UUabc is a fantastic company to work for, especially if you are just getting started with teaching ESL online. I personally worked with UUabc for a number of months and absolutely loved the ethos of the company. 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.
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. They also provide a set $15 per hour for standby, when teachers do not have any bookings during their contracted hours. UUabc offers up to $3 per hour bonuses on top of your hourly rate.
Apply Here!
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, follow the link below to apply:
Apply to UUabc
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