Viewing topic: Overcharging private students

Hello everybody, I’m Alastair. I'm new to this site but I’m an old hand on the Petersburg scene (Hi Bobs, finally got round to contributing to the site. How are you?). I taught in St. Petersburg for 4 years in total (in 2 stints since 2001), but left last August for a year or so. I’m currently on a sabbatical in Granada, Spain, training TEFL teachers (producing more of you!) with a fellow Petersburg TEFL exile. It’s nice to get a bit of sun –and maybe I deserve it after 4 years in Russia!
Anyway, I would thus consider myself well-qualified to raise the following issue.
I'll cut to the chase. My colleague (That's Tim of course, Bobs) and I recently had a look at the section of the website where members can be registered as private teachers. This section is obviously aimed at students who may potentially be interested in the services of those teachers –a good idea, admittedly. However, we were quite surprised (and I must admit, a little disturbed) to see the prices some teachers were charging for private lessons. Looking through the database, we noticed that a good number of teachers with only 2 years or less teaching experience (and in some cases, no qualifications) are charging 20 or more dollars for their services!

How can anyone with so little experience <-- edited in accordance with forum rules --> really, honestly feel that their lesson is going to be of a high enough and professional enough standard that a $20+ fee warrants?
I have met hundreds of native teachers during my TEFL career, and a worryingly large number of them were still unable to identify or distinguish between grammatical forms even after 2 or 3 years, let alone spell correctly or put together a proper lesson. So I would be very interested indeed in finding out what a teacher with so little experience thinks he/she can offer a private student (whose needs, let’s not forget, can be quite specific) that will justify a fee of $20+ for 45 minutes. Who do these people think they are? I know I am not alone in finding this inappropriate -if not immoral. Either these people have an inflated opinion of themselves or they are just plain greedy. Even most teachers of 5 or 6 years' experience would think twice (and take a long look in the mirror) before asking for such sums.

If the aim of this site really is to promote better-quality teaching and fairness on the Petersburg TEFL market, it seems sad that some members are effectively distorting the market by providing (almost certainly) low or medium-quality teaching for a high-quality price.

Claims that such fees are justified due to transport/travel costs do not usually wash, because in many cases the lessons take place at the teacher’s home, and private lessons rarely interfere with a regular teaching schedule. Oh yes, and how much does the metro cost? Schools don’t pay us to get to school, and why should they? I am all in favour of doing anything within our power to increase the salaries that schools pay teachers, but I am completely opposed to what often amounts to exploitation of private students by teachers desperate to make a bit of cash on the side. While I firmly believe that teachers should be paid more for the work they do, I also sympathise with the student, who I feel gets a raw deal all too often, either from schools who charge high prices while providing poor-quality teaching, or from unscrupulous private teachers with little in the way of experience and/or qualifications.

The saddest aspect of all this is that many Russians believe that the more they pay, the better the teacher they will get. While this has never been a good rule-of-thumb by which to judge a service (just look at public transport in Britain!), it should be quite clear that a situation like this does nobody any favours. If we follow this trend to its logical conclusion, the possible resulting scenario is not an attractive one for student or teacher. The danger of teachers charging such fees is that it will result in so many of their peers also raising their rates (in order to try and take advantage of what they perceive to be a natural increase in market value, and also to avoid ‘underselling’ themselves), that only the extremely well-off Petersburger will be able to afford private lessons. The knock-on effect will be that ultimately, the number of private teaching hours available will diminish to the extent that it will actually become more difficult for teachers to pick up private work, as large numbers of potential students will be dissuaded by extortionate prices. While I appreciate that we need to make a living somehow, I would hope we are not so foolish as to shoot ourselves in the foot. There are not a great number of native teachers in Petersburg, and it is difficult enough for many teachers to pick up private work as it is.

$20+ is NOT a fair price for a 45-minute lesson given by an inexperienced teacher. I would suggest a rate of $10-15 per academic hour for teachers of 1-2 years’ experience, and $15-20 for teachers of more than 2 years’ experience. We’re members here because we feel that this site provides a forum for constructive TEFL-related dialogue, and can help to improve the opportunities and working conditions of the TEFL teacher in Petersburg. But if you’re given an inch, please don’t try and take a yard. Maintain some honesty and integrity. I would like to think that the members of the site are teaching English because they find it rewarding in some way, not solely as a means to an end.

For the record, I myself charge between $15 and $20 dollars per academic hour. Negotiable, of course.

I would be interested in hearing the views of others upon this matter.

Hello Alastair, good to see you in here at last.

I'd like to take you task a little on this matter... I agree in part, if not in whole with what you are saying, but I have some points to make.

The fees stated are not really extortionate - they reflect the market. There is a market for low-priced lessons just as there is for higher-priced lessons. Admittedly there are some teachers around who take the proverbial with charging for private lessons, but at the same time there are students in an income category beyond our understanding that can pay those rates.

There are plenty of private teachers around, so those teachers would soon lose their students (and some may do) if they didn't get what they wanted. High prices per lesson reflect the instability of private agreements, the flexibility for the student and the risk for the teacher.

From another angle, one teacher (Oleg from Ben. School - remember him?) said to me when I only had a few weeks' experience behind me said I should charge no less than $15 per hour. He pointed out that this, for many likely students, represented less than a night out in Metro club or many other such places. And it's a lot better for their health

From another angle, if we lower our prices we stab our Russian colleagues in the back. One of the many purposes behind this site is to put something back into EFL in Russia. Or put something into it that is hardly there at all. A bit of professionalism, some openness and a bit of dignity for the teachers that until now could only moan on eslcafe if a school took them for a ride.

Russian teachers need to make a living too, and many of the really good ones (who could run rings around a lot of us in a number of areas) charge just a little under the native teachers for private lessons. The schools pay them a pittance - I think it's a mockery that an 18 y.o. foreigner with a 6-week TEFL certificate can be paid twice as much as an experienced Russian with a university education and years of experience - so private lessons are often more important for them than for us.

If we were to start dropping prices (incidentally, I reckon lessons at home with teachers and in students' homes are about 50-50) we'd be pulling the rug out from under the Russians' feet. I think that as long as prices are justifiable in terms of delivering quality, and sustainable in terms of market demand, there's no reason to lower them.

Teachers I know here are teaching either because it's their chosen career or because they want to travel a bit and make money on the side. I am no great fan of the holiday teachers, but where someone is doing it for a living I think it's fair to charge according to demand. There is a tendency among Russians to think that foreigner EFL teachers are some kind of charitable institution, but they all have to get by.

The hours involved in teaching are such that a lot of time per day evaporates uselessly. Preparation, travel to off-site locations and the fact that it's just unrealistic to teach back-to-back TEFL-style lessons all day (unless quality is to suffer) mean that we have to recoup with hourly rates on a par with a junior lawyer.

I'm all for improving the dreadful level of English in Russia, but not on a charitable basis.

I just spent 20 minutes typing a reply to your post, and when I came to post it I was asked for my password, despite having already logged in. Of course, when i hit the back button i discovered that this meant I had lost the text of the message and now have to start all over again!

Is it possible to do something to prevent this from happening?

I'm surprised you typed quickly enough to get the first post in

There's a timeout limit of around 15 minutes on your login - the idea being that if you forget to logout nobody can open the site again and be logged in under your acocunt!

Best thing to do is ctrl+a, ctrl+c to copy all the text before submitting it. Don't let it put you off replying!

I can make many coralations to what you are saying about teaching to the horse business. Horse traders cause the same problems for the rest of us. But the topic is teaching. I have never been to SPB so I have no idea about the rates there. In the small cities I would think (after seeing one) that is would definitly restrick the lessons to wealthy students. I do understand the business is business. I tend to agree with Alastair for the most part, but since I am a beginer teacher I am not really qualified for the higher rates, and maybe this opinion.

I am going back next month though.

I'm not advertising for private lessons so consider myself pretty impartial... It's a free market. People can ask for what they want, but if they overcharge they'll get no students. And if the students don't think the teacher's up to scratch they'll take their money elsewhere. Seems fair enough to me.

OK, typed it again!

Bobs, many of the points you make are valid ones, and I agree wholeheartedly that professional teachers should not be ‘charitable’ with the amounts they demand for their services –that would only perpetuate the depressing status quo. However, it seems there is some disagreement over what is considered to be the ‘market’ price for private lessons.

My main argument was not that teachers shouldn’t charge high prices (as you quite correctly state, there is a high-income section of the population for whom even $30 per hour is a drop in the ocean), but that the fee should reflect the teacher’s skills and experience (i.e. a teacher with a year or less experience is not going to deliver high-quality lessons, and so should charge a fair price). Obviously there is no way of regulating this, we have to rely on the honesty and integrity of the teachers in charging a fee that is appropriate, without overcharging or underselling themselves.

Oleg may have had a point when he mentioned $15 as an appropriate starting fee, but we also have to take into account that there are plenty of students for whom $15 is not peanuts, and whom a trip to Metro club (ugh!) is not something that can be afforded on a regular basis. The assumption that all students paying for private lessons are rich is false, as you know –I remember some students who had to carefully husband their spending in order to be able to afford one or two lessons a week. They also deserve a chance!

While, as you say, a teacher who provides low-quality teaching or poor value for money is likely to be ditched fairly quickly by the student, we should not assume that students are always aware of what exactly is good for them. As you well know, students’ confidence in the skills and methodological awareness of the native teacher are often misplaced. The scenario wherein a student persists for months with a mediocre teacher due to a mistaken faith in that teacher’s abilities, instead of looking for a better one, is a common one. We are both aware that there plenty of teachers around who give the impression of knowing what they are doing, even when the case may be quite to the contrary! And it is not always appropriate to divide teachers into the categories of ‘career’ teachers and ‘holiday’ teachers. Much as we may hate to admit it, there are good ‘holiday’ teachers, and dreadful ‘career’ teachers, even if that may not be the accepted norm.

With regard to the visarus database, surely it is our responsibility to provide the student with detailed, accurate information, in order that they can make an informed choice. Without the client there would be no market for our services, so we owe it to them to represent ourselves truthfully.
Teachers should be honest in their descriptions of themselves and their experience, and morally honest in the amount they charge. Otherwise it amounts to what is effectively misleading advertising, which would make us little better than the likes of the Benedict School!

A.

"Teachers should be honest in their descriptions of themselves and their experience, and morally honest in the amount they charge. Otherwise it amounts to what is effectively misleading advertising"

Ok,,,,, My ad should read.....
Beginner teacher, prefur women students. Fe depending on ability to pay. Will take trade!

I am joking of course. I am not sure that everyone knows,,,, I gave riding lessons before doing the TEFL thing... I have seen good riding instructor and bad... I have seen people that called themselves horse trainer and on and on. It reall isn't any different than the TEFL business, Everybody that gets a new horses suddenly becomes an expert. I agree With Anna (Digdug) the student should be the ones to regulate the Fees, but I also agree with Alister that we as teacher have a duty to promote ourself fairly.

All this said,,, does anyone have an idea how?

Read you loud and clear Al, I do agree that others 'deserve a chance', but they have plenty of chances to either find a cheaper teacher, form a group (and learn for free if they play it right), or just befriend a foreigner and become an English leech (pardon the apparent reference to myself - I know certain people who've learned English as though it was an STD.

Digdug, I think, has the viewpoint of a neutral outsider, so to speak, in that she has no emotional involvement in the argument. I do think it's rotten that some people who need English can't afford to pay for lessons. But they should have paid more attention at school.

I have to admit that I much prefer teaching individuals for free or peanuts - they feel they have to reward you in some way and they do it by paying attention to what you're teaching. But that's another story.

As for the megabucks people - I think you'd be amazed at the people willing to pay $20 or more per hour. If we charged any less... well, you know what the noveaux riches are like.

It's the law of a free market combined with Russian mentality - those who can easily pay more do - because why have the $10 option when you can have something more becoming of a person of your social standing? Like Digdug said, the teachers who charge the 'right' amount for these people will get those students, and the ones who charge less will get the more 'needy' students.

Will's right as well - in every profession or industry there are charlatans. EFL is becoming something of an Eastern mystical art these days, so no surprise that it's a haven for fly-by-nighters. Know how much a Feng-Shui consultant charges per hour in London? I've been told they add things like drinking your coffee to the bill - you have to pay them to eat your food etc. 'cos it's all for the good of the Shui

Like Will said, some people buy a horse and the next thing they're a riding instructor. I know from family experience it takes years to become a proper instructor. Some foreigners get a job in an EFL school and the next thing they're a teacher. Never mind whether they know that 'would have' is not 'would of', they're the Mystical English Genies from the West (or East, depending which way you spin the globe) and they're good marketing for the schools.

I'm afraid I do have an emotional involvement in the argument, and feel I must defend myself from the rather barbed comments being directed my way from Vasileostrovets... First of all, as a person, i have no inflated ideas of my own teaching skills - quite the opposite. Secondly, that teaching ad was hidden some weeks ago because of its unsuitability - it was incorrect, therefore got removed. It is through no fault of my own that it is still there. Thirdly, (and this is another reason why I removed the ad from the site), I simply do not have the time to be taking on private students at the moment. The ad has now been removed from the site for the second time, and I can only ask the administrators not to replace it in the near future. As I have nothing else useful to comment on this topic without lowering myself to making personal comments, I shall sign off for now.

Ad removed. If it keeps coming back on its own, there must be a glitch somewhere. The site has an infestation of bugs. I think some òàðàêàíû got in through the open CD bay in my computer. Will look into it. The administrators (me, myself and I) are not in the habit of altering personal preferences, though it may occasionally happen accidentally.

As per listing qualifications and experience - the choices are fairly limited as the system for listing adverts was written in a hurry ages ago. It's no longer the main focus of the site and I'm none too bothered about it until the student side of the site gets rolling.

It seems as if I have unintentionally caused offence. I would like to say, that, in retrospect, perhaps it was not such a good idea for me to mention anybody’s name in connection with my argument, as it seems this has been seized upon by and resulted in my article being misinterpreted as an attack on a particular individual rather than a critical and reasoned general assessment of a particular state of affairs relevant to Petersburg TEFL teaching.
My mention of that Ruth was (and I would have thought this is quite clear from the context) no more than a casual, jocular addendum in parentheses which served as a convenient example to support my argument. ‘Miss Moody’ is in fact one the most promising teachers to have graduated from our TEFL course in the last 6 months, and as such I have nothing against her in particular, but against the idea in general of teachers charging more for their services than is appropriate, of which there is substantial evidence on the visarus database. The fact that I mentioned misrepresentation merely highlights the existence of such an issue in addition to this.

As has been pointed out by Digdug, any teacher is free in principle to charge whatever they like, but my post was intended to be the basis for a considered and serious discussion of the issue of the appropriacy of fees charged to students by private teachers, in regard to their experience. It was also a call for teachers to show common sense and a degree of moral responsibility.

Horseman, have I got this right -you are a horse merchant?

As an aside, this was the first thread I ever locked on this forum. It took half an hour to write the lock into the script. So I decided I'd make it worth my while and locked a couple more old threads, just for fun. Because it's easy now.

I quite like the padlock, I stole it from VBulletin.

Sorry VBulletin.

Even the loaded, bitter exchanges that went on earlier in the forum weren't enough to motivate me to go to that much bother. I didn't really think I'd end up editing posts or locking threads because I personally authorise everyone who uses the forum. I hope I won't need to lock any more.

The purpose of this forum is to complement and promote the aims of the site. Those aims include support and cooperation between members.

I don't recall ever intending to create a soapbox for users to publicly broadcast personal (thoroughly unprofessional) jibes aimed at other members or to assert personal, professional or moral superiority over the Russian teaching community from the other side of Europe where it's warm and sunny.

Via Lingua in Granada has received a number of glowing recommendations from one member of this site whom I hold in high esteem as a friend and colleague. Via Lingua has shown zero gratitude.

I have also recommended Via Lingua Granada myself on the strength of that member's convictions, and had considered listing it in the training section as a recommended institution for the benefit of site visitors.

Type any of the terms 'Via Lingua in Granada', 'CTEFL Granada', 'CTEFL Spain' or 'Via Lingua in Spain' into Google and see how far VisaRus is from the first page of results. And look who the author of the page is. Try to search for information about Via Lingua or CTEFL in Spain without that page coming up.

That could have been useful, free publicity for Via Lingua if one of their trainers hadn't berated 'the best graduate they've had' on a public forum and even tried to draw another trainer into the argument.

It looks bad for the institution, not to mention its lesser graduates.

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On a totally different note and way, waaaay off topic... we just broke the 1,000 hits per day mark. That gives us approximately 30,000 hits per month at the current rate and somewhere in the region of 360,000 hits per year.

Ñïîêîéíîé íî÷è ðåáÿòà...

It seems that Bobs has also misinterpreted my post. For your information, I am afraid that my colleague feels the same way about overcharging private students, etc. Unless he has drastically changed his opinion in the last 24 hours!!
It is a shame that a serious issue has not received the attention it deserved because I have been accused of personal insults. I will reiterate -again -that that was not the intention. I am disappointed that this is the way people have chosen to see it, and I must admit I am baffled by the outbursts I seem to have unwittingly provoked.

Surely the administrator should be impartial? Putting adverts up on behalf of teachers (without being requested to do so) containing misleading information is surely not an example of professional conduct or impartiality?

...don't interpret this as a 'jibe' again! It is a serious, objective question. : )

Until now I had stayed entirely imaprtial, as you put it. I think I was not the only person not to see the joviality in the comment, as nobody else seemed to be laughing.

Let's put it away now.

As for your other question, I don't put up adverts - I help people to put them up if they're unfamiliar with the system. Until recently the system was much harder to use and often ended up with duplicate adverts that users couldn't delete.

As a dedicated administrator, I help my users where I can.

And by cosmic coincidence I have a phonecall today from a student offering $20 per hour for private tuition. Damn, I really must tell her to pay me less

Well, Horseman and Digdug were mature and sensible enough to take the post as it was intended.

I shall make no further comment.

...because you've been barred from the forum.