Teaching English for Companies in Poland

The Polish economy is in a transitional state and over two million private businesses have been established in the last five years.

Entrepreneurs and business people all over Poland are competing to establish themselves as the leader in their field.

At the same time, international businesses are investing in Poland. In order to compete internationally, many Polish companies are encouraging their employees to learn to speak English by offering language instruction. Some companies contract with private language schools while others hire teachers to teach in-house. Opportunities exist, but they are generally harder to find.

Compared to public school teaching jobs in Poland, in-company work can be lucrative. What you can make is likely dependent upon how well you are able to sell yourself to company management. In-company teaching jobs will not fall into your lap very often. You must search them out. And though an in-company job may sound more prestigious than teaching on a private basis, chances are that you will have to meet the bureaucratic demands of the company. Many companies offer classes after the regular work day is finished which means you will have to make yourself available at odd hours such as late afternoon or early evening. Of course, in-company language instruction is usually business oriented, which may put limitations on the scope of your lessons.

Negotiating pay for an in-company teaching job could be a little trickier than you might think, especially if the company is new to the idea of providing English language instruction for its employees.

Before you mention your going rate, make sure you know what the company expects from you. Your ability to supplement your in-company job with another position in a private school or even some private tutoring on the side will surely affect the terms of your pay. For a start, find out what a company would have to pay to contract with a private language school to provide English classes in-company. You shouldn’t count on making this much a month, but at least you’ll have an informed bargaining position. It’s also a good idea to know what rates of pay other kinds of teaching positions command. Armed with all this information, you should be able to make a reasonable case when you negotiate your pay.