VIPKID: How to Be a Five Apple Teacher

June 06.2018.

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Last month I passed my first year mark with VIPKID! I’ve met many wonderful students with this program and I love watching their progress throughout each lesson and unit. As a VIPKID teacher, you are often given “apple” ratings from parents. Five is the maximum number of apples you can earn from a single class. These ratings not only help your teaching, but also contribute to your potential for a raise and contests to win prizes such as a flight to Beijing.

So how can you bump up your number of five apple ratings? Well, there are a number of ways. With 392 days of teaching, 724 students, and 1,692 classes under my belt, I have 585 five apple ratings and 8 four apple ratings. I’ve learned over the past year that some parents love classes that are energetic and fun, while other parents like classes to be more serious and studious for their child. I try to be firm with my corrections during class, but maintain a positive attitude and reward my students for their hard work.

The following is a list I’ve compiled of techniques that seem to work for me. If you’re a VIPKID teacher and have other recommendations, don’t hesitate to comment below! 🙂

1. Start on time.

Just like any other job, being on time demonstrates your professionalism. It also shows that you respect the student’s time and the parents’ efforts to prepare their child for class.

2. Smile!

Did you ever have a teacher at school that seemed to be totally emotionless? No one likes that! With VIPKID, you are teaching students 12 and under, so they are often full of energy and respond better to enthusiasm and a welcoming atmosphere.

3. Be firm, but encouraging with corrections.

I’ve read many parent feedbacks thanking me for correcting their child’s pronunciation. I hardly let anything slide that isn’t pronounced correctly during class, and I’ve seen how quickly this helps the student progress. It might seem cute when a student pronounces something slightly wrong, but it’s not cute enough to ignore. Take the time to break words down and encourage repetition.

4. Have fun reward systems.

You do not have to break the bank or spend hours crafting the biggest and most elaborate rewards for your classes. Simply have a variety that would appeal to any student. I give my students a choice of magnets that I place on a baking pan whenever they do a good job. I have magnets for different holidays, but the most popular are dinosaurs! My regular students consistently ask for the dinosaurs, even though I’ve updated my collection. I also have Disney princesses, hearts, farm animals, and Finding Nemo characters.

5. Take time to remember your students.

After teaching for a while, you may develop a consistent group of regular students who you see each week. Enhance their classes by asking questions about their favorite toys, pets, friends, birthdays, etc. When I ask my older students what their weekend plans are, I jot down a note after class so I can follow up with them next time. For example, I had a student who was preparing for a robotics competition and he was excited to share the results with me when I asked him about it the following week. Having these small connections with your students develops your relationship with them and makes them feel valued.

6. Use your time wisely.

It takes a while to develop a strong class rhythm and complete each slide on time, based upon your student’s needs and abilities. However, you will still run into students that are so advanced that the class will seem exceptionally easy. If I have extra time at the end of class, I will either engage my student in a conversation, play Hangman so they can practice spelling, or read a story. I’ve had parents thank me for introducing their child to popular children’s literature such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

The Hillary Clinton jokes didn’t end in Spain…haha.

7. Write constructive feedback.

This is perhaps one of the most important things you can do to earn five apple reviews. Writing feedback is required for full payment, so you might as well take the time to write decent information. Always begin your feedback with something positive about the student. How was their behavior? Did they improve a skill since the last class? Did they give a great example about a concept you studied that day? After this, I give a brief description about what we studied and what the student can improve before the next class. Here’s an example:

Bao Bao did a wonderful job in class today! He paid close attention throughout class and actively participated in all of the matching activities. Today he completed Lesson 9: How Do Animals Move? We reviewed the verbs that correspond with animal movements such as gallop, run, glide, slither, and swim. The hardest words for Bao Bao to pronounce were glide, gallop, and slither. These are often difficult for many VIPKID students because pronouncing the letter combinations, gl and sl are challenging. We also reviewed the uses of the verb, can: to show ability (The shark can swim.) or permission (Can I have a cookie?). Bao Bao is learning these very well and was able to match each sentence to the correct box. At the end of class, Bao Bao read a story about Toby the toad. He needed a bit of assistance with the pronunciation of certain words such as ‘goat’ and ‘rode’ but was able to answer the reading comprehension questions very well. I’d like Bao Bao to work on speaking in full sentences at all times. This will help his overall fluency immensely. Thank you so much for choosing my class again today! I hope to see Oliver again soon. 🙂 ~Teacher Hilary

Other teachers have commented that their number of feedbacks increased after politely asking parents to take time to write one. At the end of your parent feedback for example, you could write, “I’d appreciate your kind apple review.” At first I felt awkward asking for apple reviews, but they do help your status with the company and you’ll have comments here and there that let you know what you should be working on, or what you’re doing well.

I hope this list is useful to you as a VIPKID teacher! If you’re interested in teaching for VIPKID, check out my other posts about their requirements, the application process, and other information. I’m here to help. Thanks for reading and happy teaching! 🙂