You may not have been teaching for all of your career, but you are a problem-solver, and you genuinely enjoy helping people solve problems.You are empathic, excel at building and maintaining relationships, and believe in constantly striving to improve yourself. If you’ve been nodding your head as you read this and perhaps even smiling to yourself, you’re probably a perfect fit for our team. 

Lang-8 is a rapidly growing startup based in Tokyo, Japan. We develop services and applications to support language learning throughout the world. We are dedicated to helping people connect with each other despite language or cultural barriers, and believe that by doing so, we’re doing our part to help build a better world. Our products include a Q&A language learning application called HiNative, and an English learning service called HiNative Trek. 

Why Work With Us? 

You’ll be joining a dynamic, talented team of professionals who are as passionate as you are. You’ll also have plenty of opportunity to work with people from around the world. This position does not require you to commute to work and can be done from the comfort of your own home. You’ll also directly control the amount of work you do! 

About HiNative and HiNativeTrek 

HiNative is a Q&A app designed to support language learning and promote cultural exchange. It is available on Android, iOS, and can also be accessed from a web browser. We currently have over 2 million registered users worldwide, and we were featured in Google Play’s Best of 2017 (Japan). 

HiNative Trek is a language learning service delivered via the HiNative app. We offer courses that have been designed to teach students practical English for use in professional environments. Students who have enrolled in a course receive a task every day, and they receive feedback from their teachers on a daily basis. We offer many different task types

designed to test students’ ability to write, read, speak, and understand English. Every task is designed so that it can be completed in 10 minutes or less. 

Your Role 

You will be supporting a group of students as they progress through one or more of the courses we offer via the HiNative Trek service. You will be working with adult students who natively speak the languages we support. These include Japanese, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Korean, and Russian. We expect you to be able to support at least 20 students, but you are free to set your maximum class size to a higher number. Students typically have basic to intermediate English ability and are business or IT professionals. Although you will record voice samples for your students, you are not required to converse with students real-time. All interactions with students take place online via the HiNative app. 

Responsibilities 

• Correct students’ written responses to the problems they receive every day, ensure that their writing is grammatically correct and that the language they have used is natural and appropriate to the context relevant to the task. 
• Record a spoken version of the corrected response, ensuring that your pronunciation is clear and accurate. 
• Critique students’ pronunciation and offer them tips to improve their accuracy, rhythm, and intonation. 
• Explain the edits you make to student work. This will require you to introduce and clarify grammatical concepts, and explain why you selected the 

vocabulary and expressions you recommended. 

• Answer follow-up questions that your students ask. 

Minimum Qualifications 

To be considered for this position you must have: 

• Resided for a minimum of 12 years in the US 
• A bachelor’s degree 
• At least one year of work experience in a professional business, IT, or startup environment 
• Prior experience teaching or editing English
• A flexible schedule Monday to Friday between the hours of 12 pm and 5 pm (JST) 
• The ability to work independently 
• The ability to manage your time effectively 

Preferred Qualifications 

• The ideal candidate will have one to three years experience teaching English to adult ESL students. Experience editing English is also an asset. 
• We prefer candidates who reside in Japan, Korea, or China. 
• We also prefer candidates who have intermediate to advanced ability with one or more of the languages we support (Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Korean, or Russian). 

Note to Residents of Japan 

If you reside in Japan, you must have a valid work visa that allows you to work outside educational institutions or request permission from Japanese Immigration to work outside an educational institution. This is a teaching position, but we are an IT company.