VIPKid - Teach English Online

[Davis Blank - EG]

Just mentioning this as from time to time people here ask about supplemental income.  My friend's wife teaches part-time on VIPKid.com.  The work pays $11-12 per 25 minute class + brief followup review.  My friend says that to get the job you most host or film mock classes and the key to success is all about being very animated and fun.  I tutored physics / math for 3 years and agree that all that matters is having the kid like you - if you are fun, the kid loves you, the parents love you.

Anyhow, I hope this can be of use to some people.

[Josephine87]

FYI: they require a bachelor's degree.

[Fleur-de-Lys]

[…] the key to success is all about being very animated and fun.

That rules me out then. 

[Davis Blank - EG]

[…] the key to success is all about being very animated and fun.

That rules me out then. 

I think the key to getting the job position is putting up a mock class or two in which you are highly animated.  I do not think that is key though to being likeable by the students.  When I tutored I was not animated, but I was just out of college and easily related to high school kids and their school lives.  Also I added in a fair bit of life lessonsz taking on the role of big brother.

Presumably VIPKid, given that I think it's primarily TEFL for mainland Chinese, is probably younger students.  But there are still ways to get them to like you.

Also if you've never done it before, the way a person comes across on video is vastly different from in person.  What is normal and warm in person is sterile and awkward on video.  Wild hand gesticulations and head movement (leaning in etc), on video, look normal and warm (but feel ridiculous while doing it).

[Fleur-de-Lys]

I’m not really looking for employment, Davis. Just reminiscing about my days as a “mean” teacher. You know, the kind that made the students do lots of tedious hard work. Yet, contrary to the stereotype, I was well liked by my students. Well, most of them anyway. 

[Davis Blank - EG]

I had assumed you were not but made the comments because upon re-reading my initial brief post I realized I left out much I had intended to say.

As a student my favorite teachers were those whom had command of the classroom, or for an irrelevant subject a teacher who was friendly.  When I went into tutoring I had assumed people would care much about results, but I found that many, student and parent alike, just wanted me to be friendly.  The many times I went the extra mile (or 10) to extensively try to get a student to handle some aspect of math, it always fell flat.  The students never did the extra work, the handcrafted lessons were never enforced by the parents, it was always for waste.  Of all my many students, I think only a few (and their parents) cared about results.  The reality is most students had zero interest and their parents are only putting the kid in there as a CYA act, so that when junior flops out of physics or math the parents can act blameless "but we paid for private tutoring!"