"Worth" is a relative term.
To some, a Beijing Opera performer is a highly skilled and respected master. To me, it's just a funky guy with a painted face who talks and moves funny.

Also, it depends on what your goal of learning English is (later use). If it's for everyday conversation, then anyone can be your teacher. Including Jerry the truck driver (me). But if your goal is to write newspaper articles in English, then you'll need something else..
If your teacher is an Oxford graduate with immaculate spoken English, perhaps he's worth 200 kuai. But see things for what they are, it's just a language tutor for crying out loud! For anything serious you should be going to a university.

There is something else I wanted to say, but I forget..

How do you pick your teachers? If you're offering 200/per hour or even more, then you should demand a lot from your teacher.

Remember that most foreign ESL teachers in China wouldn't even get to an interview for an ESL job in Europe. Chinese employers aren't just picky enough and they're often misslead by ethnicity and skin-colour.

My suggestion is that if i you can't find a native speaker with a proper ESL degree (or even a general teaching degree), then go find a non-native speaker. Atleast non-native speakers have gone through years of ESL classes and know what an ESL class is. Of course, just because someone used to be an ESL student, doesn't mean that the person in question is eligible ESL teacher, but it's better than nothing.

Also -like someone said above- if you're just looking for someone to just speak English with, you should get any native speaker. But then again, you shouldn't pay 200 kuai for the job.

lol only if he/she has a perfect body and is willing to teach naked,,,

I thought the post was about hookers.

Oh, but on second thoughts - is there really a difference ?

200rmb@4hrs/day x 22days/mth ... 16,800rmb/mth. Not bad. Maybe I should start doing some part-time English teaching job.

A lot of native speakers have bad accents, little knowledge of their language (like grammar, small vocabulary et cet). If you are willing to pay 200 you should demand some kind of teaching education and maybe even experience. The others pay less, so why should you pay more for a "hack teacher"?

Grammar "et cet" ain't everything.

Well, we're not in your "real world", we're in a country where a maid gets 10 kuai per hour, and as she will scrub your toilet and oil your floor for that money, I guess you can expect quite a bit for 200.

To OP: there is a world of difference between someone who is trained to teach the language and someone who just does it because you will pay them 200 per hour but doesn't know what they're doing. Go for the trained teacher over the native speaker. The advantages of having a native speaker as teacher are utterly irrelevant for most Chinese students.

Based on my extensive experience of teaching English in China, I'm calling bullsh1t on this one. Certainly, if you're lucky enough to jag an excellent Chinese English teacher who

a) can speak great English
b ) knows when to use total immersion and when to help a little bit with the odd tactical reminder in Chinese
c) has good teaching ability

then you may well be correct. However, these teachers are as rare as hen's teeth. From what I've seen, the standard of the average Chinese English teacher is far lower than that of the average native speaking hack teacher, and that's saying something. At least the natives can, y'know, actually speak and write English!

At my school, there are several native English-speaking teachers (some have B.Eds, some are CELTA trained, some learnt on the job) and a few relatively decent Chinese professional English teachers. Guess which group gets - far and away - the best results out of the students?*

*hint - it's not the Chinese teachers.

disappointed

can i ask you guys a question? if you guys earn RMB200 per hour, do you always work 8 hours per day? or are there some days where you only work a few hours? is that normal, or is it more normal to work 8 hrs per day, 5 days per week? if so, that'd be like RMB32,000 per month, which is not terrible..

Zhenlai offers you free fling behind his wife.

The answer is always going to be subjective. IMO 200 is actually low if you realize that most schools are charging their students on average better than twice that much, then paying the teacher only 200. So for a VIP one to one class 200 is more than reasonable...if the teacher is more than just an FOB laowei with zero teaching experience looking to get some quick cash.

In reality its the FOB hacks that undervalue the teaching trade here, and thereby create the quandary this poster has as to what 200 gets you in the way of learning English, and if its a worthwhile sum...for a teacher.

Every student knows the value of a teacher after the first class. Really depends on how badly you want to learn and improve your English and if you care whether your accent sounds like anything other than a native speaker. In China I've found most students tend to speak with forty different accents combined and only a few care what dialect and accent their gaining.

Ask the teacher many questions if you care about the process, and you'll know what they intend to bring to the equation. And you'll soon learn if they really are worth 200...or more.

Where are you from?
Is English your native language?
What dialect of English do you speak?
Do you have a college degree?
How long have you been teaching ESL?
Do you have references?
Why are you in China....etc....

@xinglish - I agree that 200 is actually a little on the low side. Think of a regular, run-of-the-mill class of 12 students, each parent paying 70-100 RMB an hour. The schools are making a killing while the teacher (who is actually the face/money-making of the entire arrangement) makes a small fraction.

@nana - try finding some private students here eslmeet.com

Other ESL teacher interested in networking, please PM.

I have to add that the amount of basic spelling mistakes and simple grammatical errors on this forum from so called English teachers is embarrassing. The number of times someone professing to be a teacher doesn't know the difference between there/their/they're is frightening.

It is all about being flashy and entertaining rather than a good teacher.

The parents want a clown who can keep their kids entertained for a couple of hours rather than an intelligent person from whom their children may learn something.