Fair price for private/group English lessons??

[tonto]

Hi Guys,

I intend to teach lessons around the La Moilna, Santa Anita, San Borja etc area. I was just wondering what's a fair price to chargefor classes in my place, and for classes in the student's home. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

cheers

[panman]

Hi Guys,

I intend to teach lessons around the La Moilna, Santa Anita, San Borja etc area. I was just wondering what's a fair price to chargefor classes in my place, and for classes in the student's home. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

cheers

You haven't mentioned your experience or qualifications, I would imagine they will play a large part in determining what you might be able to charge.
Perhaps with that information someone might be able to help with a realistic price.

[miaperu]

Minimum 30 soles hr. Groups of 3, 15 soles each. One can make 60 soles plus an hr with a group of 7. This is up in Sullana so I asume that Lima will be ++. An idea if you give discount for paying in advance this asures co continuity.

[argidd]

I would say at least 50 soles per class, for up to 2 students, more if 3 or more then 60 - 75, depending on qualifications/experience.

[americorps]

When I was a teacher, I charged 60 soles for a 90 minute class, and allowed up to 4 students IF THEY WERE THE SAME LEVEL for that price.

I also offered a policy if they paid 1 month in advance, they would get a 10% discount.

I had a very strick 12 hour cancel policy, that if they cancelled for a non emergency less than 12 hours before the class, they must pay for the class.

To balance that, I offered that if I cancelled for a class less than 12 hours in advance, they would get a credit for one free class. It made the cancel policy more easy to enforce when they know I respected their time as much as I demanded they respect mine.

In 3 years, I only gave away 1 free class and I had several students no show or cancel, but always paid without much comlaint.

If I did bigger groups, I would charge 30 soles for 90 minutes per student per class with the same rules as above. I preferred smaller classes, so that pricing only applied with corporate clients generally.

I asked for an additional transportation fee if it were far, like in La Molina or something like that. I lived in San Borja at the time.

[curlyguy18]

I had a very strick 12 hour cancel policy, that if they cancelled for a non emergency less than 12 hours before the class, they must pay for the class.
.

This is a very good point Americorps has made. A lot of students seem to be pretty serious about taking English lessons but then they either start cancelling or they simply do not show up. You must have a clear and strict cancellation policy and make sure your students agree to that policy, otherwise they won't take it seriously and you'll end up losing money.

As far as how much to charge, that depends on your qualifications and skills. 30 - 40 soles is a reasonable price and people are usually willing to pay that amount to a native speaker (I'm a non-native speaker and I charge 30 soles). You have to show you're able to teach and not just sit there and have conversations with students (unless they strictly want a conversation course, which also needs to have some sort of teaching methodology).

For international exams such as TOEFL, CAE, GMAT, etc. you can charge around 40 to 50 soles.

[28 de julio]

Yeah, Curlyguy and Americorp's advice is good. You need to set clear boundaries for missing classes. Students, unintentionally or not, will be thinking of their own time and convenience, not yours. You need to ask for payment in advance and set up a system for cancelling classes, ideally 24 hours notice or they lose it.

In terms of money, well, that depends on your experience, if you have a lot of experience and a teaching qualification and you're a native speaker, you can generally ask between $15-20 an hour. If you don't have a lot of experience, or a qualification, you'll be looking more at around the $10-15 an hour. If you go to the student's workplace or home means you can ask for more. As you're going it alone, you're probably better to start off at the lower end and attract students by word of mouth. You can really only start asking for more once you've got a reputation, because wherever you advertise there's bound to be someone offering classes for less.

Once you get over the $20-25 an hour barrier, you'll be competing with the language schools, who offer all sorts of materials and support with their package and usually the students aren't paying, but rather the companies they work for. Often the teachers at these schools are just foreigners staying in Lima for a few months with few qualifications, so they're not always the best teachers, but the advantage of the language schools is if the students don't like their teacher, they usually just ask for another.

[tonto]

thanks for all the advice guys!!!! I appreciate it

[dradford]

By the looks of these posts you are in the wrong country if you want to make a living tutoring English. When I taught English in Korea 18 years ago I was charging $25 per hour for private tutoring. I have friends in Hong Kong and Japan who charge a minimum of $50/hour.

[curlyguy18]

You're right, draford. It's in Korea and Japan where the real money is for teaching English.

[JanD]

You're right, draford. It's in Korea and Japan where the real money is for teaching English.

And where the costs of living probably are much higher......

P.S. Just an observation, with no intention to deviate from the (interesting) main subject!

[dradford]

You're right, draford. It's in Korea and Japan where the real money is for teaching English.

And where the costs of living probably are much higher......

P.S. Just an observation, with no intention to deviate from the (interesting) main subject!

Actually, cost if living is lower in Korea. Not for Japan though, but then again, you can charge more in Japan. Peru is not a cheap place to live.

[Sergio Bernales]

You're right, draford. It's in Korea and Japan where the real money is for teaching English.

And where the costs of living probably are much higher......

P.S. Just an observation, with no intention to deviate from the (interesting) main subject!

Actually, cost if living is lower in Korea. Not for Japan though, but then again, you can charge more in Japan. Peru is not a cheap place to live.

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/ra ... ountry.jsp

http://www.gfmag.com/tools/global-datab ... z2ezUZRSrx

http://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-livin ... lima/seoul


According to the above indexes, it's significantly more expensive to live in South Korea than Peru, unless you're talking about North Korea. However, I take your point that Peru is often much more expensive than many people think. I also think it probably depends which part of Korea you're in and which part of Peru. Certainly living in San Isidro or Mirafores is more expensive than some cities in the States and Europe, so I imagine that would be true for some towns in Korea. But I doubt living in a nice part of Trujillo is more expensive than living in a nice part of Seoul, although higher wages might compensate for the jump in costs.