How Hi-Tech English Schools Train Teachers
Tags: Online Learning, Edtech, Education, English Language, Online Jobs

Online education is is becoming more and more popular with this market growing by up to 30% every year. In particular, online language learning is booming which means increased demand for English teachers willing to work remotely. Some language schools are ready to invest in their staff and understand the importance of hiring as many native English speakers as possible.

Skyeng is one of these EdTech companies. It’s the biggest online language school in Eastern Europe. Over the course of 8 years, it grew from a small startup founded by 4 students into a hi-tech educational platform. At the moment Skyeng, employs about 7,000 teachers from Eastern and Western Europe, USA and other countries. Most of them are professional teachers of English as a second language and are not native speakers.

Along with that, Skyeng hires about 10 native English speakers every month, and some of them continue to work for the company for many years. How does Skyeng train new hires and what does motivate them to stay, besides compensation?

How It All Starts

First thing first, each newly hired teacher has an onboarding session where they learn how to work with the Vimbox platform.

Vimbox is an in-house platform that hosts all individual classes. It’s more just a video chat, it’s an actual online classroom. It stores all lesson plans and educational materials and allows a teacher to make notes during the class, do video presentations, stream video clips, give tasks and grade them in real time.

Despite the abundance of features, the platform is really easy to use thanks to the user-friendly interface. Teachers have no problem learning how to use it. But getting familiar with the platform is just the first step in the training process.

Teaching online has its own peculiarities. And of course Skyeng helps its teachers to get used to them. New hires first attend a workshop where they learn basic methods of online teaching. Then they conduct a practice lesson with a teaching methods expert as a student. The expert gives the teacher feedback and tips, and after that the teacher is ready to work with actual students. Teaching methods experts supervise classes regularly (as all classes are recorded), see if teachers have any difficulties and help them.

How Skyeng Trains Highly Qualified Professionals

After getting familiar with Vimbox, teachers can upgrade their skills in an in-house educational center — SkyTeach. It regularly hosts courses on various aspects of teaching, like Digital Technologies in Online Education, Preparation for International Exams, Teaching English to Children, Productive Lessons Online, and English for Teenagers.

Teachers can study individually online through pre-recorded courses or join live workshops with teaching methods experts. Upon completing the course, teachers get a state-recognized certificate that they can use later during their career.

At Skyeng, teachers don’t have to face their problems alone as they become a part of an international teaching community and can turn to their colleagues for help at any time. But there’s even more than just communication — Skyeng regularly organizes workshops and master classes for the community. Besides, it’s a great opportunity to get to know colleagues from all around the world — Skyeng employs teachers from Russia, USA, Canada, Australia and many others.

What Teachers Say About Skyeng

Ephraim Domingo: “I have been working at Skyeng since 2014 with more than 3,600 lessons conducted since then. I’ve stayed this long because of convenience of the nature of job as well as the compensation I get, which is significantly better than what I used to receive from working at a university. Furthermore, it is actually difficult to leave because of my students. I’d never thought I would meet such amazing and interesting people like my old and current students here. They’ve become my friends and while they learn English from me, I learn a lot of valuable things and lessons from them in return. I got exposed more in different fields that my students are expert in from marketing to management, to human resources, to oil and gas industries, to information technology and programming, to aeronautics and a lot more. Sometimes I even get to ‘tour’ cities in Russia and Belarus while having a lesson with my students. Because of these, I consider my teaching vocation at Skyeng not only as a well-paying job but also as a learning experience”.

Nastasha Sale: “My journey with Skyeng started late 2011 with one student, no platform, no lesson plans and a very ambitious team of colleagues. At the time, the idea of online teaching was so foreign to me.

Well, look at us now almost 8 years later, I am close to 5000 conducted classes, an ever evolving platform, with an enormous team and the greatest support I could have ever imagined.

Online teaching has come a long way and our school has, in my opinion, set the bar very high. Covering every aspect of teaching with great attention to detail, our lesson plans and systems really are hard to beat. I feel the needs of the teachers are increasingly met too, with new incentives and more support the teachers are able to enjoy the perks of not having to spend too much time planning lessons and marking homework. Really giving you time to focus on the students needs and to make sure they are met”.

Sarah Grierson: “I’ve really enjoyed my last 2.5 years working for Skyeng. The wide variety of courses and topics keeps it interesting and the questions given in the lessons allow for some rather deep conversations about important social and business issues.

I find that it’s easier to assess and monitor the progress of my individual students in Skyeng in comparison to teaching in large classrooms with a lot of students to manage at the one time. Moreover, I often feel that I actually contribute more towards my students’ progress, as they receive 100% of my attention in class and I can immediately tailor my lessons and future topics to their individual needs. Overall, I think that teaching online can offer more flexibility at the time of teaching lessons, particularly having the internet and the Skyeng resources at my fingertips.

Finally, I love how I can manage my own schedule and go to yoga classes in the middle of the day!”