We think making small amounts of money on the road, which enables you to keep traveling or gets you by until your passion project gets off the ground and starts making you money is very, very important. That is why we wanted to share with you our experience with a new and viable income stream that is available to anyone with a bachelor’s degree, a laptop and wifi.  So what exactly am I talking about? Teaching English online!

Jump to a Section Below:

• Teaching English: The exploration

• One Year Later: Revisiting the Idea of Teaching English

• The Mock Class

• Meeting with My Mentor and Certification with VIPKID

• The Email: The best news you will hear all day

• The Second Redo

• One Week Later: Final Steps

• Perks and Benefits

• Tips and Tricks

• Other English Teaching Opportunities Online

• Questions and Answers with a Seasoned Teacher

Teaching English: The exploration

How Hard Could It Be?

When I first looked at teaching English online I was excited. I did some research and found the best paying options that would still leave me with enough time to write, travel, make films and volunteer. I chose VIPKID because they had the flexibility of schedule and the ability as a teacher to change their schedule week to week. I filled out the form with excitement and starting thinking and dreaming of how we were going to have plenty of money to enable us to do what we are passionate about while we travel… then I hit a mental roadblock. I was going to have to do a mock class in front of a real person who was going to be my pass or fail for my entry into the wonderful world of teaching English online. I thought “No way,” closing the window and completely forgetting about it.

One Year Later: Revisiting The Idea Of Teaching English 

One year later I revisited the subject. We had been on the road for a year volunteering at a soup kitchen (coincidentally where we also teach English to elementary school children every week). While also making videos free of charge for nonprofits and local businesses, and really following our passion for travel and creative work.  It has been amazing.

But then I noticed our savings account (that we had saved for 8 months prior to going location independent) was really dwindling.  Our plan to book our next destination to Thailand for three months for this summer, got me thinking “How are we going to ever afford the next 3 months of traveling around?” We brainstormed for a couple of hours and made a list of all of the ways we could make money.  Teaching English online kept popping up and seemed to be the most successful way to gain some extra income.

Past Experience Teaching Children

As I mentioned before, we had already been teaching English as volunteers in a local soup kitchen in Merida for the past year to kids ages 3-14, helping with homework, learning vocabulary, and using games for their education. It was a learning curve as we sort of felt thrown into this position and had to come up with ways to engage the students and teach English in a way that would keep the kids’ attention while also having fun.  I can say that we have grown a lot in this position and have gained some great resources for lesson plans and games. So I thought some of this knowledge would hopefully transfer over to online lessons.

I reopened the VIPKID window and low and behold it was like I never left. The mock class opportunity sat there staring me in the face. However this time it would not defeat me. I signed up for the next day’s time slot at 9 pm to give myself enough time to prepare. I went to the local print shop, bought some colored paper and a white erase board and started creating as many funny characters, flowers and angry and happy faces as I could to make our small apartment in Merida look like a classroom.

The Mock Class

8:30 PM the next day rolled around and I sat in front of my computer nervously waiting, thinking I could cancel and find another option. But the “if you cancel, it could affect your eligibility” text right below the cancel appointment button kept staring me in the face. Probably one of the nicest faces I’ve ever seen popped up on the screen and asked me “How are you doing? Are you ready?”

Long story short, I failed my first time around. But she encouraged me to try again, and not to just pass, but to get a better score, which would lead me to make more money per hour. I thanked her and set the next appointment for the following morning. The second time was much easier and at the end, I was offered $19 USD per hour (which is more than enough to live on right now, as our rent is only $177 USD per month).

Meeting With My Mentor And The Certifications From VIPKID

After the first exam I was on a high, feeling comfortable with the whole process. Talking with an adult who was pretending to be a 5 year old from China was getting easier and I felt this could really work out. Talking to an actual student was going to be a piece of cake, I thought! Through VIPKID’s program, you need to take 2 more exams for your certification to teach Level 2-3 (kids ages 5-9) and Level 4-5 (kids ages 8-12). I chose to go with level 2-3 and started getting ready to meet with my mentor.

In VIPKID on the second stage, the interviewer becomes your mentor as they guide you and teach you tips and tricks to become a better teacher for the kids. It is a very similar process as the initial interview, but this time you get a lot more feedback. In the second stage, you are given two classes to study and the mentor at the beginning of the class chooses one for you to teach.

Training for the Class

In this stage, they have additional live training that you can sign up for where you meet with a VIPKID coach.  They go through tips and how to handle each slide, as well as answer any questions that you have about the second mock class. (I highly recommend it if you are wanting to get hired!)

For an entire day I studied the worksheets for the class I would teach that night. I got props and made my background even more inviting and colorful with letters and numbers. I even got a stuffed animal to act as a puppet that I would interact with in my second mock class. Before the class, I was nervous but less so than the time before. I started the class at 10 pm and again the mentor was one of the more kind people I had interacted with online. She made me feel very comfortable. We chose lesson A, which I was so happy about because I had lesson A memorized and was super confident with it. The 10-minute class felt like about a minute with Cassie letting me know I had 30 seconds left on the stopwatch. So I hurried the last 2 slides and said goodbye to my fake student. My mentor said I did well and that she thought I would pass on the first try. However, with the way that VIPKID is set up she did not have control over my pass or fail, and I would be notified over email in the next 24 hours.

The Email: The best news you will hear all day

I promised myself that I would wait and be patient, but it took me about 2 hours for that to wear off.  I started hitting refresh on my email once an hour, but that soon escalated into once every 15 minutes. It was a Monday night when I took the second test so that meant by Wednesday I would know. Tuesday passed without a word. Into Wednesday I became more anxious because I really wanted to know if I did a good job or if I would need to rework my teaching method.

About 36 hours later I got the email with the top line that read: “This is the best news you will hear all day,” followed by a statement that I did not pass, but I was close. Though I was disappointed, this news made me smile. Even with failing the test, VIPKID encourages a good attitude.

The Second Redo

I absorbed the advice and just like before, I signed up for the next available spot which happened to be a morning slot at 9 am. We were traveling at this point from Merida to Mexico City to spend some time with my family members who were visiting from Portland, Oregon. I am lucky that both my mom and my sister are elementary school teachers. They were quick to give me some in-person real-world tips on teaching and even fashioned some colorful background props out of thin air (recycled plastic bag kite, mouse and flower wall decorations, etc). I set up my virtual classroom in a small corner of the Airbnb and tried as hard as I could to make it look like a real classroom with proper lighting for my second try.

Start of the Class

The time came and again I was a little nervous, trying to keep in the front of my mind the advice from my last class mentor of why I had failed. Her advice was to use TPR hand signals which is “Total Physical Response” where you can describe a word with a physical movement such as waving your hand when you say hello. It is typically used with infants, young school children and people learning a second language.

To my luck, the teacher chose class A again, and I was pumped because I knew it even better at this point. It started and again the time flew by. I used the TPR hand signals and I encouraged the adult woman pretending to be 5 years old to use complete sentences when repeating the vocabulary. It felt comfortable until I looked down at my watch with 45 seconds left to complete 2 slides. Which was not enough time in the least. I thought I had failed again…

After the Exam

After the exam, I was packing up my things and I felt upset with my future of English teaching. I cleaned the wall of all of the decorations and told Cassie, “I think I’m done, I am not cut out for these teacher jobs.” I dreaded the fact that I was going to get an email later the next week with the great news that I had failed again. I started looking up statistics that claimed that only 20% of teachers are accepted into VIPKID and for some reason that made me feel better.

I tried to forget about it and enjoy the rest of our time with my family, jumping on a hop on hop off bus to explore Mexico City. To keep up the good mood I told everyone that I would have to wait to see the results instead of telling everyone that I had bombed. We spent the next couple hours seeing the sites and ended in the middle of the city.

I noticed there was an unsecured wifi signal and just like “Charlie And The Chocolate Factory,” I decided to unwrap my email one last time looking for the golden ticket. There were about three junk mails on top, then low and behold an email from VIPKID with the heading: Congratulations YOU PASSED. I was overwhelmed by the news and ran to tell everyone. Apparently according to my psychologist brother people that have doubt and negatively critique themselves after a test statistically are more likely to pass then those that are unable to critique themselves. My brother gave the example of the American Idol contestants who are upset when the judges reveal to them that they cannot sing, when in their heads they are going to win it all.

One Week Later: The Final Steps

“If I can do it, anyone can.”

One week later, I managed to pass all of the additional tests (multiple choice tests for TESOL) and received my TESOL certificate! I’ve also passed my background check, so I am happy to say I’m now ready to teach and make money while we travel.

I can’t tell you what a relief this is for me to know we will have consistent money coming in while we continue to volunteer and build our passion project/business, Native Nomads blog and vlog on the road.  Our mission while traveling is to make the world a better place through volunteering, and raising awareness to important issues, while opening people’s minds to different cultures and ways of life through film, writing and photography. The thought of giving that up to go back home and get another 9-5 was just too depressing for me. That is where teaching English online came in to save the day!

$19 USD an hour is not going to make us millionaires or let us live in the lap of luxury while we travel.  But it is enough money to help us sustain our modest (by American standards), nomadic lifestyle, travel anywhere we want to in the world, make our own schedule, follow our creative passions and lead the life we have always dreamt of living! It also gives us the time and flexibility to continue helping non-profits and marginalized communities through volunteering and pro bono filmmaking to raise awareness for people and causes we believe in worldwide.

Personal Perks And Benefits

• Freedom to work anywhere in the world (as long as you have wifi)
• Flexible hours with the ability to close out weeks if we need to take a vacation or devote time to other projects
• A very easy payment system  
• VIPKIDS is well known for paying on time.
• A viable side hustle and an alternative stream of income while you build your business or monetize your passion project which can often take one year or more to do
• Enables you to be able to travel the world and sustain that lifestyle for an unlimited amount of time
• New to teaching English or teaching anything at all? VIPKIDs offers you through training, mentorship,
• VIPKIDs also offers you incentives such as teaching new courses that give you bonuses,
• Plus VIPKIDs offers you a great referral program that gives you financial kickbacks if you refer others to join the site as teachers

Tips and tricks:

• First and foremost – be relaxed. The mentors on the other side are relaxed, so you should be too. This projects confidence and ease for the student.
• Watch a couple of Youtube videos on how to get started, how to pass your mock classes, and be walked through step by step.
• Take the VIPKID training before the second mock class and take lots of notes. I also used my iPhone to take video during the training so that I could review it later.
• Be creative, use props and make a colorful background! Recruit your artistic sibling or raid your niece’s toy box if you have to.
• If you are using a MacBook Pro, buy a webcam. For some reason, Mac and the program they use do not work very well together.
• Lighting is key! Have 2 desk lamps set up on both angles that light up your face and eliminate any shadows as much as possible.  Think sitcom lighting, not “The Godfather” film lighting.
• Don’t spend a lot of money on your background and make it something that is mobile and light if you are a traveler.
• Spend time prepping!
• Don’t get down if you fail the first time. Just dust yourself off, learn from your mistakes, listen to your mentor and sign up for the next class.

Other English Teaching Opportunities Online

Also if you are in the market of comparing different platforms, here is a list of some of the other highly recommended programs that you can teach English online with. It’s important to check out the personal pros and cons of each as different platforms will offer markedly different benefits and setbacks depending on your lifestyle, personality and teaching style.

• Preply https://preply.com/
• Qkids  https://teacher.qkids.net/
• Palfish https://digino.org/palfish-apply/
• Teach Away https://www.teachaway.com/
• Dada https://www.dadaabc.com/teacher/landing
• Gogo Kid https://teacher.gogokid.com/
• Dave’s ESL Cafe http://www.eslcafe.com/

There will be a revision of this blog post soon of how to get VIPKID clients once we are more experienced with using the platform. Plus there will be more on our experience with getting clients, teaching them and making money… Stay tuned!

Your Feedback

If you found this at all inspiring or helpful, or if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at nate@nativenomadlife.com And if you do end up going with the VIPKID platform to teach English online, please use this link to sign up which will also help support the work we do through our referral code!

As always we love to hear your feedback. If you have any comments related to teaching English online, advice for others or other helpful tips – please leave them in the comments below!!!

Questions and Answers with a Seasoned Teacher

Q: *How has teaching English online enabled you to live the life of your dreams – to travel the world?

A: Since I started teaching online about 1.5 years ago I’ve taught in 9 countries, soon to be 12 (after I finish my current travels!). I’ve taught in the same place for as long as 4 months and for as little as 5 days! It’s easy to see why teaching online was a good fit for me. I get paid to my American bank account and use my Amazon international credit card to buy my flights, Airbnb apartments and tours. Then I just bite the bullet and withdraw the max from a local ATM every few months. I was teaching 4 days a week and moved up to 5 days a week in October, so I always had plenty of “travel and logistic” days to set up my new teaching situation.

Q: How easy was it for you to learn, set up and incorporate it into your lifestyle?

A: I think this is a good time to say that I am a teacher, that is my passion, so for me, the challenge was just to alter my teaching to remove the “in person” aspects of my teaching, which was actually really hard! Luckily the students are also transitioning and adapting to an online teacher, so it was pretty stress-free. You will need: A GOOD computer (I have a MacBook Air), a “company regulation” shirt and some usb headphones (about 30 USD range). That’s it! I still live out of a backpack, basically nothing’s changed except my ability to travel to a new country at the drop of a hat!

Q: What is your greatest piece of advice you would give to people thinking of starting out teaching English online?

A: To non-teachers: get plenty of props that help kids to solidify their main vocabulary groups: numbers, colors, shapes, animals, foods, family members, weather, emotions. This will help you to make sure the kids are learning something:) Kids learn even when they seem distracted, so just be patient and enjoy yourself, if you’re honestly having a decent time, the kids will pick up on it, don’t be a fake-smiling teaching doll! To teachers: The time it takes to forge a personal connection in an online classroom is longer, much longer (with a few exceptions). Get ready for that. Also, remember that you will most likely be teaching Chinese students at 6-9pm their time, so they will be really tired, sometimes they really just want to space out in front of someone speaking slow and clear English (it’s still better than nothing!). And one last thing, snacks, the less chewing the better.

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