Frequently Asked Questions

The students in our classes are usually in suburban/rural areas of China. They range from grade 1 - 8, and a lot of them are left-behind children. They are underprivileged and do not have adequate access to English education.

You would start it off by attending a training period, where our amazing teacher trainers will help you develop your skills in the classroom. After you finish the training, you will be teaching 1-2 lessons each week, each class ranging from 30 minutes to 1 hour. Outside of the classes, you would connect with other volunteers from our community by icebreaker and team-bonding activities.

An accomplished teacher at EFA should be empathetic, encouraging, positive, and energetic. We will also prepare you with necessary skills through teaching workshops led by our teacher trainers once you are admitted to the teaching team.

Although previous teaching experience is recommended, it is not required for you to become an EFA teacher. Just bring your passion for teaching!

All the curriculum volunteers are split into 5 groups called pods, with each pod being mentored by a curriculum lead. Every week, you will be expected to finish the task assigned to you (such as to create a new lesson based on a textbook chapter), attend your pod meeting, and implement any feedback your lead may provide.

This is a tricky question to explain into words- it's a lot easier to show! To see a class in action, feel free to check out our YouTube channel (Education For All Foundation) and watch a lesson. All the powerpoints we use are made by EFA curriculum volunteers!

It will vary, but typically it is around 4-6 hours every week, including meetings and feedback.

1. Send an application through our application website portal ‘Apply Now’ or at efaglobal.org/apply-now. 2. You will be contacted for an interview with one of our executives for a short 10-minute virtual meeting to get to know you better. Throughout this period, your previously submitted portfolio from the application will be assessed by our team. 3. After the interview, you will be assigned a diagnostic project similar to those actually created by our graphic designers to assess your technical and creative skills. From this, our team will be able to decide on your status.

New tasks are assigned on a weekly basis where graphic designers will receive their new project (textual content & illustrations all ready to go) to complete before the assignment deadline. The period before a posting consists of constructive feedback from our graphic design mentors and other possible members to refine each post. Meetings are held biweekly (once every two weeks) for housekeeping, addressing any overall concerns, providing updates and general team bonding.

Collaboration and building friendships and a sense of engagement with other members of the team are greatly valued at EFA. Apart from biweekly team meetings where graphic designers and digital artists are able to meet face to face virtually, communication is constant and critical during off-call moments on our Slack workspace. Graphic designers will sometimes find themselves collaborating with digital artists, content writers, and mentors to gain a better understanding of an assignment or for specific requests.

It is preferred that an applicant is familiar with Adobe XD and/or Canva as these programs are what we use most frequently and intuitively. If you have any concerns surrounding program adaptation or the use of other programs, please send us a direct message on social media.

1. Send an application through our application website portal ‘Apply Now’ or at efaglobal.org/apply-now. 2. You will be contacted for an interview with one of our executives for a short 10-minute virtual meeting to get to know you better. Throughout this period, your previously submitted portfolio from the application will be assessed by our team. 3. After the interview, you will be assigned a diagnostic project similar to those actually created by our digital artists to assess your technical and creative skills. From this, our team will be able to decide on your status.

In your application review process, we look to see if you are capable of emulating the style and illustrative elements that represent our visual content: creative, engaging, yet simplistic. Our illustration style can be seen by taking a look at our Instagram page. As a digital artist, most times, the illustrations you decide to create and embody a specific post are up to your creative intuition and decision with the constructive feedback of a mentor there to guide you at all times. Sometimes, a certain image from a writer or graphic designer will ask for specific requests.

New tasks are assigned on a weekly basis where digital artists will receive their new project in the form of a completed written, text-only post. Based on the artists’ creative intuition and with the help of mentors, the digital artist will create the illustrations that represent the post, completed before the assignment deadline. This process consists of constructive feedback from our digital art and graphic design mentors to refine each illustration. Digital artists and graphic designers must also attend biweekly meetings (once every two weeks) for housekeeping, addressing any overall concerns, providing updates and general team bonding.

1. Submit your application through our website at www.efaglobal.org and you’ll be contacted within 24 hours to set up an interview with either the Financial Executive or the Outreach Lead. Interviews will usually last from 10 - 30 minutes depending on how much the applicant elaborates. 2. Within 72 hours after the interview, your decision will be emailed to you.

Grants Team Every month you will work together in a team of 2-3 in order to achieve the goal of two applications per month. Usually applications are finished in two weeks with the first two days dedicated towards researching and coming up with a skeletal outline of your application. The following two weeks consist of rough drafts, edits, and peer reviews in order to cultivate your project for the mid-month deadline. Being on the grants team means you enjoy writing and critical thinking in order to convey our message to your chosen foundation in a unique and compelling manner. After grants applications have been submitted, it will be your responsibility to check and follow up on the progress of the grant. If the foundation requests for a full proposal or additional information, you and your team will be in charge of executing a follow-up. There will usually be weekly meetings with the financial executive for quick updates, questions that are hard to address through slack, and team bonding. Outreach Team Similar to the grants team, the outreach team follows a monthly deadline for news network connections and publicity.

On average, 3-4 hours is expected per week.

As an EDGE mentor, you will have two meetings per week. One is the conversation day where you will have a one on one conversation with a mentee, and the other one is the personal growth day where you can talk to a psychologist to ask questions. You will meet a group of like-minded people in EDGE, and you guys will become good friends even outside of the program.

Through out the training process, you will learn a lot about psychology and overall communication skills. This is very helpful to you as an individual, as what you learned can be applied to various scenarios outside of EDGE conversations. On top of gaining technical knowledge, the personally fulfillment from EDGE also comes from knowing the fact that your input and effort is improving someone else’s overall well-being. In the grand scheme, the conversations with your mentee today could potentially motivate them to pursue higher education, and encourage them to look beyond their current living environment. [From EFA EDGE Mentorship Executive] Personally, the psychology lessons at the beginning of this program help me gain some fundamental knowledge about people’s thoughts, and the actual conversations with my mentee have enhanced my communication skills and active listening skills. In the grand scheme, EDGE helps students in rural China maintain healthy minds and provide them mental support whenever needed.