Job Discussion Forums

[malcoml]

Unfortunately I dont have a degree and NOVA have told me they can only employ me for 23 hours on a salary of between 180,000-220,000.
They have told me I'm free to do private lessons but I'm not sure what I would be paid for private lessons.
Would it be realistic to do five hours a week of private lessons and could someone give me a estimate price range to charge.

[Glenski]

Charge private lessons whatever the market will bear. Young students can't and won't pay as much as older students, but even older ones want things as cheaply as they can get them.

Most people seem to charge something like 3000-5000 per hour per person. However, if you teach to a group of students, you may want to consider a sliding scale that allows each student to pay less as the class size grows, yet you still make more money. Something like this:
1 student = 4000 yen/hour
2 students = each pays 3000 yen/hour
3 students = each pays 2500 yen/hour
4 students or more = each pays 2000 yen/hour

I strongly suggest getting payment for a month in advance, too. You will always show up for lessons (right?), so your time set aside for them is valuable, and even if a student can't come, you will, so you deserve to be paid. It's just like any conversation school. They don't refund money when a student's schedule doesn't permit him to come. However, you have to deal with absences in some way that is mutually agreeable to you and students, so figure out your own system.

Then, there is the issue of transportation. Will that be included in your fees, or will students pay more for it? Some people charge a flat rate (example: 1000 yen per lesson) for round-trip transportation. Yes, round trip. You have to return home from the lesson, right? With a flat rate, groups of students will see the need to show up, because the more that are there, the less each person has to pay for that 1000 yen. If only 2 show up, each pays 500. If 5 show up, each pays 200.

Most people I know teach private lessons only once a week to each student or group of students. That's realistically how much time people have to set aside for such things. Some teachers, however, may have quite a few lessons per week, depending on their own individual situations.

[Nismo]

It depends on your location. Tokyo was 2500/hour for one student because of the abundance of foreigners there. I made 2500/hour as an ALT and 2500/hour as a private instructor. For multiple students I charged 3500/hour for two, and 4000/hour for 3 (though I only ever had up to 2 students during a single teaching session).