Job Discussion Forums

[ebooktrial0001]

Hi Everyone,

Some people mention that they get offers to live in with a wealthy client and tutor them every day in English. Does anyone have experience with these offers?

I know I've gotten flamed a few times before. I'm more curious than wanting to apply. I'd just like to hear about experience.

Thanks

[spiral78]

These 'offers' are usually scams.

[scot47]

I have never come across anyone doing this - and I have been in Language Teaching for more than 50 years. I have seen several scams claiming to offer this type of post. Dream on.

[suphanburi]

[BadBeagleBad]

The closest I ever came to that was working for a government official´s son. I had been tutoring him and he wanted his son to have intensive English classes, but was paranoid about having people in his house. I didn´t really want to do it so I named an absurd figure and requested he send a car for me. He agreed to both and I spend about 6 or 7 months of Saturday´s helping his son perfect his already pretty darn good English. Again, connections. I have seen some jobs for live in bi-lingual nannies, but the pay is generally fairly crappy.

[nomad soul]

Something like the following...
(Note: Pine no longer works in this position as of 2011)

Interpreter tutoring Yao Ming says dream job, but not career
By Pam Easton, MyPlainView | November 12, 2002
Source: http://www.myplainview.com/news/article/Interpreter-tutoring-Yao-Ming-says-dream-job-but-9007712.php

More accustomed to translating literature for the State Department, the little guy hovering in the shadow of the player touted as the NBA's next big thing now focuses on trying to make sense explaining in Chinese the intricacies of things like the pick and roll.

Colin Pine isn't sure what sparked his interest in Chinese culture and language, but he stuck with it and now translates every word spoken by 7-6 Yao Ming, China's basketball sensation who became the Houston Rockets, and the league's, top draft choice. "To me, it's just a great experience," says the 5-8 Pine, who taught English in China for two years after graduating from Virginia's James Madison University and after taking an intensive Chinese language course during a summer in Vermont. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing." For Pine, whose basketball experience was limited to pickup games, tutoring Yao is a "dream job" but not a career.

Pine, 28, had been accepted to law school and was working for the State Department in Washington for about a year translating Chinese newspapers and periodicals when a friend told him about a job opening for an interpreter interested in working with an unnamed Chinese basketball star. The successful applicant would have to move to Houston. Pine, along with almost 400 other applicants, figured out the job was to work with Yao and the Rockets.

"I figured there were a thousand people applying for the job and I was assuming that somebody who had an 'in' would get (it)," he says. Pine got a call from Yao's agent, Erik Zhang, in early October, asking if he could be in Houston in time for Yao's arrival later in the month. "It's funny, I don't think I've ever had any kind of expectations," he said recently, sitting on a couch while Yao lifted weights at the Rockets' practice facility. "My life just leads me and I follow. In life, you really have to follow your heart and your dreams and for me, somehow I have been fortunate enough to find something I really love."

Pine's understanding of the Chinese language and his own skills in it were "outstanding," Zhang said, adding the translator also had a very important quality. "We don't have to worry about him leading Yao astray," Zhang said. "This person is not only going to be a disciplined person, but a loyal person. We were never worried that he was going to overpromise and underdeliver. We don't want someone who does not have an impeccable integrity to be involved with Yao. Colin is an honest person. He is a good person."

Loyalty extends to living arrangements. Pine lives with Yao's family at their Houston home, drives Yao to practice each day, eats dinner with the family at night and is expected to not only translate every word spoken to and from Yao but also help the 22-year-old adjust to America. "I try and explain things to him _ manners, things like saying 'Bless you' when people sneeze," Pine says. "When we're in the car, I drive, so when somebody lets us over, I always wave my hand."

When Yao inquired about why Pine waved to other drivers, Pine explained it's an expression of gratitude. Yao has since adopted the practice to thank courteous motorists. "He is very curious about American culture and wants to learn," Pine said. "He has been very helpful to me in getting adjusted," Yao said in Chinese, which Pine translated for his fellow lover of "sappy Chinese pop music."

Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich said it took him a while to get used to Pine's echo during his conversations with Yao, but said the NBA rookie already came to the United States with some basic knowledge of English. "He understands a lot of the stuff that I say, maybe 75 percent, but for basketball probably more," Tomjanovich said.

Pine says he tries to take his new job in stride and not act too much like the "adoring fan." He also tries to keep in perspective his relationship with Yao. "His life is his life and my life is my life and they are intertwined right now and I'm absolutely fine with that," Pine says. "He makes it so easy because he is such an easygoing, gentle person."

Pine, however, says he is more stress-prone than Yao. "He is always patting me on the shoulder and trying to calm me down," Pine says, admitting the media's glare can be uncomfortable.

Pine's best friend since the sixth grade, Antoine Hutchinson, said Pine's move from the East Coast to the Far East to study Chinese at first didn't make sense to him. "'I guess you must have known that you would get a job as a translator for Yao Ming,'" Hutchinson recalled telling his friend. "This is pretty much the coolest job you can get."

It's a job guaranteed at least through this NBA season, and allows the Baltimore native to enjoy perks like seeing daily his favorite NBA player, Rockets' guard Steve Francis, who played college ball at Maryland, and his up-close exposure to the life of a professional athlete. "They work pretty hard and it's a grueling schedule," Pine says. "You see how much there is to do and a lot of the demands of the profession."

But if Pine is so successful that Yao no longer needs him next season, Pine will be out of a job and thinking again about law school. "I'm rooting for him and hoping he can get rid of me," Pine says.

(End of article)

[Jmbf]

I've seen a few advertisements for live-in tutors but they are usually for lower level / lower paid positions. I echo the sentiments expressed earlier, the well paid jobs are mostly made through networking and personal connections. If you have been tutoring for a while and manage to establish a strong reputation for yourself, sometimes these offers come along. A few years ago I was offered a job as a full-time live-in tutor for a 3 month period. The money was decent (around USD 10,000 per month) but I turned it down for a variety of reasons, partly because my own tutoring business was taking off at the time, but primarily because I've never been that enamoured with the work-life compromises usually required with such work.

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]