Language of The
Learning Kate Davis’s Classroom Reaches Around the Globe
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★ by A MY S ULLIVAN
T 4:30 AM, MOST PEOPLE ARE STILL ENJOYING A blissful night’s slumber, with an hour or two left before the dreaded alarm goes off. Few folks are “up and at ‘em” at such an early hour. But Kate Davis Lambert, many mornings, has to not only be UP, but also ON, by the dawn’s early light, teaching the first of four lively lessons online to young children in China! Kate works for VIPKid, an online educational company that began in 2013 and now employs more than 100,000 instructors, primarily from the United States and Canada, to teach English to approximately 700,000 Chinese students. Similar to tutoring lessons in the United States, parents privately pay VIPKid instructors to teach their children the English language after their normal school hours. Though several similar companies exist, Kate likes VIPKid’s one-to-one platform that allows her to teach an individual child one at a time for a 25minute session. She can also set her preferred schedule, teaching as much or as little as she wants, all night long, or early in the morning. For Kate, early morning works best, before her full-time job teaching fifth grade at Clark Elementary School begins. Kate explained that this particular company hires indigenous English speakers, with no accent. “Parents that choose VIPKid don’t just want their kids to learn English from a Chinese citizen who knows English,” Kate explained. “They want their kids having conversations with native English speakers, and they want teachers to correct pronunciation mistakes.” “You get to know the kids and their families,” Kate expressed. “I ask them questions about what they like to do, and I have found responses are usually much the same as they are with American kids. They do play a lot of table
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tennis over there, and a lot of the boys love basketball.” Kate teaches kids in the age range of five to twelve years, sometimes older. The younger children are a little more timid and nervous because they haven’t had as much practice with English. Kate indicated she has to be very patient and bring a lot of bubbly energy, especially at this early hour. VIPKid trainers encourage using props when teaching. The little ones like when you act silly, just like kids in the United States, Kate says. Kate must incorporate TPR—Total Physical Response—where she uses her hands the entire time, pointing, cupping her ear, and providing other hand motion interactions. “It’s a different sort of thing, but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy,” Kate remarked. If you want to be successful, ideally you keep regular “slots” opened and available so that you