Guide For Working At SayABC

This is a complete guide for those of you that want to work at SayABC. If you’ve not already done so use this link to sign up for SayABC.

See the full job requirements and school reviews of SayABC.

A Summary of SayABC’s Teaching Position

SayABC is a sister company as VIPKID, but under different managerial team. From the community, we heard teachers say that the booking rate at SayABC is significantly higher and more consistent compares to VIPKID, where teachers at VIPKID often mentioned not able to get enough booking or even no booking at all for weeks. SayABC focuses on 1 to up to 4 students vs. VIPKID focuses on one-on-one teaching. Teaching at SayABC might be a little bit more challenging if you haven’t taught multiple children in one setting. In this case, teaching 4 students simultaneously!

The following info is gathered from our FB community and other sources. Apply or see general info about SayABC.

Pros

• Teachers get plenty of hours and SayABC is good to deal with. The curriculum and platform are good too.
• Teachers love that SayABC schedule teachers’ classes directly so you don’t need to worry about not having booked and the schedule is pretty consistent. Teachers reported getting around 10 teaching hours per week on average.
• I personally prefer the SayABC platform because it is super interactive and awesome.
• The homeroom class is great. A teacher got around 10 homerooms. $15 per lesson as base pay. Bonus $6 per lesson and total 9 lessons per homeroom, which gives you a $54 bonus if you taught them all.

Cons

• The schedule still relatively flexible, but you need to provide a fixed class schedule twice a week for an extended period of time. This means you might lose your regular classes if you take too many holidays that require you to cancel or need substitute teachers. Your availability is set before each Wednesday. Scheduling happens every week. However, although you can set your schedule up to one week before scheduled lessons, SayABC won’t able to guarantee that you get your preferred schedule if that’s the case.
• The downside is that homeroom is not necessarily easy to get, but if you are not given homerooms, you can be assigned trial classes.

Interview Process at SayABC

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What’s the interview process?

1. Book a live interview or self-record your interview
2. Formal interview – Meet recruiters in the classroom for Q&A and demo class. Make sure your IT is satisfied.
3. Complete self-study modules to learn about the teaching platform and attend a live mentor session with an experienced SayABC teacher. You’ll be participating as a student. You and your mentor review a practice lesson and discuss how to teach the lesson. It is helpful to receive hints and suggestions from your mentor.
4. A 40-min evaluation class (mock class) up to 4 real students with one chance to reschedule. If you passed the evaluation class, then HR will send you a contract and W-9 form. You can find more details here.
5. Upload necessary documents to SayABC and happy teaching!

The live tutoring session is a mentor session with an experienced SayABC teacher. You’ll be participating as a student. You and your mentor review a practice lesson and discuss how to teach the lesson. It is helpful to receive hints and suggestions from your mentor.

1. Sign Up at Teacher Portal and Submit the Application

It’s pretty straightforward on SayABC’s teacher application process. First, you need to create an account on SayABC’s portal. Fill out the form and proceed to the interview step.

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2. How to Book an Interview?

You’ll able to book an interview on the console as shown in the previous step 2. You will able to find more details once you are you in the portal. You can either book a live Interview or make a self-recorded video on SayABC’s portal.

• Be sure to confirm your time zone!

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If you’re not available for the live interview, there’s an option to send a self-recorded intro video.

SayABC provides an option for submitting a recorded intro video. You will be using the teacher portal to record an interview along with a short demo class.

The video will be reviewed by the recruiter and they will reach out to you if you pass the screening, and later be invited to attend the onboarding progress. According to them, you will be going through evenhanded evaluation despite the actual differences between the two interview methods.

Note: SayABC’s system will still detect and evaluate the quality of your Internet and equipment settings automatically whilst you are recording.

What should be included in the self-intro video?

• Sample video clips, interview tips, and teaching materials are provided beforehand;
• A rehearsal classroom would be created before you start the actual interview, in which you may practice and get familiar with SayABC’s classroom setting, features and so on;
• Each applicant has up to three attempts of records. The last one created will be the one that is submitted eventually.
• At some stages along the path, should you want to switch to a live interview, you need to contact our Teacher Recruitment Team so that they will delete your previous video.

3. Interview Preparation

The interview usually lasts around 30 minutes and consists of three major parts:

1. Interview Q&A
2. IT test
3. demo and feedback.

The interview will be conducted on the SayABC portal.

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Setup a quality teaching environment

• You would want the interviewer to recognize your intention to provide quality lessons and give you extra points for an authentic kid-friendly environment.
• Locate a place that’s quiet with a relatively plain background with good lighting.
  • Avoid a public space or anywhere that can potentially have a noisy background.
• You should be consistent with the teaching space for your future classes.
• SayABC recommends putting a SayABC logo and a teacher name tag in the background. You can save the image of the SayABC logo displayed above, make sure they are visible on the camera screen.
• Decorate your background with classroom-related posters (like an alphabet chart, a world map, whiteboard) to make it more interesting! However, avoid too many visual distractions to the students.

Technical Setups

• Make sure your microphone or webcam work before the interview process.
  • HD webcam and headset is highly recommended for the higher quality video resolution and sound.
  • Noise-canceling headphones and microphone is recommended to better collect your sound and avoid echos.
• The interview will be conducted on the SayABC portal.
• Check your Internet connectivity and performance. An Internet issue can potentially fatal to your online ESL teaching interview.
  • Wired connection is not strictly required, but the wired Ethernet connection is proven to provide a more stable and faster internet connection than Wifi. However, this highly depends on your Wifi router’s performance. WiFi 802.11n and 802.11ac are extremely fast if you do not wall away from the router. However, 802.11g or older probably not a good setup.
  • Double, triple, and perhaps quadruple check your Internet performance before the interview. Not doing so is one of the most common reasons candidates don’t pass the interview.

Dress Appropriately

• You should wear kid-friendly attire for the primary school setting.
• SayABC recruiters likely experience this situation often enough to write it down in their interview guidelines. “Even though an online interview means the interviewer won’t see anything from the waist down, it doesn’t mean you should only dress up the upper half of your body. You may need to stand up to grab something in the middle of the interview, which would reveal your mismatched bottoms.”

What Questions to Expect During the Interview?

Listen carefully and pay close attention to what your recruiter. Provide a clear and concise response but not over detailing.

• A quick rundown of your background, highest education level, and the related teaching experience prior, etc to help the recruiter better under you.
• Do you have online or offline in classroom teaching experience?
• Are you teaching on other online teaching platforms?
  • This is not a trick question, but if you did or are currently teaching for other ESL platforms, let the recruiter know because this means it’s less training and quicker onboarding to hire an experienced teacher like you!
• What student’s age groups are you good at and enjoy teaching?
• Do you have a full-time job?
• Do you have any travel plans or taking a break from any type of work for the next 6 months?
  • There are minimal 10 hours per month commitment to teaching because you’ll be taking care of the same recurring students for the next few months if you’re hired.
• Why do you choose SayABC? Have you been working in SayABC before?

Here are some No-No during the Interview and Classes

• SayABC’s guideline – you should avoid inappropriate actions during the interview (such as checking your phone, yawning, leaning forward to closely/ stepping away from the camera, drinking water frequently, etc).
• No absence. Watch out for the time zone difference and crazy daylight saving hour shift. There’s no daylight saving in China.
• No attending interview/class late, No leaving early
• No threatening, insulting, mocking or teasing the students, DaDa employees and other teachers.
  • Note: the ESL teaching circle is smaller than you think. Internal recruiters also often move around different ESL companies. So be respectful and responsible for your own actions. You don’t want to be blacklisted.
• No fake documents including diploma, teaching certificate and leave slip
• No eating, smoking, drinking alcohol or making up in the class or teaching under the influence of alcohol or drugs
• No leaving during the class
• No speaking in dispraise of the company

Prepare your demo lesson

You will be demonstrating a mock class to the interviewer in order to assess your teaching skills. You will able to access the demo materials once you booked an interview. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the class content and teaching platform.

4. Congrats! Self-Study and Prepare for the Mock Class if you Passed the Interview

Once you passed both the interview and mentoring session, the final challenge is the mock class. If your IT requirements meet their requirements, the booking page for the evaluation class will be released as soon as you have passed the interview.

What to expect for the Mock Class?

• Prepare the mack class and be evaluated by teaching a mock class up to 4 real students.
• The mock class lasts 40 minutes
• The teaching will be assessed by the QA team and the result will be available in 2 business days.
• The lesson material will be available on the teacher portal 48 hours before the class starts.
• Recommend you enter the classroom at least 5 minutes prior to test your equipment and warm up with students who join early.

5. Congrats Again! Now you will Receive a Job Offer and Proceed to the Onboarding if Passed the Mock Lesson!

This is the Onboarding and the last step of the entire interview flow. You will just need to set up some additional legal and payment documents and complete the criminal background check. Once completed then you’re ready to teach and make money!

Related Online English Job Interview Guides

• Online ESL interview guide
• Guide for Working at Magic Ears
• Guide for Working at ALO7
• Guide for Working at DaDa
• Guide for Working at Whales English
• Looking for similar companies to teach for? Check out those top companies.

See the full job requirements and school reviews of SayABC.

Compensation

Major class payment = Base Pay + Completion Incentive

• Base pay: USD $15 / 40-minute lesson + 5 minutes of class preparation before class
• Completion incentive payment: Up to USD $36/Unit

Free Trial class payment: Base Pay + Conversion Incentive

• Your base pay: USD $15 / 40-minute lesson + 5 minutes of class preparation before class
• Your conversion incentive payment: $8/converted student

Emergency Sub Class Payment (Assigned a class by Teacher support within 24 hours of start time) = Base Pay + Emergency Sub Incentive within 24 hours

• Your base pay: USD $15 / 40-minute lesson + 5 minutes of class preparation before class
• Your emergency sub incentive payment: USD $7/successful conducted class

Please refer to the payments & incentives section below for the criteria for receiving incentives.

Payment

• Remittance: Transfers initiated the 15th of each month or the following month if you’re a new teacher.
• Pay Period: 1st and the last day of the month
• Pay Method: Wire transfer
• Transaction fee: SayABC adds an additional $12 to payments to non-US accounts to cover transaction fees. Please note your local bank may charge for receiving USD. SayABC is not responsible for further fees charged by financial institutions.
• The day on which the remittance is deposited in Teacher’s account depends on processing times of the financial institutions involved. Some banks may take an additional 4-5 working days to process payments.

See the full job requirements and school reviews of SayABC.

Teaching Tips

• The big thing to remember, when you do teach 4 students, is that each student needs to hear the teacher without being disturbed by the other students. So if there is ANY noise in the background (including an echo) for any of the students, or if one of the students is going nuts, mute them. If you need to, mute everyone. Each child will still hear herself and the teacher, but they won’t hear whoever is muted. Although these parents aren’t paying for private lessons, they will still listen to make sure their child is getting attention, so use their names as much as possible, and try to give each student at least one correction. When you are doing choral drilling, you will not be able to hear each child. Don’t worry about it. You can look at their mouths and make sure they are at least participating, but save the individual corrections until you are in one-on-one activities. Most of all, understand that you simply cannot take time away from 3 students to discipline 1 student. The other 3 parents will be angry. If one child isn’t participating, you can say happily, “Billy, please come to participate” or something, but if Billy starts jumping on the chair and throwing fits, just mute him and go on. You should let the administration know about it later so they can talk to the parents (if the parents weren’t already there to see it). With 4 students you also have much less time to improvise as the time is being taken up by paying attention to each child. So watch the clock. I have never used negative cards. I guess they accept that SayABC has them, but I don’t think they’re necessary.
• I don’t often have four students, usually two or three. In your interview you will teach one adult, so you will be fine. With multiple students, you can drag each student up to the main screen. This mutes the other students, so you can check on their pronunciation and correct if needed. You can also individually mute them and disable their mouse at any time. This helps with background noise and distracted kids. After the interview, you will have a one-hour session with a mentor who will explain it to you. Reward cards are easy, I have never given out a negative card. I give 4 or 5 to each student, usually for the same activity. You don’t need a secondary reward, but I have some emojis and stars I will hold in front of the camera for the younger kids. After your mentor class, you teach one real class which is an evaluation.

SayABC Intro Video

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Teaching Materials