I live in Taichung and do a fair amount of private tutoring. I’ve recently come across an interesting opportunity. I have a family that I’ve been working with that to put it bluntly has money and will do whatever it takes to get their kids to learn English. There are five kids all at different levels. In my short time with them I’ve built a good relationship with the kids to the point that the family has asked if I would be willing to work for them full time as a private English teacher. This would probably mean about 30-40 hours a week during the summer and then scaled down to about 25 once school starts up again. They currently are paying me 850 an hour as a tutor and are interested in finding out how much my rate would be as a full time teacher. For a number of reasons working with them requires about double the prep time I do for all of my other private lessons (they require quite a bit of creativity to keep their attention during the lessons which is a fun challenge). To be honest, I haven’t the slightest clue what a fair rate would be. I’m familiar with the going private rates, but they seem to be expecting a big jump in my hourly request. I’m hoping to find some examples of others who might have similar situations and see what their rates are. While it’s tough not to notice the time card machine that they have in the kitchen on the first of 6-8 floors, I do want to be fair and charge the “going rate” if there is such a thing.
Teaching 25 hours a week in a high school you could easily earn 70,000/month. I know someone who was recently offered 90,000 plus accomodation and meals.
Bear in mind that an ‘hour’ is 45 minutes of actual classroom time. If they’re giving you 850 an hour now then you’ve got an OK deal, but I wouldn’t drop it any lower just because it’s your f/t job. How about ARC? What happens if it doesn’t work out?
Good point on the 45 minutes of classtime.
Actually they are expecting me to come in at a higher rate rather than lower. They also have offered to cover my costs for VISA runs since I’d lose my ARC.
They come from a pretty reliable referral who has worked happily with them for a while. Basically she is the one who has said that she feels at 850 I’d be underpaid but she wasn’t sure what would be reasonable to start at either.
So you’re looking at 100K a month tax free?
What’s their phone number?
I would recoomend you keep a job that gives you an ARC and teach them privately instead of giving up your ARC. You never know when things may change with your privates imho.
I wouldn’t teach private students for less than 1000 an hour, ad seeing as there’s 5 of them, I’d charge more. I’d charge 1500 an hour for that class.
Brian
You need to keep another job, part-time, that allows you to keep your ARC. Private students really are unstable, no matter how attractive the deal is. What if they cancel on you for whatever reason? Then you would be stuck with no ARC and no income. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Also, you can charge a pretty high price for 5 kids. 30 hours a week should net you 85,000 NT at least a month. That is not unreasonable. If you were teaching 40 hours, 100,000 - 120,000 NT is not unreasonable.