Many, many good points in this thread. WE THE TEACHERS... It's time to stop the madness. Once again Summit training school is only paying 100 RMB "depending on experience". Please get off it already. You want good teachers, you have to pay!

I have 23 years experience teaching ESL/EFL in a wide variety of contexts (university, high school, junior high school, elementary school, kindergarten, community center, language school, etc.) and countries (Japan, Australia, China, India, Thailand). I also hold an Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) not to mention a BA in Psychology and an MA in Advanced Japanese Studies. So what do you think I should be asking for a private lesson in case someone asks me to teach them or their children?

prd34

@prd34 Very impressive! Nothing less than 150 RMB that's for sure. Despite all of your impressive experience universities and training schools and private students still want to pay you minimum wage.

Isn`t that the truth! I was working for Rinky-Dink Language School (a pseudonym) here a few years ago, who offered to pay me I think 100 or 110 per hour for teaching and then asked to train their Chinese English teachers but then only paid 80 an hour for this. I told the principal there that I could not teach these people, who after I tried to introduce the idea of "reflective practice" via experiential learning, complained that this was "useless" and that they just wanted me to "tell them what to do." In other words, "We don`t want to think or reflect on our practice; we just want to be mindless zombies."

I did go to a conference on Experiential Education in Shanghai <www.aee.org/conferences/AEEAC2010> last year and this thinking about education is apparently starting to take off in China and it seems as if one of the language schools called Meten has taken it on board as part of their program <www.meteni.com/english/AboutUs_Experiential.aspx>, but unfortunately not with the small-minded people at Rinky-Dink Language School. LOL

peace

prd34

@PRD34

My opinion:

250 rmb per hour adults/300 rmb kids.
It may take time to find the people willing to pay that, so start with 200 adults and 250 for kids. Then, after you have a base of students, up it.

Obviously, you should make it so that anyone interested in your classes is already VERY aware of your qualifications before they ask how much your fee is.

Your former employers should be exiled to the moon.

A lot of really valuable information and advice here! I am also considering the shift to private teaching.

Can someone explain the legality of teaching "private lessons" here. For example, working on a student or tourist visa is obviously illegal (albeit common), and I'd imagine teaching private lessons would be outside the scope of a visa granted by a workplace by a school, right?

Which begs the question - drafting contracts is purely for face rather than having any legal weight?

Thanks.

Yes,, lots of good stuff here. Thanks. Eventually I want to try and do private teaching. Working for college and such I found out the hard way can be a fickle experience. You can wind up losing the next year's contact on a whim. Maybe you raised your voice one day to a lazy student on her cell phone yet again and she went crying to the school and that could be that. Students in private colleges just do not want to learn and I would guess public universities are not really that much better. They see the foreign language teacher's class as break time and expect you to sing for them and even bring them food to class or take them to lunch and pay for them, or they want a

movieevery day. Ridiculous and tiring.

And yet the schools themselves want the best teacher they can get so they can put that info on the

net or in the lobby of the school as nothing more than a blantant advertising gimmick. Look, we
have a white guy with an MA or PHd and we promise your kid will pass even if he/she never even

shows up to the PHd's class. I saw an ad here on Go KM about a school wanting serious and

dedicated teachers, loads of experience and certificates and degrees and... Most importantly I think... The ability to SING AND DANCE!

I don't have false hopes about private teaching but one day am going to veer off into that

direction. I have heard all about revolving door students and the pain of losing the ones teachers

like and not being able to shake off the leeches. And I have heard of some teachers doing well

actually. To be honest a couple I knew were foreigners not really in want of cash, living on a

pension or something, and so the stress they feel over not getting laid (haha... That is one typo I cannot delete, should have been "not getting paid" but I am leaving that one for the Fruedians to muse over) may not be the same some of us feel who have no real ties back home. I knew who. Younger gal who bragged how she stretched her 2500 rmb or so pay out and even supported her foreign BF on that pay who did not work with meals and travel. Yea. 2500 rmb plus the American Express card her mommy and daddy pads out every month.

I am also now 52 and from what I am seeing it can get really hard to get a job at schools here over 60 now. Want those young faces and naive souls.

I have a Chinese wife and we have discussed this option for the future and the bilingual aspect may help us. Not sure. I am going to do some PT work with kids this year and get a feel for it. How to create good activities and games. I am not good at it and thought I would not have to do that in colleges. I imagined all these Chinese colleges students showing up with notebooks and questions and ready to have a dialog everyday with me. Instead I get a group of kids who act like their 80 years old and are confrontionally lazy. I certainly have a desire to teach basic and general Oral English but suddenly wonder if that is possible in most situations here.

My students tell me they want an "American" style education. You know, no homework, no tests, the teacher sings to them and never calls on them to answer questions and they have nothing but free time after class to play games and hang out and go shopping. Damn. I was living in the wrong America! I must have been in the one spelled with a K.

Umm...no. These students don't know anything about an "American style education" since hardly anyone has been outside of China, let alone to America and many Kunming residents haven't even been outside of Yunnan.

An American style education is certainly not about singing, dancing and no homework, where do they get that crap from? If anything, an American style education emphasizes teachers and students asking each other questions and engaging in dialog with each other...I would never sing to my students since I don't particularly like singing (I'm a bad singer, which is why i studied business and engineering rather than music, go figure) and I'm there to teach, not to sing. I do enjoy role playing and my former students seemed to enjoy them too; it also helps them learn in a fun way.

Well, I don't want to be subtle so I'm going to give you details of my experiences prior to starting private teaching. I have multiple qualifications and certainly enough to be qualified to teach English at any Chinese university. Last year I sent numerous emails back and forth to one of the major state universities in Kunming. The people there were quite friendly, although the constant need to send, and then resend the same documents was starting to become annoying. I felt almost forced into getting a physical done in Chinatown, Los Angeles for $100 (I was not a regular patient at that clinic, it was my first time there) and yet I could have paid only $25 in Texas where I used to live, but the clinic in Texas would have required me to wait another 4 weeks to see them since they were fully booked before then (hence when I was in LA at the time, I figured I'd go and get a physical done there). In the end, I sent them this tiny little medical certificate from LA, half of which I wrote myself (I had to convert non-metric units to metric ones since virtually nobody outside of America or England and certainly nobody in China would understand English units) and in the end, it turns out I had to get a physical inside China anyway...which brings me to my next question: Why did I have to get a physical done outside of China that wasn't accepted anyway?

In addition to this, I was told (after my arrival) that I could only work for a few weeks since I didn't possess a TEFL certificate (a course you can do in like 6 weeks). Additionally, the university thought my Bachelor degree was only of a 2-year duration when it fact I had some of my credits transferred from another university to that one. So I definately spent as much time studying as anyone else, and in any case finishing your studies early should be something to be commended! I also thought the whole university degree requirement was just a formality, so why the analysis by these people, I don't know.

Every week for 2 months I was told this would be my last week; it turned out the university was waiting for a German teacher (with a TEFL certificate) to come and take over. He eventually showed up around late November of last year and I had to give up my position then. It really sucks, because I really enjoyed teaching those students, they were a great bunch of students and a lot of fun to teach (they seemed quite eager to learn).

Around 2-3 months ago, this university posted a series of ads for an English teacher for next semester, the exact same position that I had; this time requiring a MASTER's DEGREE! Are you freaking serious? For 3500 Yuan a month? I'm sure there are many qualified teachers without any degrees who could take this post (I did with just a non-teaching related Bachelor's, and I performed very well) and no wonder they had to post and then repost the same ad over and over again, because no way any master's degree graduate from the west is going to work for like $600 a month (even with a free apartment of passable quality, but still a far cry from the modern apartment I live in) in a job that probably doesn't guarantee any sort of certainty with regards to the contract not getting broken somehow...look at my situation, they broke my contract without my knowledge!

I hope they can find who they are looking for, but seriously, this is a big joke. Pretending to require these "foreign experts" and then paying them a poor wage, all the while probably not really caring what goes on in the classroom.

Despite the apparent prestige of working at a university, I'd say go for private classes provided you do everything you can to protect yourself from getting taken advantage of (as has been suggested by all the posters above); thanks again for all your responses.

@toshi et al
How to freelance legally - one suggestion if you have the money (money solves most problems it seems) is to startup your own personal WOFE - there are many different structures and fees - but I vaguely recall the cheapest requires a USD 10k investment and some spare change to pay the accountant.

Then you can pay the students - legally provide receipts (which are taxable), and generally muck around with your books (like the locals) so you earn a decent income (on paper) while minimizing your tax burden. This will permit you and your legal dependents (spouse, kids, maybe even parents) and MAYBE 1-2 other expats to legally work under your company name (along with all the docs and various officialishous stamps for various formal things that I've long since thankfully forgotten about).

Using expats can in theory offset your startup costs (they pay YOU for visa coverage - just do your best to be legal about all this, because if you're caught being naughty - the penalty can be rather harsh (e.g. dishonorable deportation) and long lectures from someone who likes to spray their words while in close proximity to your face.

And then you have to put up with being groped by NSA if you return to the USA - land of no jobs for we older folks - and ostensibly - soon to be no social security/forced retirement (JJ you pig - I'm happy that at least you got your share of the bounty) - but I digress...as usual. ADS.

CAVEAT
1. NEVER TRUST ANYONE WITH COMPANY STAMPS OR INCOMPLETELY WRITTEN CHECKS. That's a train wreck waiting to happen.
2. if something's written completely in Chinese - either get a copy or get it translated. Accountants will try to pull sneaky-ass last second panic tricks on you. Quietly respond - if there's any penalty to pay - the accountant will have to pay it for negligence or incompetence. If they try to dump your account before a major incident (like closing the current year's books, in the middle of your visa renewal or other infantile pranks - just tell them you'll call the police, report them to the Chinese government CPA accreditation board, and the business licensing authority (again, the police - but different office) AND the tax authorities for attempted extortion (so try not to use personal referrals in case you need to burn some bridges).

REVENUES
You should be in positive cash flow every year and be ultra careful about the taxes AND tax deductions (buy a fapiao anyone?).

My former assistant in BJ and her hubby were bringing in about ¥2-4 wan per month depending on how many students they'd take on - but they'd have to travel all over the place - fortunately BJ has a metro - but having your own brick & mortar closet can be quite useful. You may want to consider sharing office space with someone - just beware the office location rules (where you practice business vs the registered company address issue).

Good luck - happy hunting - for those of you considering long-term teaching as a viable lifestyle in KM - consider forming a syndicate or cartel - there's value in achieving critical mass - the general business model works for pan & south american drug dealers - why not apply it to english teachers and provide genuine social benefit?

The over 60 thing is about the ability to get an appropriate visa and foreign experts certificate.

Not ageism.