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VIPKid is an online platform for Chinese students to learn English with a native speaker as a teacher. It has exploded in popularity, especially as many people are looking for remote work and ways to teach English online. However, a common question continues to be asked: Is VIPKID legit?
Well, continue reading this review of VIPKid to find out whether or not VIPKid is legit!
VIPKid hires native English speakers with a Bachelor’s degree in any subject and at least 1 year of teaching experience with children. The teaching experience can be coaching, mentoring, tutoring, etc. It is not limited to teaching in a traditional school.
They put together all the lessons, so there is no lesson planning involved. The most any teacher will have to do is preview the lesson before the class if they want to feel more comfortable with it. This is a huge benefit to the VIPKid teachers because lesson planning takes up a lot of time.
The hiring process is probably the most time consuming and tedious part. Your VIPKid interview will consist of a short interview with an experienced teacher and a mock class in which they act like a student and you give a short class.
Find out How to Pass Your VIPKid Mock Class and Interview!
After the mock class, they will give you feedback and submit it to VIPKid. A few days later you will find out if you got the job or not. If you did not receive a job offer, you can do the mock class again. In fact, you can continue to do it until you pass.
Check out our post on Teaching English Online for VIPKid.
VIPKid lets you do the interview and mock class as many times as you need because this is where they teach you how to become a good teacher with VIPKid. Teaching online is way different than teaching in a regular classroom, so there are things they want you to do that fit within their teaching style, even if it isn’t how you would teach.
The almost fake teaching style that VIPKid wants teachers to use is one of the biggest downfalls to working with VIPKid. Every teacher has their own style, and every student works best with different teachers. Overly bubbly and animated teachers might work great for little kids with next to no attention spans, but it doesn’t work well with older students who find this type of teacher cheesy and almost demeaning. Remember that once you start teaching, you can teach the way you want because during the interview process, it does seem like VIPKid wants fake teachers.
The moral of the story is to continue to doing the interview and teaching in the VIPKid style until you get the job. And once you get the job, you can teach more in your own style as long as the students and their parents like you as the teacher.
Working with VIPKid you can earn between $15-$22 per hour. The more experience you have and the more classes you teach will bump you up in that hourly rate. While the salary is not super high, it is very good for a fairly easy job. As a VIPKid teacher, VIPKid does all the legwork for you. You simply have to wake up on time, sit in front of your computer, and enthusiastically deliver the classes to your students.
Check out our post on Pros and Cons of Teaching for VIPKid.
The more often you teach and the more you have regular students and open time slots, the more classes you will get. If you start teaching a lot, back off, and then continue again, your time slots probably will fill up slowly. As you continue teaching, they will fill up more regularly. This is because parents want someone they know will always be there, so their children will have a regular teacher.
As you continue teaching lessons on VIPKid, all the lessons for all the units at all the levels will just start to blend together. They become fairly monotonous, and it can feel like you are just going through a script. It can be hard to wake up, especially if it’s early, and do the same thing everyday. However, just keep in mind that, again, this is easy money.
So let’s get back to the original question of Is VIPKid legit?
Yes, VIPKid is legit.
You can make very good money with VIPKid. It is fairly easy once you get through the interview process and learn how to teach like a VIPKid teacher. While it can be boring and feel monotonous, you can work from home, choose your own hours, and earn great money that you can put towards traveling more, savings, or anything else your heart desires.
If you are interested in teaching for VIPKid, here is our VIPKid referral code.
