Job Discussion Forums

[jonniboy]

[Shalana]

It is possible to get 25 tl per hour in a couple of ways. One way is to get private students. The prices vary for private students. I have seen people charge as little as 30 tl per hour and as much as 150 tl per hour. The average seems to be around 50-70 tl per hour. The problem with private students is they can be and often are unreliable - cancelling a lesson at the last minute or cancelling all future lessons with little or no notice.

The other way is to work for a language school or recruiter that offers private lessons to students. The typical wage for these lessons is 25-35 tl per hour depending on if the student comes into the school for the lesson or the teacher goes to the student's home or place of business.

A third way would be to work at a university that offers a good monthly salary. But, if you didn't finish your degree, I'm not sure what your chances are to get into a uni. They may be better at a private uni than a public one as YOK (ministry of education) has specific rules about who can be hired at a public uni and the private unis seem to have more freedom about what they do and don't do.

[Shalana]

Sorry, I forgot to answer one of your questions. I'm not sure how plentiful privates are. A friend of mine in Istanbul has pretty much survived on private lessons for the past two years either that she got on her own or through working part time for a school. The worst thing about them is they are unreliable and oftentimes when they have to quit lessons for personal reasons and say they will start back up later, they rarely do. The only way to protect yourself from this kind of thing is to take on more students than you need.

As far as working at a language school and teaching regular classes, I don't think any are paying as much as 25 tl these days. I actually got paid that much for awhile at English Time back in 2007/2008, but they discontinued the high wages after about 6-8 months. They started people out at average wages and then gave everyone a huge pay raise and then later decided (I guess) that they couldn't afford it and lowered the wages again. Now, I think their salary range is 16-20 tl per hour.

[Qaaolchoura]

Price of rents varies dramatically depending on where you live. Bakirk�y for example is far cheaper than Kadik�y or Taskim, and I imagine as you go further out, things get cheaper still. The fact of the matter is that Istanbul is still cheaper than equivalent places back where I'm from (and I'd imagine this is true for other East Coast Americans and most Britons).

One thing I was told is that both male and female Turkish students prefer female teachers for private lessons. I don't know how true this is, just anecdotal evidence from one teacher, but it's plausible and worth mentioning.

Regards,
~Q