How to Apply and Teach ESL Online with UUabc

Update July 2019: On a sad but happy note, I have had to fully resign from UUabc, personal choice. I have gained a secondary position with my priority company, Whales English, as a teacher trainer – which has been a huge goal of mine since starting my online teaching career. I just don’t have enough additional hours to provide to UUabc alongside this new commitment. UUabc is an excellent company, they respect their teachers, the platform is easy to use and the lessons are such fun to teach it hardly feels like work! I wish anyone who wants to apply the best of luck.

Update May 2019: UUabc is a fantastic company to work for, especially if you are just getting started with teaching ESL online. I have personally worked with UUabc since November 2018. I did take a break between February and May as this was very quiet for bookings. However, I have chosen to allocate more teaching hours to the company in preparation for the peak online teaching season (the summer months). UUabc is still a growing company and so I will continue to update on the number of bookings I am given. But I just absolutely love the ethos of the company and do not want to leave them. Unlike other companies, they value their teachers highly and provide a fantastic level of support during your teaching hours.

The platform provided by UUabc is extremely easy to navigate and lesson materials are fun, engaging and even interactive for students to participate in activities. I found that the students with UUabc were also very well behaved and engaged positively with the material.

With UUabc, you are expected to complete all of the lesson material within the 30minute class. Hence, my shifts went extremely quickly when I was teaching and it honestly didn’t feel like work. Little preparation was required, other than ensuring I had gone through materials to know what to teach and which props to use alongside my classes for the day. My reports also never took very long either, perhaps an additional 2 minutes per class taught.

One of the best elements I found with UUabc was their support team, known as Aaron. Aaron is made up of a number of individuals who are available and easy to reach via Skype during teaching hours. This team was fantastic! They would respond within minutes of an issue and be able to support you immediately. Outside of teaching hours, they could help with areas of pay, booking queries and even changing of contract hours. They would respond very quickly and were extremely proactive, making any necessary changes immediately on your behalf.

I have presently taken a break from teaching with UUabc. Though I love the company and the lessons, unfortunately, they did not have the number of bookings I personally required. Teaching ESL online is currently my primary income, hence I need to have a full schedule with whichever companies I choose to work with. UUabc is a relatively new and growing company. They have fantastic plans in the near future. However, I joined the company during the winter season, which is renowned in online teaching to be a quiet period. So I did not gain the bookings I’d hoped for and have currently taken my hours to an alternative company. I am however in touch with HR and will continue this relationship to review whether I will return to UUabc in the summer, during the busiest online teaching season.

Update

As mentioned above, I did take a break teaching with UUabc between February and May 2019. I have been messaging and keeping in touch with a wonderful lady, Maggie, within HR every month since my temporary leave in February. She has been absolutely wonderful, providing advice on a number of student bookings and replying to my emails promptly. I have recently decided with the summer peak season approaching and my love for the company, to dedicate a number of hours each week to teach with them again. I am not 100% sure on the number of bookings available but will continue to provide an honest update and review of the company. I truly believe in UUabc and, even with low bookings previously, am very happy working for them.

About
Requirements
Pay
Interview
Demo
Training

About

UUabc provides classes for up to four students at a time, with ages ranging from 4-12years old. Each standard class is 30 minutes with a 5-minute break in between. An interactive platform with games, activities and songs embedded is fully provided.

UUabc also offers a specialised program called STEAM, providing teachers with the opportunity to teach a fun, engaging program focusing on students developing additional skills on top of English learning. Their peak hours are between 1750 – 2115 Monday – Friday and 1015 – 2115pm at the weekend (Beijing Time Zone).

Requirements

To be considered by UUabc, they require their teachers to be native English speakers from Australia, Canada, the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, America and South Africa. All teachers must have a BA degree or above and teaching experience is essential. If you have a TEFL or CELTA qualification, this will support your application but is not considered in place of a degree.

After the one month probationary period, they require a 6 month fixed schedule. Teachers are required to work a minimum of 4 hours per week, with 2 hours during peak times. As with most online companies, they require you to have a stable internet connection, with a minimum speed of 30mb.

Pay

Teachers are paid within the first week of the month, usually around the 10th. This is completed via PayPal presently, however payments are beginning to be made via online bank transfer from December 2018. UUabc’s pay is very generous in comparison to other online ESL companies, with a higher hourly rate of between $18-30. UUabc offers up to $3 per hour bonuses on top of your hourly rate.

Standby pay is no longer offered, unfortunately, as is the way with a lot of online ESL companies. However, if you have no bookings on your schedule within 12hours of your start time, you are not required to sit on standby at your desk.

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Application

Interview

Once you have completed your application via the above link, UUabc will email you directly to arrange an interview via Skype. The interview lasts approximately 40 minutes and includes a 5-10 minute demo. The interview consists of standard questions related to your teaching experience, confirming your qualifications and checking your professionalism and background.

I highly suggest to be prepared in advance, ensuring your equipment is working (laptop, webcam and headset) as well as testing your internet connection speeds are up to their requirements. The interviewers at UUabc are extremely friendly and make you feel comfortable immediately.

The interview is different to a formal face-to-face interview in that they are more relaxed and it is more of a formality of questions to confirm the information you provided with your application. When your interview has been completed and if they are satisfied with your demo performance, they will make you an offer. You will be required to send photos, proof of certificates, ID, contract hours and a short introduction about yourself via email. They will also book your training session.

Demo

As part of your interview, you are required to prepare a 5-10 minute demo. This will be presented to your interviewer who will pretend to be a certain aged and levelled student. Your interviewer will inform you of the age and ability to prepare your demo for. UUabc is slightly different to other companies in that they do not provide you with any materials to practice, rehearse and find suitable props for. It is your responsibility to produce your own materials and ideas for their demo. This is brilliant as it really allows you to be creative and teach an area that you feel most confident in to be able to demonstrate your abilities to the highest standards.

Remember, depending on how successful your demo is, will greatly impact upon the hourly rate they set you. They will be looking for enthusiasm, fun, TPR (total physical response), props, reward and engagement. If you can prepare basic visual resources to share on-screen as a mock lesson, this will also benefit both you and your interviewer. It will help you to keep your lesson focused and your interviewer will see you are prepared and have basic IT skills to be able to use their platform.

Training

Your training session is booked at the end of your interview (remember to ensure you think about the time zone difference prior to confirming which training session you would like to book). The training takes around 2-3 hours to complete and is carried out via Zoom. You will be joined by other new teachers and your trainer. Your trainer will go through UUabc’steaching platform, where to find different information such as notifications, class reports and booked classes. They will also go through different materials, looking at each ability level and discuss how to teach them.

The training is very interactive, involving all new staff members asking questions related to how you would teach activities and your own experiences. They also demonstrate how they manage up to 4 students within a class, which is fantastic if you have come from a company which focuses on just teaching 1 or 2 students at the same time.

Once you begin working with UUabc, I highly recommend looking out for teacher messages as there are further opportunities to develop skills and train with them. For example, they have training within their STEAM courses, which are fun and interactive focusing on learning English alongside Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths. They also offer sessions helping teachers with basic Chinese to support very low ability students with feeling more confident in the classroom and understand the teacher’s instructions.

UUabc is a very supportive and fun company to teach with and can offer further progressive opportunities for experienced teachers. If you meet the above requirements and like what you have read about the company, send an email to them directly including your resume and photo to teacher.hr@uuabc.com. In the subject line, I would be very grateful if you listed ‘Referred by Catherine Wilkinson, Teacher ID 1254. Make sure your resume is clear and precise. Ensure to list the important details at the top e.g. native speaker, TEFL and degree qualifications.