Opening Your Own Language School

[Jim's_a_Thai_Fox]

Hi there,

I am seriously thinking about setting up a language school in our town and would like to know any feedback/hints/advice you might have.

Basically, I am in my mid thirties and soon to start a family and can't see myself happily teaching English to kids on a regular basis for 25k per month for the next 25 years. With nippers on the way, I am looking at becoming (a tad) more industrious whilst still wishing to remain in Thailand and enjoying my life. Me and the wife have considered work abroad, but the stress, lack of family support, my desire to stay here etc... have all added up to us deciding to try and earn some decent cash here. My friend has a contact in Buriram who says a friend of his makes about 4 million Baht a year running her after hours private tuition with 200 kids on her books.

My idea is that I would still keep my day job for the foreseeable future, my wife open the firm and run the admin side of the business, but I shall teach in the evenings and weekends, hiring some teacher friends to teach additional hours if things go well - basically start small. I have a few hundred thousand Baht earning no interest in the bank, and so I am thinking why not start it up? Worse case, you lose the cash and gain some good experience... best case, you have a good time and earn a pretty penny too!

I know there are plenty of people who teach here because life is so pleasant and stress free and might think I am mad to even think about doing more work, but the idea of me and the wife running a successful business fills me with joy - and I want to start doing something I am passionate about and not just 'go through the routine' until I hit 60.

If you have any comments/thoughts, I would be pleased to read them - please feel free to let me know if you think I'm being daft for even considering it.

Cheers

James

[Loaded]

Often if you listen to someone who's never done it, they will tell you it's easy and a sure way to get rich as you exploit the foreign teachers who work for you.

The reality is:

You will need to commit to a lease on a building that will pass Ministry of Immigration rules and regulations.

It may be 12-18 months before your school licence comes through and you can actually legally operate as a school without the risk of having money extorted from you by the authorities 'helping' you to establish your school.

Your Thai-registered operating company needs to employ a minimum number of Thai staff who you need to pay salaries and national insurance.

Marketing plus building and staff overhead will take much if not all of the margin you earn after deducting the farang teacher's salary.

You'll be regularly working 15-18 hour days 7 days per week for the first few years or until you start to break even.

There's currently a surplus of language schools and many are closing due to lack of students.

With a wife and family on the way, you should be thinking of safer ways to invest your savings.

[PeaceBlondie]

Does your Thai wife have a MEd in education? Can your wait at least 1.5 years to be approved?

[StasD]

I also think about it but the target customers are Russians. you can teach them English and Thai. Walen understood it and put in advertasing on Russian TV a lot of money. But their reputaition is bad.

Edited February 15, 2010 by StasD

[Jim's_a_Thai_Fox]

Have I been totally naive in thinking that we could 'simply' teach students who wanted to come and learn? I didn't think that we would have to be approved or anything like that, just a private place for English tuition for those who want it... Both myself and my wife have a bachelors, the Thai partner on the company would have been her sister, a teacher at a govt school.

Does every private language school, the vast majority of them in my town are owned and run by Thais who employ some westerners to teach there, have approval? I doubt it, but I confess my ignorance.

Cheers

James

[Credo]

You are confusing private tutorial which is largely done illegally, but tolerated, with opening a school and a business. You might be able to get by with private teaching, but opening a school is a whole other kettle of fish.

Once you advertise, or once people get wind of it, you might encounter problems. You are in competition with registered businesses.

By the way, I do believe that most of the tutorial and language schools are registered.

Much of this depends on where you are located.

[skybluestu]

I'm in a very similar situation and have also thought about doing the same at some point in the future although my initial enquiries did put me off slightly. To do it properly would take a lot of time and money, it's not as simple as you might think with a lot of bureaucracy and red tape, possibly more so than starting other small businesses. Obviously, if successful, it would be worth the time and money involved but I would rather spend the valuable time with my (soon to be) newborn.

[freitag1]

Sorry but you are in your mid 30s, about to start a family and are still a low paid teacher in Thailand? I would recommend you go back to your country and build up a future there...

[Jim's_a_Thai_Fox]

Hi there,

thanks for the advice and suggestions. I believe that there is indeed a whole apart from opening a language school (i.e. business) and simply 'scaling up' private tuition from your home... we might soon be moving and maybe worth finding a nice town house type deal where a decent classroom could be installed... then spreading though word around our small town - that way, I would stay under the radar and earn some extra cash (more then just teaching a few of my school kids every now and again - they are sporadic attendees at best!).

As a side note, I have left Thailand twice over the last 6 years to work in Sydney and Dubai, both within recruitment and both had me earning substantially more than teaching here. However, the quality of life I had in these places wasn't comparable to the one I had/have again in Thailand... maybe with a new mouth to feed, I will change my priorities and 'suck it up' in order to provide for the nipper... but it seemed that doing extra tuition / potential language school seemed a good compromise between extra salary and retaining a good quality of life.

Thanks, and please keep the comments/opinion/advice coming - they are all very helpful.

Regards

james

[Scott]

Many years ago, I and friend did what you are doing. My friend had a girl friend who was an excellent business person. She handled the administrative aspects and recruitment. We had classes all day Saturday and Sunday and some evenings. The demand (at that time) was enormous.

Basically, the 'school' got just too big for us to handle. It is an enormous responsibility and not easy. An existing legitimate school approached us about wanting to open a school and we decided to give them ours and work for them. Life got a lot easier and I worked there for many, many years--as a matter of fact, I still help out when needed.

It is a lot of work making sure you have enough students to actually start a class. Lots of calls, lots of interest and then a few students. The friends girlfriend really had to work hard. She loved it and everything went quite well until they broke up. No way could the two of us keep it together for long. We had existing classes that were full, but when they would end, I could see the nightmare beginning.

A lot of people started to get the same idea, and now schools are a dime a dozen. Even existing schools are having trouble staying afloat. Be prepared for a bumpy ride.

At the time it was fun, exciting and challenging. There was very little investment, so the whole thing was quite easy.

[Loaded]

Sorry but you are in your mid 30s, about to start a family and are still a low paid teacher in Thailand? I would recommend you go back to your country and build up a future there...

I think this is the first time I've seen you 'contribute' to the teacher's page and what a start. I know many American teachers paying off their US study debts faster here than they could do in the States. I live in Thailand, am married, eat out 3 times a day and live in a 3-bedroom detached house which all happens from the income of a 'low paid teacher in Thailand'. It's unlikely I would have this lifestyle if I worked as a teacher in the UK or US.

Edited February 16, 2010 by Loaded

[BlackArtemis]

My wife(Thai) has a dream of opening her own Kindergarten in Chiang Mai. First she will start her MS ED Early Childhood here in the US and then we can look at a PHD in Admin. Despite he being Thai we know the logistics of doing this is insane, but it gives a goal to work towards.

We had done the other idea. We found a 4 story town house with in walking distance of our work and started after school tutoring. 1st floor was a lobby/waiting room, 2 floors were classrooms and we lived on another. We had about 40+ students and 7 adults of various ages broken up by class. I believe we pulled in close to 45k/month average from this. But the kids would done at 7pm and 4-5 hrs on sat for the both of us led to a lot of work on top of the course load at home. It was worth the money for the time we did it, but I could not live knowing I would have to do that til I died to make decent money.

[skybluestu]

freitag1 said 'Sorry but you are in your mid 30s, about to start a family and are still a low paid teacher in Thailand? I would recommend you go back to your country and build up a future there...'

I am also a 'low-paid teacher' here but used to have, what you would probably consider to be, a 'good' job in my home country. But there was only one problem; I hated my job and didn't enjoy life in the UK so I chose to move to Thailand and teach. I'd always thought teaching would be satisfying but I'm surprised by how much I love it, sure it's often difficult and very challenging but the job satisfaction makes it worth the effort. The thought of going back to the UK and doing the same/similar job I was doing for the next 30yrs makes me want to vomit. And even if I did the ridiculously high cost of living there doesn't mean I would be able to build a better future there than I can here.

Both myself and my ex-gf had well paid jobs in the UK but we could only afford a one-bedroom flat and got a packed, germ ridden bus to work. Here I drive a new car, live in a newly built 3-bedroom house and have 3 months paid holiday per year. All round quality of life is much better here so, although I've given it much thought (a nanosecond), I'll be ignoring your recommendation.

[Scott]

BlackArtemis: your post echoes my experience pretty closely. It was exciting, challenging and all that, but really a lot of work and a lot of responsibility.

At the time when I did this, the market was far from saturated. There was a huge demand for English and very, very few schools in the area of Bangkok where we lived, that provided it. We tended to be oversubscribed for students. We charged a fair amount of money (I don't remember what it was per course), but it wasn't a bargain. Once a class got to the stage of paying for itself--then a rebate was given or credited toward the next class. This worked well because parents would recruit other students to reduce the cost! We also had a few 'freebies', who were really financially unable to pay, but very gifted students.

Now, in the same area, everywhere I look there is an English class, or school with English, etc., I have a feeling it would be a lot tougher going than at that time.

[chrisdouglas123]

hi, those of your who had or previously managed private tutoring classes- did u legally or illegaly run them.

would it not be possible or EASY to run a simple non registered/ home run tutorial center with say a maximum of 10 students a day (mixed class sizes) and never growing too big for what one teacher could manage?

i am also considering starting a home run center like this, but would appreciate some opinions and advice.

thanks in advance

[Scott]

I and a friend one ran a small school from his home for a number of years. It was quite successful. At that time, in the area where I live, there was very, very little, if any real competition. This was about 13 years ago and it wasn't registered. The friends girl friend had a step-brother who was a police officer, although no one seemed to think it would be a problem.

Remember times were very different then as far as regulations were concerned.

We were approached by a math tutorial school about how to set up an English school and decided to turn it over to them and just go to work for them. It was a lot of work. It was successful. The friends girl friend did the managing and it kept her very busy, but she had a knack for business and was good about dealing with customers.

Now there are a lot of tutorial schools around and I think we might just attract some unwanted attention. Now there is significant amount of competition as well.

Part of it is knowing yourself. I prefer to be an employee and let someone else handle the business end. I ended up working for the company that took it over for the next 13 years!

Private tutorial isn't a big problem, but when you start advertising and having classes you may have problems. When you get successful, someone will notice and success on your part will bring out envy and revenge on their part.

At this point in time, I wouldn't do it now without a Thai person being in charge of it.

Best of luck.

PS: I closed your thread and have re-posted my reply here.

Welcome to the forum.

[BlackArtemis]

My wife (Thai) and I ran ours out of our house. We both tutored English. We would tutor after school and on Saturdays. If you work at a school is is easy to acquire students, especially if it's a government school. The difficult part is ensuring a quality session for all involved. I believe we tutored 50+ students weekly. We rented a 4 story town house within walking distance to our work, turned the first floor into a lobby for parents and students, 2 floors into classrooms, and lived on another floor. It worked out well and we made 40-50k extra month, but the amount of time you need to put into this is extensive. Also you need to have a good reputation so that word of mouth brings you more students. My wife was renowned and had to pick and choose which grades she would tutor since she literally had dozens of parents begging her to open up new sessions.

In the North, no body really cares, and if you tutor at a government school, the majority of parents are going to be police and other government workers, so you will be fine.

[stevo2]

My friend has a contact in Buriram who says a friend of his makes about 4 million Baht a year running her after hours private tuition with 200 kids on her books.

I'm sorry but the going rate for a month of tutoring in a classroom environment in Buriram is 1000 a month.

Ifall students turned up every month and paid,which I can assure you they don't, it is still nowhere near 4mil.

I gave up private teaching as I was fed up with kids saying they would pay "next week" and didn't.

Looks like the friend of a friend of a friend has added a zero on the end of her sums.

[BlackArtemis]

My friend has a contact in Buriram who says a friend of his makes about 4 million Baht a year running her after hours private tuition with 200 kids on her books.

I'm sorry but the going rate for a month of tutoring in a classroom environment in Buriram is 1000 a month.

Ifall students turned up every month and paid,which I can assure you they don't, it is still nowhere near 4mil.

I gave up private teaching as I was fed up with kids saying they would pay "next week" and didn't.

Looks like the friend of a friend of a friend has added a zero on the end of her sums.

We only tutored younger students. We tried university age and it sucked with them not showing up etc. But if the parent pays at the beginning of the month and has to drive the kid, they will be there.

And yeah, I agree 1k/month is the standard Farang small group session rate in smaller towns. That would mean she tutored 4,000 students per month.

I can see 40,000. Perhaps someone said "sii muun" and it was wrongly interpreted as "sii lan"

I also question the number of students.

With my wife and I BOTH tutoring with classes no larger than 10 students our schedule looked like this:

M-F

4:30-5:30 each of us had a class 1 grade 1 and 1 grade 2

5:30-6:30 my wife taught a class matayom 1-3 mixed

S

10-12 each of us had a class. Grade 5 and (I forget either k2-p2)

12-2 each of us had a class. Grade 4 and grade 3

Sunday

10-12 my wife taught a group of doctors.

That might not seem like a lot on paper, but when you finish your day at 7pm (once everyone is picked up) and you don't have fully free weekends it adds up. The extra money is wonderful, but you will burn out. That's about 50 students total in those classes, 1/4th of the 200 quoted.

Unless that woman is pulling the government after school tutoring BS where all students are highly suggested to stay and study (their grades mysteriously lower if they don't and magically raise if they do) then yeah perhaps, because 20-35kids after school in their classroom is an easy feat, plus weekends.

Edited April 24, 2010 by BlackArtemis

[nakachalet]

Sorry but you are in your mid 30s, about to start a family and are still a low paid teacher in Thailand? I would recommend you go back to your country and build up a future there...

freitag1....

may i disagree pls?

i think dragon should remain in thailand and explore all possibilities till their heart content....

going back to homeland won't make that much different, would it?

they would remain 'salary' there....

however, if they are happy in thailand, they can put up with loads and loads of inconveniences....

at least they have an opportunity to excel.... and perhaps.... capture their dreams....

i vote for you guys to stay and explore.... and if run out of food.... lol, pm me.... will send you some fresh supplies.... from my gardens....

[Scott]

Having had a small tutorial school with a friend before, they can be quite lucrative. At that time and in that area, there was a huge demand and few foreign teachers. There also weren't very many bilingual schools and a shortage of English in Thai schools. We were often over-subscribed and had a waiting list.

There are also people who pay and then don't come (or send there children for a variety of reasons). Selling books etc. is also a money earner.

Our little tutorial actually got too big to manage effectively and we let an interested Thai-owned and operated tutorial nearby (they did math, but wanted to start English) take it over and went to work for them. It was for many years the only in the area. Now, however, there are maybe 7 or 8 in the same area and the competition is stiff.

At the time it was a lot of work, but teaching was fun and kids and parents were happy. I wouldn't want to go through it again, but it was challenging and interesting at the time.

As for the financial part, let's not argue too much. It varied from month to month and courses ran for 18 weeks. When new classes started, there was a huge influx of cash, toward the end of a class cycle, cash was lower.

[MacWalen]

I also think about it but the target customers are Russians. you can teach them English and Thai. Walen understood it and put in advertasing on Russian TV a lot of money. But their reputaition is bad.

Hi there, you mentioned that Walen's reputation is bad. Where did you hear that? I can agree that not everyone likes the Walen method or the Walen school but generalizing and saying that Walen's reputation is bad is excessive. We are positively the busiest school in Pattaya, you think it can only be the result of good advertising or perhaps we indeed do something right? Also perhaps the fact that Mac Walen is quite fluent in Russian and can speak with his customers directly in their language helps?

In any case thank you for your remark.

Walen School - hard to please everyone all the time but we certainly try

www.thaiwalen.com

Edited January 6, 2011 by macwalen

[Scott]

Thanks for correcting any misconceptions about the Walen method. This thread, however, is about opening a language school. It's best that we stick to that topic.

How good or bad a school is has to do with both the school and the student. Some methods don't work as well as others on some students. Learning a language is hard work for most people and the point is that the teachers need to have some method rather than no method.

[MacWalen]

Giving straight answers to the initial post.

1. Yes, I have done it.

2. Very hard work.

3. No regrets.

If you know what you are doing and you keep doing it for 10 years you should do well.

For those interested, there is a partnership option available with the Walen school now so those interested are welcome to contact me. It will be worth your time. Much easier option than starting your own school.

Walen School - looking for partners

www.thaiwalen.com

[aridion]

Giving straight answers to the initial post.

1. Yes, I have done it.

2. Very hard work.

3. No regrets.

If you know what you are doing and you keep doing it for 10 years you should do well.

For those interested, there is a partnership option available with the Walen school now so those interested are welcome to contact me. It will be worth your time. Much easier option than starting your own school.

Walen School - looking for partners

www.thaiwalen.com

Hi Mac. I think that the Callan Method works and that Walen has done a great job in establishing itself as both an educational and business enterprise in Thailand. However I know that it is a hard slog to get established.

Edited January 7, 2011 by aridion

[Ijustwannateach]

Please avoid responding to posts that are nearly a year old in threads that have been inactive for over 6 months unless there is a compelling reason to do so based on new information. Thread closed.