Job Discussion Forums

[txmsk]

Dear all,

Does anyone know if there is a current, up-to-date list of operating schools in Moscow?

I ask because I am looking for a new job in the fall. I currently work at one of the schools, but I'm looking for a school that will allow me to teach:

1) groups
2) general and/or academic English

In other words, I am trying to get away from large numbers of 1-to-1 clients.

It may sound silly, but I'd like to develop further as a teacher, and teaching stable groups, I believe, is one of the keys to success.

It's really a shame universities do not take on native speakers, because I would really like to have such a position.

Anyway, if anyone can perhaps post some of the places they know about, even with feedback, then that'd be great.

Currently, I know about Tom's House at Tverskaya, and IPT Russia at Teatralnaya. Tom's deals with both general and business English and has lots of groups and corporate clients, whereas IPT deals strictly with corporate or exams-focused clients.

Again, any thoughts and ideas would greatly be appreciated.

Thank you all in advance!

[neponimayu]

If you primarily want to teach groups and General English, I'd stay away from schools that specialize in Business English or the In-Company department of larger schools. Business English classes usually use different textbooks which can be somewhat dull, and when I had Business English students usually I was teaching the presidents of companies individually rather than groups of business students. My roommate teaches in-company and spends most of his days traveling to people's homes who want a private teacher (and thus go through the in-company department) rather than actually teaching in businesses. Some people like that sort of thing, but it's not for me. So in short, as you probably could imagine, you're probably not going to be teaching many if any groups of General English if you teach at a school that caters to corporate clients.

As for schools, BKC and Language Link are the big "McSchools" as they're often called. They both have their problems but after the things I've read here I wouldn't want to go anywhere near BKC. They may not pay quite as well but because they're larger there is a bit more flexibility if you want to specialize in something. There's a ton of schools in Moscow, you probably could just Google them. I know there's a smaller school in Chiste Prude that I pass on my way to Bookhunter but I forget the name of it.