NO JOBS IN POLAND FOR ENGLISH PEOPLE EXCEPT TEACHING?

nukidondabloc

Hi thank you for the support, I'm working in Katowice airport now which is great i like the work also and yes i do agree that my English for a native speaker is rubbish but im from yorkshire so can't expect perfect English haha, Also i had the C.V translated into Polish but did not hand it out as i had this interview and got the job.

Also thank you for the nice advice as all the hater's will hate.

Sorry to read your situation. I come to Poland every year and lived here for three years about a decade ago. I feel that trying to find low skilled work in Poland with being unable to speak the native language is futile and therefore a waste of your time. As an earlier post pointed out unless you have specific skills there is little hope. I would say that this is not a Polish issue but merely a reflection of modern labour market conditions across the world. My best advice would be for you to return to the UK and get some skills.

Interesting stuff from InWroclaw about 30 zl an hour for teaching being the norm in Wroclaw. Not boasting - but the facts are that if you can actually teach, then three times that figure per hour is achievable. Here in Tri-City at any rate.

Not sure it would be gentlemanly to post a link, but I know of 1 or 2 tutors on Gumtree here stating they have 15 years of experience, worked at named (big name) local firms, and with 6 or 7 teaching certificates "with distinction". There they are on Gumtree, offering individual, general or business English for 40 zeds an hour. Go check if you don't believe me.

Dougpol, I've sent you the link to the ad for 40 per hour, so you can see how highly qualified he or she is and how little they're asking.

Anecdotally, I'm told it's very slow, lots of new native speakers arrived in Wro last year driving down the prices, average now 50 per hour from private students and schools. However, I know for a firm fact some probably early established schools are charging companies 120-150 per hour in some cases and still doing well.

Also, there are native teachers and there are native teachers. The company I work for got us some additional English lessons here in Wrocław, and the teacher is not very good. Late every time 5-15 minutes ( once even 30 minutes ). On top of that has no idea how to setup an interesting lesson. Every lesson starts with half an hour of chit-chat about who has been doing what, with the more introvert people not participating at all. I'm not saying I'd know better but I think there's a big disparity in quality of learning across the board..

All I know is that teachers here are having a lean time. I hear it all the time. So I'm surprised anyone fairly useless wormed his or her way in to a job at a company. One of the reasons for this lean time is quite an influx of native speakers into Wroc over the past 12-14 months. Yeah not as many as Warsaw, but Warsaw's much bigger and being the capital it has a much greater need for English and teachers (I would guess). Here you'll find quite a few native speakers working for 40 and sometimes 30 per hr.

This is very true. One thing that has affected it is people moving to Poland with spouses - not teachers, not training, no idea how to get people to learn, but they speak English, need a job and are fodder for the worst kind of private language school.


Exactly. In Warsaw until about 5 years ago, it started at 60zl per hour and went much higher. Unfortunately the dross who are chasing work have forced the price down.

Yes. A friend has made a fortune out of exploiting such teachers, as they supply them at really ridiculously low rates to companies. He has found that offering a fixed salary for 12 months of the year allows him to offer as little as 2200zl a month while still making a very healthy profit.

Have a look at some of the ads from so-called native speakers and the English used suggests quite clearly that either they didn't write their own ads or many of them are simply pretend native speakers LOL


Do schools also ask teachers to come in and perform a free, trial lesson for students? Do those same students pay for that trial lesson while the poor old native speaker gets nothing but a glass of chilled tap water for their time? Do schools trial different teachers every few weeks (or even every week) while paying them little or nothing and at the same time charge students for a supposedly trial lesson with "this week's guest native speaker tutor"? Nice. Not.

When I used to advertise for native speakers, I got plenty of CVs from Poles who'd spent 5 years or so abroad and considered themselves to be native speakers. Yeah, right!

Read some of the horror stories over at Dave's Polish ESL Forum. One school in particular (which shall remain unnamed) sometimes goes months without paying the teachers. Why they stick around and work for free is the question no one seems to know the answer for.

Lol - I've done that in my time, and learnt quickly - Poles love to exploit. I might offer a trial at 70 per cent of fixed price - but free? Too busy for time wasters, especially any schools.

ELS-Bell (Warsaw, Gdansk, Gdynia, Bydgoszcz, Sczeczin)

I'm glad dave23 found something to do. Teaching was simply not an option; he'd have been found out in a heartbeat. There are lots of very good Polish English teachers around nowadays, so even qualified native speakers are finding it harder to find good work. As for pay, corporate work is holding up and can be lucrative if you're flexible. I wouldn't teach in company for less than 120 PLN/hr.