Career as an English teacher in Warsaw Poland

I am 55 yo moving to Poland , any advice?

@Old horse

put on a tin hat - within half an hour you will get a bunch of rational abuse about your spelling and irrational abuse about why do you think you can live in Poland.

its a great country but it has its ups and downs is my advice

Don't come unqualified, you'll get a better paid job if you come equipped with a CELTA course under your belt.
There's still plenty of work to be found. Money isn't as good as it was, especially in the large cities but you can still certainly make a living.....but be prepared to work long hours.

You can start at 7am until say 10/11 doing lessons in businesses, then work in a language school in the evenings, from 16.00-20.30 or there abouts.

Best of luck.

There's plenty of info already on this forum, have a search.

Can I make enought to live eat out, movies, rent etc?

Oh is it true that most English teachers now wash cars to substitute there income?

How do you know he wants to teach English? Maybe he wants to teach people Irish? He says nothing about what he wants to do in Poland.

Personally, I think that this little "old horsje" may want to teach people Dutch. But since neither Irish nor Dutch are popular among Polish people, it's better to ask him why he wants to move to Poland. Why do you want to move to Poland, Oud Paard?

The OP and anyone else thinking of teaching English might want to have a read of this Telegraph article on the subject. Yes it's 10 years old, but still very true.

tinyurl/kbn3jk2

I remember that article from when it came out. There's a lot of truth, but the writer is unnecessarily bleak. There are good jobs in language teaching and it can open the doors to other opportunities. Plus it can be well paid, though that is increasingly rare in PL.

Define well paid in PLN?

Plenty on here already in at least a dozen threads to answer your question. For the record, plenty of language teachers in PL do very nicely, especially in the capital, "don't gag me yo".

I think your using the terms "plenty" and "very nicely" rather freely, Jon.

There aren't many English teachers in Warsaw that consistently bring in more than 5000 PLN net a month (which is the minimum amount I would even consider calling "nice"), and very few earn over 10,000 net, which is what I would consider "very nice".

Those who earn more than 5000 PLN net are a) highly qualified specialists in legal, medical, scientific, technical or financial fields; b) established for many years with a good reputation and a sold customer base; and 3) gifted self-promoters who know how to effectively market their services.

No newbie is going to strike it rich unless he works off his butt for years and years. Fifteen years ago, this was a move worth considering. Now, much less so.

Think about how many teachers there are in Warsaw. It's true that most survive from private language schools and maybe a few private students, but there must still be a significant percentage doing the quality work - like the specialists you mention. As for being a 'gifted self promoter', fine for the gifted ones, but any training freelancer has to learn how to self promote if they want to make a good living.

A new arrival would have to be lucky to clear 5000 net, though that wage is above average for Warsaw. It isn't impossible though. People with good qualifications can also have extra income streams as an examiner. When I was teaching English in Warsaw a few years ago, after the first year I always made much more than that even though I refused privates.

Salaries have dropped a bit (and not as many salaried teachers in Warsaw as there once were) however it's still very possible to do well if you put your mind to it and have a certain amoun of both charisma or luck. The OP here is however not genuine - he's trolling a particular poster who is not around at the moment.

I'm not trolling other poster posted his fee to teach English how can one survive with that money after paying the taxes? I have changed my plans to do that and pursue what I'm good at. Archery or hobby shop I'll be opening .i think I'll do better then being a English teacher.

If you're thinking about opening a shop, I suggest you contact somebody who posts here under a legion of different usernames, including moose-limb, knee-grow, MoOli, golddigger and other names. He has failed repeatedly at running shops and so can tell you exactly what not to do.

As for fees charged by English teachers, back when I used to teach (some eight years ago), I used to charge (and get) 125zl per hour.

125 zł per hour! Good Lord! The BBC does it for free on their website and I'm sure they do it much better than you or any other teacher of English in Warsaw or anywhere else in the world.

They are silly and lazy learners those who used to come to you to learn English.

You can call them silly and lazy if it makes you feel better about yourself, ziemowit, but it's pretty damn clear to all that you are less intelligent and less hard working than board members and vice-presidents of WSE-listed companies, which are the kind of people I taught.

Dont gag me, don't you have some experience with shop-keeping (or at least with failing at it)? Perhaps you'd like to advise the OP? Or do you never take your own advice?

Post the source of your information.

Source of info? KRS entries are all public, as are bankruptcy records. But do you really want that linked to here?

What I'd love to see is some source for your claim about English teachers washing cars to replace their teaching income. Any chance of that?

link for that please?why not what makes u afraid like a puss puss to post a link?
lol and i never posted english teachers wash cars did i? but again they might have to susbtitute there income* lol SUNSHINE!

The rule here is that posting person information about another poster results in a suspension. So first you need to confirm your identity and agree that it's OK for links to your KRS entries etc to be provided here.


Not under your Dont gag me yo usernames, no; but you're a man with a legion of different usernames, and you did under another of those. Your trolling is clear to all and utterly pathetic.

You, English teachers (or former English teachers) on the PF tend to assign too much importance to themselves. And obviously, yourself and that friend of yours, Jon357, always tend to be au premier plan of it. Not without reason I mentioned in my previous post the BBC and the excellent English language learning service they provide. Times are changing and so is foreign language learning or teaching. Recently, I was truly shocked of how good the Google translate was when I submitted a text in law in Polish to it. This internet service came out with excellent and accurate translation of all legal terms and phrases, and it was surprisingly good in translating common language, so only a few minor corrections into their common English were needed to have the job done almost at once. I very seldom use the Google translate when I need to translate something into English, so the last time I did it was a rather long time ago, hence comes my astonishment at the progress they did in Google translate over the recent years!

Thus my point is: when you are board member, financial specialist, lawyer, medical doctor, or whoever else, in the long run you inevitably learn a specialized language of your profession by yourself (you are just silly and lazy if you do not). The common English language, on the other hand, you may learn quickly and efficiently with the BBC (of which I may serve as a sort of example as never in my life did I have a private tutor of English). Obviously, you may like to have someone for consultation to assist you alongside your BBC course(s) from time to time, but it's pretty damn clear to all that there is no need to hire someone who charges 125 zł an hour for that.

Students who are studying the IB program in Warsaw now are being charged 100-200 zl per hour, for support English classes in their chosen subjects.


I mentioned IB students, Harry the going price is 100-200 zl per hour for support classes ( Math,Physics,Economics,History, English HL et al) in Warsaw

Assuming an hour per week of one-to-one lessons, 2,600zl per term works out at pretty much 200zl per hour. I wonder how much of that cash goes to the teacher and how much is kept by the school.

For IB students this school would be a better example hometutors.pl/en/

IB teachers in the Brit school are not allowed to give private lessons to their students it would be against the program.

I mean that the British school charges 2,600zl per term for extra English as a second language lessons (and the same for all other subjects). I was wondering how much of that 200zl per hour the school pays to the person who teaches the classes.

As I understand schools like poland home tutors take 1/3 of the fee and the tutor/teacher takes two parts, as for the Brit school I do not know the split.

So anything from 66zl to 133zl per hour. And I expect that that is a 45-minute 'hour' too, making it 88zl to 177zl per hour.

Got to wonder how many failed shopkeepers ever earned 177zl per hour. Maybe that's why they see English teacher and are jealous of what they see as the high life those people are living compared to their own poverty.

It must be very difficult to compete against the large chain stores these days, corner-stores and restaurants/cafes are not a business its a job. I know a few who have lost their shirts in these enterprises in Warsaw. The nice thing about teaching I guess would be the minimal overheads especially if you have a specialised skill-set which people need.