Job Discussion Forums

Chopin16 · Joined: 30 Nov 2016 Posts: 69

I am currently in a neighbouring country to CHina and find it very difficult to find privates. I only have 3 currently. There does not seem to be any newspapers to advertise in here. I found 3 students only because my last place of work closed down and I took one students myself and she got another 2 students for me. So how easy is it for a teacher to find privates in China? Is it extremely easy or very hard to find? Just curious. I think most teachers do privates in China from what I have read since the EFL salaries are low there (15-20kRMB at most)

rogerwilco · Joined: 10 Jun 2010 Posts: 1549

I taught in China for 8 years, and all my private classes were arranged by the Chinese teachers or referred by other students.
I never advertised or had to go looking for students.

I taught in small cities, and in 2008 I was charging 250RMB per hour, and by 2015 I had raised it to 300 per hour.

joe30 · Joined: 07 Jul 2016 Posts: 112

I've worked in Thailand not China, but my opinion regarding 'privates' is that it's far far better to go work at a language centre in the weekends or evenings, than try to arrange this sort of thing yourself with the students directly.

OK, a language centre in a tier 2 city might only pay 200rmb whereas you could get 250-300rmb if you set it all up yourself, but...

- The language centre can likely schedule a good block of hours together at once.
- It removes all the language barrier problems of setting up lessons to begin with.
- No chasing the students and/or their parents for money.
- Resources and textbooks will be given to you.

You just turn up, teach and go home, while avoiding all the admin, split shifts and money collection issues that plague those who take private students. It's worth having a slightly lower rate to achieve this, IMO.

creeper1 · Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2016 9:55 am Post subject:

Op you will easily get more privates than you can handle here and will be turning people away.

Find a daytime public school position (they are becoming plentiful these days) and pack your privates in at the weekends and evenings.

You'll make a truck load of money.

From your current location you'll need to go home and go through the lengthy and expensive visa hoops but you will get a job and make good money.

Good luck

Chopin16 · Joined: 30 Nov 2016 Posts: 69

Why can't I find private students where I currently am is what I wanna know? I have 3 and make $90 a week extra or $360 a month cash in my pocket. I also make about $100 a weekend doing online teaching for a major china online language company. so that's $800 extra. But there's still a lot more I can make here and there's no newspapers with classifieds to put adverts in as far as I can see. I have tried Craigslist and got one response but he was miles away so he didn't book up. People don't seem to wanna learn English here after they've left school lol. And trying to find kids is difficult as not many parents can speak English and anyway they all send their kids to private academies here. I just need about 10 more students and I will be making loads here too.

I don't wanna go home to the UK to get a china visa. I would rather just get a business visa for china from where I currently am and fly direct to Shanghai or Beijing (although another thread has put me off a bit talking about all the pollution). OK I will look at a job maybe with free accommodation on a business visa and fill up my evenings with privates if I can't fill them up where I currently am by Xmas. I am making just short of $3000 net at the moment with the online teaching and my main salary and privates. I want $3500 though. I am greedy LOL

joe30 · Joined: 07 Jul 2016 Posts: 112

creeper1 · Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2016 12:49 pm Post subject:

sounds like you are doing well where you are. If it ain't broke then don't try to fix it.

Myself. I do no privates and spend my evenings relaxing or playing sports.

But having said that I'm not in the red but the black.

I guess I'm never going to get rich though. Oh well.

CNexpatesl · Joined: 27 May 2015 Posts: 194

No, it's not easy to find privates. It took me a year and half or so of living in China to finally get one. And the woman wasn't reliable. That was after getting Chinese girl friends to post up advertisements for me on Chinese websites as well.

They will also try to haggle your price down.

"Make a load of money off privates." Lol, this isn't 2012. Every city is saturated with people all trying to do the same thing.

rogerwilco · Joined: 10 Jun 2010 Posts: 1549

twowheel · Joined: 03 Jul 2015 Posts: 753

OhBudPowellWhereArtThou · Joined: 02 Jun 2015 Posts: 1168 Location: Since 2003

Non Sequitur · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 4724 Location: China

joe30 · Joined: 07 Jul 2016 Posts: 112

Not to mention it allows you to actually start earning money faster, as you're not having to do your own marketing and/or just sit around until the students come to you (as you might have a long wait, as noted by some on this thread). You just walk into various places with your resume. Guarantee you'll find work pretty quickly.

Instead, the responsibility of sourcing students lies with the language centre. The responsibility for collecting the money lies with them. Even at the worst centres, you should still be provided with some basic resources and a classroom. If the students don't show, you still get paid etc.

That's well worth only making 200rmb per class rather than 250rmb IMO.

rogerwilco · Joined: 10 Jun 2010 Posts: 1549

Chopin16 · Joined: 30 Nov 2016 Posts: 69

are many more opportunities for working in universities and high schools in China than in Thailand. I have never worked in a language school

Why spend half your week in a uni in China on 7000-10,000 RMB a month when you could be earning double that doing privates? I guess privates aren't reliable though so that's why. Pity though isn't it that w can't all just get reliabl private students to fill our schedules. There's for and against both points of view. I am not in CHina or Thailand.