Native English speaker looking to teach English in the Opole area of Poland.

Hi, I'm an native English speaker born in the UK looking to move to Poland with my polish wife, I'm looking to teach native English in the opole area of Poland.... I'm not sure of qualifications needed or the demand for English in the region.

I've also thought about going it alone as a business to teach native English but again, I'm unsure of the demand for this.

Can anyone supply info regarding demand, what are the chances of schools or colleges wanting native speakers or would I be better starting up on my own

Bardzo dziekuje 😊

There is quite a bit of information in this (very recent and still ongoing) topic.

https://polishforums.com/work/poland-teach-english-know-start-help-83346/

well you would need some kind of qualification initially, like a 'CELTA' or 'Trinity ESOL cert'.
I mean you couldn't just turn up and start teaching with no qualifications or experience.

Oh Jesus another one of these??

@Azza1710

Do you realize how low the pay is for new English teachers in Poland? You'll spend more money on CELTA certification (around 2.5k in the US, not sure how much is in the UK) than you will make as a teacher over the course of 3 months (average salary of English teacher in PL is 2.5-3k zloty)


No, but you can tutor and actually make a far higher hourly rate than a newbie English teacher in Poland would earn

Chose a different career - especially if you and your wife ever plan on having kids... the decent salaries for English teachers in Poland are long gone and the market is pretty much tapped.

With the uk leaving the eu there will soon be no need for this language in europe. However, with all the others replacing immigration to the uk the need may be strong there.

oh dont be more stupid than you have to be, Wizard.

Dirk is right, though.

Its easy to see how Poland changed in recent years. UK citizen comes to Poland to teach English. Congratulations!

@TheWizard
No need for this language in Europe. I'd be surprised if even 1% of europeans learn English because England is in the EU. Your comment makes less than no sense.

But yes. If you do go down this road, money is gonna be tight. I wouldnt wanna live off it.

Welcome to PF, Azza 1710!

Make sure you learn at least basic Polish, preferrably prior to comtemplating a teaching stint in Poland:-)
Best of luck.

nobody learns English because the UK (yes, the UK, not 'England') is/was in the EU.
They learn it because of America.

And OP, please don't think that people will go mad for a 'native' speaker from the UK, they would rather learn American tbh, on the whole. Also people learn online, or from emigrating temporarily, or from TV and friends, from Skype - a 'native' speaker is almost superfluous these days.

Even though, one might add, British "Standard" remains much of the English taught world wide outside the US, of course.

........well maybe yes.

Definitely, yes!

The UN in New York City recently rejected the writing sample of a young Virginia woman for not conforming to UK spelling and grammar.

as the UN is an American organisation, I find that hard to believe, tbh.
International English is American , essentially.

It depends on what level, in Europe the pronunciation tends to be more American (in that most people don't drop their r's if nothing else) but the lexicon and phraseology tends to be more British because that's where the textbooks come from (except for countries that mostly make their own which is not most of them).

I had a great book years ago that had a long list of British and UK vocabulary along with which seemed more common internationally (basically in Europe), it was about 50 45 UK US respectively and about 5 percent different expressions. It was very accurate in my experience.

Ok so I am not in your locality but I went through a similar thing, as you and I will just offer advice hopefully more positive than the ladies and gents above.

Ok qualification I got one but you don't need it but some basic understanding of tenses and structure helps.

Teaching in a school is fairly rubbish money but depends on what you need to live people on here think that you will struggle on anything less than 5k pln in hand but I can tell you that's rubbish with low rent or no rent 3k is enough and this is about what you will earn in a school for around 25 hours per week going rate for a native seems to be anywhere from 35 pln per hour to 100 pln per hour depending on area etc. etc.

So what about opening your own company this can be tough as you straight away get hit with ZUS i.e. national insurance which starts at around 400 pln per month then double and then goes up again and you have to pay it even if you make 0 so until you can guarantee an income close to 5k pln per month it is totally not worth it.

My advice is start in a school but give a **** and try really hard and go above and beyond for your students then you will start to make a name for yourself once you have a name then you want to go to local big businesses and offer courses to their employees in my experience that's where the money is at but make sure you do 2 things learn from my mistakes

1st sign a contract and in that contract ensure you get paid by hour not by student then the students cancellation policy if they cancel they still have to pay or you will sit in a company for hours for free.

The most important thing is to be professional and look the part and prepare and deliver your lessons with passion

I did this and make a decent income

O and one more thing save money in the winter cause in the summer you will earn nothing, as all students will want a break

Hope this helps any more info please pm me

Seems like a lot of good info there, but holy s%$t does the lack of punctuation make it hard to get through.

For someone that teaches English thats quite disturbing.

But if the money is 3k ish, wouldnt you really be much better off in some international company?

Your heart must really be in teaching, or a very remote location.

I thought it was rather petty as well, roz!

Then again, it IS an international rather than an American or other organization.
Heck, they had Waldheim at the helm for so long regardless of his noxious past,
figure the UN feels it can do as it pleases:-)

Yeah tsk tsk hit a raw nerve did i? Get rid of English from the eu and while at it from this forum so we can get Polish people on it not you bunch of foreign pretenders. Forget America, you will need Chinese.

Unless you can offer something 'extra' - the need for native teachers is minimal. You need a raft of qualifications and teaching experience to make any real money.

well no, not really. You just said something cretinous that you were pulled up on.

If we foreigners trashed talked Poland (which would be very easy to do) the way you do (especially Americans) the rest of you Poles would leave this place in tears with your raw nerves being devastated.

Look how your raw nerves are being devastated by a couple of new people here that you call trolls just because they upend your apple cart with views that you are in denial about. (How Dare you !)

So treat people the way you want to be treated because it is no longer [more baiting = suspension] and pony show here anymore.

Dude, even easer it to trash talk America believe you me. If I was to do it you would lose any hair you have left on your body. What would be the point?

it is always easier to talk trash then to address issues fairly.

I have thought you're a proponent of a free speech? You should get used to people having an issue with the USA due to the country exercising an enormous influence all over the world in all spheres of human life. It is only natural people react to it. Those narrow minded ideas of isolationism are not longer feasible. Its only do harm to those who do by creating some sort of detachment from reality.

By the way - don't you know who the wizard is? That the some dude from Australia who had been banned some time ago. My guess is Australians are not very found of America. lol


Well, those people I CALL TROLLS as far I can tell are trolls. Not because they say thing I may dislike. I'm all for the freedom of speech but because of their agenda. They here to poke a bear in hope of getting a reaction to some of their low key 'pokes' to feed some miserable low key joys of theirs.

I dislike this kind of disingenuity regardless of the fact that say the same things all over again. Thing is that display their absolute ignorance about Poland or the Polish society. I would mind them at all if they were at very least interesting somewhat. Unfortunately they or he is for the most part rather ignorant and boring - a big fail in my book.

And even then you'll make less than a newbie coder or developer from pakistan...

My aunt has two doctorates one in sanskrit/Hinduism and another in teaching. She's traveled all over the world, has numerous published works and has 20 30 years of experience working as a teacher. And yet she makes in a month what a German professor makes in a week.

Although I have seen some polish unis paying 35 40k even up to 50k usd a year salary for professors with PhDs, deans, high level admin staff, etc. It's fraction of what theyd makr in the US (college prof generally has a 100 120k starting salary while admins can make 150 to 250k, some top positions like deans, presidents etc can make even 300 to 500k a year) but 40 50k usd is a great salary by polish standards. But of course youd meed a PhD to be eligible....

Imo the best way to make some decent money is to teach privately. Offer tutoring services, learn some corporate speak and make a small biz and market yourself as a 'business/corporate English' teacher. Even better if you're bilingual and actually have a corporate education/experience, but you can always embellish your experience. Besides its nothing you can't learn from a few forbes and Bloomberg articles or Wikipedia

More Anglos come to Poland to spread English, more Poles would go out from Poland. More Poles go out of Poland, more would western Europe claim Poland`s territories.

So, go to Pakistan, not to Poland.

I think in Pakistan they speak quite good English :-)

Not enough, believe me. Let they learn and travel.

I was shocked when I saw what the high school teachers make in District 211 in Palatine. The average is $125,000. This information, btw, is available on line as a pdf file.

And all that for less than 10 months of work with no creativity and no risk of being fired.

BTW, I can't stand British English. After all these years, I am still having problems understanding British movies.

To my great relief, some Americans feel the same way.

Dirk diggler's reply: (mistakenly merged)


Yup. Suburban public schools pay quite well. It's common for a newbie teacher to teach in a Chicago Public School where they constantly deal with unruly kids that don't want to be there and oftentimes the court is forcing them to attend, shootings right outside of school and just a ton of B.S in general. From what I know from a girl who I went to grade school with and became a teacher, they pay around $55k in Chicago starting for a teacher. It may have gone up since then because this was like 4-5 years ago and they've had a ton of strikes since then. But when their 5 years is up, they go teach in the north shore where they make six figures, don't have to deal with ghetto ass kids, shootings and teach people who actually want to go to college and become something in life.

The admins, deans, principals, etc make even more. An admin can easily bring home 150-250k. Deans, superintendents, etc same thing. For some reason, UIC pays especially high salaries for its top admin staff. And I'm not talking about 200k, no they're bringing home 300k, 400k some people even close to 500k a year.

Not to mention the ridiculously fat pension they get when they retire.

I still couldn't believe that even though teachers are making six figures, they still walk out of the classroom and refuse to teach kids till they get more money. That's pathetic...

A result of the years of extortions by the public unions and their co-conspirators in Springfield. Where is RICO when we need it? This country, with the nazi's running the colleges and the universities remainds more and more of the commie system I left 50 years ago where special people were getting special perks.

But I digress. Sorry.