Private Tutoring

Teaching question...

One of the classes I was supposed to teach has been cancelled, but a couple of the people who were in it have contacted me asking whether I could do some private tutoring instead. Have any of you here done it? What are the rates like? I have no idea what I would charge. And do you usually go to the family's place to tutor? Are they expected to pay for my transportation costs? Also, is it okay for me to ask the students to buy a textbook?

I don't know about your local rates for tutoring, however, I always tutor out of my home (where I have guaranteed quick access to my references and resources), and I do require my students to get certain materials (even a textbook) for my lessons.  I believe there was a thread with suggested rates in here....somewhere.

I get 150 RMB an hour for one on ones.

ahh yeah I should have probably looked around before I made a new thread :/


150 RMB seems quite good! It's quite a bit more than what my school pays me for work I do outside my monthly salary.

I also charge 150/hr for 1 or 2.  More than two, I would charge more.

My rates are: 150 RMB for one on one, 200 for two kids (100 each), or 240 for 3 kids.  But mostly they just want the one on ones so far.

My old school used to pay 100 RMB for the extras.  that was for a 40 minute hour, though, so it actually works out at 150 RMB for a full hour.

150 RMB seems quite good! It's quite a bit more than what my school pays me for work I do outside my monthly salary.

This is because the schools keep for themselves a goodly chunk of what the client pays. I think in many cases the schools are actually keeping more of it than they give you to teach the class.
However, the schools do definitely earn at least some of what they get. This is NOT an easy business to navigate in China. 

Yeah for the summer schools my old school used to run, which paid us 2400 RMB for 12 days (1 hr 30 mins a day), I believe, there were 30 students, all of whom paid 400, meaning the school would rake in around 12000 and pay us a sixth of that.

I was offered a 10 day summer school last week, teaching mornings only, all materials supplied - for 4000Y. But ... I prefer to spend that time on the back of a horse.

Check that your contract allows you to do private work - especially for students that were enrolled in a class that they expected to make money from.

Doing yourself out of a job for a couple of hundred isn't worth it.

I charge much more than that for private classes. But then again - my students can afford paying it. 150 is the minimum. AND students better come to your place.

in wuhan a lot of students' parents were only willing to pay 50 for privates.

In Wuhan I wouldn't have had many private students.  I would have had more free time and other teachers would have worked.

Hello everyone. I wouldn't call myself the expert on this subject but for well over a year now I have done nothing but private tutoring. So I thought I would discuss how I have made a living out of it.

First and foremost, you HAVE to go to the students homes! It is unprofessional to have students come to your home. It gives the idea of being lazy to some. Not to mention that if these students are able to afford an English teacher they are likely to have other teachers coming to their homes as well. They don't have the time to travel all over the city to different teachers' homes. The argument that you have resources at home that are not available at students' homes is not a strong argument in my opinion. I have found that most of my students have far more books than I do. Further, I have a laptop computer with cell phone Internet (available from China Telecom with unlimited hours and unlimited coverage area for 300rmb per month) and if I need a resource, I pull out the laptop, log on to the Internet, and get my answer.

I enjoy teaching kids and always have. I have taught adults but when it comes to private tutoring I have found they are unreliable. Many times they cancel class because they have to work late, have a meeting, they are tired, or they just want some family time. For this reason I have stopped private tutoring of adults. Children on the other hand and far more reliable. Their parents are making them have lessons and so it's rare for them to cancel. To solve cancellation problems I had with one particular student, I required them to pay me up front and if they didn't give me 24 hours notice when they needed to cancel (so I could call another student and see if they wanted an extra class) they still had to pay for that lesson.

So you may be asking, how do you make a full time job out of it and how much money can you honestly make?? The answer is simple. Word of mouth. I was fortunate to find an American girl who was going home and who had a private student. After talking with her I found she had no person lined up to take her place when she went home. I asked her to remember me and she did. When she left she put me in contact with her student. I started teaching this student and he seemed to like me. So much so that he told his friends. Soon my phone was ringing. Within a few weeks I went from 1 student to 7 and a while later up to 15 students. Having a real workable schedule is essential to private tutoring. Most my students get home from school at 4pm. So my schedule is as follows
4:15-5:15
5:30-6:30
6:45-7:45
8:00-9:00
The earlier times are for the youngest of students while the later times are reserved for my older ones. As you can see I allow myself 15 minutes travel time from one house to another. Having an electric bike and living in Suzhou this is not a problem. Obviously a students home dictates if you can teach them or not. You don't want to agree to teach a student on one side of town and have a class after that on the other side of town. Be sure to ask where they live. You will find that if one student refers another, more often than not they live very close to each other. Also because of my schedule I refuse to do classes of more than an hour long. If the parents want more they should sign up for more lessons. Many short lessons are far better than a few long ones. Both for the student and the teacher. Currently I have this schedule 6 days a week and have every Sunday off. One could easily arrange this schedule to have every weekend off. At 150rmb per hour and 6 days a week, I earn 3,600rmb per week provided I have no canceled classes.

Books! What books should I use? I have taught out of many different kinds of books here in China and most of them are garbage. New Interchange is one I truly hate. Half the information in the book can't be reasonably taught. The first chapter in book 2 teaches Columbia, Haiti, Mexico, Philippines, Ghana, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Italy, Vietnam, Portugal, etc. Are we teaching Geography or English?? Half the kids in America at the same age level couldn't tell you where those countries were. I am hung up on 2 books. For my youngest ones just starting to learn English or who are relatively new at it, I really like the book series from Korea called Fun With English. I can only find it in Shanghai. Each book comes with a workbook. The books have awesome pictures in them and labels every item in the picture. This is good for teaching new vocabulary words. After we have mastered the new vocab words we use the new words in sentences, questions, and answers on the following pages. This series is by far the best series I have seen to get younger kids speaking complete sentences quickly. The books also work on phonics with combined letters. There are 6 books in the series and as you progress through them each one has more and more reading for the students.

Now, for my older students, I think the Side By Side series is the best for them. Here is why. As with the Fun With English series, Side By Side has awesome pictures. While the book doesn't label the items in the pictures, I break out my red pen and go to work. The books do teach new vocabulary words at the beginning of each chapter. Each chapter also highlights a grammar point and uses the new vocab words in sentences as with the Fun With English series. At the end of each chapter is the best part. Here the books show the students exactly how to pronounce words in English. Let me give you an example. If I said I was at Jack and Mary's house, I wouldn't say the word "AND". I would reduce it to just "N". So I would say I was at Jack n Mary's house. The Side By Side book teaches this. No other book I have seen does this.

Well, so there you go. I have given you my take on private tutoring. I hope I have helped some. Anyone with questions on private tutoring feel free to send me a message.

The Coach

Welcome back, Coach! 

Wow, that may be one for the Library. Nicely done. 

My enthusiasm for New Interchange  has kinda dampened with experience. It's not as good as it first appears. It's still better than 99.999% of the other bushwa found in the local bookstores. Of course, I'd never be inclined to use it as a text for kids...

SBS gets a bad rap but isn't really so terrible. Done right I think it can be pretty effective. It's very grammar-driven and takes some work to make interesting to kids. (It's often used for kids here, but I don't think it was specifically developed as a kids' book...) I got a little frustrated with it sometimes because it seems to assume a very diverse group of students...you get page after page of things like "How many of you have blonde hair?" or "Do you have more than 5 people in your family?" or "Do you like to eat tortillas?" After a while I wanted to scream, "Look, we all have black hair, we all have 3 people in our family, and we all like to eat rice, OK?"

As for the little-kids book, where do you pick those up in Shanghai? Is it the big Foreign Languages Book Store on Fuzhou Road? (I want to get one for my daughter...)