Zebra English has a long interview process with many steps. Very time consuming. They required an application along with a video submissions. After that, they require you to download their software in order to attend a demo lesson. If you then pass that demo lesson, they want you to attend another one. The software is a bit glitchy and not all of the buttons work in the practice room. So, it is difficult to fully prepare. Further, before the demo there is probably at least two or three hours of prep involved between watching all of their training videos. On top of that, you have to prepare your props to fit their lesson material if you don’t already have any. The demo mentor told me that they would play the part of a three year old with limited English, but during the demo they acted much older than 3 (I would say more around 6/7 years old) and their English was definitely at a higher level than first claimed. Afterward commendation and feedback were given . The demo mentor made some valid suggestions as to where I could have done better. However, she suggested that I use a teaching method that would have actually not been level appropriate for the student that she was portraying, in effect over simplifying things for a student that was already advanced enough to answer the questions without the extra help. Also, she suggested that I not use a certain TPR- And her reasons made sense. However, this exact TPR was featured in their example video for how a demo class should be taught. Each step of the way you get an email saying to allow 3 business days. However, much longer than three days passes between hearing responses for each step. I eventually received an email saying that after further review, they no longer thought we were a good fit and that I would not be going further with the interview process. No further explanation as to why. I’m not sure exactly what they are looking for , but I have been teaching ESL online for over 6 years. In the end it was a disappointing process that just ended up wasting my time.

There were a total of two interviews. The first interview consisted of some basic questions about my teaching experience. Then, I had to do a 10 minute demo. Afterwards, I moved to the next interview which required me to provide a full teaching demo.