UK, Ireland /
WHY DO POLISH PEOPLE THAT COME TO ENGLAND CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH? [118]
Just a few observations:
In UK many people had not been abroad on holidays until the 1970's. Being an island there was often little contact with non-English speaking cultures in many parts of UK. OK, if you lived in a city you might be in regular contact but not so much in other areas. In some ways this explains why people didn't bother learning languages so much. I mean, I grew up in Shropshire and learned French and German at school. In 25 years (I'm older now) I only ever met 2 French people once in my area... so what good was my French.
In areas of Europe you were/are more likely to find speakers of other languages and more likely to have a reason (trade, tourism etc) to learn another language (think Russian, German etc).
Funnily enough, I was more likely to experience Polish or Czech because of the 'displaced' people who came to the area after the war. But as such immigrants usually assimilated they would probably speak English amongst 'the natives' (even today you'll find many old Poles don't speak Polish to learners of Polish).
I'm now teaching English in Poland and find there is a high level amongst many of the younger people... and a willingness and reason to learn the language. Amongst the older people it is often German... very useful for speaking to tourists (so, a reason to speak it). In fact, when I was in Mazury recently nobody would speak Polish to me... only bloody German!!!!! Ich weisse nicht, ist mein Polnisch sehr schlecht (or only my German)?
The standard of English education outside the large towns is a problem, partly because they can't get decent teachers and partly because no decent teacher would want to work for the wages when they could make more in a private school. There's a lack of facilities generally in the villages and that includes education in many places.
A few years ago I was teaching English on a course run by the Irish Tourist Board for young Poles to go and work in hotels in Ireland. It was a 10 week trade-training course for waiters, barstaff, cleaners and kitchen staff. It was also run in English. When the course was run in areas like Poznan many of the applicants had good English because thy were town educated and often university educated. Whe the course was invited into Warmia/Mazury (because of the high unemployment) many of the applicants were from rural areas and did not have the necessary level of English. After 2 or 3 years the course closed... one year there wasn't even the necessary number of trainees because the levels of English were too low.
So, why do Poles come to England who can't speak English? Well, having worked a few years in factories myself, I know you don't always need to say (or hear) much to work a press or pack boxes. You can guess what the food is in the shops (pictures on wrappers are great things). Oh, and when a job in McD's pays more in a week than you might make in 2 months in your dead end village... go figure.
By the way, I think it is easier to get by in UK with poor English than it is to get by in Poland with poor Polish. At least in UK people are used to hearing forigners speak poor English and get the drift easily. In some areas of Poland the experience of hearing a student of Polish making a mess of it is something out of a fantasy novel... it's almost like they can't understand that you don't speak Polish. In Britain we supposedly speaker LOUDER and SLO-O-OWEEER!, whereas in Poland they speak faster!
