It’s official, dear reader. The days of teaching Chinese children ESL are over. VIPkid confirmed on Friday that foreign teachers outside China’s mainland will not be able to teach students on the platform. Existing students can finish up their packages, but we will be getting no more new students. It was not clear how trials would be affected but I imagine that we wouldn’t be getting any of those either. What that means is that the Chinese market is shifting to foreign teachers already based in China. Good for them. Bad for those of us who live abroad. Jasper, ever practical as he is, responded by saying “if you want to go to China for a couple of years, I’ll just see you in the summers”. But going to China to live is not something that I particularly want to do. It’s hard enough living in Amsterdam where everybody speaks English. It is still extremely possible to feel like an outsider. I can’t imagine how that would be living in China.
It remains to be seen just what form VIPkid will take for foreign teachers. They have assured us that they are trying to open up other markets. Perhaps that means they will expand their Korean teaching market as well as their Book Nook Reading program for US students. Unfortunately, the second option doesn’t sound very nice for me because it requires me to be up at all hours. There is also the potential for VIPkid to expand into other international markets. And there’s always the adult teaching market. So they have told us that they won’t cancel our contracts nor will they stop renewing them. I do not hold out much hope for the International market as I don’t thing that those students will want to pay what the Chinese parents were paying. So for me it’s a waiting game, but it’s also a goodbye.
Once I received the news on Saturday, I sent out a Mass text to the students that I have on WeChat, to tell them that I was available for private lessons. Because apparently that is not going to be affected. It remains to be seen just how much business I can get and just how many people I can get on WeChat before everything shuts down. But the news has left me a bit sad. There are students for whom I have been their only teacher for four years. Luckily I have some of them on WeChat and maybe we will be able to continue.
I am also happier than I can say that I diversified in 2019 and joined the English Center. Because, as much as I complain about their cancellation policy, I am extremely grateful for the work. Right now that amounts to between four and six hours of teaching for them a week. If that number could elevate to about 20 hours a week I would be a happy girl. I still have some private clients and I’m trying to figure out how to get more. I will be OK but I’m also allowed to have all the feelings in the world about the loss of a job that I’ve actually done for five years.
After the fiasco of my first attempt, I submitted another video to iTalki, And I’m happy to say that this one passed with flying colors. I have an interview with them later today. In fact, it’s not really an interview but rather a group call to talk about the ins and outs of working on the platform. What concerns me, is that it seems people are charging $18 an hour for their work. Which is less than I make with VIPKid now. I am also going to take the precaution of opening up more hours with Lingueo and for the moment only work My 1-3 pm with VIPkid or short notice starting with next week.
As the summer winds to a close, I have Freek and Claudia on reserve as they have decided to take a hiatus until at least September. That means that I have to be very careful of my schedule while I’m in Greece. But there is time enough to figure that out. I will have to have a talk with Marieke and English center about how and when students want lessons generally so that I can keep those hours free. Because I suspect that since the last time we had this conversation, things have changed as a result of the pandemic and the increase in online lessons.
This coming weekend Jasper and I are off to Germany to see his brother and family. It will be almost 2 years since we’ve seen them. Jasper’s brother is not convinced that Covid is real and none of them have been vaccinated. They have said that they will not go anywhere where mask is required. Hopefully I will be able to find myself something to do. I think I see lots of hiking in my future. At least when it comes to Germany.
The good news is that in advance of this trip, I have prepared everything for this week and the following week in terms of all of my English Center lessons. So I’m ahead. I’m off to have a think about where to go next and what form my business needs to take. One thing is certain. The hustle needs to become even more real.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. But stay tuned. As always, there is more to come.
Inkreadable 