Getting rich - a.k.a How much money does an EFL teacher make?

Hi everyone,

So to follow up with my end of year reflections list it's time to talk about something that makes the world go around and keeps us all occupied (perhaps too much).

I'm talking, of course, about money. How much money does an EFL teacher make?

This is an actual, genuine, in no way faked, perfectly normal

 monthly pay packet for an EFL teacher. I make this much money every month ;-)

Now in the interests of privacy for my colleagues and the school I work for, I'll not be discussing exact details of contracts and hourly rates etc. This is more a post to let people know roughly how much money you can expect to make as an EFL teacher, at least here in Slovakia.

Basically I make between 700 and 900 Euros per month after tax when teaching. It's hard to give an exact figure because I have two contracts, one fixed and one which pays me for each lesson I teach more than the fixed amount. Because of this, my exact income is variable, though almost always falls into the numbers outlined above.

Many other EFL teachers I know work on a kind of business license where they are essentially freelancers who can work for many different companies. Generally they get a higher hourly rate and so come out with a bit more outright cash. On the other hand, because they are not guaranteed any work by companies they can face less certainty in what they do. In addition they don't tend to get other benefits offered and must pay for their own health insurance etc.

So how much will I make as an EFL teacher in Bratislava? Well, about what I outlined above as long as you have a good school and are flexible. I like to teach business English and one to one students at high level, but I also teach adult and children's groups in our school, as well as some lessons at primary schools that Class works with. I sometimes start early in the morning and sometimes work late into the evening....it comes with the job.

The more flexible, skilled and versatile you can be as a teacher, the more work you will get. The more work you get, the more you will earn as an ESL teacher. The more limited you make yourself to a school (no kids/only high level/not too much travelling etc. etc.) the harder they might find it to give you enough lessons.

Of course, from a personal development standpoint, teaching different levels is great too, but let's keep it focused on the moolah for now ;-)

One question that I recall from the last day of my CELTA training course in England was during a final meeting with the director of the school. We were all proud of having completed the course, what we'd learned, what we needed to work on and so on, and he took an hour or so to give us some advice on the more practical side of finding a job, what he looks for in teachers and answered our questions. The question that hit me was:

"Where can I go to make a lot of money as an EFL teacher?"

To the director's credit he answered it effectively, pointing out that Saudi Arabia tends to pay well (though life can be quite restricted there, for women in particularl), South Korea has a good reputation for paying well and so do other Asian countries. The response I was secretly hoping for though, was something like.

"Where can I go to make a lot of money as an EFL teacher?"
"To the admissions section of the medical/law/finance school up the road."

It's no secret that teachers don't make a huge amount of money, EFL teachers included. That said, you get to meet interesting people, do a job that makes a real difference to individuals, get challenged and have good opportunities for travel.

As far as my experiences living in Slovakia go, I think I do alright for my money. My current annual salary is approximately 50% that of what I was earning at my job in the US as a radio station sales coordinator where, while the colleagues were great, the work was often dull, repetitive, didn't challenge me and I was quite poorly paid.

So how is it living with half as much money? Well if we compare the costs, it starts to look really good. I have a bus pass from my school so I can travel for work, largely eliminating transport costs, certainly commuting ones, I get food vouchers every month as part of the government program for employees in Slovakia and my rent is much much lower ($200 a month including all bills and internet sound good?).

I am not a heavy drinker and I have few expensive hobbies (wargaming aside) so I can happily report that in the last year I have managed to save about 50% of my annual salary, which is a really good feeling.

I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination but I'm happy with what I do, I'm interested to go to work and I am building savings much more consistently than I have done in the past. It must be that getting old and responsible thing people keep telling me about ;-)

So that's all from me on this point. If you have any questions about being an EFL teacher or how much money you can make doing this, then please get in touch via the comments section or email.

Best wishes,

Pete :-)

EFL teachers....LEARN ANOTHER LANGUAGE!

So...teachers...go and learn another language. If you are teaching English to students, you WILL learn more about it, about how they feel and about better ways to teach from learning a foreign language.

I'm learning Slovak at the moment.

The first reason for that is, of course, that I'm living in Slovakia. While a great many people here in the capital Bratislava do speak some English, it would be rudeness of the highest order for me to expect them to do so here. The English do hold a certain reputation for politeness and since I'm not in England, I'm in Slovakia, it is only polite for me to learn the language, if only to get by and exchange the necessary words for living here. Knowing some Slovak makes it fairly easy for me to get around the city, go to the shops, order food, have some conversations with those who don't speak English and more.

That said, it makes me do this a little bit at times.

The Slovak language is renowned as being very hard to learn. There is some contention as to what the most difficult language to learn is but most of the Slovaks that I meet tell me firmly that theirs is language number one for challenge (much as the Hungarians say about Hungarian ;-) ). I can attest to its difficulty and the frustration that I have with how much things change when you start conjugating and making sentences. Still, it's made me understand how my students feel when you start to realise what is missing (or added) from the language compared to English.

I used to hate the ending of Slovak words with a passion. In English, we have Bratislava. It's Bratislava whether I want it, have it, need it, like it, am on it, live in it, am going to it etc. etc. Not so in Slovak.


To je BratislavA                - It is Bratislava
Byvam v BratislavE           - I live in Bratislava
Idem do BratislavY            - I go to Bratislava
Mam rad BratislavU           - I like Bratislava
Vrtul'nik nad BratislavOU   - A helicopter over Bratislava

How's that for a change from English? When I started getting into this and frequently making mistakes in conversation it drove me up the wall. I remember raging and complaining about how annoying it is to deal with, how silly it is to have this in the language and how much better it would be without.........until it hit me that this is EXACTLY how Slovak's tend to feel about the perfect tenses. They don't exist in a tense form in Slovak, the students often struggle to use them and they are quite resistant at first because to them, it has the same illogicality as the endings did for me. It was such a revelation for me and I was surprised at how quickly my annoyance and frustration evaporated.

Then my attitude towards learning Slovak was more like this...

Other reasons that learning a language is a great thing, particularly when you primarily teach one nationality of student:

• Sometimes it's easier to just translate a word, especially when you're tired. My school doesn't like us doing this but hey, if it helps the student (or teacher) then who needs to know ;-)
• You understand why people make certain mistakes. Slovaks tend to use the preposition 'on' a lot more than we do in English, so it's good to be able to catch that and understand why they're doing it.
• You get to feel where the differences are and how they can impact on the learning. I couldn't understand why Slovaks so frequently said 'How is it called?' 'How does it look like?' until I learned and translated their frequent greetings 'Ake je tvoje meno/Ako sa volaš?' as basically the same as the English 'What is your name/What are you called?' with how in the place of what. It's a Slovak thing :-)
• You can share frustration and amusing stories with students so you get a better bond with them. When I have students confusing two similar sounding words e.g. thought, though, and they get frustrated I always point out how many times I've asked people around for yesterday (včera) instead of dinner (večere) when I speak Slovak. It's really helped my students and I get along better, which makes my life a whole lot easier when I'm teaching. You really do benefit from people skills in this line of work.
• If nothing else, you put yourself back in the shoes of a student and understand more fully what your students go through when you're teaching them.

Well that's all I have for now. I hope you enjoyed this little insight into why I'm learning another language and why all teachers should do it if they can.

Take care and feel free to drop a question in the comments section if you have one.

Pete