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What to Expect From an Online English Teaching Job Interview

By this point, you would have completed your certification with a trustworthy TESOL/TEFL/TESL provider and will be ready to face recruiters who will be interviewing you. Follow along as we map out an essential guide to a modern Online English teaching job interview.

Firstly, be on time! Your recruiter may run a couple of minutes late, but that does not mean that you shouldn’t be prepared and ready to go ahead of time. Your interviewer will meet with you at the agreed-upon time on the chosen date to conduct your interview on a stipulated video-conferencing platform (Zoom, Skype, Google-meetings etc.)

Interviewers will first greet you and ask you to tell them about yourself and your teaching experience. This is your chance to really engage them, so be sure to have thought about what you want to say beforehand. Your interviewer may not be a native English speaker, so be sure to speak at a good pace, using good intonation and possibly even using gesture to support your spoken words. Tell them about any and all qualifications you have obtained: awards you have achieved; degrees, diplomas or courses you have completed and more – emphasising most on all of your direct experience with the teaching/tutoring/au pairing/babysitting industries; explaining what experience you have under your belt and helping them understand why it makes you a suitable job candidate. Be sure to mention what areas you covered in your TESOL course and use industry-specific terminology such as striving to keep your lessons fun and engaging; using TPR, flashcards and realia as well as props to support your teaching etc. further as this lets the recruiter know that you completed your course through a quality institute and acquired sound working knowledge.

After this initial conversational period with the recruiter, you will be invited to teach them the prepared demo lesson. Majority of the online companies ask their candidates to teach a class, based on given slides, to the recruiter who acts like a learner. This allows the recruiter to assess all the wonderful skills and techniques you would have mentioned on your resume, in your introduction video and within your initial conversation.

When teaching the recruiter, be sure to remember the following:

  1. Speak slowly and use short, simple language so that your learner (your recruiter) can follow along easily.
  2. Spend time engaging the learner in an initial warmer phase, beginning with as much enthusiasm as possible.
  3. Limit your own teacher talking time whilst increasing your student time as much as possible! Do this by asking simple questions, running the learner through drilling exercises and expanding on the general context whilst building simple sentences with the student.
  4. Be as visual as possible – use props, flashcards, realia, TPR and toys to really lift the lesson off the screen, helping to engage the learner in a fun way and make your lesson enjoyable.
  5. Remain calm and try to approach the lesson with genuine enthusiasm – it may be a bit awkward teaching an adult as if they were a child, but the recruiter is there for that very reason! Remain positive and calm and roll with the lesson’s punches!

After your lesson has been taught, good recruiters generally offer feedback and tips on how they would like to see you improve and what you did well. They will thank you for your time and ask if you have any questions for them. Be sure to plan some questions ahead of time as this shows that you have a genuine interest in the position you are applying for. They may then proceed to tell you about the company and its policies as well as pay, incentives, class times etc. Take notes and be sure to remain focused whilst they are speaking as you may be quizzed on this information should you be offered a teaching position with the institute. Companies rarely let candidates know that they landed the position on the spot and will generally email you within a week to let you know whether you have been accepted.

For more tips on what to expect from the Online English teaching industry, click the link and head on over to our website to learn more!