Teaching resources for English language teachers in Poland

I noticed that there are quite a lot of seasoned and new English teachers here and so I thought I would share my teaching resources that I have found over the last eight years of teaching here in Poland.

Please feel free to add any more that you know of so we can make our lessons more interesting for our students.

CONVERSATION
I feel this is the best site around for conversation lessons as it has up-to-date news lessons and a rich archive of material breakingnewsenglish.com/ Very easy to adapt these topics for your own situation by editing in word.

More:
esl.about.com/od/englishlessonplans/English_Lesson_Plans_for_ESL_EFL_C lasses.htm

st.n-junshin.ac.jp/Project/conversation/Inoue/ This page contains some interesting free online videos that can be useful in starting a conversation.

esolht.org.nz/forTutors/resources/ This site features great downloadable pdfs for tutoring intermediate ESOL students. Teaching materials and resources.

englishclub.com/speaking/small-talk.htm has a great page about Small Talk. It focuses on basic conversation starters as well as various topics for discussion. Worth a look.

intlcenter.org/conversationtopicsright.htm has a short list of general but challenging conversation topics here (intlcenter.org/conversationtopicsright.htm) and in their archives here (intlcenter.org/archives.htm). Very easy to adapt these topics for your own situation.

ESL Site has a great list of discussion lesson plans. These are designed for a classroom situation but can be easily adapted for a one-on-one tuition lesson. eslsite.com/resources/pages/Resources_and_Teaching_Ideas/Speaking/

iteslj.org/questions/ Conversation Questions for the ESL/EFL Classroom

TEACHERS BOOKS AND RESOURCES FOR DOWNLOAD
englishtips.org/ is a Russian site that is in English and Russian where you can download books after you register. Not entirely legal as the books have been copied and put into PDF version, but if you want to see what a book is like before you use it in the classroom then you can usually find it here. It has a great business English section.

onestopenglish.com used to be free but went to a pay site last year; however, you can still find free material here and really it’s worth talking your manager of the school into paying the subscription.

I have others but I cannot think of them at the moment and will add them as I do, but as I said if anyone else has any more maybe you can put them here for everyone else. :)

Where is the best site for ESL job hunting in Poland?

Never used them as when I needed my first job I just walked around the schools and found one, since then they have come to me.

But I guess you can try this [transitionsabroad.com/listings/work/esl/bestwebsites.shtml] here there are many of these on the net, just google them.

One school might be of interest to you and that is the NewEnglishSchool in Lublin as they are always interested in native English speakers and I worked there for four years, maybe you should try there. They are a Callan school by the way so it's an easy entrance to teaching.

.newenglish.pl/

My preference is to be somewhere near Zielona Gora. I am signed up to take the CELTA course in September in Wroclaw.

Then when you are there in September visit the schools in Zielona Gora, it really is the easiest way
English language schools, Zielona Gora, Poland

Will I be able to get a work visa with out having to leave the country?

wow that is an extensive list and quite helpful. I often use the economist business and politics of the week sections as well as articles from the financial times but those dont have the lessons. Very useful. thanks again

englishtips.org/
I really cannot emphasize how good this site is, as it has so much English teaching material from books to software, see list:
Coursebooks
GRAMMAR
ESP
KIDS
ONLY FOR TEACHERS
Exam Materials
TOEFL
IELTS
FCE
CAE
CPE
GRE
GMAT
OTHER EXAMS
Fiction literature
GRADED READERS
Periodicals
Non-Fiction
SELF-IMPROVEMENT
SCIENCE LITERATURE
LINGUISTICS
MATHS
Multimedia
AUDIO
VIDEO
Dictionaries and Encyclopedias
Audiobooks
Movies
Software
Websites
Other

Forgot the British Council britishcouncil.org/poland.htm always worth a visit :)

And another newi.ac.uk/englishresources/ :)

u have made my life so much easier thanks

I am not an english teacher but know of this website tefl.com. They have a few jobs on it for poland. Never used it so unable to to give it a good or bad report. Good luck.

Your welcome if I find any more I will keep on adding them, and of course if anyone else has any it would help other teachers.

you will find a good few recruitment posts for english langauge teachers on gumtree - it's city specific in most instances

The schools tend to dictate what resources are used.

Depends on the school and whether you agree with their choice of material, besides, it's always good to vary your lesson material as students tend to become a little bored with books all the time.

I agree. Students are very smart and you will have to be creative in your teaching otherwise, they will definitely die of boredom.

This was never in contention. My point was that the teacher has little say in what core textbook is used. It does happen that the teacher is respected and can influence the judgment of the school as happened recently when I had to make an assessment of certain students. It's true tho, it just depends.

great information.. thanks guys and gals ;)
I hope i can find something within the Krakow area that is hiring... been here almost a month now and g.f sarting to think I am lazy american staying at home while she is works all the time. lol

I don't agree, if you are respected in the school then your judgement is always taken into consideration, if not then you are in the wrong school.

Well, this has been my experience. At the school I was at last year, I was given a set of textbooks and told to get on with it. Hardly a lot of latitude there.

Also, in the first school I was at, there was absolutely NO discretion with regards to the core textbook. Slight leeway was given when doing FCE to introduce supplementary materials but the textbook had to remain the constant.

It was the same in Japan, they operated from a set of textbooks which was their method.

R u sure u aren't a professor of English, locked away in some basement somewhere? LOL ;)

have you come across and innovative new courses Seanus, especially those geared towards the adult/business/executive market?

anyone actually coming up with some new ideas?

Absolutely not :)
However, I have worked for four schools over seven years in Poland, and every school that I worked for, there was a selection and discussion of future teaching material in the summer months by all members of the teaching staff.

I must admit that I introduced this in my first school and have carried it on since, because if you want to have a cohesive teaching syllabus for the students, then there has to be some impute from the guys who are going to teach it.

Without this, the whole process just turns into bedlam, with dissatisfied and frustrated teachers criticising the material, which then transfers to the students in the form of dejected teachers not giving 100% effort to their students.

I ask you Seanus, how many times in your years with the Callan Method have you heard the statement, “this method is outdated”?
And you yourself admitted that you used to adapt it and not stick totally to the method as it is impossible, because there has to be some flexibility and adaptation in your teaching.

I think there's some wire crossing here. To make interesting lessons, there should be variety but the fact remains that the books are the same. Only now at Britam am I entering into suitability assessments for students. Yeah, I could adapt Callan but that didn't change the fact that I had to teach from this book. Incorporating other material just wasn't an option.

U refer to the summer months, well, that's because students haven't yet signed up to start 'In Company', 'English In Mind', 'English File' or 'Market Leader' for example. These courses invariably start in October. That's why u have more room to maneuver.

I agree, nobody wants humdrum lessons which drag. There has to be some element of flexibility. The key is how that flexibility is manifested.