For my first blog post, it only seems fitting to share about my very first online ESL class, which was a complete train wreck. I’ve come a long way since the early days of my online teaching career. At the time of writing, I’ve taught over 10,000 classes, with 9,500 of those being through VIPKID since teaching that first class nearly four years ago. Click here to learn more about me.
A Bit of Context
It was June of 2018, and as a single mom, I had just quit my full time W2 job to take a chance on a teaching contract with VIPKID. (Definitely not an approach to contract work I’d ever recommend.) I knew I was taking a huge risk, but I was determined to make this new venture work!
Like the true perfectionist I am, I binged all the YouTube videos I could find about teaching online. I practiced my mock lessons and trial lessons about a million times. My Mock Class Mentor said I was one of the most prepared teachers he‘d interviewed. I read tons of posts in multiple VIPKID Facebook groups. I studied the classroom layout and learned how to change trial lessons. I’d done everything I could to prepare.
Getting That First Class
As a new teacher on the platform, I didn’t have any former online teaching experience. Heck, I’d barely even video chatted at that point! My degree isn’t in education, and I didn’t have years of classroom teaching experience like others did. I knew I’d have to find a way to stand out from the rest. So I thought about what I could offer that others couldn’t: time.
Unlike most other teachers on the VIPKID platform, my goal was to make my work with VIPKID become my sole income. I also didn’t have the time constraints that come with having another job or a young child who needed my full attention. (My son was 8 years old at the time, and I’d discussed my new job and sleep schedule with him beforehand.) So I opened just about every time slot over the span of 13 overnight hours every single day of the week that summer. I also marked every class as short notice, meaning a class could be booked in as little as one hour before the start time.
It was my 2nd or 3rd night of staying up all night with my fingers crossed, hoping to get a booking, when it finally happened: a class got booked short notice for 1am my time! In classic trial style, I didn’t have any student info at all until about 3 minutes before class time.
Time for Class!
As my first online ESL class began, I found myself face-to-face with a young girl who was about 10 or 11 years old. She was crying and incredibly nervous. My anxiety was through the roof, but as the adult in the situation, I knew I was the one who had to get both of us through this new experience as smoothly as possible.
First things first, we started off with IT problems. Neither of us could hear each other. Somehow we managed to get the audio working after she exited and re-entered the classroom several times with the help of who I could only assume was her dad.
The trial began with Level 4, but this poor girl was so confused when I asked how old she was. I awkwardly switched to the Level 3 trial lesson. I knew the students couldn’t see us trying to click trough the folders to find the right lesson, so I tried to keep asking questions while frantically reading through all of the different file options that were listed in the VIPKID lesson codes that I wasn’t all that familiar with.
Did I mention I was anxious? I‘m pretty sure my hands were shaking, which made navigating the classroom that much more difficult and in turn, increased my anxiety.
Ironically, the Level 3 trial was a birthday lesson, and the girl was still lost in the sauce. So again, I awkwardly switched over to a Level 2 lesson.
Mistakes Were Made
Since so much time had already passed, I decided to skip the first several slides. Being a newb, this seemed like a good plan of action to make it appear as though we’d finished all of the lesson slides in time. Of course, with it being a trial class, that didn’t really matter so much. Plus, the lessons snowballed on themselves, so skipping the first part wasn’t a good idea when I didn’t know the abilities of my student anyway.
Whew! I survived!
After some time, I was able to get the girl to finally stop crying, and she actually did pretty well with the Level 2 family material. Then suddenly we reached the end of the lesson slides, but the class time still wasn’t over yet. I jumped to the beginning of the PPT, and we worked our way through that until the end of class time, when I jumped to the last slide to abruptly say our goodbyes.
I may have struggled my entire way through that very first online ESL class, but I remembered to smile a lot and to give the girl all 5 stars, so at least I had that going for me!
As soon as I exited the class, I promised myself I would never watch that playback. All I wanted to do at that point was crawl in a hole and hide. Instead I decided to close out my availability for the rest of that morning and go to bed since that’s pretty much the same thing. I refused to even consider the option that I might’ve made a grave mistake by quitting my job for this.
Lessons Learned
I learned so much from that very first online ESL class! I am a perfectionist at heart, but no amount of preparation would prepare me for my first live class. In fact, It’s safe to say that my perfectionism caused me to overthink things and make the mistake of skipping the first part of the lesson’s slides.
I learned to take a huge chance on myself with this new career change! That risk is what motivated me to continue teaching online even though my first class felt like a disaster. Over time, my teaching improved, and I quickly became increasingly comfortable with online teaching. My confidence and trust in both myself and my ability to teach online also increased.
In the end, it wasn’t a total disaster. Instead, it was just an awkward start to the next chapter in my life!
What About You?
Have you already begun online teaching/tutoring yet? If so, how was your first class? How long ago was it? Did you start out contracted with a company or some other way? How far have you come since then? I’d love to hear your experiences!
If you haven’t started yet, why not? What’s holding you back? How can I or the online teacher community at large help motivate you to get started?
