In the past week, 3 people have stopped me on the street asking me to tutor them in English. I got their contact info and said I would be in touch.
What is a reasonable rate to charge people? I live in Taichung (do not know if that matters).
I get paid 650NT an hour for teaching, should tutoring be more? Less? I really got no clue. All of the students are interested in conversation.
BTW, I have an MA, am working on my PhD, have been teaching for over 10 years, am currently working on my 5th language (Mandarin) and have a LOT of experience tutoring and teaching foreign language acquisition (primarily Hebrew and Aramaic…neither of which I am a native speaker of). So I really do know how to teach foreign languages (and can be quite demanding of my students, if they are serious).
In my experience, tutoring is ALWAYS more expensive than teaching at a school, for the simple fact that the student received more focused and tailored attention. How much more will depend on the student, of course.
For me, I’m getting 600/hr at cram school, and I charge at least 700/hr for private tutoring, and I currently have 2 tutoring students.
You should be charging from 800NT and up, depending on various factors, such as 1) travel time 2) whether a company is paying for the student’s classes 3) how rich the student is.
I charge 1000NT for business privates, but that is on the company’s dime. Most chain schools that provide 1-on-1 tutors will charge at least 1000NT.
Legality of tutoring depends on your status in the country (i.e. what kind of residency you have), that info can be found on the forums, for it is different for different people.
I do not think there is a special certification required, though if you do it for a company (as opposed to privately) you will probably need something like that to get hired.
Your tutoring rates are dependent on how badly you need the money and how inconvenient (extra work/transport) it is. I have all the work that I want but I would take an extra student for 800NT/hr (maybe 1000NT/hr) if there wasn’t a lot of hassle involved. However a language student that doesn’t have any money could be justified in undercutting the market and charging 500NT/hr because that student really needs work.
Tutoring rates really vary. I know some teachers who do 1-on-1 tutoring for as much as 1,200NT/hr and some offer as low as 300NT/hr. I personally know plenty of teachers who do online English conversation for NT250/hr. Its just a question of whether the student and the teacher agrees with the price and the schedule.