April 29, 2018
It is 3:00 AM. My contacts are in and I actually have on mascara. Why you ask? Because I am waiting for a child in China to come to their computer so that I can teach them English. Now there is something I didn’t think I would EVER say. The problem is, though, that that child has forgotten about me. Well, more likely his/her parent has. Maybe they are eating dinner. Maybe there’s traffic and they haven’t made it home in time. Maybe the child is throwing a tantrum and doesn’t want anything to do with the computer or learning English at the moment. Whatever the reason, it has left me sitting staring at the computer at 3 in the morning!
So, here is Part 1 of my VIPKID Job Review. I have faith I’ll be reviewing again in a year!
My journey with VIPKID started almost a year ago. I saw one of there what seems to be hundreds of ads on Facebook telling me that I could teach at home making almost $20 an hour. For someone who didn’t currently have a job it sure sounded amazing so I fired off an application. Within a day I received an email that my application was accepted and that I was on to the interview stage.
And then I stopped. I began watching videos of other teachers doing the same lesson that I was to teach and they all just seemed so amazing. So peppy. So bright. So energetic. So GOOD. I couldn’t possibly be THAT good. Plus I had to either 1) book an interview with a real person in China (GULP!) or record myself teaching the lesson. Both options just seemed so daunting and so for almost the next 10 months I received email after email asking me to complete my demo but I never followed through.
During those 10 months, Facebook kept bombarding me with the ads of all the happy teachers making a lot of money from home. And I kept hearing of other friends of friends who were actually working for VIPKIDS and loving it. Also, during this ten months we bought a house and money was something I was constantly thinking about. So, I made a phone call to someone I knew who was teaching and loving it. She was sweet enough to answer all my questions and so I decided to take the leap.
The next step of the process was to teach a short demo lesson. I could either do a live lesson with an adult in China acting as a child or record one myself. Recording it myself seemed waaaaaaaaay less daunting so after a lot of practicing on my own and watching a ridiculous amount of YouTube videos of other people’s demo lesson, I recorded my lesson.
**Guess who showed up?! I’ll write more in a bit…..and hopefully not 4 months from now!**
Well, that was interesting. More about that later.
So after recording my demo lesson, I received an email stating that I’d passed and could do my “Mock Class”. Basically it’s another lesson but this time it must be live and it’s two parts: a lower level class and a higher level class. So once again I watched WAAAAAAAAAY to many videos on YouTube and began to psyche myself out. Was I good enough? Was my classroom to plain? Did I need more props? Was I exciting enough? but I told that little voice in my head that said “You can’t” to shut up and I scheduled my mock class and set to practicing my lessons over and over.
The way you teach a VIPKID is so different from the way you teach in a brick and mortar American school. It felt like my first year of teaching 10 years ago when I would review my lessons over and over the night before class. My veteran teacher self laughs thinking about that now and I know in a few weeks my veteran-VIPKID teacher self will be feeling the same way. But none the less, the mock interview felt so daunting so practice-practice-practice is what I did.
The day of the interview/mock class came. I made sure that Matt had Liam entertained and the dogs were out of the way. I could afford no distractions! My interviewer popped up. She was an American VIPKID teacher so just that familiarity put me at ease a bit. But I still felt like a newbie teacher standing in front of her principal for an observation. No one enjoys that! After asking me a few questions about myself she took on the role of a five year old student and I began my first short lesson. Afterwards we talked about good things/things to improve on and then moved on to the next lesson.
I ended up getting my results within ten minutes which was crazy! All the information said to wait 24-48 hours. And, even better, I didn’t have to do a Mock 2 which many teachers have to do. My email simply said that I’d passed my Mock Class and was a great fit for teaching Beginners (hallelujah!) and the next steps I needed to take.
And so my adventure with VIPKIDS began…!
I am on Day 10 now and have taught 3 live classes. There are definitely things I am liking and things that are confusing. And, no, teaching at 3 AM is not the plan. I will do my best to fill you in on this journey (as well as what has been going on in out MT life since I wrote six months ago!) soon.
If you have any interest in beginning your VIPKID journey, feel free to reach out. It took me over a year to make the leap. Maybe I can help you leap a bit faster.
If you are ready to make the leap, click here and I can help you every step of the way!
Be sure to check out these posts for more VIPKID info!
VIPKID Job Review: It’s Been 21 Days
VIPKID Job Review: One Year Later
