Companies and pay for a Native English Teacher in Warsaw?

What is the average hourly rate for a native speaker teaching English? What are some of the best and worst schools?

It's hard to judge the different schools as the teacher turnover is so high that the bigger ones survive more on reputation that good schooling.

an average wage for 90 minutes should be in the region of 100zl. no less.

Merged: Companies who need business English teachers in Warsaw?

hi everyone,

i was wondering if anyone knows of any companies who hire business English teachers in Warsaw.
I've been looking on the net, but i can't seem to find too much information.

i look forward to any help i can get!

thanks so much

It does happen, but usually, the work goes to those who can provide an invoice. They're also unlikely to take someone who doesn't have an established track record (with references!) in Poland.

Merged: Teaching work for native English speaker in Warsaw

Hi there,

I am moving from the UK to Warsaw in January 2016 and was wondering if anybody could suggest the best way to find teaching work as a native English speaker. Would it be better to approach schools, colleges or business's etc? I have a diploma in popular music, Ba Hons Drama degree, PGCE and TEFL certificate. I have read that a CELTA certificate would be much more beneficial with regards to finding teaching work and I am willing to study for a CELTA it it means a better paid position. Ideally i would like to secure a job before I relocate. Could anybody suggest the best websites etc? Any advice would be great.

It's highly unlikely that you're going to find a job in January. It might be possible to put together a timetable then, but you'll have to start your own business and then hit the streets to put it together.

Wait until the next academic year is my advice.

Although...are you male or female? Your profile says female - in this case, it might well be possible to pick up a full time nursery/kindergarten job.

Hi, yes I'm female, my boyfriend is Polish and he is working out there for a 18 months so I'm moving to be with him. I like the idea of moving away for while for a new experience. Mmmmmm don't think a nursery kindergarten job would suit me to be honest haha i'm not the greatest with young children. I also don't speak the language but i'm learning, it's such a tricky language to learn. When you say 'start your own business' do you mean offering home tutoring?

Not much good news, I'm afraid.

First of all, the academic year is starting now, and most positions are already filled. There aren't many vacancies at other times of the year, although there is a small chance that you can get hired to replace a dissatisfied teacher who did not come back from Christmas vacation or otherwise didn't work out. That's a double edged sword, though, as there is often something wrong with school who cannot retain employees or hires the kind of teacher that doesn't work out.

Second of all, geography is working against you. Warsaw and the other big cities popular among aspiring English teachers (Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań and Gdańsk/Gdynia/Sopot) are awash with inexperienced candidates fighting desperately for any job available, and schools can afford to be rather choosy about whom they hire. Your chances of finding work would be a lot higher if you cast your net very wide, especially in small towns off the beaten path, where competition is a lot less fierce, rather than restricting yourself to Warsaw and the big cities.

Next, I assume that you are looking for teaching experience that will increase your chances of finding a job as a teacher back home. The bad news is that teaching experience is awarded points on the basis of official documentation, and teaching English abroad rarely results in documentation that is recognized and rewarded points. The only exceptions that come to mind are teaching in a state-approved primary or secondary school and teaching under the auspices of an officially recognized volunteer program like EVS. Otherwise, it is highly unlikely that any experience you gain will be recognized back home.

Teaching in a state-approved primary or secondary school or in an institution of higher learning is almost certainly out of the question. First of all, you'd be coming at the wrong time of the year. More importantly, the wages are downright abysmal, far too low for you to survive on.

Approaching businesses is out of the question, too, especially in big cities like Warsaw. They are approached daily by your competitors, who, frankly, have more to offer than you do.

Teaching in private language schools is probably the only realistic option open to you. Getting a job in one in a popular city in January, though, is very unlikely. Furthermore, the experience you gain will be worth nothing to your future employers, who will consider it, at best, a extended vacation and, at worst, a sign of flakiness. You will be awarded exactly zero points.

If it's points that you are after, then you might be able to find work at a state-approved private elementary or secondary school that teaches in English. The problem there is that these schools are flooded with applicants and are very selective about whom they hire. Recent grads don't stand a chance.

That leaves EVS and other officially recognized volunteer programs that may provide documentation that is recognized back home. In my opinion, that's about the only chance you have of earning experience points.

Personally, you have made some very, very bad educational decisions, and you are severely crippled as far as finding gainful employment and job satisfaction are concerned. Whoever was supposed to provide you with guidance in these decisions was seriously remiss in their duties to the point of being criminal. To be blunt, you've completely wasted the last four or five years of your life. Fortunately, all is not lost. You are still young and able to reschool to gain qualifications that are worth something on the job market, which is what I suggest you do, rather than grasping for straws to postpone the inevitable by coming to Poland.

Make an appointment with a qualified and experienced academic counselor and explore what what you can study to make yourself salable. Otherwise, you're going to end up stocking the shelves on night shift at Tesco for the rest of your life, or lining the gutter clutching a bottle of cheap wine and belching out the show tunes you learned in your drama program.

You could have a great future if you decide to turn your life around right now while you are young and still have the chance. But with your current qualifications, "great" is far beyond your reach, and "barely tolerable" is the best you can hope for.

Thanks for your advice.

There's work for people with positive personalities and a good work ethic. Get a CELTA and be prepared to spend a few months building up your hours to full-time. If you're dedicated to the job, you'll improve as time goes on and people will start trusting you more. Don't expect to get rich but you should be able to achieve around 4000-5000pln a month. It really depends on you and how your skills develop. There are plenty of people who call themselves teachers but can't really teach. It's really like any job, you need to be a able to do it properly or people won't pay you.

Not so Dominic ... :) I have never come across, or heard of them.

You might want to ignore the replies from those who have no idea what those four letters signify. I'd strongly suggest that you contact the international schools in Warsaw and ask if they have any vacancies, even if only for a part-time teacher.


Probably not, seeing as she's a qualified teacher in the UK and there's no lack of demand for those.

Those four letters signify nothing in themselves, because there is no such thing as a PGCE certificate. Rather, there are a bunch of certificates that go under that heading, some very much in demand (secondary math and science, except chemistry) and others less so (secondary chemistry, geography, social studies and primary general education). Drama and performing arts, in particular, is often singled out as the field that has no or little shortage of job applicants. I presume that the OP holds one of the less salable ones.

A PGCE in primary general education or secondary drama and performing arts does not open near as many doors as ones in secondary math and science, and candidates with recognized experience points would be at a great advantage over those with no officially documented experience.

Dom I would have thought that for someone who wanted to teach then doing a degree and then doing a PGCE and throwing a TEFL on top would actually be some quite responsible and thought through life choices.

And guess what, I don't want my kids to just do math and chemistry at school - those things are important but I do also want them to be taught some culture and to have some fun.

Not sure if you are aware but whenever I have a math problem I generally put it into a computer rather than try and dredge up what I was taught in the mid 80s from my memory.

You would have thought wrong. Very wrong. This is someone who took the easy way out, who consciously and deliberately avoided having to do real studies, and will be treated by future employers accordingly. There ain't no point in putting lipstick on that there pig.

Moving to Poland to be with her boyfriend nails the coffin shut on any possibility that she is in any way responsible. She is trying to run away from the dire consequences of her extremely poor decisions. Granted, the responsibility for making those decisions should not have been solely hers to bear, and there is probably a good deal of irresponsibility on the part of those whose job it was to provide her with prudent guidance, including her parents. The consequences, though, do fall squarely upon her, though.

I was kind enough to point out that she can do a lot to redress her deficit of useful qualifications, something that I notice that none of the "cheerleaders" here on this forum ever do.


Nor would I want mine to, either. By the way, I have two degrees in humanities, both completely worthless on the job market, but very valuable to me nonetheless. It is the science degrees that I hold that butter my bread, though.

That doesn't have anything to do, however, with the fact that holders of arts and humanities degrees are in little demand on the job market, and that the supply outstrips demand by a wide mile. We live in a technocracy, and that's going to be even more the case in future generations.

People may (rightly) want their kids to study non-science subjects in school, but when it comes to paying the taxes to pay the teachers to do just that, they are suddenly a lot less enthusiastic, and governments follow in kind.

Dominic is right. No one needs to "sugar-coat" everything. There are lots of English-speaking people in Poland who have no professional education in teaching, yet they come to schools just because they can't find other jobs. Big cities are flooded with English speakers and it's hard to find a job there. I went to private school and I had special lessons named simply "native speaker". We had two hours a week with English native speaker to improve our skills but the normal lessons where we learnt gramatics etc were with Polish teacher of English since the native speakers couldn't speak Polish and didn't have any professional education to teach students at school. Oh, and we had five different English native speakers at school in three years! Yeah, schools can be choosy, as Dominic said.

With a PGCE you'll definitely pick up some work from one of the international schools. As long as you have some experience too. I'd say at least a year's post-PGCE experience preferably teaching key stage 1or 2 English. With a drama degree you should be able to do this. However it will all depend on what the schools need at a particular time. This will show you've got decent experience of assessment etc. I like that you've got a music diploma too. Wealthy Poles spend a lot on education. This job was advertised this year -

tltpglobal.com/job-detail.asp?id=3142
Definitely, send your CV to all the schools teaching the UK curriculum.

That's right, although most schools would want more than one year of experience. Without any experience at all, the OP doesn't stand a chance. NQTs are dime a dozen.

Similarly there's no need to pour black doom and despair over everything. He must be a ton of laughs in real life.

Unlike all the "cheerleaders" here, I was the only one who offered the OP any practical advice on how to substantially improve her lot. Sounds more like a ray of sunshine.

Negative information does not have to be delivered with a punch to the gut and a bunch of sidewalk psychoanalysis.

Sometimes you need a good punch in the gut in order to get out of a rut and actually start doing something productive to improve your lot. And my little love tap is trivial compared to the harsh awakening that awaits her in Poland.

I cannot imagine why you think that further namby-pamby feel-good mollycoddling would help in this case. She is clearly suffering from an overdose of that already, and the only antidote is a gut-wrenching encounter with stark reality.

The reality is that she made some truly ghastly educational choices, which rendered her essentially unemployable or, at best, minimally employable, and her stupid plan of running away from reality to be with her "boyfriend" in Poland is stupider than stupid can be, and will certainly end in dismal failure with dire consequences for the rest of her life. But, if she wants to improve her lot, there is nothing standing in her way except her own laziness and delusions. At her age, reschooling to acquire more salable qualifications is well withing her reach if she stays in the UK. In Poland, however, there is nothing she can do to improve her miserable lot. Anyone telling her otherwise is full of it.

I agree with gośćzPoznania and DominicB. It's better to know the reality especially if you are coming to a foreign country than to be surprised after the arrival. DominicB gave valueable advices instead of pretending that everything would be alright. It's always better to "pour black doom" and get ready for any possible twists in the plan.

Cough :)

Is the OP a self confessed criminal? Your turn of phrase is hilarious Dominic :)

Habitual mantra from D... ;-)

I don't think so Jardinero. Dominic is Polish, and knows nothing about the TEFL market from a natives' perspective. He is doom and gloom, as others have said, but he means well. However there is a lot of work around. A sound functional ability in English is a must for any youth with ambition, and help with teaching/motivation/training/whatever is in constant demand. I keep annoying learners by offering services that I can't deliver on, and have to pass on down the line.

Mind you, I am the best at what I do in the area :)

Where Dominic is correct, and it is completely OT, is that working in TEFL you will never have that house on the hill, but I teach some of those very people, and I have never had any inclination to emulate them. A polite way of putting it would be "horses for courses":)

Not in Poland they aren't.

I would (and quite a few others I know would, too) bite the hand off anyone that had a PGCE and was willing to work - even more so if they could teach the performing arts because such people are few and far between here. Warsaw being what Warsaw is - she should have no problems with finding work, even in January, because there are such few people with UK qualifications in that field.

Doom and gloom is fine for the 22 year old with no qualifications and no experience with a BA in history, but qualified teachers are still rare here.

Put it this way - if we could get a female teacher that could teach music, drama and dance and had a PGCE in one of those fields - then they would walk into a job tomorrow where I work.

Dominic is American and lived twelve years in Poland.


Do you work at an international primary or secondary school that can give the OP documented experience points that will be officially recognized by employers back home in the UK?

The problem is that in the EU, there's no such thing as automatic recognition of experience. So when she goes back, it would be entirely down to the headteacher in the hiring institution to decide whether or not it counts. It can even be a problem between schools in the UK - headteachers aren't bound to pay teachers according to experience.

Bullshyt. They have to rigorously apply the extremely detailed pointing formula handed down by the Ministry of Education, no exceptions, when deciding whom to hire. There is little room for discretion. And no, they cannot award experience gained at a private language school any points.


That's another matter entirely, and they do have discretion there. Even so, no one is going to count "experience" gained in a private language school.