One of the best reasons for teaching with VIPKid or another online English language company is that you can decide the hours you will work! Many people even fit these hours around a regular 9-5 job to bring home a bit extra each month.
In fact, because VIPKid has classes about 16 hours a day and on the weekend, no matter where in the world you live, you’ll be able to find a time that works with your schedule.
And don’t worry, once you put in your home time zone the VIPKid portal will automatically do the math to calculate classes based on your current time zone.
So what are VIPKid teaching hours?
You’ll see hours referred to as Beijing time. In reality, all of China is in the same time zone (crazy, considering how big the country is!). This is China Standard Time, as China doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time. If you are in an area that observes Daylight Savings Time, you’ll need to move ahead an hour during this March-November period.
The Chinese government doesn’t allow students to take classes during certain hours, so there are no slots available for teachers to open between 10:00pm and 8:00am Beijing Time.
There are a few exceptions to these normal hours for teachers, however. Occasionally, trial classes are booked outside of these times (between 9:00-10:00pm) since they apparently aren’t considered regular classes.
Also, there are a (very) few students who live in countries outside of China who book outside of the popular times.
With the rise of online learning during covid-19, VIPKid has started expanding into the US market, creating or partnering with small group tutoring programs or book clubs like Book Nook. In the future there may even be subjects like math and Spanish! This means an expansion of possible teaching times for teachers, including afternoon or evening hours in North America. That being said, new opportunities like these are generally not available to brand-new teachers.
Seasonal changes
For about a two-month period from January to early March, students have Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) school break. During this time there will be many students wanting daytime classes because they aren’t in school.
During Chinese summer break in July and August, booking requests for daytime hours will again increase, although overall bookings may decrease because students are enjoying their summer vacation. Another period of slow bookings is during exam weeks, when many students will cancel classes.
If you are interested in teaching with VIPKid, shoot me an email (growingglobalcitizens @ gmail.com) and I’m happy to answer any questions you have!
