Lingueo Review Summary

Lingueo offers 1v1 online training in 17 languages, primarily for French professionals. They pay around €12/hr for Native-speaking certified teachers with 5 years of experience and some knowledge of French, with no degree required. While there is potential for long-term classes, student numbers can be inconsistent.

Lingueo Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Open to Native teachers of 17 languages
• No degree required
• Several payment methods available
• Potential for long-term student bookings (5-50 hours)
• 1v1 classes

Cons:

• Mediocre pay
• Prep time uncompensated
• Required to have 5 years of language teaching experience with some French-speaking ability
• Lack of training/coaching
• Number of student bookings can be inconsistent

What Is Lingueo and Is It Legit?

Lingueo is a legitimate language-learning website that was founded in 2007 in Paris, France. Their legitimacy is underlined by the fact that Lingueo training has been provided to more than 500 organizations, including major international companies such as Air France, as well as 50,000+ individual students.

Lingueo currently offers online courses covering 17 languages, facilitated by over 600 Native instructors:

1. English
2. German
3. Spanish
4. Italian
5. Chinese
6. Japanese
7. Portuguese
8. Russian
9. French Sign Language
10. Arabic
11. FLE (Français Langue Etrangère)
12. Dutch
13. Korean
14. Norwegian
15. Polish
16. Vietnamese
17. Romanian

As the students are predominantly French adults, Lingueo requires its teachers to possess some knowledge of this language in addition to their native tongue, however, they do not need to be fluent in it.

The professional background of many students also means that classes cater toward business language, resume-writing, presentations and interview preparation, as well as conversational pronunciation and grammar.

Guidelines are provided on how to conduct a Lingueo class. Teachers are required to write-up progression notes for their students at the end of each lesson, as well as a report (on grammar, comprehension, expression, vocabulary, and accent) and grade (according to the CEFR) at the end of a course. Lingueo courses build towards LILATE certifications.

Lingueo uses Microsoft Teams (teachers are forbidden from using any other platform), and a written guide is also provided on how to use this.

Below is a short video introducing the company and its teaching philosophy:

Lingueo Salary Information

The Lingueo pay rate is around €12 an hour, with the opportunity of a raise after 6 months.

Teachers submit an invoice at the start of each month, with payments issued from the 6th. Lingueo teachers may choose to receive their earnings via the following methods:

• Eurozone bank transfer
• Wise
• PayPal
• Payoneer

Lingueo Hours and Schedule

Lingueo allows students to book classes 24/7, though teachers set their availability. Students are assigned to teachers according to:

• The general availability of teachers (on what the student is searching for)
• Teachers that are available soonest
• Whether the student has already been scheduled with a teacher (for another training)
• Teachers’ scores (calculated 70% by student reviews, 30% by teacher absences)

Students will book a program of 5-50 hours, with the first 3 lessons usually used by the teacher to determine the base language level they are working with.

Reports must be completed within 6 hours of a lesson’s start time, and Lingueo allows teachers to use the last 3 minutes of a class for writing this up.

Lingueo Requirements

Lingueo teachers must meet the following requirements:

• Be able to give classes in their native language
• Have at least 5 years of experience teaching said language
• Some French-speaking ability
• Must be registered as self-employed/freelance in their country of residence and able to charge for such services
• Certified to teach and able to provide documentary proof in color
• Tech savviness, with the ability to teach using Microsoft Teams
• A gift for communicating their passion and motivation

Lingueo Application Process

The Lingueo teacher application form requests the following information:

1. Full name
2. Full email address
3. Cell number (+ area code)
4. Language you wish to teach:
   • English
   • German
   • Spanish
   • Italian
   • Chinese
   • Japanese
   • Portuguese
   • Russian
   • French Sign Language
   • Arabic
   • FLE (Français Langue Etrangère)
   • Dutch
   • Korean
   • Norwegian
   • Polish
   • Vietnamese
   • Romanian
5. Written description of yourself (spoken languages + level, teaching experience, personality, what you like about teaching your native language)
6. Your CV (Add file)

Applicants invited to interview will be asked further about their qualifications and experience.

Lingueo Reviews – What Is It Like Working for Lingueo?

The Lingueo Glassdoor page gives the company an overall score of 3.8 out of 5, with 49% willing to recommend them, though this comes from just 9 reviews at the time of writing. I have collated all the comments below, which talk positively about the management, flexible hours, teaching platform, and pre-prepared lessons, though there are complaints about the lack of advancement and training, declining pay, uncompensated prep time, and insufficient students:

• Advantages:
  • “Fully remote, Good starting salary, Chance for a raise, Good management
  • Pros would be the fact that you can/could program your hours as you see/saw fit… pay was acceptable. Communication was so-so, etc.
  • Flexible hours, work from home, some pre-prepared lessons available
  • The Lingueo platform uses MS Teams which most people are familiar with so it’s relatively easy to work with. It allows you to view upcoming lessons quickly and easily as well as to adjust levels quickly and efficiently.
  • flexible working hours, high pay, work from home, work-life balance, freedom in choosing your topic
  • A great company to work for pays on time. Good salary.
  • very good employer to work for”
• Disadvantages:
  • “Not a lot of room for professional advancement, but this is normal for this kind of work.
  • After they changed status, from start-up to full fledged company, they were hit by the high French taxes… and one could feel that they were doing all (trying to find all and any way) they could do get more money coming in then really putting their students in first possession/importance . In other words, money first then students. Thus, the quality became lesser and lesser. I guess that there is more to be said, but… that is it for me. Oh, yes… last echo I got was they were (might have changed by now) taking-on Language teachers from countries were the cost of living/standard of living is/was cheaper (I think, like India) to still charge the same prices for the learners, but lower pay for the teachers.
  • Not paid for prep time, lots of different preps to meet individual student needs
  • It would be helpful if the teaching staff had more notification time when changes are made or, in particular when there are technical issues.
  • few students, no training, no coaching, onboarding should be improved
  • Not enough regular hours can be problematic for a person seeking stable income.”

The Lingueo Indeed page only lists 4 reviews currently, averaging 4.3 out of 5. These corroborate points made about the amount of prep time, the good platform, excellent support staff, schedule autonomy, low pay and lack of security from inconsistent students:

• “I am able to select my working schedule... Excellent support staff!
• No pay increase for a few years. Sometimes you get students, sometimes you don’t. Need to prep for individual students needs. Requires a ton of material.
• It is a good online class platform, easy to use.
• I’ve been happy working there, yet the salary is low and there is no job security. Some months are better than others. We don’t get any sick days or paid vacation. There are no benefits... students can cancel any moment and [then] no pay”

Conclusion – Is Lingueo Worth It?

The fact that it requires 5 years of teaching experience with some knowledge of French means that Lingueo will appeal to a narrower demographic than many other teaching companies. If you qualify, then they do provide an opportunity to teach several native languages beyond English, though it seems difficult to build up a full-time schedule here. For more opportunities, check out our full list of online teaching jobs.