and negative Iboux opinions that are mentioned there:

• Advantages:
  • “Reliability of classes, people care and flexibility of schedule is great. Great students and a range of teaching opportunity”
  • “Fantastic team of teachers, big company but seems very personal, look after staff and always have classes for teachers”
  • “Flexible schedule Great support Positive work environment”
• Disadvantages:
  • “focus on income over teachers / students – real student outcomes are less important than keeping students happy – horrible pay for teachers – online platform is terrible – communication with management is non-existent”

Conclusion – Is Iboux Worth It?

The main appeal in Iboux is the offer of guaranteed hours (15 a week), especially as teachers at some other companies are expected to give up large chunks of availability without compensation if they do not receive bookings during that time. While the views of students and existing teachers are mostly positive, there are relatively few of them in the latter case, meaning there is an element of uncertainty about what it’s really like to work there, and the reported pay may be considered too low for some to take that risk.

You can apply to Iboux here.

A full list of online teaching companies can be found here.