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0lawrenz0
Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 4
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 Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 7:57 am Post subject: IH Krakow |
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Hey there! I have the opportunity to work for IH Krakow next year- has anyone ever worked there? I am interested to know particularly what the pay is like; it is the school where I did my CELTA and I know I will enjoy working there.
As crazy as it may seem I am planning to try and save a little money while I stay in Poland by living a very no-frills lifestyle (not hard as I am currently a poor student). |
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Master Shake
Joined: 03 Nov 2006
Posts: 1202
Location: Colorado, USA
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| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 9:57 am Post subject: |
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IH schools in Poland have notoriously low pay. I think the schools themselves have a decent rep, however.
Why don't you post what they are offering? Make sure you write whether this figure includes accommodation, which can be expensive in Krakow. |
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Harry from NWE
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Posts: 283
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| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Master Shake wrote: |
IH schools in Poland have notoriously low pay. I think the schools themselves have a decent rep, however.
Why don't you post what they are offering? Make sure you write whether this figure includes accommodation, which can be expensive in Krakow. |
IH schools have terrible pay!
The genius of the place is that they try to present TEFL as a career path: do the CELTA with IH and you can get a job with IH [because IH don't just take anybody you know, they only take people who are qualified and have a pulse]; have monthly workshops [which supposedly makes up for the crap pay]; do well in your job and after a couple of years you can be sponsored to do your DELTA [in exchange for agreeing to work for the school for three years at crap wages]; once you've got your DELTA you can get a job as the ADoS for young learners [i.e. a job which nobody else wants and which involves lots of extra work for very little extra money]; do well as an ADoS and you could be headhunted for a DoS position [just as soon as IH get round to selling their brand name in Siberia or Macedonia or some similarly attractive location, then you get to find out that a DoS works many more hours than a teacher for not much more money and that if you just load up on classes you can make quite a lot more money as a teacher for working fewer hours and having far less stress]. And even if you don't want to follow the IH career path, other schools are always impressed to see the IH name on your CV [yes, it says that you are willing to work hard for bugger all money]. |
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Hod
Joined: 28 Apr 2003
Posts: 1613
Location: Home
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| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Did they turn you down then? |
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Harry from NWE
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Posts: 283
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| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Hod wrote: |
| Did they turn you down then? |
I've had three interviews with IH and been offered a job with them each time. I accepted none of the jobs because each time there was another school ready to offer more money for less work. |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 5:33 am Post subject: |
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| Career structure ? in TEFL ? You would do better in the French Foreign Legion. Fort Zinderneuf here I come ! |
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jestert79
Joined: 24 Apr 2007
Posts: 44
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| Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 8:02 am Post subject: |
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As a person who has been working for IH for a little over 2 years (Poland for 2), I'll throw in my few cents.
Yeah, the pay isn't good compared to other schools. I did still manage to save a few hundred bucks in Polska, though.
What made it worth it was the training - at my IH school the DoS took the training part seriously, offering a huge variety of really useful workshops. Also, we had workshops every week. Now when I open a book to plan a lesson, I get overwhelmed with the different approaches and activities I could use. I feel more confident as a teacher and a planner having worked at IH. (That said - maybe that would've happened regardless.) *end IH plug*
But it depends - IH has its base requirements - I think the "charter" mandates one workshop per month, but my DoS exceeded it. Maybe IH Krakow does too, maybe not.
So, to answer the original question - don't go to IH for money. They do have stability, though - maybe the McDonald's of language learning. |
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dfm
Joined: 07 Oct 2006
Posts: 3
Location: Poland
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| Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm interested to know, when you say IH offer "crap" pay, what other schools you are comparing them with and in which regions. We are all intelligent enough to know that living costs vary between areas. Perhaps the people who 'slag' IH could supply some comparisions of pay and then we would all be reasonably informed. |
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simon_porter00
Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 505
Location: Warsaw, Poland
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| Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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Ok, last academic year a friend of mine who was working in IH in Krakow was earning either 30zl or 35 zl gross per 45 min (i can't remember which - it was a while ago). I was earning 55zl gross per 45 min working at another school. Poliglota offered me 70zl for a 90 min or something (about 35zl gross per hour). I heard profi-lingua would pay 70zl per 45min although i never got a chance to confirm this.
Another friend doing callan was earning 30zl an hour, so i think it's fair to say IH pay is pap. |
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Harry from NWE
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Posts: 283
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| Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:27 pm Post subject: |
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| dfm wrote: |
| I'm interested to know, when you say IH offer "crap" pay, what other schools you are comparing them with and in which regions. We are all intelligent enough to know that living costs vary between areas. Perhaps the people who 'slag' IH could supply some comparisions of pay and then we would all be reasonably informed. |
Sure thing. IH Bielsko Biala was recently looking for teachers. http://www.ihworld.com/affiliates/recruitment/job_details.asp?requestid=535
Here are the highlights: 2150zl to 3150zl per month depending on qualifications and experience for 20 clock hours (26.66 lessons of 45 minutes each). That is the gross amount. Take off the tax (19% according to them!) and the low end of the salary is 1741.50zl per month. No paid-for apartment, no travel costs/plane ticket, no end of year bonus, no local public transport ticket. They are so cheap that they insist teachers cover the cost of their work permit (despite that being, er, illegal). They will arrange an apartment for you but you pay for it and "Notice to leave accommodation is usually 3 months. Teachers may arrange their own accommodation if they wish, although note the notice period to leave 'school arranged' accommodation." I've never heard of needing to give three months' notice of intent to leave an apartment you're renting on a nine-month lease and would rather suspect that it is, at best, of questionable legality.
Let's look further at those figures. A teacher doing 26.66 classes a week would expect to do 106 classes per month (we'll just multiply 26.66 by four, there are more than four weeks in a month but there are also a two or three days of paid holiday in each month. Divide 1741.50 by 106 and you get a rate of 16.42zl net per 45-minute class. Here in Warsaw a rate of 45zl net per 45-minute class is about the norm and 50 is not unusual. That three times more money for doing the same job.
| dfm wrote: |
| We are all intelligent enough to know that living costs vary between areas. |
Are you intelligent enough to think that it costs three times more money to live in Warsaw than in Bielsko? In reality, food, phone calls, internet access, cigarettes, booze in the shops, petrol, life insurance, pensions, etc all cost exactly the same in Warsaw and Bielsko.
Here's another way of looking at things: when I first came to Poland (12 years ago) I was living in a town of 15,000 people. I was earning 17zl net per 45-minute class. More money more than a decade ago in a town more than ten times smaller than Bielsko. That's why IH's pay is best described as "crap".
Last edited by Harry from NWE on Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:52 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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simon_porter00
Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 505
Location: Warsaw, Poland
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| Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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i think that argument is pretty definitive   |
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Sgt Bilko
Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 136
Location: POLAND
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| Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 8:23 am Post subject: The Bielsko contract |
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What is interesting about the contract for Bielsko is the bit about not paying tax for two years. There are increments for experience but it is doubtful that you would get a 19%+ rise after year 2. Therefore no-one is likely to stay more than two years as their net pay would go down once they started paying tax.
At the salary they offer, they won't get many experienced staff joining them from other countries (especially as the main benefits are really the Post-CELTA training).
Therefore, one can only imagine that the majority of their staff are new teachers in the first or second year of teaching with a substantial turnover each year as the second years leave. Not exactly the quality that people imagine when they hear the name IH.
Mind you, to be fair, they do get a lot of very keen new teachers who are willing to sacrifice pay for a free CELTYL and regular input. |
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Harry from NWE
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Posts: 283
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| Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 1:14 pm Post subject: Re: The Bielsko contract |
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| Sgt Bilko wrote: |
| What is interesting about the contract for Bielsko is the bit about not paying tax for two years. There are increments for experience but it is doubtful that you would get a 19%+ rise after year 2. Therefore no-one is likely to stay more than two years as their net pay would go down once they started paying tax. |
It's also interesting that they somehow forget that the first 3,013zl of income in Poland is free of any tax at all. Funny how that happened.
| Sgt Bilko wrote: |
At the salary they offer, they won't get many experienced staff joining them from other countries (especially as the main benefits are really the Post-CELTA training).
Therefore, one can only imagine that the majority of their staff are new teachers in the first or second year of teaching with a substantial turnover each year as the second years leave. Not exactly the quality that people imagine when they hear the name IH.
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The ad specifies that " at least 1 year's experience required", hopeful souls aren't they! |
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TwinCentre
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 273
Location: Mokotow
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| Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 11:57 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| 2150zl to 3150zl per month depending on qualifications and experience for 20 clock hours (26.66 lessons of 45 minutes each). That is the gross amount. |
That is insane....why do people bother????
It amazes me why graduates from UK or USA would sell themselves so so short.
If you cannot earn 6k net in Warsaw or 4k up country then don't bother with Poland, it's not worth it. |
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Kootvela
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 513
Location: Lithuania
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| Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 7:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Harry from NWE wrote: |
IH schools have terrible pay!
The genius of the place is that they try to present TEFL as a career path: do the CELTA with IH and you can get a job with IH [because IH don't just take anybody you know, they only take people who are qualified and have a pulse]; have monthly workshops [which supposedly makes up for the crap pay]; do well in your job and after a couple of years you can be sponsored to do your DELTA [in exchange for agreeing to work for the school for three years at crap wages]; once you've got your DELTA you can get a job as the ADoS for young learners [i.e. a job which nobody else wants and which involves lots of extra work for very little extra money]; do well as an ADoS and you could be headhunted for a DoS position [just as soon as IH get round to selling their brand name in Siberia or Macedonia or some similarly attractive location, then you get to find out that a DoS works many more hours than a teacher for not much more money and that if you just load up on classes you can make quite a lot more money as a teacher for working fewer hours and having far less stress]. And even if you don't want to follow the IH career path, other schools are always impressed to see the IH name on your CV [yes, it says that you are willing to work hard for bugger all money]. |
If I could award you the Nobel Prize for this piece of writing, I definitely would. That so well summarizes my agony years in an IH! You made my day  |
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