WHy CaN'T I JuST WOrK FoR MYSeLF?
Okay, now at this point you're probably saying to yourself: if English schools suck so much, why can't I just give private lessons on my own, or organize my own classes?
Well, I'll offer you this metaphor: okay, yeah, you'll probably make more money selling your ass on the street without a pimp, but at the same time, you're probably more likely to get tied to the bed and soaked in lighter fluid and set on fire. Or something.
Okay, actually, I guess that doesn't make much sense. Forgive me, I haven't been writing much lately.
Basically, it's quite feasible to support yourself giving your own lessons, and maybe thrive and make a bundle, but there are a good number of disadvantages.
Disadvantage The First: Finding Students
You'll have to bust your ass finding students. In most even vaguely-interesting large cities abroad there's an assload of teachers trying to work privately, or trying to supplement their incomes by finding private students. Want to see a sad sight, look at the numerous untouched ads for private English lessons on the bulletin boards of the stupid Internet cafes and hipster doofus bagel restaurants in Prague.
"Experienced English teacher will give lessons in own home. . ."
Well now that will put a lot of students off right there, won't it? Go to a nice well-lit well-equipped language school with a telephone number and contracts and secretaries and such, or try to deal with some misanthropic English-teaching drop-out in his filthy crappy apartment?
Or even better, invite this weird loser into your own home or office. Yeah, right. Better keep the silverware hidden and the liquor cabinet locked.
Now, a lot of teachers think: well, I'll just get a job at a crappy institute, and when I meet enough students who like me, I'll take them away and give them private lessons.
Shit, you know, it always SOUNDS like it'll work, but somehow it just never does. Students will promise you a lot of stuff, and some of them will come through, but most of them won't.
Disadvantage the Second: The Money Thing
The issue of money is more complicated. The price that you'll be able to charge will vary tremendously from country to country, and for private office classes with businesspeople it will probably be fairly high, seeming very attractive in comparison to an English school salary.
It may even be extraordinarily higher. "Let's see, if I get five students studying for four hours a week and paying me $20 an hour, that's $400 a week!"
And indeed you can charge quite high prices for private business students, because the English schools charge incredibly high prices. Pure pimp profit for them, the short end of the pimp stick for you.
You will probably not, however, be able to attract those classes full of cute university students away from the institutes, as you won't be able to beat the price they're paying for a class in a well-equipped setting.
If you manage to get a steady roster of business clients, you can beat the shit out of a language school salary -- but you won't have your flat paid for, or your insurance, or a plane ticket, or any paid holidays. And you might have to buy (or steal or borrow) your own books and markers, etc.
Plus, you'll have to arrange your own visa to live and work in the country, which will be more or less complicated depending on where, but it'll definitely be a pain in the ass one way or the other, and may cost a lot. (A Russian work visa can be arranged independently, for example, with the help of various agencies, but will cost you hundreds of dollars. You can work in a lot of countries easily enough on tourist visas, but this will mean going back and forth across the border a lot, which might get you in trouble.
And let's face it, private business classes are usually the shittiest part of the job anyway.
Disadvantage the Third: Students Come And Go Like Herpes Blisters
Even if you find a roster of private business students who will pay you a decent chunk of change, they often cancel frequently. Some cancel as many as 50 or 60 percent of their lessons, or more. You will not be paid for these, almost certainly, and they may be cancelled at short notice.
Also, students tend to simply stop studying very suddenly and often with little notice. This might be because they don't like you for some reason, of course, but it might also just be because of something happening in their life -- new shit at work, or personal shit, or tennis lessons, or whatever. One month you might have a whole group of steady fatcat students, the next you might suddenly find yourself with none, and you're back to posting pathetic advertisements in the Internet cafe.
If YOU try to cancel lessons suddenly, on the other hand, you'll probably be in shit with the students, because nobody would step in an substitute for you, like in an English school.
So basically, it's not like you'll REALLY have more freedom. You'll still be answerable to the students and you'll have to study when and where they want. You can refuse to work on Saturdays, but the student will probably just say, "Okay, I'll find another English teacher" rather than "I respect your right to sleep off your hangover."