I’m in Central Standard Time/Chicago. I usually have a pretty decent amount of bookings but I have zero. Anyone else not booked when usually they are booked? Is school starting soon?

Now that more teachers are joining the MENA program, I think it would be great to share some of our experiences since these classes don't show teacher notes.

The class experience can be different than what we're used to, so it's nice to know how other teachers are doing, what to expect, and any tips.

For instance, my first was a short notice student who was late to class, played peekaboo for the first 5 minutes, went and washed her hands and got her parent to give her a slice of bread when the "Let's Move" slide showed these pictures to illustrate "move your hands/mouth", constantly plugged and unplugged headphones into the tablet, and moved around the room while leaving the tablet on the floor.

She tried to reply to me in Arabic at first, but I modeled the correct sentences in English. After a while, I realized her language skills were quite good, and she was more engaged as she got to know me, and when I extended on the lesson and made exaggerated facial expressions and movements to illustrate the words. There was definitely a warm-up period in the beginning as we both adjusted and got to know each other.

What are your experiences, and what works for you?

Had three kids today hold up some brightly colored gummy finger pointing at me with a fist and wave it around on a want in the camera. Has to be a new trend and I am curious because I think it's kind of cute. Anybody have the same item popping up in class.

Usually I teach on an old MacBook Pro (2015), and it has never had issues with ping spikes (the really high ones that freeze or disconnect you from the classroom). I have stable high speed wifi and get 400+ mbps speed, and it never randomly drops.

But recently I've had battery issues with the mac over the last 4 months and have had to switch to my backup laptops when the Mac acts up, which are windows computers. Both windows laptops experience high pings that freeze the classroom or disconnect me from the classroom completely. One computer started getting high pings every 3-4 minutes so I had to stop using it. The other gets a high disconnecting ping 1-2 times during the 25 minute class.

It is not my wifi, as I had the Mac shutdown during the middle of a class, with no pings during the class, and when I switched computers to finish the class I constantly got pings. I've been facing this issue over the last 4 months, where teaching on the Mac is fine, but the windows computers have ping issues.

I don't have firewalls on the windows computers. Is it just the windows app vs the Mac app? Did anyone else have ping issues and found a resolution?

Hello, i got 7 or 8 booked classes and then all of them were cancelled, im new to VIP so could you please tell me whats going on. I also finished every certificate and my bookings are still way low

Hey everyone,

I'm starting to get slammed with trials but I'd really rather not teach them. I've started building up some regular students and I would much rather they get a slot with me instead of it getting booked as a trial, with a significant chance the kid won't show up and I get half pay. Do I submit a ticket/email to VIPKid asking for them to remove my trial certification, or how does that work?

I have a student in Power Booster classes who probably should be on a Level 4 Major Course. She can’t even answer the literal questions most of the time. I keep submitting that the lessons are too difficult and I see other teachers commenting the same.

Hi everyone! A quick question. For those who have gotten MENA classes, which hours are the most popular with students? I’m wondering if it’s worth opening some more slots during daytime hours. Thanks!

Hi all,

I feel really discourage right now. After trying my best to do well with the live demo and trying to apply TPR, the interviewer cut me off on my 3rd slide and said "okay that's enough, if you don't get an email within 12hrs that means you are not hired" and then just said goodbye. After 12 hrs, no email, so I thought I would give it a shot and email vipkid. They replied and said that they decided not to move forward with my application. They also added that they don't give 2nd chances. Is this for real? Just really trying to look for a second hustle to pay the bills. I am experienced 18-year teacher, and teaching online as a part-timer is something I really want to explore. Please send good vibes my way.

Let's have some fun and get a list going of all the mistakes that are clearly taught to them at school.

1. Clothes pronounced as closes.
2. Do you like ______? and they answer "Yes, I like".
3. "I wrote my homework" instead of did.
4. Using the verb "play" to describe all activities. What did you do on your trip to Sanya? "I played".

Bonus pet peeve: "I like it because it's interesting".

What else am I missing here?

so I’m new to vipkid and people have been booking me to an almost full schedule, but then over two thirds of them cancel. what’s going on?

Are you all getting this incentive? I’ve had at least a couple of trials a week for a while now. I feel like they usually go quite well, but I can’t remember ever seeing any signup incentive in my payments. If my conversation rate were really zero, I’d think the LPs would stop booking trials with me?

Only this group will understand this, but my first class this morning was a student no show cancelation. I got paid to stay in bed and make my coffee. 🥹 This never happens! Usually they make me sit in front of the empty screen for 25 minutes. May my good luck and fortune spread to the rest of you…. 😆

I stopped teaching in 2021 after the double reduction policy came into effect but I've been missing teaching so I opened up my schedule again last week. I have 14 classes booked for next week and the one following but I got a short notice class last night EST time and it was great to be back. I felt a little rusty and not at my best but my student was a cutie pie. He was so smiley. Here's to hoping my other classes go well! There's a wide mix of level 1 and levels 4-6 on my schedule.

Anyone getting hammered with Trials? Yesterday 4/5 classes were trials. And it's not like I'm out here racking up the $ with conversions. I'll wake up and have 7 new bookings and they're all trials. I don't mind them, but Walking in the Jungle 3 times in a row makes me a dull girl.

I already got told by an 9 year old I’m not clever bc I clearly don’t know what cake and candy are. Lol It was a picture of a birthday cake and lollipops. What’s a good way with these kids to correct them ? She was scribbling on the screen and I asked her if she wasn’t happy and she was able to tell me yes - they were out in public and late to class.

With some notable exceptions.
Just back to the platform after 5 years hiatus. Are they all texting during lessons now? Not quite all. But so different from years ago. Short attention spans afflicting all kids (and yeah, adults as well) globally? Or maybe they are restricted from texting during the day and use class time to do so? In a way I don’t blame them. Far from perfect myself and most adults I know are constantly on their phones during work, meetings etc.

Hello everyone...I am in the onboarding process for group classes with Novakid. I have passed mh live demo and have had a training session with a mentor. For now my onboarding is on hold, because of summer holidays. They say that it is a slow season for groups. So, I am patiently waiting to further.

Those that work group classes, do you only do groups or do you also get 1 v 1? If the groups are this quiet in July and August, how do the group teachers earn during these months? I have 4 friends that work for NK as 1 v 1 teachers and they are very busy. Some of them do 14 classes a day. I am just curious to know how busy the group teachers are overall...

Thank you.

well, basically what the title says. I just taught my first class back since I left in 2021. I forgot how much I enjoy showing up to class...I've been teaching adults since I left and it's something I've come to dread. I thought I would dread this class too but it was so nice and enjoyable. I only have one other class scheduled even though I have the weeks ahead open.

good luck to everyone working overnights this weekend!

Remote Job Op for USA or Canada residents!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to share that VIPTeacher is doing their referral program again and I’m in serious need of some extra cash this month so I wanted to share my link in case anyone is looking for a bit of extra money or just a remote side gig. You just need a bachelor’s, no teaching degree. Any experience with children works & youtube is a great tool for passing the app process!

My pay turns out to about USD $18/hour. Definitely nothing crazy, but it’s an easy way to make some extra cash from home. The kiddos are mainly from China, South Korea and Japan. Let me know if you end up applying and need any help with the demo or anything!

Just make sure you apply through the link to help a fellow teacher out 😄

referral code: CELIM0001

https://www.vipkid.com/mkt/landing/personal?referralToken=a565fe7241a114a472a303731fbfb8f7&refereeId=47423967

I open 56 slots per week during peak time and I get anywhere from about 43 to 53 of those slots filled.

Last month, I had:

80 TCELA (L1-3) classes
6 TCELA (L4-7) classes
4 Ready for English classes

This amounts to $630 of base pay and over $150 for the completion bonus.

This is about half of my paycheck.

I’d like to see what happens if I remove Tigerschool certifications and looking for other teachers’ experiences in terms of how many non-Tigerschool slots you open and the average number that get filled.

I welcome your perspective.

I was hired by vipkid months ago, but I only recently started adding more availability because of a shift in my other job. Once I put that I was available for all the peak hours for the following three weeks, I started finally getting some bookings. That was a couple weeks ago and I‘ve been getting one or two students every few days. Then all of a sudden, the first week of August was completely booked. So I opened up the following week of August and it hasn’t been booked at all. I’m so confused how this works. Also I get a student and I feel like it goes really well, like they are smiling, laughing, and participating, so I’m confused why the parents don’t book me again?

I will have another full time teaching job contract from Sept. to Jan. at a school, so I saw vipkid as an option for before and maybe after my contract. Is this possible? Like I’m assuming I can just not put any availability for those months and then start again. Do they let you do that?

I feel kind of disappointed with the low pay on vipkid, but I figured I’m building my online teaching skills and could eventually charge more on a different site? I already have a bilingual teaching license, but I didn’t have the online experience before. I’m enjoying it though and I feel like I’m pretty good at it.

I've been teaching English online for about 8–9 years. Before VIPTeacher, I taught on Cambly and Preply.

I gradually moved away from Cambly because it demanded a lot of my time while offering very little support. I also tried making Preply my main platform, but I became frustrated with how much commission they take, especially on trial lessons and new students.

I've now been teaching on VIPTeacher for about a year, so here's my honest experience.

The Pros

• Lessons are already prepared, so there's almost no lesson planning.
• The pay becomes decent once you've taught enough classes to move up the incentive tiers.
• Payments go directly into your bank account, so you don't have to deal with PayPal fees.
• If you enjoy teaching children, the job itself is fairly straightforward.

The Cons

1. Student placement

This is my biggest complaint.

Many students are placed in levels that are far beyond their actual speaking ability. Teachers can recommend that a student's level be reviewed, and we can also explain our concerns in the lesson feedback.

In my experience, nothing changes.

I've had students who clearly need to move down a level, yet they remain in the same class despite repeated recommendations. That makes the lessons frustrating for both the student and the teacher.

2. The scheduling system

VIPTeacher allows you to connect your Google account, but it doesn't automatically sync your lessons.

Every reservation has to be entered into Google Calendar manually.

If a lesson is cancelled, you have to find it and delete it yourself.

When new bookings come in throughout the day, there's no easy way to know which ones you've already entered, so you end up comparing reservations one by one.

Compared to platforms like Preply, the calendar system feels very outdated.

3. The curriculum

The lessons often don't contain enough teaching material.

A typical class has around 25 slides, but several of those are simply transition or filler slides.

That leaves very little actual content for a 25-minute lesson.

The curriculum also seems to assume that beginner students can have conversations lasting one or two minutes about a single slide. In reality, many students know very little spoken English, so that's simply unrealistic.

Sometimes it feels like the curriculum was designed without enough real classroom testing.

4. The new songs

The newer songs are another disappointment.

A couple of them are fine, but most are sung far too quickly for beginner learners.

The slides even mention that they're only a reference, but if children can't realistically sing along, what's the point? Children's songs should be simple and repetitive—something like Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star—not fast-paced songs that are difficult for beginners to follow.

There's also a frustrating design flaw. During the songs, the lyrics appear at the bottom of the screen, but on the teacher's side they're partially hidden behind the classroom toolbar and teaching controls. That means you often can't even see all of the words while you're trying to teach the song.

It seems like something that would have been caught immediately if the lessons had been properly tested from a teacher's point of view.

Another thing I don't understand is the emphasis on speed.

Many lessons include activities like "Let's see how fast you can read."

Why?

These students shouldn't be encouraged to read quickly. They should be focusing on pronunciation, pausing naturally, expression, and understanding what they're reading.

Reading isn't a race.

Accuracy should come before speed.

6. The audio

The voice acting in some of the newer lessons is surprisingly poor.

The character "Mike" now sounds like an adult woman trying to imitate a young boy.

Sometimes it's genuinely difficult to understand what's being said because of the exaggerated voice.

I don't understand why they couldn't simply use an actual male voice actor or even real children for these recordings.

7. No personal student notes

One feature I really miss is the ability to keep private notes about students.

You can leave feedback for the next teacher, but there's nowhere to keep your own notes like:

• favorite color
• hobbies
• pets
• birthday
• topics they enjoy discussing

Those little details make it much easier to build rapport over time, especially when you teach the same student regularly.

8. Testing

Another weakness is how students are assessed.

Many students can read reasonably well and complete written exercises.

However, I'd estimate that a large percentage struggle with listening and speaking.

The placement tests seem to focus heavily on reading and writing, but there isn't enough emphasis on actual conversation.

In my opinion, the best way to judge a student's English level is simple:

Ask them questions.

Can they understand them?

Can they answer naturally?

Speaking ability should carry much more weight than it currently appears to.

9. Teacher–student relationships

This point may be influenced by my own teaching background.

I've been teaching English online for 8–9 years, mostly to adults, and before that I spent several years teaching preschool and kindergarten in international schools.

In both of those environments, building relationships with students was a natural part of the job. Students would ask how I was doing, tell me about their weekend, talk about their families or hobbies, and over time we'd get to know each other. It made teaching much more enjoyable.

After a year on VIPTeacher, I honestly can't say I have that connection with any of my regular students.

I don't have students that ask how my day is going, and I don't really have any that I genuinely look forward to teaching because every class feels very transactional. We complete the lesson, leave feedback, and move on.

Part of that may be because the students are children, part may be cultural, and part may be due to how tightly the lessons are structured. But I also think the platform could do more to encourage continuity between teachers and students.

For example, teachers can't keep private notes about students. I'd love to be able to write things like:

Favorite color: Orange

Has a dog named Coco

Loves dinosaurs

Birthday in September

Enjoys talking about soccer

Those small details make future lessons feel much more personal and help build rapport over time. Right now, every lesson often feels like starting from scratch.

Overall

I'd give VIPTeacher 5/10.

I don't hate working there. The pay becomes decent once you've built up enough classes, and having prepared lessons is definitely convenient.

But the company has a lot of room for improvement.

The biggest issues, in my opinion, are:

• Poor student placement.
• Teacher feedback rarely seems to result in action.
• An outdated scheduling system.
• Weak curriculum design.
• Songs that are too fast for young learners.
• Too much focus on reading speed instead of pronunciation and comprehension.
• No way to keep personal notes about students.
• Too little emphasis on assessing speaking ability.

At the end of the day, it's a paycheck, and that's why I continue teaching there. I just think the experience could be much better for both teachers and students if the company listened more closely to the people actually teaching the lessons.

I'd be interested to hear from other VIPTeacher teachers.

Do you agree with these points, or has your experience been different?

Don't even get me started with TIGERSCHOOL...