Job Discussion Forums

laugh2 · Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 13 Location: Albany, NY

Hi Wise Colleagues,

I'm CELTA-certified with one year's teaching experience in Poland and am appalled at the pay offered by the one private school in NYC I have an interview with so far: $10 per 45 min. $11 if there's 2 students and $15 if there's 3 or more.

Is this the standard these days? Do some schools pay more than that for someone without a master's degree? How much?

I want to be prepared for the interviews I hope are to come where they ask me my salary requirements.

Thanks,

Zahara · Joined: 07 May 2005 Posts: 10

By private schools, I assume you mean private language schools (and not k-12). Unfortunately, pay is obscene at most language schools in New York, but $10 or $11 is ridiculous. With the CELTA and a little experience, you should, at the very least, be able to work at a school like Zoni, the New York Language Center, or Kaplan, which pay something like $18 an hour. (if you do a little online research for job ads you should be able to find this out- Zoni usually advertises the pay rate). You may want to look into community centers, colleges, and libraries which tend to pay much better (anywhere from $25-$50 and up)- they often look for an M.A. but sometimes hire people without one.

Good luck!

laugh2 · Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 13 Location: Albany, NY

Thanks for your prompt and excellent tips. Reminded me of a posting on this forum (maybe it had been yours) with useful weblinks. I'm sending out another round of applications today. Very Happy

Zahara · Joined: 07 May 2005 Posts: 10

Good luck!

rusmeister · Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 867 Location: Russia

I'll chime in just to say that private schools in America on the average pay 2/3 what public teachers get. (I taught both public and private, East and West Coast, incl. Kaplan). The private centers generally offer only part time work at $14-18/hr with no benefits. To be an ESL teacher in America is to be a second-class citizen, even in public, where the pay is the same as other teachers, but you're lumped in with special education.

I have a master's and full-blown public teaching cert K-12, regular English and ESL, and I'm living in Russia. (Just so you know I put my money where my mouth is.)

mep3 · Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Posts: 212

Any of the private NYC outfits give benefits? Thx ..... Mike