So how much do people normally pay for private tutoring?Follow

I've met with my Urdu teacher for the first time today and when we negotiated prices, I was painfully aware of the fact that I have no idea how much you pay for this sort of thing nowadays.

I got the price down from £20 (~$30) an hour to £12.50 (~$20) an hour. I've been told anything over a 20% drop in price is really great, so I feel quite good about this, even though it's roughly 15% of my monthly income that goes toward two hours a week of lessons.

Now, the thing is, I clearly remember paying something like £7/hour for private tutoring in Chinese about 10 years ago and for more conventional subjects it used to be about half that, so am I getting ripped off or is this a fair price?

Actually, come to think of it, when I did maths and English tutoring in the US, I got paid £40 per 90 minutes, so I suppose it's a similar price. I thought that was a lot of money back then...

Funny you should ask this, as I just began tutoring a few days ago. Her expectation seemed to be $20 (USD) an hour, but we ran into technical difficulties with her online homework so things ended up running longer and I didn't charge. From what I've seen posted around Campus, $20 (USD) is about as low as you're going to find.

How do people generally get started with tutoring, how does a typical session go, and what kind of preparations do you generally have to make beforehand? I'd want to start tutoring in math, but I'm fairly anxious about doing a bad job.

I remember that on the math department email list there were people trying to get together for help with a certain class. Someone offered to tutor for $60 an hour when their only credentials were "I took the class last semester and got the highest grade." They get points for ambition, but for $60 an hour, you'd better be an experienced professional with a college degree and some real credentials.


Edited, Sep 28th 2011 8:29am by Sweetums

When I lived in the US, I started tutoring a middle school student and they gave me $27ish an hour (we did 90 minute sessions). The guidance counselor just walked up to me and asked me if I could do English and maths tutoring for this girl.
I wasn't even fluent in English, I have no idea what went on in her head.

Meanwhile, my mother is going insane that I'm taking extra lessons and getting involved in lots of activities that might actually look good on my CV instead of working in retail in my free time. I'm not on a scholarship so I can work in retail, ugh. I'll probably still end up doing it for a bit just to see how that goes, but to be honest extra lessons & societies/SU stuff are more important to me since I actually don't need the money right now and want to get in on all the cool activities!
She also doesn't like a fact that she's never heard of the language and doesn't really care that it's spoken by some 100m people worldwide.



Edit: I'll see how it goes with this guy. He used to be an electrical engineering lecturer at NED University Karachi (which is very prestigious), so he does have teaching experience, albeit not in teaching a non-native speaker his city's primary language. Meh.

Edited, Sep 28th 2011 7:46pm by Kalivha

On the plus side, 33% of all Bollywood movies will be watchable sans subtitles. WIN!

Edited, Oct 14th 2011 3:33am by Bijou

Holy sh*t, it's almost like most people don't really care about Urdu

I had a friend at school who learned because his parents made him. Otherwise, pretty much what Sweetums said.

Edited, Oct 18th 2011 12:17pm by Nilatai

As I was writing that I realised that sounded way more pissy than intended, but was too lazy to edit it.


Tomorrow is Indo-Pak movie night. That should be fun. (It'll be just like sitting in the living room at home, just with a cinema screen!)

I've gotten increasingly good at finding the cool stuff going down over there even before the locals know.

Like I found Beygairat Brigade one day after they released their first single and now everyone is talking about them. <3

Nah, just need a new hobby.