Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]

Dyed-in-the-wool globalists tend on the whole to be out-of-touch elitists, the sort of privileged, upper-middle class types whose kids backpack, globetrott all over the globe under the guise of feeling themselves "world citizens", not "tied down" to any one nationality (least of all their ownLOL), the types who might know Creole or Swahili etc. and will gently chastise a meat-and-potatoes fellow American for becoming frustrated that their local tailor, green grocer, shoemaker and so on, doesn't understand English because the American has been merrily chased out of that neigborhood by the aroma of cheap labor.

Just recently, I was at our local 7-eleven to buy some fruit. The counter man spoke almost no English, but Korean. Containing my frustration as any enlightened muliculturalist should, I tried slowly to explain that the price marked on the item was incorrect, while the gentleman refused to even try to understand me. Behind the line, a tallish, Caucasian woman of about twenty or so, pushes ahead and begins telling me to be patient, since the poor Korean seller (tax payer and citizen, no less) doesn't understand MY language. She then proceeds to translate into Korean what I said.

While grateful for the assistance, and at the risk of coming across like an Archie Bunker, I thanked the young lady, at the same time resenting that the present situation throughout the US is not seen for what it really is; A NATIONAL DISGRACE!!!

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]

Not so, G!

Typically, both in Germany as well as in France, the average Front Nationale resp. AfD supporter, is an ethnic male Frenchman or German from a working-class background and schooling up through high school who feels overwhelmed by multiculturalism.

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]

Agree in theory with your statement. In the liberal, kumbaya world of holding hands together, we should ideally all get along. Unfortunately, reality interferes on the most inopportune occasions, reminding each and every one of us, that cohabitation is a two-way street, always has been, always will be:-) If tea totling, non-pork consuming Muslims (Jews included!) wish for safe haven in a country such as Poland, France or Germany, then it really isn't the sole job of the host to adapt to the ways of the guest, but quite the opposite! Should Poles be required to accomodate Muslims by learning Arabic etc., or more to the point, shouldn't the foreign arrival make it their business to at least try learning the language of their adopted homeland? Certainly, particularly in non-melting pot societies like the ones I mentioned, a degree of emnity and resentment, sadly, is more than understandable, if not forgivable.

This is merely showing proper respect, in my opinion.

Study / Study in Poland without English IELTS? [28]

Right again, Maf ol' bean!

Study / Study in Poland without English IELTS? [28]

Like you didn't?? Be pretty tough not to agree unless one's completely cluelessLOL

Study / Study in Poland without English IELTS? [28]

That's so true, Maf! Spot on, dude:-)

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

:-) You're right.

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

Oddly enough though, I happen to agree with what you wrote, as regards salary anyhow:-)

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

Perhaps a brief, private recap would help me sort out what you wrote, as apparently we both seemed to have missed something somewhere, either unintentionally on my part or by design on yours!

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

So why do you think I'd have misunderstood or misinterpreted something so obvious, DominicB? For what reason, pray? Or are you just giving yours truly the good ol' Gaslight treatment and allowing me to think I'm losing my mind?

ESL earnings do vary from country to country, after all, don't they? Or was it my inagination that I earned much more teaching at a veritable "hole-in-the-wall" school in Freudenstadt compared with a so-called "respectable" language institute in New York?

Study / Study in Poland without English IELTS? [28]

Hopefully also that the instructor is as competent as the student in teaching it, considering in Poland, the instructor's native language will NOT be English:-)

History / Polish hatred towards Jews... [1290]

For the bazillionth time, you people, the Poles neither started nor promoted anti-semitism per se. However, history has shown that far too many of run-of-the-mill Poles didn't do their level best to prevent its spread either!

In addition, Poland was only the second country AFTER the war which committed pogroms, such as Kielce and Jedwabne. The other was Romania under Ceauscescu, during which period, apparently Jews were strung up by meat hooks and piano wire as a form of state-sponsored torture.

Study / Study in Poland without English IELTS? [28]

Normally, one studies in the language of the country in which they are attending school. Call me slow, but following English is not necessarily a recipe for successful study in a non-English speaking area. Moreover, I do think Jigs' English seems rather lacking.

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

@DominicB, well, bud, 'guess you're having an episode, since you just posted the other day that, in short, there are "a gazillion better ways to make a living...", implying that the level of ESL-"greenies" matches the paultry salaries often earned in that field, am I right so far?? Fine. And I merely added that on the wages complaint level, it's clearly not about the money that people usually enter the ESL-field to begin with, much as with cops, firefighters or country doctors deciding to forego more lucrative occupations!!

Basic English I still can understand. What's your excuse then?
:-)

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

To you, I hope:-)

I believe the comment concerned pay for ESL teachers in Poland, whereby I merely stated that not all such jobs are necessarily low-paying, furthermore, some people enter the field to make a difference, much as a cop, firefighter or rural practitioner, and not to make mega bucks alone!

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

Financially "better", though not necessarily any more rewarding! Tell your logic to the average cop, firefighter, or country doctor, and they'll laugh right in your face.

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

I have to go along with kaprys on this one!

Having spent many years traveling abroad, I know for a fact that in most European countries, one size definitely does NOT fit all:-)

Remember an unemployed Danish acquaintance of mine years ago, relieved of his post as an English instructor at a small school in Flensborg. While Erik spoke German, French, as well as Dutch almost as well as Danish and English, not to mention was a skilled, TRAINED carpenter, he lamented that he could only teach the specialty area in which he received his university degree. When I politely suggested that he teach in any one of the number of areas in which he had expertise, to "fill in" during the time he was searching for another English teaching position, Erik, who had studied in Iowa and knew the US well, looked at me for a second as though I had two heads.

He explained as politely that things don't work the same way as they do in the States and that a person cannot merely teach what they want to, but solely what they've studied and the subject matter in which they graduated.

Furthermore, unlike in the US, state benefits at that time in Denmark were oh so generous, this American idea of scrounging around looking desperately for work, any sort of work, struck my friend as odd, to say the least.

Study / Study in Poland without English IELTS? [28]

Right on, DominicB.

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

Do these qualifications include university aka college degrees, miscellaneous certificates or document? I ask, because often my Polish ESL students would complain that they possessed advanced degrees from a Polish university/academy, but were rejected by the respective US equivalent institution.

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

Having taught in Europe, although briefly and not in Poland, but in Germany, most ESL-schools are looking exclusively for trained, native English speakers:-)
It so happened that the school in which I was teaching, sponsored by the UK-Cambridge Certificate Program, preferred to hire teachers who were fluent in German.

However, this turned out to be the exception, not the rule!

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

@Kaprys, as long as my students realize that they are "practicing" English until they can speak without honest assistance, I've never once disdained their often valiant efforts or belittled their attempts to learn what is admittedly a terribly difficult language to speak on an educated adult level. For this reason, I have been successful, not to mention being blessed, at least in the classroom, with the patience that comes from imperturbably self-confidence from having plied my trade now for some twenty-years and counting:-)

On the other hand, those Norwegian tourists were so arrogant about their English skills, they never seemed once to consider that possibly non-stop babble is hardly a decent substitute for intelligent, thoughtful conversation, be one twenty-five or fifty-five. Justifying their ignorance is merely an excuse. If the tables were turned, and I were an exchange student of Norwegian in Trondheim, I'd scarcely rest on my laurels and assume I was next to perfect in Bokmaal; I'd be eternally grateful for as much tactful correction as was necessary! After all, the native speaker ALWAYS knows better.

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]

Whoops, guess I was confusing it with the language spoken in Bangladesh!!LOL

Yes of course, in Pakistan they speak Urdu. At least I never thought it was Pakistani.
Thanks for the heads up:-)

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]

Once heard someone ask a Pakistani whether they spoke PakistaniLOL
Apparently, they didn't realize that their language is called "Pangla"
:-)

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]

Who's pretending? I find it offensive also, albeit I'm an American, and NOT of Pakistani origin either:-)

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]

Well, uhh, Pakistanis certainly would resent being referred to in that way, much as Russians don't enjoy being called "Russkies".

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

Yep, that's the ticket! Problem is/was, I'm still not certain nearly twenty-five odd years after the fact, whether or not that couple would have been able to upgrade to higher-level, witty, intelligible English?? They seemed mired solely in what they probably learned is the way "Americans talk" and nothing it would appear, could shake their delusion. Heck bud, I was on vacation too, and so decided to play along with them, not "teach" them a language which they ought to have known better.

Polish teachers who teach M&M-style English aka "American" are doing as much a disservice to the language as a Polish teacher in the States teaching Polish rapster slang to Americans, something they'll probably never use. Do you see the analogy?

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

@Sig, I once met a Norwegian couple while on a Eurail Pass through Germany and Switzerland while still in my late '20's. I hadn't entered the teaching field officially and I thought I might "impress" my interlocutors with a bit of conversational Bokmaal. The dude of the couple shot back in a lame attempt at California surfer slang, seconded by his woman, who's every other thought was punctated with "Like, totally..!", along with the assorted vulgarisms. Restrained and as polite as I could be, I responded with the normally high, native-English speaker level to which I am normally accustomed to speak when addressing peers, colleagues lay people etc. It all seemed to fall on deaf ears, glanced off 'em like bullets off Superman. When I happened to inquire as to their profession, they told me they were both English teachers in Trondheim on vacation in Geneva who were returning home to rejoin their kids, excuse me, children:-)

Moral of the story? Although both seemed to have the Yank accent down pat, even indistinguishable from a West Coast older teen, their vocabulary was more adolescent than adult and their sentence structure completely spoken, almost as if they'd never READ a serious book in English, but had garnered everything they knew from contemporary rap, early hip-hop and the like.

I'd hope ESL instructors in Poland can function on a slightly higher level than thatLOL

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]

@Sig and Joker,

You both have a point and clearly Merkel's making a tough call. What alternative does she have? The AfD??! Heaven help us all!! She's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't.

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]

Stick around there, JokerLOL

Apropos "their own culture", the Jews contributed more than their share to that "Kultur" from which they were later mercilessly excluded. Merkel's simply attempting to apologize for the past to show that not all Germans are or were monsters!

Work / Native English looking for a teaching job in Poland [135]

A European may indeed "know" the textbook grammar of a language such as English close to perfectly, if only through purely academic study!
The IDIOM, the flavor of English, knowing instinctively as a native speaker, when, for instance, to use proper usage vs. when not to, is something even the most ambitious European can never hope to master.

For that reason, educated native, literate English teachers are a must, no arguments!!