Teaching English in Krakow -- how to find students?

I agree, delph. It's fine if you make it a stopgap measure for a year to experience a new country, all the while giving your all to teaching. However, if you go in with a slacker's perspective then you will drive students away from the school. Teaching is respected here and we don't need those who belittle it.

Poznań isn't a small city by any stretch of the imagination either. I definitely understand the negative sentiment coming from dedicated educators in this thread, but doing it for a short time does not mean you won't care and cheat your students. There have been things I have done for a short time only, but still made sure I gave my full effort. Same can be for teaching. If someone is willing to go through an intensive four weeks like the CELTA (a nice grand that you have to pay, $2 grand in NYC), I wouldn't say that they are just looking for the easy way but giving yourself options. Besides, the CELTA I'm sure changes the perceptions to a more positive, caring one.

Either way, I do hope that my friends end up doing it so then in the end we can drink beers, talk to girls, and enjoy life in Kraków (though I don't think any of us would say we are 'American'). I don't see anything wrong in that.

Therobside, that's true. CELTA is a dubious investment as so many have them but sometimes you pay to keep yourself in the mix and maximise your commercial potential. I'm glad I have mine but I've learned so many different things along the way. Caring depends on your patience and also experience. Teaching in Japan made me more that way. You must be less forward with them and give them more time to produce.

And interestingly, I think students are starting to realise on a whole that native teachers tend to be quite badly qualified. I actually did a class a while ago on native vs Polish teachers - and the students were stunned to discover that native teachers are (by and far) the product of a 4 week training course - maximum. Obviously, there are exceptions where well qualified people are teaching in Poland - but I think the days of someone being an instant hire just because they have the CELTA combined with any degree are over.

Obviously, those who come to Poland with a good degree from a respected establishment will always find work, especially if it's backed up with real experience (I'm looking at you, Seanus) - but I think many schools in cities are now looking towards building their facilities with established teachers. I even know one very well ran school in Poznan that doesn't actually hire natives.


The problem is, CELTA is no longer the be all and end all. There are hundreds of English philology students being churned out every year in Poland - and while you always need a native or two to keep things relevant, these jobs are much more likely to go to someone local to the city than to an import.


And to be honest - the market is moving away from this kind of teacher. Schools simply don't want to hire someone who isn't settled - why risk your native turning up with a rotten hangover if you can hire someone established in Poland, with a checkable work history and who isn't interested in talking to girls and drinking beer? I've lost count of the amount of natives in Poznan who are settled here - why risk hiring a foreigner who might go back at any moment, when there is a workforce already here?

If the proposal to stick VAT on education comes in, then non-EU citizens might as well forget about it.

I'm curious. Why did you say that?

Building a solid rep is key but they really want diversity. I got a little offended when they wanted to hire a second native. Such a novelty wears off and then they are back to square one.

They are happy with the fact that I'm more settled this year. I got married last year after extensive travelling. I only plan to go back to Scotland this year for 7-10 days and I'm not gonna hightail it out of Poland. My knowledge of the lessons is almost at the back of my hand stage, I just need to maintain my enthusiasm as excessive repetition can bore people witless.

It seems people don't realise the difference between knowing the language by themselves and explaining it to others. Still, I think that an apt native speaker is able to partly do the job well without any formal qualifications in teaching, though I believe such qualifications are an obvious advantage.

I support the view of Harry (as Seanus would say: "Harry has a good point here") that the native language of the learner should be "forgotten" as much as possible, ideally "entirely" forgotten, in the process of teaching him any foreign one. Personally, I gave up using bilingual dictionaries at some stage of my learning English, passing to monolingual ones only. (I stepped even further up in that direction trying not to use these either in learning my second foreign language, French.) Some concepts, however, are extremely difficult to teach. One such example is teaching to use properly the definite/indefinite articles of English for which case the interference of the student's native Polish language is so strong that he is "bound" to make mistakes, regardless of whether his even highest-qualified native teacher of English only uses English in the classroom.

I think he means that schools will be at such a disadvantage over one-person companies that mainly only one-person companies will survive.


That is one of the main reasons I got out of teaching: my students weren't bored but I sure was! To paraphrase Bill Hicks "I've been teaching grammar for ten years now, so bear with me while I plaster on a fake smile and plough through this sh*t one more time."


After six years of teaching them I found that articles stopped being a problem.

Exactly, it becomes like a chore rather than sth you could possibly look forward to doing. The same old questions are fired at you and you really can't be too creative with your answers.

With regard to articles, they just don't feel them across the board. The problem is, even when you spell out the logic, exceptions pop up. You know, look at the case of Japan. Japan is technically a group of 5 islands (Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu+Okinawa). Island groups should take 'the', e.g The Canary Islands, The Outer Hebrides, The Cayman Islands etc etc. Japan doesn't and that mystifies them.

Hotels also. More exclusive chains take 'the', e.g The Sheraton, The Ritz, The Marriott etc etc. However, does a hotel become exclusive at 5-star? Shop names tend not to take 'the' but, then again, you have The Body Shop and The Tasty Tattie as examples. After teaching this class after several others, I experienced the teaching equivalent of 'gassing'. It wears you out trying to trundle through all the rules and exceptions.

Six years for teaching people a single aspect of the language is either ridiculously long or it is - given the omnipresence of this aspect in the language and its strangeness to the Polish learner - ridiculously short. But since six years is so close to the biblical "seven years", let's agree it is a good compromise ...

There should be nothing to mystify the student about the Canary Islands versus 'Japan' without 'the' describing a group of five islands. By saying 'Japan' we mean an entity-country, saying 'the Canary Islands' we mean 'a group of islands named Canary' regardless whether they constitute a country or not. The case is somewhat similiar to the Polish usage of "w-na" with regard to 'island' as opposed to 'country'. For example, we'd say: "byłem w Irlandii", meaning first of all the country of Ireland, though it is an island as well, but we'd say: "byłem na Grenlandii", as Greenland is first of all an island, not a separate country.

I wasn't teaching articles to the same people for six years!


The key word there is 'technically', in practice Japan is 90% two islands. And when a country is in practice only two islands, it doesn't have a 'the'. New Zealand is a good example.

Yep, especially with in-company teaching. What HR department is going to authorise paying 22% extra (and then a bit more because the school has a building to pay for) when they can get an EU native for much less? It's just not going to happen. Paying 30-40% extra to assure that you'll always have a teacher - fine. But paying 60-70% more? I can't see it happening.


As Harry says - they'll be at a massive disadvantage. You'll also see schools closing down, meaning EU teachers will be seeing work - leaving non-EU citizens at a massive, massive disadvantage. The ones who are savvy enough to start a business here will be fine - but the ones who want something stable will find themselves almost persona non grata.


Oh Seanus, go **** yourself!

(I'd absolutely murder some chips and gravy from there now!)

The Tasty Tattie, Schoolhill :) :)

Harry, you are right. Still, it can be hard explaining that.

I'm warning you! I once made the mistake of eating chips, gravy and cheese from there after one particular night in the old Union on the Gallowgate. Sick as a dog, would be the appropriate term :(

pantsless wrote:


I taught A1 probably 40% of the time when I first came to Poland, by now I've probably accumulated over 500 hrs. teaching it. i received proper training for it and without using any Polish at all, I can teach absolute beginners. it never phased me. sure, it gets exhausting when you gotta deal with A1 for an entire day straight, but it can often times be much more rewarding than dealing with say the typical intermediate student.

I never got into chips and cheese or chips n gravy. Perhaps I would prefer them now.

Teaching English in Kraków? I can imagine charismatic natives being able to generate interest amongst the opposite sex. A motivated teacher has to strike the balance between how they disseminate information and maintaining rapport. There are many times when I just want to let it roll and go with the flow when we strike a good vibe but you have to stick with the format/plan when certain students are in with you. You don't want to give them ammunition.

I'd like a stint in Kraków, it's not so far from here.

Today - through the Internet. But expect a high competition - a few thousand wanna-be teachers are registered on a few main sites. One of them - my son, who put an ad about his English tutoring when he was in the second year of high school.

It's even worse than it was 10 years ago. The amount of absolute idiots trying to "teach English" these days is remarkable.

Part of my job involves interviewing new teachers at our school for their English competence, and what we put on every single job advert is that qualifications are mandatory. At least 50% of applications come from people who aren't qualified, if not more.

No, they are not idiots, it is capitalism and free market. The good ones will remain, the bad ones will be rejected. Simple. My son, although so young, gained a decent number of clients and continued his classes for a few years (mainly through the word of mouth) until he realised he didn`t want to follow dad`s career. Pity.

Question Delph...my daughter doesn't have teaching qualifications but teaches English at a private school in Barcelona (she has FCE/CAE/PROF) What is your take on that?

Widespread and nothing unusual. The fact that she did FCE/CAE can actually help a lot with exam preparation classes in private schools - personally speaking, the best teacher I know has passed almost every mainstream English exam in existence.

Thanks. Apart from the fact that for her it is a probably a stop-gap, she seems to be doing very well, and is always lesson plan prepared..