For all english teachers in Poland (who work for only $1000 a month)

People get paid what they are worth!

Why indeed? 50pln before tax for a 45 minute 'lesson hour' is the going rate in Warsaw. Some schools pay 45 per 45, some pay 55 per 45, but 50 is about normal, 10 of these a day (5 hours' teaching) makes 500pln. Times 5 gives 2500 per week. Multiply that by 4.25 (some months 5 weeks, some 4) gives 11300pln before tax. 10000 before tax for 20 days work.

Of course public holidays and cancellations can reduce this, and there are fewer lessons in the summer, but it's not only achievable but normal.

Perhaps I'm paying the teachers too much. If anybody is willing to work for 2000 per month, send me a message and you're hired right away.

This calculation makes no sense! Go back to Maths class

I should add that in order to earn a good wage the teacher should be professional and be able to give 'good product', i.e. keep the client happy, resolve problems without bugging the school and basically not frighten the horses. There are some very cheap language schools out there employing Poles who don't speak perfect English, or teach like old-fashioned schoolteachers or Natives who upset the students etc, and in order to keep prices (and wages) high the courses must be very very high quality.

Learn to calculate! It would be great working for you as you would always pay too much!

I mean 5 90 min lessons, or 7 and a half hours teaching.

If anyone should go back to school, it's you. To learn how to be a bit more polite!!

same reason i do and i havent yet worked or lived in PL like you wroclaw ..

but jobs i have looked up offer approx high of 3,500.00Zł thats for the job of Pracownik do spraw osobowych on 40hrs and its a traineeship as well
lowest one seen is for 940zł a month

Nobody darling can teach 7.5 hours a day and keep quality!

Jonni,

While you are here.

What is the arrangement for ZUS ?

What is the minimum number of lessons one can expect ?

With smoke breaks, tea breaks, time to think... it's no problem. 7.5hrs straight... you have a point.

quote=johan123] Nobody darling can teach 7.5 hours a day and keep quality! [/quote]

Plenty do, believe me. Some do more.

I find that three lessons (4.5 hours) is quite enough when I have to cover for absent teachers, but remember that schools do feedback and if the quality is low the client will expect a teacher change pdq. And so much of the work is repetition anyway which cuts down preparation time.

When I was a teacher for target a few years ago (rip-off merchants frankly) they expected more than that.

And 4.5 hours per day will still bring 6375 pln before tax.

What about class preparation and marking! For short term periods it's possible! Any longer than a couple of months and quality would be affected!

ZUS?

Paid on an 'umowa o dzieło' meaning tax deducted at 19%, up to employee about ZUS. Many prefer to be self employed, a few pay zus themself or get private insurance, some wing it, especially if they plan to leave Poland, some prefer to pay NI in the UK to maintain pension rights etc.

No minimum number of lessons guaranteed - some teachers work at other schools (and constantly claim to get more elsewhere - probably true) - everything depends on timetabling and teacher availability.

In this school, a handful work full time and get the amount mentioned, most do lessons elsewhere plus their own privates.

I wouldn't fancy it myself, but some, especially ex-schoolteachers seem to take it in their stride.

I remember visiting the Berlitz staffroom (where the teachers were generally teaching to pay for travel and not really professionals) and some seemed so tired they were practically propping their eyes open with matchsticks.

But it is not teaching it's just chatting in English!

Jonni,

Thanks for the information.

Some clients want that, most expect more for their money. Even conversation classes need to have aims etc and have to be seen as aprt of a process with revision etc.

If they want to chat in English and be corrected they can get that anywhere.

Besides if money is the main motivator teaching's hardly the best profession !

My English teacher was great the lessons were always interesting! I really like the conversation classes that were well prepared

Remember there are over 300 private language schools in Warsaw. Even forgetting the suburban and kids-only ones, that's still a heck of a lot of competiotion, and in the in-company sector, the Poland only schools are selling against multinational ones with huge sales teams and gimmicks, who can discount prices for native speakers because they pay their Polish teachers so shamefully little. And have all sorts of tax scams, often involving ripping off non-EU native speakers

There has to be quality or the school won't survive. In the last 12 months,International House, Warsaw and the Warsaw City Centre franchise of English First went tits up. We took over the IH in-company work and got a couple of clients from EF (the rest were sold en masse to Empik).

It's a cuthroat business, and many large clients have been stung by using very cheap schools who pay peanuts and do indeed often get monkeys.

There's a real skill to doing that well and such lessons are rewarding for both student and teacher.

That's true.

But it's certainly still possible to earn a good wage. I interviewed a (very good) teacher who claimed to have got 75plm per 45 min in her last job. Even assuming she was trying to negotiate upwards therefore exagerrated a bit (she was!) she had certainly been doing well. And with the strength of the zloty, times are good right now.

If I were the owner of a language school I would focus on the Helen Doran market! It's really lucrative and very long term for the right school and the right product. In house company work will always be fickle

Take a kid at 5 and do the job well. You have the client for the next 10/12 years. Doron hasn't even got a good product and they are raking it in! I pay for my daughter to go because her friends go. There is little or no progress but she's happy and what more does a six year old want!

The Helen Doran type stuff does really well. One school I know closed it's normal classes and just does nursery school work.

The benefit of in-company work is that you don't need huge classroom space, an invoice is paid every month, usually on time, and the work is quite nice to do.

The schools who really make money are the ones in the suburbs who teach teenagers whose parents pay cash, very little of which is declared to the taxman.

A well known school with branches around the suburbs hires 'virgin' teachers straight from the UK tefl courses, gives them free accommodation in the owners portfolio of real estate and pays peanuts. The teachers don't stay long (and most don't plan to anyway) and he's raking it in.

You bet! This year I paid 950 for one year. The group has got eight kids and meets once a week for 45 minutes. It looks relatively cheap until you figure out how much the school's getting for the weekly meeting.

There are 30 weeks in a school year and one lesson a week: 950 divided by 30 times 8

and low and behold what do we have= 253zl per hour. That's better than any in company work. It's $100 an hour!

This looks pretty good - they need the real estate where the market is, but that's probably achievable. I wonder what they pay the teachers. A few of my clients send their kids to Helen Doran, and they describe it exactly as you have.