English Jack

As I teach only online now, send me a message via WhatsApp, if you need to contact me. I seldom answer my phone directly, because I receive many sales calls for services that I do not want. I will respond to any WA message in a reasonable amount of time.

I will be closing my office location by the middle of December. Since the start of the pandemic, most students have opted for online classes. I had been delaying this decision only because one student had wanted to study at the office, saying that it would be more comfortable in her preparations to become a teacher herself, so I kept paying for the office, hoping to pass it on with all its furnishings and materials. Nonetheless, this student then moved to online studies and then to none at all (I probably should not have been so forthright about the difficulties and lack of rewards in being a teacher). Thus, with nobody to take up the mantle, such a short time before I leave Kazakhstan, and with the recent near doubling of my rent, I have finally decided to drop the office entirely. I will take my personal possessions and working computers, but if anybody wants any of the furniture or academic materials, or knows of somebody who might, send me a message via WhatsApp. An era is coming to an end.

Price Change: The First General Rise in 10 Years

Currently, I only work with individual students, as I have never acquired enough students of the same level and interests to form a new group since the start of the Covid pandemic. Even though those prices too will rise if I ever do reinstate groups, the issue is moot for the time. Therefore, incoming students will only notice the rise in prices for individual and mini-group tuition, which have risen from KZT 35k to KZT 63k per 14 hours and from KZT 15k to KZT 25k per 14 hours, respectively. This is the first price rise that I have had since 2011. I had been standing against increasing inflation for the past decade, but now I desire to receive a decent price for my services. Further, the local mentality is such that if people do not feel they are being price gouged, they believe they are receiving a substandard service. To that, I have always said that if somebody desperately wants to give me more money, then they can do so to their heart’s content. I live a simple existence with quite small needs, and take pleasure in seeing my students excel. Those who disappointment me, though, are dismissed. Nonetheless, for now at least, I have left the price for ‘live editing” of scientific and technical papers at KZT 2500 per hour, as this is work that I deeply enjoy, and is my humble contribution to the scientific community.

For more info: englishjack.wordpress.com

Office Reopening

From Monday, August 17th, classes at my office will resume. Until I know how many students I have, the general level class that has met everyday online will continue, but afterwards I will divide the groups into lower and upper, which will then meet M/W/F and Tu/Th, as was the system before. I look forward to your joining me.

Looking for a local teacher for beginner and elementary students

If you are or know a good local teacher in Almaty, who is looking for an office location and already has her/his own business registration, I offer my fully equipped office in the mornings and early afternoons. There are many potential clients in the building and surrounding area. This would create a pipeline of students for my lower-intermediate and above classes, and cover some of the costs, as I do not use the office except in the afternoons and evenings. We would divide rental expenses in half (currently about KZT 27 000), with the other person covering her/his own consumable costs (toner, coffee, water, etc.).

The return of English club

From Saturday, August 22nd, English club will resume. Class will run from 17:00 to 19:00, and be themed around Dungeons and Dragons role playing. The class is free for present and past students, the latter of whom have done at least a semester (three months) with me, but will cost KZT 1000/hr. for all others. I have made this decision because I really want more practice as a game master, and I want to do something I think is fun. Come try something different.

This means that I am removing my open office hours as a fixed time, and replacing them with this English club. However, if students still have specific grammar questions or requests for help with CVs or applications, they can schedule a time for that when I am available.

Do you need help finding a place for yourself? I can help.

English for lower-intermediate and above. IELTS, TOEFL, GMAT, GRE, SAT, Business English, and more.

englishjack.wordpress.com / [email protected]

News:
I am moving offices. After almost 10 years in the Wreck of Artists building, I am moving on up (the owner said he had sold the property, but then did not, yet I had already found a new office, so I am going anyway). The new office is #310 (I love LA) on the third floor of the old Nauryz Bank (tall and yellow) building at the corner of Gogol and Zenkov Streets.

Further, a new IELTS/TOEFL group for lower-level students will begin from Thursday, February 20th at 19:00, and will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays at that time.

This means that the D&D class is dead. How sad I could not find enough students for it.

That's all folks.

Updated Info from https://englishjack.wordpress.com/
March 13, 2019

I am sorry that I have not updated the information on this site since summer. As I had not changed my prices or schedule since then, I saw no need. However, I have just changed my Schedule, which you can see on that page.

Further, I would like to inform you that I now teach via Skype. Earlier, such lessons had only been available when students were unable to come to my office, but now they can replace in-person lessons, and are the exact same price for individuals or group members.

Additionally, I am now offering live editing of technical papers at the same price as individual language teaching. This does not apply to my editing a paper or other document alone, which is still billed per page. I find live editing to be faster though, and it allows me to interact directly with authors. So far, I have done this with several papers on chemistry and petroleum engineering. With live editing, I can focus on the English and grammar, and less on the technical details, which expedites the process.

Finally, I still plan to get an RPG club (e.g. Dungeons & Dragons) started at some point, in the hopes of using gaming to teach English and entertain. Thus far, interest has been limited, and so I have not scheduled a time for it. If you are interested, contact me.

-Jack

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For somebody whose whole focus is moving the best minds from one place to another, I must admit that the yellow vests have a point. As most of you well know, my focus over the years has been the middle class, for whom I have kept my prices on par with their ability to pay (made harder recently through the Kazakhstani government's economic incompetence). The yellow vests do make an argument that refugees are a detriment to their country, and to similarly developed nations. Truly, I look at the poor masses, who wish to export their second-rate culture of religion and totalitarian government to the West as unwanted, unneeded and cowardly. They bowed down while their own governments took away their freedoms - a process I have seen here in Kazakhstan - so I have no sympathy at all for them. I risk more in Kazakhstan for average people than they do themselves. This is why you will never see me helping the poor by teaching for sub-rates at public institutes, as I have been asked to do multiple times. I support immigration of the middle class, who have skills to sell. If their own nations paid "global rates" (those of you who know Kazakhstan know why I put that in quotes), there would be no need for me. You want to know the true saying for libertarianism: "To each according to his abilities."

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Tuesday and Thursday 18:30-21:30 is now a GMAT/GRE Verbal Section class, and Saturday 14:00-16:00 is now Office Hours for all current and past students. I have changed the class during the week from IELTS because I wish to do something different, and I hope that there are enough upper-level students in Almaty who are ready for such a class. As regards Saturday, I have changed the format to account for the fact that I never know what level of students will come on that day, so I will keep the class topics limited to the level of those students actually giving up their Saturday to learn.

Spread the word of the changes. Remember that I rely on my past students for marketing, which helps me keep prices low because I do not have those extra expenses.

Thus far, Facebook is still denying the change of name request for this page, citing that I may be misleading people. That is incredibly silly, as I have always taken a new fictitious name for the business, depending on the general situation in my life.

The original name, The Teachers' Cooperative, which some of you may recall, was chosen to indicate my stupidly optimistic wish of building a school in which the teachers would be active on the business side, and thus reap the benefits. That went wrong, as it turned out they really did not care, so I took all the risks, covered all the operating expenses, and gave them all the rewards.

Next, I reduced the name to TTC, so as to remind people of what the business had been, but also to show that after the government of Kazakhstan fu**ed me in 2010, when it used foreigners as an excuse for its fiscal incompetence and went after small, unprotected businesses to close its financial shortfalls. I was forced to spend months in Bishkek, with no guarantee that I would be able to see my daughter again.

After the government changed the 2030 plan to 2050, I was incensed that I had to suffer the results of their poor totalitarian management of the economy, whereas they could just change the name of their plan as if that was what they had been thinking all along. Therefore, I chose the name 2DAY, which I believed demonstrated my commitment to helping people immediately, and not at some ever receding future date.

At this time, I am choosing to call my business The Exit, in order to show people that they should follow the money... out of the country. It may seem callous of me to be so direct, but anybody not blinded by ethnocentricism or nationalism can see that despite all the rhetoric, opportunities here are becoming ever smaller. The behavior of many locals is desperate, and that is not a life. I wish to help those who work hard (the motto I use is "scientia ac labore" after all) to find their best deal, which is usually abroad, though it may be here - that is a choice for them.

In summary, I am trying to make the best of a bad economic and social situation so long as I must remain here in Kazakhstan to be near my daughters. I would appreciate your help in allowing me to continue to assist people who have a desire to improve themselves by searching them out and sending them to me. For years, my former students have been my marketing team, and I still rely on you.

P.S. My former students should also not forget that Saturday afternoons (currently 14:00-18:00) is still your time to maintain your skills.

Website: englishjack.wordpress.com