9 tips on How to Succeed as an Online Teacher

1. 9TipsIntro: everybody. Welcome to my new class Nine tips and how to succeed as an SL teacher. Boys, so much is just so much has changed. In the last year and 1/2. I've taught over 1600 classes to date to over 6000 students the way my service works. The place I work at is we get a new student every day, and, um, it's just so much fun. I love it. I wish I had done this 20 years ago, and that's why I'm here is to teach you how to do the same thing. If I can do it, anybody can do it. So let's meet my buddy Rabbit. He helps me out with every class from the kids. Love him. They truly love him. They think he's so cute because he's got his hands and he moves them around. Anyways, I talked more about puppets and other props in another lesson down below this class, this introduction is about this class. It is a follow up to my first class, which is how to land your first online SL teaching job, where I talk about how to prepare for the interview, how to prepare for the MOX, and this class is more about presentation skills. How to talk to your audience, which sometimes can be an audience of one. It might be an audience of two or four students, depending on your company, and what they offer for their students could be even a lot larger, maybe six students. Some some companies also have fixed students where you have the same student over and over again and that type of thing. My company is working on several different models and its ever changing, and it's really cool. So I love this course. I love this, this environment of teaching, and I want to make sure that you're just a successful as I am. I'm really happy that you're here. Um, if you want to see more information about the other class, I'm gonna include some additional links to that class as well. But really, this is just a great class. It's a lot of fun, and I hope you enjoy all the tips you'll be receiving in this class. Oh, and one more thing. There's one more class of the very bottom of this lesson that has some referral codes. If you wish to join the the group that I'm with. Um, that's a direct referral. Right to there. HR department. So, um, buckle up. Let's have some fun, and I'll see you in the inside. Uh huh. 2. Present Your Best Self as an ESL Teacher: the online SL or English as a second language market is booming in China with no sign of slowing down. Parents are obsessed with providing their Children of the best English money can buy, and the competition is heating up as investment firms or pouring in millions into Chinese companies, according to the Financial Times, backers 10 Cent and Sequoia hope to cash in on the enthusiasm for high tech teaching, as both firms recently made a combined investment in V. I. P. Kid, a prominent Chinese based S O company, for as much as $200 million. China owns half of the SL market in China and employees teachers in the U. S. And Canada. So what does this mean for online teachers? Well, first of all, great paying, part time jobs with an abundance of companies to choose from, there is a high demand for quality teachers from Canada in America who speak, read and write authentic English. This class will show how I became hired by a Chinese company and es El Online es El Chinese Company and the steps I took in order to get that job. Currently, I make more than $1000 a month, and it's an enjoyable and rewarding job. I welcome you to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. 3. Tip 1: Once you're hired, your schedule will be filled with classes and standby classes. The ages of the Children will range from 5 to 9, so you will need to be prepared for anything that they throw at you. This could sometimes be a little nerve racking, especially when you're on a standby. When this happens, you won't have a clue what the classes until the very last minute or what age is that students will be. Don't worry, you'll get through it. One of the best ways to repair for your class is to follow one of the teacher groups on Facebook. Almost every major firm has a Facebook page. By joining these groups, you'll have firsthand access to tutorials, feedback from other teachers and direct messages from the company staff. They also provide you with downloadable links to tutorials that you may or may not have seen before. My advice is to go through every tutorial because you never know when you will be moved up . Make sure that you were prepared for the different classes before each class. This is crucial. Onley prep I do for each quests is to know what the lessons look like and to make sure there are no surprises After you get into a routine. It's easy to forget to do that. But I know from personal experience that a curve ball is thrown at you every once in a while and new material is introduced. Believe me, you don't want to get stuck with your tail between your legs. Considering that the lesson plans are already thought out for you, this small sacrifice of going into your classes ahead of time that will help your performance rating sore after each class. 4. Tip 2: punctuality. If you treat this position like a real job, you should have no issues getting signed in and into the classroom on time. When they say, being the class from five minutes before, be there five minutes before, make sure that you have done your preparation already, and I've looked over the material. Make sure your hardwire connection is in place and that all of your applications, other than the proprietary software, are closed. Don't ever be late. It's a knock on your performance review. If you miss the three minute cut off, you risk not only losing that classes income, you could get fired if you have too many of them. Poor attendance is one of the criteria for being fired. My company looks at your performance every day, and if there is something that stands out, they'll contact you. Don't give them any reason to contact you, but getting to class on time 5. Tip 3: dress for success. You should dress for your classes as if you're going to the office. I know that one of the perks of this job is that you get to teach from the comfort of your own home. That doesn't mean that you can teach in your pajamas. You're getting paid really good money. And the people who pay you expect you to look professional because not only are the offering a service, they're offering a brand that is professional and hard working. We, the teachers, are the face of the company. Our actions, both good and bad, are a direct reflection on the company. That's why it's imperative that you make yourself look presentable. Is a guy I always dress in either a nice polo shirt or a long sleeve dress shirt. Please don't dress like you're at home. Try not to wear clothing with brand names or busy attire for women dresses or a nice professional blouse is fine. Make sure that your teeth and face or clean and that your hair is combed 6. Tip 4: you're goal is to get all the students sound issues handled in the 1st 5 minute intro. However, that isn't the real world. The hardest part of teaching is to make sure you can hear your students. Some students work off of desktops, laptops, er, even ipads. Their microphones aren't always the best, and you just have to work with what you have unless you can get your support team on board to assist them. If you're lucky, the parent will be nearby, and you could type a question under the screen. Or just tell them that you can hear their child. Most times. A simple restart is all they need. While other times, no matter what you do, the sound is as good as it's gonna be if a child comes in just before the class starts after the class has already started. This is a real challenge when this happens, how isolate the child by muting everyone else and then talking to each child separately. I've had my share of sound hiccups. All I can say is that you have to treat each one with its much grace and patients as you can. I have resorted to reading lips as well. The key, though, is to still evolve the Children as much as possible. Do your best to involve them, even if you can't hear them. This is difficult when you're doing team or role playing lessons when students need to ask each other questions. Now, I don't have an ironclad rule of thumb here, only that a good restart usually helps out a lot. Another obstacle is when students too far away from the computer or microphone and you have to encourage them to come closer. Come closer, composer, so that you could hear them. Feedback, high pitch, squeal or echo is also a problem and usually can be resolved by lowering their mike or volume settings. If that doesn't do the trick than simply muting them while they're not talking works and then opening their Mike's back up when it's their turn to talk, you know, it would be really terrific if all the Children were required to use headsets like we do while we're teaching. Then we won't have to worry about all the background noises, and the Children want sacrificed their learning for sound issues 7. Tip 5: icebreakers. After the initial greeting an introduction, I will put each child on the main screen and introduce them to one another that I may ask them some questions about their families, pets or sports they like. Sometimes they'll even ask them to ask each other questions. Usually I have to feed them the questions, though. Don't be surprised if you love blank stares. It's normal. One great way to warm up the students is to ask them to join you in a sing along. Even if the students don't know the song, it's a simple, gesture filled song could be a great way to get them smiling and started for the class. What I found is that most Children just need a little push to get involved. I have included a very small list of songs that I regularly use. ABC Song and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star actually share the same melody. A B C D E f g twinkle, twinkle little star. Another one is itsy bitsy spider. You can use your hands to pretend like you're the spider row Row your boat out of the gesture of rowing about old McDonald had a farm. I'll bring out some of my farm animal puppets and B i N G O b ah NGO be, uh NGO and bingo was his name. O. There are literally thousands of other songs you could sing as well. 8. Tip 6: props and puppets. Well, as you know, from my introduction video, I like to use puppets whenever I'm teaching. It's a great icebreaker as well. And there's something about the rabbit. Especially for some reason. This rabbit gets so much attention. He collapsed. He covers his eyes, play with his ears. Hey, hides in his hat. He's just great. Overall, I used them all the time. Another great thing is cores to sunglasses, sunglasses. A couple of lessons, they'll say, is your dad cool and up? But these annals is your teacher. Cool. So they see the sunglasses that they think right away that you're cool. I also have balloons. I used balloons in the beginning. In my five minute intro, I'll blow up these balloons and ask them what colors there. So I'll do that a lot. I'll also have hand puppets. I have a duck. A pig sword of old. MacDonald had a farm. I used these guys. I have a shark. I also have some of the books that I've published myself. I'll show pictures out of these books. Teoh essentially lessons, for instance. One of my books has swings. I'll show pictures of swings. I have baseball's I use baseball show on baseball. The idea is to show them something that's three dimensional and that necessarily has to be two dimensional because one of the times that picture is so small going that good idea what it really is. So when you see something that's three dimensional, because it's so much more clarity again with colors, I do lots of different things. And at the end, when they win prizes, they say, Well, teacher Winter prize to. So just keep that mind. Also, make sure that you smile a lot. Use hand gestures high five screen. They love that. Get excited, really involve yourself with the students because it's something that they really, really bounce off that energy. And I did the same thing. If I see a student smiling a lot, I automatically start smiling. So it's something that we need to do more often, and also we need to teach ourselves to smile, even though the Children are smiling back because a lot of times you'll get this blank stares. They don't have a clue what you're talking about. It's okay. Just keep going through the material. Never veer off of the instruction in the inner self where we have a set of instructions that they want us to perform during that particular lesson. They don't want us to veer off that. So stay true to the curriculum. It's there for a reason. And it is. They know they're doing. So the great thing about this, this particular company that I work for, all the curriculum is laid out for you. You just have to show up. But there is a lot of preparation and you won't do that before class. Of course. Have fun. Enjoy yourself. I hope you're enjoying this class. I'm enjoying teaching you. So he going? If you have any questions, email me. 9. Tip 7: how to shine in the eyes of your employer. 10. Tips for Success Number one. Review each class before you teach. If possible, I'll go into the actual class and look over the lessons to see if there's anything new. But I haven't seen before. The only time that's is impossible is when you're on standby, so just do your best to pretend you know what's going on. I also encourage you to check the forms. And Facebook Group Page is many times teachers will post help guides and videos of classes they have questions about. Even if you haven't taught the same type of questions, you may be moved up and asked to teach new material. Prepare prepare prepare number to enter your class on time. It suggested in my company to be signed into classes five minutes before the actual class starts. This time is critical to check sound feedback or echo issues for both you and your students . Number three. If you're scheduled to stand by class, sign into the actual software at least 10 minutes prior to class. This will it. Administrators know that you are available and ready to jump in if need be. Number four. Contact the administrators at least 24 hours in advance. If you need to change your schedule. Number five maintained high standards in your delivery and presentation. Number six. Stick to the lesson plan. Read the instructions for each lesson. Number seven involve each child regardless of their connectivity. Some Children won't have videos or Mike's respect that their present and let them answer regardless, if you can hear them or see them many times, there'll be a child that doesn't have video or a microphone, but they can simply wave at you or give you a smiley face or a frown phase. That way, you know that they're there. Don't ever ignore a child that you cannot see or that you cannot. Here, don't complain. Number eight. Don't complain. Please refrain from complaining, especially on social media. I have been witness to this when someone will bash the company publicly, it's grounds for immediate termination, so use your words carefully when applying them to social media number nine. Don't be absent. Meet the minimum number of weekly classes required, and number 10. Wait until you get cleared while waiting for your stand by. There have been several times where I've just sat there for about 10 minutes until I get the all clear sign. Many times teachers, they can't find teachers fast enough, and it might be 2 to 5 minutes after the class has already started. Where you get an opportunity to go in and teach, you'll get the full rate of pay instead of just the standby. 10. Tip 8: warm up your voice. As silly as this may seem, warming up your voice prior to your first class can make a huge difference. Place a large glass of water next year. Computer or within easy reach. I try to drink at least eight ounces of water before each class to stay hydrated. If you're in a colder climate, a nice cup of tea or coffee is also great. But don't drink anything with pulp in it. Such a sighters or orange shoes or cream such as milk. You don't want to have to constantly clear your voice in front of the students. It's both a distraction. Unprofessional. Many times, the staff or administrators will watch your classes announced and mentioned to you either live or afterwards that you sound like you have a cold when in reality, you just need to sip on some water Because of the dry air in your room, it's acceptable to have a water bottle or sit from a straw while on camera. When you're teaching 45 classes straight, you may not have the opportunity to get up and get a drink. Another thing you can do to prepare for your glasses is to do simple, warm up exercises. Annunciation and good intonation are important. I use my higher pitched, engaging voice to brighten the mood in classroom, or I'll use my deeper voice with larger groups of five or six Children. Sometimes it's hard to hold their attention. That's why smiling and laughing are necessary to keep them engaged. 11. Tip 9: reasons for termination. Employment may be terminated due to the following reasons. I'll go one by one and talk about each inadequacy of equipment. This is when your computer isn't fast enough or it has consistent problems of logging into the system, plugging into the software that they provide. Make sure whenever you're using their software that you have no other programs running. You don't want to take any of the ram away that's needed for that particular software. The second point is instability of the Internet. Make sure that you're hard wired directly into your modem or into your router instead of WiFi. Being hardwire is more consistent. It is better for the software that you're running. The last thing you want to do is have dropouts or air codes, or that you can't sign in at all into your classes If you can't sign and you could get bumped and you want to try to minimize those as much as possible, so the instability of the Internet is a big one. Because this whole course is online. We require an excellent connection to the Internet fast Internet connection. You have a slow Internet connection is just not gonna work out for you. The third point is frequent complaints from parents or students. This is a tough one because you could be having the best class of your life, you think, and then you get scored a one or two and you're like, What the heck just happened? Usually it's over a trivial thing that you're not even thinking about. And that's why the all of those things are so important. Because remember, the customer is always right. Customer is the parent and the child. And if you don't have a good experience and they're not gonna come back to the company that has been, look poorly in them and also poorly, and you so try to keep those to a minimum, try to do everything that I've talked about in this course that should buy you well. As far as getting good grades, good feedback on your classes. The next point is frequent absences. This is a biggie also, because for whatever reason, you should not be getting a lot of absences in your courses because they count on you being the teacher, the assigned teacher to always show up, always be there, be there on time and provide a great learning experience. If you're constantly calling in sick, just this is just like any other job. If you're constantly calling in sick, there are other people waiting to be teachers. There are other people that are doing a better job than you. You're always trying to improve your always trying to be the best you possibly could be. And if you're having frequent absences, then you're gonna run into some problems that probably lose your job. Now, I'm not talking about absences that were approved. Talking about not showing up or not giving the company time enough. Find a replacement for you is considered an absence. Next point is inability to take 10 lessons a week. I took the maximum amount of classes except for Sunday morning and believe, and that is the max amount that I could take. That gives me flexibility because first of all, it's giving them an opportunity to get to know me like my work, like what I'm doing with the Children and I build up a report with them and I'm doing 30 40 classes a week. It doesn't hurt as much if I do miss one or two classes, but if you're only working 10 classes a week and miss one or two, that's going to really stick out so tryto Teoh take as many classes as you can and then pared down later. Next is hard to follow up or lack of communication, lack of being able to communicate with them. For my burnt job, I can communicate either through the proprietary software or I can also run We jet, which is the number one messaging service in China, and we chat is one of the ways that we can communicate instantaneously. The software is 24 hours, but other times they won't get back to you immediately. By that time, the question or the issue might have already passed. We chat is an excellent way to follow up with them. I never get called, never get emailed. It's always through either we chat or through the software value to improve after being advised. This, luckily, has never happened to me. They will send out occasional blanket announcement saying these are the new criteria of how you will be grated. Do you think about this class and really go through every part of this class? It should be no reason for you to fall below the minimum approval ratings. So if you follow the class and do everything by the book here in the course that I've provided for you, you should be well ahead of the curve ball. But if you're not learning, if you're not proving than again, there are other people that are waiting to teach in your place. So that's where that comes about. And then, finally, the teaching ratio below 4.65 for two consecutive weeks. Again, this is kind of like prior point, but you don't want to fall into a pattern of inadequacy. You don't want to fall into a pattern of below par or average. You don't want to be average. You want to excel, you always want excel. This goes in any job that you're going after. You're gonna want to excel and keep pushing and keep striving to be your best. If you Congar oh, through the course with an open mind, really looking hard at what you're doing as a teacher, you should have no problems, and you should never be terminated 12. Bonus Video: TPR Revisited: Hi, everybody, Welcome back Today we're talking about T p R. Or total physical response and what that is. It's a method of teaching for especially Children, especially great for Es El, because the students that we're usually talking to don't have English as a first language. They have it as a second language, so they're really have to concentrate hard on getting those sounds and getting their tongues to do the same thing that we want to do. Often times. So with TP are we use lots of gestures. We say, Hello, my name is Nick. What's yours? And then you put your hand to your ear and you wait for a response. It's a lot of acting, a lot of gestures. I like to use props as much as possible. If I'm saying, close your eyes or where's your eye? Where's your eyebrow? Your nose? And when I want them to focus on me, I'll leave you to go, which is universal, and I'll say I want you to listen and then they're gonna focus on me as the main person or the main teacher, obviously, but with total physical response, you're using your hands gestures act out as much as you can. Pretend like you're talking to somebody right in front of you who's never even spoken English. Sometimes you have to use your hands. Also. You wanna wait, you won't be patient, and so there's gonna be some technology lag. But also we want them to be able to comprehend what you're saying, able to discern it and then be able to tell us what we want to hear. So the first thing, the first step, I would say anti PR is act out your the words that you want to convey when we're talking about colors or clothing. What colors? Air shirt. Find something that's red gets to say What? What's this? It's my nose. It's a red nose. Can you find me something that's red? You give him a little time to go find something. They love it. They love doing that. They love finding something that they want to show you that they're proud of, or something that they can prove that it's red. It's a great tool, especially if you have something that you can show them. I often do that with markers. I'll show markers and pens and pencils and anything that I get my hands on. But you want to keep things simple, the simpler, the better. Break things down. Don't assume that they're going to know what you're talking about, because chances are they're probably not going to know what you're talking about so that the teepee are really helps with learning, especially. And this is all grades that necessarily you're not gonna maybe talk and baby talk to the older Children. But sometimes you you do have to because a lot of times the older Children, they're taking English for the first time when they're 11 or 10 10 or 11 years old. And they don't have that foundation, um, underneath them. So you really have to kind of guide them through that process. Sometimes you have to repeat words. And don't be afraid to do that. You know, it may look foolish what you're doing, but, you know, after a while you just do it and it just becomes a natural. But say you wanted to talk about, um, a rabbit. Can you say, Can you say rapid right? Rabbit rabbit, right. You say it over and over again, giving them a chance to try it out themselves. I also would I like to do and this offer that we use, we can isolate Children. So if I have four Children, I could isolate each one and really listen to what they're saying as far as what they're saying in their annunciation. Sometimes in a lesson, it may not call for that specific Annunciation, but I really tried to work with my Children as much as I can to kill some of those habits early on because we don't want them form bad habits them early, and then they'll speak English very well. Another thing we want to do is, um, we talked about Wait for a response, make sure you're waiting. Just use your hand like this. Good. High five. They love that high five high five. The screen to bring enthusiasm, excitement after they get way award diamonds. So if they get diamonds Oh, yes. You got to diamonds office pompom. And you know all that stuff. Make him feel appreciative. Make them feel excited Also about the class, because you don't want them to be. Ah, I'm gonna listen to this teacher talk over and over again. You want to bring as many props is possible and really let them enjoy the class