My Journey with VIPKid Part 4

Welcome to Part 4

Let me start this by asking you a question….  Why exactly was Red Dye #4 such a bad thing? As a kid I vividly remember sneaking into my mom’s room and putting on her lipstick.  Eight hours later when she would return home from work,  my lips were still Red!  It didn’t matter how much I wiped or washed that stuff stayed on for an eternity.  Or at least long enough for me to get in big trouble for touching her stuff!!    Now days when I put on lipstick it doesn’t even last through one 25 minute class.   Which is a bummer because VIPKid suggests that we wear Red or Dark lipstick while we teach. This is because in English we make a lot of our sounds that correspond to our mouth positions and they want the little kiddos to be able to see this clearly.   That makes for a lot of reapplying!!

When you first start with VIPKid you teach a lot of the “Trial” classes.  These are free for the kids (you get paid for teaching) so that they can try out the platform.  More then half the time, they don’t show up, so you get half pay to go play on Facebook.  However, when they do show up you get to teach a child their first class.  Which has potential to be a lot of fun … or it could be potentially mind numbing.

I decided to do something called the Level 1 Only Project.  (I do NOT recommend doing this) What it means is that I gave up all the levels that VIPKid told me I could teach when first hired, and instead I only teach 3-5 year olds.  If you are not a little kid person, this is NOT at all as fun as it might sound.  The trial for the PreVips is quite limited in vocabulary, as one would expect.  The word BALL shows up pretty frequently, as does the phrase HIT THE BALL.

It goes something like this:

ME:  Sitting at my dining room table, wearing my orange shirt, lots of lipstick, props spread out in front of me      staring into the video camera and looking at the child on the screen

STUDENT: Small child who has no clue what I am saying staring at me with eyes wide open, having their mom feeding them spoonfuls of something, that occasionally will scream a random word over and over and over again at the top of their lungs.

ME: “Ball” (I say this while putting my finger to my chin, indicating that they are to repeat what I say,  then putting my hand cupped to my ear indicating I want to hear them say what I just said)

STUDENT:  Stares at me blankly

ME: “Ball” ..  hold up a white ball

STUDENT:  Stares at me blankly

ME:  “Ball”..still holding up the white ball….but now I am pointing it at

STUDENT: Picks nose and examines the booger intently

ME:  “Ball” now pointing at it with a much greater intensity

STUDENT: Put his finger containing the booger up to the camera so I can see it in all it’s gooey gloriousness

ME:  “Ball”.  Now I’m holding two balls, and am alternating putting one up closer to the camera as I continue saying the word “ball” over and over

STUDENT:  Back to staring at me blankly

ME:  “BALL” said a little louder as I am thinking just say the word, just once, that’s  all you have to do

STUDENT: Stares at me blankly…lips pursed shut

ME:  “BALL”, “BALL”, “BALL”… now I’m chanting over and over as I am thinking just saying the f’ing word

STUDENT:  screams some word at the top of his lungs

ME:  “BALL” …thinking WTF was that ??????  Cant you hear me????  How hard is it to say BALL ????

STUDENT: screaming that same word over and over and over again at the top of his lungs

ME:  With big smile on my face thinking … only 23 minutes to go

Not all are this bad, but YES it really does happen.  Seriously, some of the children are wonderful and sweet and eager to learn.  Some are not 🙂

Yes it is worth it, Yes I enjoy it and Yes, the word Ball no longer hold any meaning to me.

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If you would like more info on becoming a VIPKid teacher, you can read about it on their website.  Please feel free to use this link    https://t.vipkid.com.cn/?refereeId=6786448&refersourceid=a01

I am part of an amazing FaceBook group that helps people become teachers with VIPKid.  We answer questions, post lots of info, have a great file section with just about everything you would ever need to use, we host get online get togethers several times a week to demonstrate how to pass the “mocks and demos” to get hired!  Here is a link for the group . VIPKid Teachers Wanted …..https://www.facebook.com/groups/VIPKIDteacherswanted/

Here is a link to my YouTube channel.  There are a handful of videos about how to teach and how to set up a classroom for VIPKid….       https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt9pBlow-6nP8EXolRMBgxA?view_as=subscriber