Want to teach English in Prague this summer? Here’s where to apply, what it pays, and how to spend your free time exploring Czech day trips.
Why Prague Is One of the Best Summer Teaching Bases
If you only have a few weeks or months to spend abroad, Prague is hard to beat. You get a walkable, gorgeous city and cheap living costs. And it puts half of Central Europe within a few hours by train. Teaching English in Prague this summer means real income for a break you already had. It also gives you a home base for exploring the region.
I did my own in-person TEFL course in Prague one summer, before I’d ever committed to a full year abroad. That course — and the city itself — is what convinced me to go back and teach a full school year there, starting that September. This post is the version I wish I’d had going in. It covers where the actual summer jobs are, what they pay, and how to use your time off well once you land.
If you’re weighing Prague against other cities, my general guide to teaching English in Prague covers the year-round picture. This one is just about the summer.
Teach English in Prague this summer, and this view — castle, river, swans included — is part of the deal.
What Summer Teaching in Prague Actually Looks Like
Summer teaching in the Czech Republic mostly comes in two flavors: day camps and short in-person TEFL courses. Both work as an extended stay, and neither requires you to resign from your U.S. job or commit to anything beyond a few weeks.
Day camps run kids through activity-based English practice — games, songs, group projects — for a set number of hours each day. Then the kids go home in the evening. TEFL courses work differently. They’re structured classes for you, the teacher-in-training, usually paired with supervised teaching practice on local students.
Where to Find Summer Teaching Jobs in Prague
Prague’s summer hiring runs through a mix of language schools, camp operators, and informal boards, and most positions open up for application in the late winter and spring.
- Jazykovka.info runs stable summer day camps across multiple Prague locations and pays a competitive hourly rate.
- English Camps DESCARTES hires native speakers to lead conversation-based sessions for kids and teens ages 9 to 18.
- Serious Teachers’ Czech Republic listings aggregate recurring summer camp postings from around the country, not just Prague.
- Workaway and Prague Volunteer list smaller conversational-exchange setups that trade teaching hours for local housing rather than cash.
If you’re doing an in-person TEFL course, most Prague-based programs run their own summer cohorts and place you directly with local students for your practicum hours—which is exactly how I found my footing before teaching there full time.
How Much Prague Summer Teaching Actually Pays
Day camp pay in Prague typically runs 400 to 420 CZK — roughly $18 to $19 — per teaching hour, based on rates posted by Jazykovka.info. That’s a solid hourly wage for a summer job, though it’s rarely full-time.
Volunteer-style and homestay arrangements through Workaway or Prague Volunteer usually skip the cash altogether. Instead, you trade teaching hours for free housing, meals, or both. Treat these as a cost-of-living offset rather than income. They’re useful if your goal is to stay cheap and stretch your time, less so if you need actual cash from the summer.
A lot of what gets published about camp pay comes from the hiring organizations themselves. So ask directly during any interview how many hours per week you’re guaranteed, and whether pay is hourly or a flat weekly rate. That single question tells you more than any published range.
Camp schedules run mornings and early afternoons — plenty of daylight left for a paddle boat on the Vltava.
Making the Most of Your Time Off in Prague
Most day camp schedules run mornings or early afternoons, leaving real time to be in the city. Prague rewards that kind of unhurried exploring — wandering Malá Strana at golden hour, grabbing smažený sýr from a corner stand, catching a Slavia or Sparta Prague match if the schedule lines up.
And Prague’s location does a lot of the planning for you. Vienna, Budapest, Berlin, and Kraków are all a few hours away by train, which makes weekend trips genuinely easy rather than a whole ordeal. My guide to Czech Republic day trips from Prague covers closer options like Kutná Hora and Karlovy Vary if you’d rather stay local on a shorter break.
Czech Republic’s Český Krumlov is an easy day trip or overnight, and it’s one of the prettiest towns I found during my own time in Prague. I can not recommend Český Krumlov more!
Do You Need a TEFL Certificate to Teach in Prague?
Not for most day camp roles — camps mainly want a native or fluent English speaker who’s good with kids. Formal language school placements and the more structured TEFL practicum programs are where a certificate actually matters.
If you’re a licensed classroom teacher back home, you’re already ahead of most applicants. And if you want the certificate regardless, doing it in person in Prague over the summer — the way I did — lets you test the city itself before deciding whether a full summer or full school year there makes sense.
If a summer in Prague convinces you this is worth doing properly, the path forward is a leave of absence (LOA): you’d request approved time away from your U.S. district, rather than using a break you already had, and commit to a full school year of teaching abroad instead of just a few weeks.
It’s more paperwork than a summer camp, but it also means real income for the year and a classroom you can actually settle into. If a Prague summer has you thinking about that step, my Teach in Europe Guide walks through exactly how to request an LOA and get a full year in the Czech Republic (or elsewhere in Europe) off the ground.
Český Krumlov is close enough for a day trip, but pretty enough to justify staying the night.
FAQs: Teaching English in Prague This Summer
Q: How much does teaching English in Prague pay in the summer? A: Day camps typically pay 400 to 420 CZK per hour, roughly $18 to $19. Volunteer and homestay arrangements usually trade teaching hours for housing instead of cash.
Q: Do I need a TEFL certificate to teach summer camps in Prague? A: Not usually. Most day camps just want a native or fluent English speaker comfortable working with kids. TEFL matters more for formal language school placements.
Q: How do I find summer teaching jobs in Prague? A: Jazykovka.info and English Camps DESCARTES both hire directly for Prague camps, and Serious Teachers aggregates listings from across the Czech Republic.
Q: Can I take day trips while teaching summer camp in Prague? A: Yes. Most camp schedules run mornings or early afternoons, leaving weekends open for trips to Vienna, Kraków, Český Krumlov, or Karlovy Vary.
Q: Can a summer in Prague lead to a full year of teaching abroad? A: Yes. Many teachers use a Prague summer as a trial run, then apply for a leave of absence (LOA) to teach a full school year in the Czech Republic the following year.
The Bottom Line
A summer in Prague won’t make you rich, but it gives you a real paycheck, a walkable city to actually live in, and a region’s worth of weekend trips within easy reach. Worst case, you come home with a great summer behind you. Best case, you come home planning a full-year leave of absence in the city that convinced you.