private lessons for a rich adult student

[alwaysstriving]

I work at a school for adults in a rich part of Beijing.

 

A student invited me over to her place (she lives with her parents) for English conversation.

 

She offered me 350 RMB an hour for about 5 hours a week.

 

Did I just luck out or are private lessons this easy to come buy in central Beijing?

 

 

[Demonic_Duck]

Not at all uncommon, I'd say. On a related note, I've noticed it seems almost everywhere I turn these days I get offered English teaching jobs. I asked for directions to the nearest subway stop today, and the woman I asked offered me an English teaching job. This was before I'd even spoken a word of English to her.

Seems like demand massively outstrips supply for native English teachers at the moment.

[edelweis]

I once stood up in the bus so that an old man could sit down and was instantly offered a job to teach French to his grandchild. ("I'm leaving in 10 days! shi tian!")

 

But, are you quite quite sure that she actually wants to learn English and not something else ?

[emmanuel]

Apparently, you're not average guy   I bet we will see a lot of stories about girls in China

[Basil]

350RMB an hour is not much.

 

It's actually lower than most chinese students pay training schools for native english one-to-one tuition.

 

They are probably fairly well off, but more important, they probably assume that foreign tutors take the majority of the tuition fees. You would probably have been very happy with 250, but they didn't know that, by playing it safe they offered you 350, you are now very happy and they are still saving money.

[ChTTay]

Seems like demand massively outstrips supply for native English teachers at the moment.

Not at the moment, It's always been like this. I imagine quite a few people who approach you on the street are at 'cowboy' schools though.

 

 

350RMB an hour is not much.

 

I'd say that's a great hourly rate. You can't really compare the wage for a foreign tutor directly with the wage an English school charges. It will also depend on the area and adults vs children. Schools round here charge about 350 per hour for a kids 1on1 lesson with a foreign teacher. If you work for one of these part time companies you'll see 150-200 of that usually.

 

I agree that they probably just looked at the amount charged by schools and dropped it a little. I'd be more than happy with 350 an hour though and wouldn't expect to earn much more than that per hour.

[Shelley]

Assertive female co-workers, pushy female students... do I sense a trend here?

 

 

[Demonic_Duck]

Not at the moment, It's always been like this. I imagine quite a few people who approach you on the street are at 'cowboy' schools though.

 

That's almost certainly the case for those that are recruiting for schools rather than individuals, seeing as their only criteria for screening potential candidates seem to be "looks white enough" and "doesn't look like a serial killer" (actually, for all I know, looking like a serial killer wouldn't hurt my chances either). However, most of them aren't people that approach me on the street, they're people I come into contact with for some other reason, but just happen to mention an English teaching job.

 

As for the 350 kuai an hour rate, I think all of the following are true:

• It's less than your student would pay via a training center; in some cases, much less.
• It's obviously more than you would make teaching at a training center.
• It's more than you could expect per hour for most teaching jobs; a few part time jobs offer that much per teaching hour, though for most/all of those jobs you'd be expected to write reasonably detailed lesson plans, mark homework, do other miscellaneous admin etc. so the hourly rate is obviously less once you factor in all of those things (a simple 1-on-1 "conversation class" generally doesn't require a massive amount of planning).
• It's the upper limit of what most students would pay for a 1-on-1 class (富二代s excluded); however, it's also a fairly standard rate (I'd say anything within the 250-350 range is standard).
• You can make a higher hourly rate than that teaching small group classes - I generally make 400 kuai an hour for the ones that I teach, but the cost only works out at 100 kuai per student for a 1¹/₂ hour session. When I tell my Chinese friends what I make per hour they say it's a good rate; when I tell them what I charge per student they say I should be charging more. To be fair, I also put in a decent amount of lesson planning for these classes.

[ChTTay]

True Duck, maybe more randoms approaching foreigners on the street!

[Lu]

In 2007 I was waiting for a red light in Taipei when a lady on a scooter stopped next to me and offered me an English teaching job. (I declined.)