VIPKid interview questions

VIPKID advertises themselves as looking for Americans with teaching experience to instruct Chinese children in ESL using an American elementary school based curriculum. I am a languages professor at a local college and teach ESL at a non-profit. Before that I taught an immersion-based elementary school foreign language program and International Baccalaureate. I also have a PhD in second language acquisition, so I thought I would be a good fit. Unfortunately, after an interview, six hours of online training, two hours of model lessons plus prep time and costs of props I did not get a job offer. VIPKID is a for-profit company that is trying to make money off Chinese parents. Chinese parents want a curriculum that is as "American" as possible, gets kids speaking (as this is a problem in Chinese schools) and sticks to the curriculum 100% (in China, every school has the same curriculum every single day, so this is a cultural norm). Therefore, their curriculum is a lot of students repeating words with similar sounds, target phrases teachers MUST follow exactly without adding/subtracting anything and American reading exercises. If you are familiar with the way we teach language in America, we focus on students hearing the language a ton THEN speaking, then grammar and reading. We also try to make things focused on themes around meaning/areas of life instead of just phonics. Finally, we will often throw in new words as necessary as long as it can be figured out by gestures or context. If you are used to this way of teaching, the VIPKID method of memorized phrases and word repetition isn't for you. The ideal candidate for this position would be an elementary school teacher with experience teaching/reading phonics, can get kids excited about lots of repetition and can easily stick to memorized phrases VIPKID provides. Unfortunately that is not me, and with all respect to the company I wonder if their methods really produce successful language learners. Should you be the right fit, a few tips about the mock lessons..first, the evaluators for the mock lessons are either very kind or unprofessional. My first evaluator made me laugh, smiled often and even showed me her pet dog. The second evaluator never smiled, had endless complaints about my teaching, started the interview by saying "You probably think you know it all as a language teacher but you certainly don't," rolled her eyes at me and when I asked her for help with a confusing slide screamed " I just did!" with a scoff. Finally, I do not recommend watching videos on Youtube about what to do/what not to do because these tips were criticized by both mentors. Instead, join a Facebook group and talk to current teachers about what worked for them. The company is not specific beforehand about what they really expect in a lesson. I truly hope others have a better experience than I did at VIPKID, as I think the opportunity is great and it's built around a smart idea. However, I'm not sure that I agree with the curriculum or the teaching methods, and the mentors who evaluate you are not specific beforehand and can be pretty hit or miss. Good luck to all and best wishes to VIPKID!

The interview is a multi-step process that includes an initial interview/10 minute demo lesson followed by two mock lessons as well as document submissions. The whole process for me took one week but you can choose to work at a more relaxed pace to better prep for the mock lessons.