If you are teaching for less than 150 per hour, please raise your price.

Sometimes I deal with people who want to pay me 100/hour, despite the fact that I am a qualified, experienced, certified teacher.

The normal price for this type of service is in China is 120 to 400 per hour, and yes 500 happens sometimes too. In Kunming, 150 and 200 is normal at present, depending on the level of preparation involved. You may certainly ask for more than that if you think you deserve it.

But 100 sucks, China is not as cheap as way back in the days when 100 was normal.

If you are a qualified teacher, please don't ask for less than 150 for your time and work. Thank you!

I will echo this.

Many of my teacher friends who want to supplement their small teaching salaries with private lessons have had issues with one one or small private groups. Mostly the problem is with even getting paid at all. One guy who is a certified teacher in the USA was offered a mere 50 rmb to teach to friend's family. This robbery but what is worse is that after he agreed to do it the people called the next day and said 50 was too much and they said they would give him 25 instead. Even for his generous nature this was unacceptable. Mind you the original 50 was the family's offer.

Other teacher friends have issues collecting pay and always get promises to have things caught up next class. In the end the vibe seems to be many people, notl, here expect free English lessons from the kind lao wai.

I hope to shift to private teaching in time and away from school work and would appreciate any advice on setting up rules and boundaries so I donor end up tooscrewed over. How do people advertise for clients for example? Do you have students pay in advance for the classes they will have or at the beginning or end of a session? If some ones misses a payment how do you handle it?

I know Chinese teachers are all about the money with litle shame. After taking Chinese lessons for five months in Beijing I one day forgot to bring enough cash and told my teacher I wouldhavethe cash class. She was cool with but the guy who ran the school near had a stroke. He tells her I am cheap foreigner and I have to pay for a month's classes in advance and threatened To fire my teacher for her not kicking my cheap ass I guess. Went to confront the guy and work it out but of course he is suddenly charming and all mei wen ti, mei wen ti. I quit of course.

But I get the sense some of us are here for free English. Like those free English corners. There are no free Chinese corners as far as I know. China s the number two economy in the world and I don't think people here can use thedevelopingnation card any longer. If I want to work free I will go to a village and volunteer my time. I don't think I need to volunteer to people who own gas guzzling

SUV's.

How do people do this with success?

Collect at least 4 weeks of payment first. Of course you should give them a receipt that says how many classes they paid and how much per hour each class will be. Every time they have the class, have them sign with the date of the class. Once you have taught them the four weeks, repeat the process. If they are serious about learning, this is fair. Of course there has to be a level of trust too. Go with your instinct.

Another reason to keep it above 150 is that occasionally they'll cancel on you and there is no compensation for that. I've even tried sitting an hour in a bus just to find no one home. The mother had forgotten there was a class that day. Smoke turned to fire when my wife told me I couldn't charge for the class even though I had done everything right, it's just not the Chinese way.

Rules for private consulting aka private teaching.
Chinese-English or English-Chinese

1. 1st lesson free or discounted (optional). This is partially to determine if you and the student(s) can have good chemistry, but also to ascertain their English level so you can prepare the appropriate material. Make sure you look at their school material as most tutorials are designed to help the students ace their respective exams.

FYI - I pay a Chinese tutor about ¥600 a month to tutor my kids 4-5 days a week - with a bonus if their test scores are consistently above 90% - the measure of success. Some of my kids' classmate's parents also send their children to our home after school effectively doubling the tutor's salary for an increment in effort...and I was very clear to the children and their parents - if their child is not serious or interferes with my children's studies - I'm not an after school daycare center - they need to make other arrangements, as my kids are focused on getting into tier 1 national or foreign universities (even though they're still in primary school right now and don't even know what that means...harsh eh?).

2. Month to month contract - preferable to have a 3-6 month contract paid monthly in advance. My kids take after school/weekend music lessons - we pay 3 months in advance - granted this is a brick & mortar school. If the parents don't like that kind of arrangement - suggest they look elsewhere.

3. Take attendance or role call - whatever you want to call it - if the group is small enough - have them sign an attendance sheet.
4. Cancellations are fair as long as it's done in advance - usually 24 hours unless (my favorites) one of the three big things occur - usually related to some kind of medical or other emergency.

a. someone died

b. Someone's dying

c. Someone's in the hospital or something similarly serious (accident, flu, etc).

if they don't cancel as per the rules - they forfeit that class. Make up classes scheduled as per mutual agreement - modify the attendance sheet with the annotation. If my kids miss music class - I just gave the teacher a free day's (hour's) pay...

5. Contract termination - up to you - but usually 1-5 days advance notice - refund the prorated amount. All contracts must have mutual escape clauses.

6. Allowance if YOU'RE late or ill - of course, not charge, reschedule.

As for being nice, the chinese way etc - screw that. Business is business. If they're not happy, refund the balance of the contract, terminate it and make up an obvious lie so everyone can walk away.

If you're good - be disciplined in all things - especially contract enforcement - that's professional - be PROFESSIONAL - let them cheat and take advantage of the newbies - and receive the appropriate quality that goes with newbie low cost teachers. Command and demand respect - you're professional teachers, not hobbyists.

In Asia - higher prices along with tight disciplined contracts imply higher quality and professionalism (learn how to sell/market yourself).

If YOU need to terminate a contract because they're unhappy or want to nickel and dime you - do it - don't look back and don't negotiate further - suggest they find another tutor and of course NOT you don't know anybody that you can refer (unless you hate that particular teacher, in which case...amuse yourself).

FEEDBACK
REGULARLY solicit feedback from the parents and student on a regular basis. Give tests or some other artifact which can measure the student's performance - example - number of vocabulary learned/memorized, reading/writing, comprehension, equivalent US et al grade level.

MA FAN
Dump troublesome students or parents. Terminate their contracts, refund the pro-rate and refuse to negotiate further - even if they offer more money. People hate that...and it gives you a good reputation for higher quality via word of mouth - you only accept serious students with serious parents. Gives you the air of a highly demanded, high quality private tutor.

On the reverse side - always be on time, prepared, and presentable - professional...

Some good posts here...valuable advice too.

After teaching for one semester at a university in Kunming in the second half of 2010 (before I even came to China, I was given the silent treatment and later on found out I didn't get the original one year contract due to the fact I don't possess a TEFL certificate, even though I have 2 degrees and a number of years of teaching experience) I found myself teaching mostly private students.

In some cases the money was a bit on the low side (usually only 100 an hour, but I did accept this at first, now i know that's much too low) although I always received my pay after the end of the lesson, however, private lessons are notoriously unreliable because they usually end after only a few weeks at most unless you do what has been suggested above. I can't begin to tell you how frustrated I've become, when after I did everything right and looking forward to getting my pay I would receive a last minute phone call that my lesson was cancelled. In one case earlier this year, the manager of a company that I was teaching business English to suddenly became "too busy" and after only around 10-12 hours of teaching he stopped communication and I knew there would be no more lessons. This kind of behavior is typical. I try my best to cater to my student's needs but if they treat me with this kind of disrespect then I have little desire to continue private teaching as a worthwhile way of making a few extra bucks in addition to my main form of income.

@Yuanyangren touches on an important point about teaching business people. You need to change the title of what you are doing to 'corporate training' and charge much more money.
Corporate is a very different game, different needs of the trainee, different rates, different conflicting demands, different sets of hassles. Don'e be afraid to ask for much more money, as ultimately the investment in training can be turned into profits or promotion.

@tigertiger, thanks for that advice. I think we should all be more prepared to stand our ground in terms of our demands to ensure we are adequately compensated for our time, and ultimately, the students get what they pay for...after all, this is what we assume the students would like to achieve.

I would also say be wary of university students claiming to be "paying for their lessons by themselves", because usually that's a sneeky way of saying "I don't have much money, maybe you could even teach me for free if you prefer"...umm no. But I did teach a nice little girl who was majoring in Lao, a major which i find a little odd, incidentally, I can also speak some of that language, but I digress. Anyway, while she was a very attentive student, there was a miscommunication with my friends who referred her to me, and in the end i got only 210 Yuan for like 5-6 hours of teaching...far, far too low, but after a while she ran out of money and stopped coming (no surprises there, and given she will be going to Laos for one year as part of her degree, her parents probably don't have a lot of money to spare for other things, on the other hand, she can easily find plenty of westerners over there to practice English with, given the large numbers of tourists and expats there).

Lastly, would you recommend drawing up your own contract, or perhaps using a law firm or just a Chinese friend to help write up a contract that can be mutually adhered to? I was wondering for the sake of giving private lessons in the future.

This is what I do

(and I haven't been ripped off since, very happy now actually).

I have rules (in writing) re: advanced payment, missed classes, late for classes, schedule issues etc. I don't require the students to sign anything, but they must read the document and give oral agreement.

The core principle is that the instruction is free-it is my time that I am charging you for. If you call me on the morning of that evening's class and you can't come, you still must pay-as it is simply too late for me to fill that slot, and you have also blocked other students who may have wanted it. I make exceptions for emergencies, food poisoning, car wrecks etc.

I don't do any full free trial classes, and I don't think you should either.
I send a form email that is an FAQ explaining my teaching style, answers the typical questions, and includes the aforementioned rules. Then I make appointments with prospective students, at my usual location, lasting about 15 minutes, scheduled between, before, or after my usual classes. This also gives me the chance to evaluate their English, and understand their needs, goals and schedule.
They may also watch my classes for the same length of time.

The rules that I give the students include my responsibilities also.
You better believe that if I am late or (very rarely) miss a class, the students get more than an apology.
I don't do refunds unless I am unable to teach, called out of Kunming,
etc. After all, the student had their preview, their questions were answered, they met me in the flesh, they can talk to my other students -all before the first class.
Nobody rushed or pushed them into choosing me.

The one point I would like to drive home here is this:

If you are a friendly native speaker and a certified teacher,
PROBABLY 1 IN 10 PEOPLE IN KUNMING WOULD TAKE YOUR CLASS IF THEY KNEW YOU EXISTED. That number sounds crazy, but at this point I believe it to be true. So we shouldn't see each other as competitors.