The Desktop Application, where all teaching is done

DaDa ABC, a review of my time with them.

My time working  for DaDa ABC

I have been working for DaDaABC since 2018, and I’ve worked about six hours a week for them since I started.

It can be quite difficult to work more than three hours in a single day as all of their students are school-age children. Sometimes a student will request classes outside of that three-hour window, but this is rare and has not happened to me personally.

The company treats its teachers well. Onboarding is a constant struggle for them, as they are constantly hiring new teachers. Because of this, they tend to prioritize new teachers. If you have worked there for a while, you will find that you don’t get the same amount of attention and your empty time slots fill more slowly.

The DaDa Teacher App


The website and teaching platform are very intuitive. Teaching on their custom platform is one of the easiest parts of the job because they pre-load each class with the teaching materials. You just need to prepare the lesson and you will find it to be very simple.


All classes in DaDa are one-on-one. My students have ranged in age from about 3 years  up to early teens. DaDa teaches children up to the age of 16. Many of the younger students either know no English or next to no English, so learning a small amount of Mandarin is helpful. Simple commands like “repeat after me,” “where is the (object),” or “what is this” make lessons with less advanced students significantly easier. Dada provides video lessons on helpful Chinese phrases to new teachers, and I still found what I learned in these lessons useful.

The Pay


Pay has been a strange issue. I have only been working there for two and a half years, and I believe my rate of pay has changed four times. At first, I was paid in RMB, so the rate would fluctuate depending on the exchange rate between that and my native currency, sometimes being as much as $18 per hour ($9 for a half-hour class). They then instituted a “step-up” program, which increased the pay if you worked more hours in a month. That has since been scrapped in favour of a flat $15 an hour rate. This was all communicated in a confusing way, but eventually, it was understood well.


The pay deductions occur if you are late to too many classes in a month, or if you miss any classes at all. This seems fair – you were unable to perform your duties. There are exceptions, like if you get a note from your doctor. They are very understanding about these one-off interruptions. I once missed an entire day because I became suddenly ill and I had no problem emailing the office and getting my penalty removed. However, I think I did lose a regular student because I left them hanging.


The most I ever earned in a month was $550. This was back when we were paid in RMB and the exchange was very favourable. If I had worked a full schedule that month, I could have earned about $1700.

The schedule


Now, I highly doubt it is possible to work a full schedule. There are so many people working extra hours on DaDa as their other sources of income have dried up, consequently, there are fewer students for everyone. However, if you were to work every day and somehow get all the likely slots filled, you could probably earn $1200-1300.


It is rare to get unsolicited feedback. You may get an email or a message warning you if you have violated any conduct rules, otherwise, you are unlikely to hear back unless you reach out with a question. If you do email support with a question, you will usually hear back quickly and the answer will usually be thorough. This is the one area of frustration with DaDaABC – you don’t get very much communication. While they have tried to improve (such as having a monthly newsletter), you often just don’t get the sense that you are very important to the company. And since they have thousands of teachers all over the world, that is not surprising.

The Desktop Application, where all teaching is done

 

DadaABC only hires native speakers. If you are considering working for DaDa, be aware that right now is a difficult time to start. You will probably not get that many classes due to the lockdowns in many places forcing people to work more online.

However, this is a very good company overall to gain experience with and learn how to help new speakers. Their training is excellent and their requirements are reasonable.

Interested in working in China and want to find out more? Our UK agency ensures that schools are up to top standard and provides an additional layer of protection and reassurance when negotiating issues with your Chinese school. To find out the latest vetted and quality assessed top providers in China check out nooneliterecruitment.com/teach-english-in-china.  

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2 thoughts on “DaDa ABC, a review of my time with them.”

  1. I worked for DaDa briefly as one of the $10/hour teachers which works out to a bit more than $4 dollars per class because classes are 25min.

    Shortly after I took the job I checked some reviews and apparently they cut teachers after their first month for no apparent reason.

    I was a little scared but already hitting it hard. I opened up my slots South Africa time 6 am – 4pm hoping to get classes.

    And BOOM! Classes were filled up back to back without breaks which any teacher knows is insanity. But I pulled it off with some help from my coffee machine (my beautiful wife) 😃.

    Second week I was sure to give myself a lunch break and start a little later. Third/fourth week things were going well.

    However I did have one day where my computer charger cocked out. I sent it to the shop, the school asked for a receipt which I provided. I think I missed 3 classes on that day.

    I also had two students complain. Any ESL teacher will know these are unavoidable – the kids were HORRIBLE and of course it was the teachers fault.

    Baring in mind I was doing about…12 – 16 classes a day. 99 percent left 5 star ratings which I worked damn hard for and still do.

    However come the end of the first month I get this letter stating my contact has been terminated because of the classes I missed when my computer died and the two complaints.

    I was shocked and appalled. However I knew I wasn’t alone because of the review I read before starting work with them.

    So there you have it.

    As the review states, platforms great, students are great but HR stinks. Also it seems there must be some kind of incentive scheme to recycle teachers.

    Out with the old, in with the new – bonus for me is what I’m guessing.

    Also I’m assuming they took advantage of the COVID story. Everyone staying at home, pay the teachers less and treat them like sh*t.

    I don’t know if they’ve changed their policy but there are better schools to work for that pay 2/3 maybe four times the pay.

    No one likes being unappreciated and then dumped like…dunno. No one likes been dumped for no reason.

    That’s my 2c

    1. It does sound quite common though that these online schools can take advantage during Covid times. We can hope that quality of the industry can improve after seeing these reviews!

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