How hard is it to start your own language school?

11 comments

1. Rent a room. Buy some tables and chairs and a few materials to get you started. Everytime a student joins spend their first month’s tuition fee on materials. It really is a cheap and simple business to start.

2. From everyone I’ve met who’s done this, they find themselves eventually making more money but also more stressed and working significantly more hours.

3. As with any business, save up a bunch of cash before you strike out on your own. You need to plan out how much money you will need for rent, materials, marketing and such, as well as your own living expenses. You’ll need to be prepared to lose money for a while before breaking even or even making a profit. Also you need to consider tax stuff. Make sure you keep track of expenses and income from day one.

   Also planning when to open is a good idea. You already missed the boat this year. From my experience adults are interested in signing up soon after new years. Kids and teens will be signing up in March-May time period. If you are at the stage of asking how to set up a school on reddit at the end of February, I feel like you already missed out on a lot sign ups. From my experience, people are really not into study mode after May. I’d open up in September. People are back into study mode by then and you can set yourself up for a good early 2024.

4. I know someone that asked the local swimming school and tennis school if they had a spare room he could rent out on the cheap. The tennis school agreed, he has room for about six students at a time. He said the rent was fairly cheap and he has ‘English lessons’ signs all over the tennis school lobby, obviously targeting the droves of kids that come in every day after school.

   It got shut down during Covid, not sure what he’s doing now tho.

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   With even schools doing online courses now on a reasonably regular basis – I wonder how hard / easy it would be to do things online….

5. Dead f’kn easy. If you have any space that could arguably be called 4 walls and a roof, you are in. Group lessons for kids, cos you can pack em in, and provide lessons for house wives. Advertise via letter box drop or those free neighbourhood newspapers (they aren’t exactly newspapers, but house wives read them) .
   Payment is monthly. Cash. Prepare little envelopes for parents. A little, printed news letter goes a long way too. Don’t worry about digital marketing or social media.
   Kids lessons should focus on immediately practical language, so when you have your ‘open day’ Dad can hear his wife’s pride at hearing their precious angel speak English, and will happily open his checkbook for the optional t-shirts and calendars etc. The only problem you may seriously need to consider is what you will do once you reach Max capacity.

6. Focus on kids. Adults may be reluctant to spend on themselves, but less so on their children’s future prospects.
   Like it or not, also focus on tests such as Eiken. Improve your own knowledge and teaching on this then train your other teachers too.

7. Must be easy, I knew this Brazilian guy who had a small English school in Kobe … and his English was not good at all.

8. It’s not hard to start (no real barriers to entry, you can start in a community center). You’ll need Japanese staff or support (spouse/partner?).

   If you can work out of your home you can keep costs to a minimum.

   As a solopreneur teacher you can make good money, but won’t be able to take time off and being sick or having emergencies is a nightmare. Many owner/teachers can make 50+万 a month.

   If you grow enough to hire staff you will make less money and have more stress until you get to the 4-5 full-time teacher size. This takes a while.

   It’s a good option but you will have to work extremely hard, at least in the beginning.

9. Oh you too? Im making baby steps and will have an interview with my first private student on Friday!! Let’s become MilliYenaires!!

10. I started my school a little over 10 years ago.

    I went the less traditional route and opened my “school” within a kindergarten. They had an extra room and its was made available to me. I teach at the kindergarten in the morning (once a week) and I use the lesson room for 3 days out off the week. It is an after school optional lesson for children who want to take my classes. I teach kindergarten students as well as elementary students.

    I duplicated this setup at another kindergarten nearby. I teach there only once a week.

    My overhead is very small. My rents add up to about 40,000 yen a month. I have a student list of about 110 and I only teach 4 days a week. I get paid directly by the students and I also receive a small salary from the kindergartens. I bring in 3-4 times what I used to make as an Eikaiwa teacher, even after all the taxes are paid out.
    I am a sole owner/operator with no staff. No salaries to worry about.
    If you have a decent grasp of Japanese, you’ll be in a much better position.

    I can really appreciate the flexibility of having my own school. I used to work 6 days a week but cut that down to 4 days about five years ago. I used to teach adult classes as well, but from a business perspective, they are not efficient. Lots of absences and sudden cancellations. Also, language ability greatly differs from one adult to another. I found it a challenge to create group lessons.

    If you want to open your own school and don’t mind kids, I highly recommend contacting kindergartens and seeing about opening a classroom. With the shrinking population and the struggle to attract new kids, more kindergartens are looking for that extra “appeal point.”

11. Well maybe for a start actually realize that it’s EFL, not ESL that you need to concern yourself with.