Hi. I'm staying in Shanghai for the next 3 months and money has become a real problem pretty quickly. To raise some extra cash my girlfriend and i are planning on teaching english. One advert which we responded to wanted either english teachers or music teachers. We went along to the interview primarily for english teaching, but we also mentioned we would like to teach if possible. My girlfriend is diploma level at flute, and got her grade 8 piano about 7 years ago, although she can still play. I am about to enter my grade 8 piano, and am grade 8 clarinet. After forcing us to the piano to 'show her our stuff' she told us that we will have trial lessons this week. Neither of us have taught before, so it's a little daunting, particularly since neither of us posess prodigious technique ourselves. Are we out of our depth? I've already told the lady that i wouldn't be comfortable teaching much past grade 4 level, but will even that be a struggle? I thought a good place to start would be going through some easy piano duets with the younger students. I don't know where to go to find them in shanghai though. Does anyone know any websites where i can download grade 1-4 standard duets and solo pieces? The only music i have with me is all grade 8+ which is of no use whatsoever. Any advice would be a huge help (we have about 3 days before our trial lessons)...

Sorry I can't help you with piano stuff....I'm sure there are plenty here who will though.

But I wanted to wish you the best of luck, I'm sure you will both be fine. Let us know how it goes.

I think that the idea is that you have to get your students to buy the music that they want, this music has to make money to be worth making after all! Maybe if you have beginners you might want to consider starting with a tutor book (if you do a search there are lots of discussions about which are good books in the teachers' forum, although you may have difficulty if you need a different language). If you're going through an organisation to teach they may have some policy on books, e.g. they lend them out, the students have to buy them, they buy them for the students from the lesson cost. I think you're probably best to ask what the policy on books is before you start.

In general buying music won't be a problem - i can write down what the kids need to get for the next lesson. My immediate problem is that i am being assessed in a couple of days, and the decision to hire me will be based on that alone. My concern at the moment is that if a child doesn't bring sufficient or suitable music with them what should i do?

For piano - maybe show the kids inside a piano - this always excites mine (even though they've seen it loads of times!). A bit of keyboard geography - high and low, black and white, 'climbing' up and down. Maybe with note names?

Have some manuscript paper with you just in case.