Life / Are foreigners welcome in Poland? [305]


That's quite a broad description of:


and


Most people are friendly, however of course there are awkward people in most parts of Eastern andCentral Europe. Other places too, however in PL there is very little stigma further down in society about being argumentative. The best thing to do is to remember you have a right to be there (as they do in the UK) andanything like the angry questions you got are a reflection on somebody else's bad manners rather than on you.

Po polsku / Polskie powiedzonka typu "Nie moja bajka"? [41]

Indeed, however the guy in question uses most of those phrases and others more or less interchangeably. Also Chuj mnie to obchodzi.

Po polsku / Polskie powiedzonka typu "Nie moja bajka"? [41]

A friend from a small place in Podlasie, very traditional and a way with words uses all of those. One of his favourites is Ni chuja.

Love / Are Polish men cold? What do they like? [33]


Believe it or don't, not one argument in 8 years. This happened quite naturally, since we'd both had life stories much stormier than that. One day, when you're a grown-up, you'll hopefully understand that domestic bliss is much easier to achieve than domestic strife when both parties understand its importance. Not everybody argues. Many of us have been in relationships at one time or another with poor communication as the OP is. They don't mend and all one can do is walk away.

The OP comes across as very genuine and I can relate to her situation having been somewhere similar. For five years and the first two were OK. It's easy to put up with an unsatisfactory status quo but you just get miserable in the end.


Strange inverted commas young man, however if you don't like someone asking questions in English about their partner from Poland, why troll an English language forum about Poland?


She evidently has, and has decided she is very unhappy with this guy as her partner whom you try to defend vigorously (and in an inappropriately aggressive and offensive way) despite never having met him.

Love / Are Polish men cold? What do they like? [33]

Well, young person, your post is amusing and certainly moderately imaginative however nobody here remotely fits any of those descriptions you try to use. It's worth mentioning that the OP has asked for genuine advice from someone who might appreciate and understand grown-up relationships. This is obviously an issue that is giving her plenty of pain.

The answer is this. That although there are national or regional patterns of behavior based on sociocultural norms, the issues she has with her unfulfilling partner are more likely to be something specific to him at least as much as the place he comes from. Perhaps he takes her for granted, perhaps he's too emotionally dense or immature to have a relationship of the intensity she seeks, perhaps the bedroom part is unfulfilling for her because he's just not very good at it, or has a low sex drive or perhaps her expectations of him are unreal maybe based on a better previous partner. Perhaps he's just some potato.

Whatever the case, it isn't going to suddenly improve - it never does and no matter how much she tries to work on it, the only work that can ever be a success is to adjust her expectations.

I'm lucky, having found my soulmate long ago. Never a cross word between us, ever and every day as good as the day we met. But both partners have to be mature and both have to be realistic about what they can achieve and how to achieve them. And there has to be absolute loyalty and unspoken understanding. The OP doesn't have that and if she's miserable enough to post about it on the internet, it's probably time to cut him loose, get over him and then find someone more suitable for her.

The main question she asks is whether Polish men are cold. Some are and some aren't, however many can be curiously unemotional, are tied to the apron strings, lose interest in relationships with others and have difficulties relating to others, especially women. Plus a habit of sulking sometimes and often problems expressing themselves. That's an extreme example and most are not. Some are even wonderful partners.

In her partner's case this may or may not be true however unless she herself has led a very sheltered life, she must have something to compare to. The ultimate test is whether he makes her happy and whether she really looks forward to being with him in the evening after work. If she dreads it, in ambivalent or worries about how he'll be towards her, then the relationship is dead.

Love / Are Polish men cold? What do they like? [33]


Agreed. The lady is obviously very unhappy. Hard to say if it's a specifically Poland issue - he might behave like that for a lot of reasons. I'd suggest from experience that if the problem seems insurmountable or keeps re-occurring all you can do is move on for your own sake. Imagine the situation a decade or so down the line...

The OP has various options. 'Changing him' is never going to be one of them.


That doesn't make any sense. Don't assume that everyone from Poland is like your second or third hand adolescent vision of them.


Bieganski, you're 15 years old. That piece of 'relationship advice' evidently reflects that.


How on earth would you know about such things, being under-age and never having been to Poland or having any direct connection to the way people think or behave there?

Please don't make personal comments (true or false) about other members in the public forum threads

History / Pictures of Polish Jews holding coins and lemons? [25]


I think so - a combination of the familiar and the exotic a bit like an older more rural version of a picture of a gypsy caravan or even a plastic donkey from Torremolinos in Britain. The religion thing was probably one tangible way that a non-Jew might define and perhaps objectify a Jew in rural Poland. Something that they knew about well because of the synaogue buildings and the food/Hasidic dress rules but different enough to be a way of defining and objectifying people.

The money thing was doubtless because although rural (and indeed urban) Jewish people could be very poor, given the lack of shared meals or shared religious observance a common way for an ordinary gentile Pole to encounter and engage with a Jew was through their work rather than purely socially.

As for Menorahs, they're both decorative and in the days before electricity very practical and of course also easily available in Poland due to the size of the pre-war Jewish community. I've seen lots there both new and old.

History / Pictures of Polish Jews holding coins and lemons? [25]

I've seen the pictures with the coins but can't say I've noticed lemons. They all seem to be very similar and I think they're considered kitsch nowadays . Perhaps the Jewish guy was seen as an exotic topic for artists years ago Either that or since most luxury products like art in small-town Poland many years ago was by Jewish people who presumably bought from artists who painted what they knew and saw and this started a tradition. There are also wooden carvings of Jewish men with long beards in south Poland.

A quick look on the internet says that the "Jew counting money" was traditionally thought to bring good luck and should hang in the hallway and the "Jew with lemons" one was meant to show a sufficiency of food and drink in the home. That or the lemons were just a splash of colour. It was hung upside down specifically at New Year and on Good Friday. The idea was that the money would symbolically fall out of his pocket and into the householder's.

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Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]


Yes. ALWAYS!

And send again during the summer. They'll have your CV on their desk, will remember you when they get the next one at hiring time (and may have lost your old one. In Poland hiring time tends to be late summer.

Also check out Dave's and TEFL.com

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]


Yes,The normal one nowadays. But they might not actually mean that, because...


...usually it's a mix of methodologies, techniques and practices. It's sometimes called the eclectic method and sometimes called the British method. A native speaker wouldn't normally give it a name, though you do see non-natives refer to it as the communicative method. It's also sometimes called the communicative approach. It means that the sts speak as much as possible, that it isn't just copying down grammar tables and that (more often than not the trainer presents some language (often a grammar point in the context of a topic and words that are related to that topic),the sts do some guided practice (speaking or writing exercises or both) which the trainer corrects then (provided they've 'got it' they do some freer practice which the trainer corrects less tightly.

There are other things, skills work and listening/reading/text writing play their part and there are models of lesson other than those above (though that is the basis) and it's more or less what you'll find throughout ELT and also in ESP (financial, business, marketing, HR, aeronautical, technical, medical, maritime, military English). It also introduces language points in a specific order (though they do vary from course to course) and the methodology (it ISN'T a method although the roots are in something that was called the Communicative Method or Communicative Approach when new) is constantly developing with goodies like vocab clustering and Natural Order Hypothesis (don't worry yourself about that right now) playing their part.


Almost none of that. The major textbooks are all nowadays based on this approach so you'll find a lot of it is done for you and the entire internet is groaning under the weight of free resources for language trainers. Plus a lot of the textbooks now have teachers websites with downloadable supplementary exercises etc. Good trainers often personalize these and make their own (though pretty well all lesson materials are based on other people's materials, even the best selling textbook are effectively cannibalised

from previously written ones.

If you want to see some fairly 'pure' examples of the communicative approach, some of the teacher training videos from International House etc have made their way to the internet (youtube has plenty of videos of good lessons). There are many, however the International House videos are old-fashioned looking (and in my opinion heavy on Teacher Talking Time) but I can confirm that they're good examples of how it's done.


He/she is right.


Costs vary - check out prices. Often cheaper in Prague, Krakow etc. As for difficult - it isn't so difficult but it is certainly intense. A lot of info and a lot of work crammed into 4 weeks (forget a social life during your CELTA). Yes, it's rewarding.


A degree, a CELTA and a couple of years teaching for the entry-level jobs. Somewhere like KSU in Riyadh may settle for a year (or less at a pinch since they have something like 1000 Instructors, have a high turnover and find it hard to recruit that many in one go). You'll need probably to do a year somewhere like that to get the Middle East experience that better paying/terms & conditions places there (the next level up) require.

A tip. If you're interested in the Middle East, get proof (a reference letter with a rubber stamp/letterheaded paper) from every school that you plan to put on your CV. Other employers on your CV too. Only one at a time needs to go on the resume for jobs of this type. At the moment this official letter letter is mandatory for UAE (plenty of jobs in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharja) and maybe Oman (I forget). Language schools are notorious for closing down and this one factor has caused hassle for many (including me).

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]

Are you eligible for citizenship in PL or elsewhere in the EU? That would make things easier - for example you could change jobs without having to return home...

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]


In that case you should go for it


Irrelevant to teaching English here (and best sometimes not to tell an employer at a language school that you speak it well). Useful for life though and if you're a citizen it will mean you don't need work permits etc.

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]


It's a question of whether you want to shape your career round your life or your life round your career. Personally I prefer to do the first although, yes, there has to be a bit of common sense and application if you have monetary goals that you want to achieve.

To stick more closely to the actual topic of the thread, are there any genuinely useful tips to offer cmc for the next year or two?

History / Polish nobility - what is the status of princes and aristocrats in modern Poland? [33]


Since 1921 (with a break between 1939 and 1945), yes.


None are now szlachta in any sense and most are not descended from szlachta. And most szlachta were not aristocracy.

History / Polish nobility - what is the status of princes and aristocrats in modern Poland? [33]

As Sir Winston said "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others". In Poland, remember, people struggled long and hard to get it.

A democracy, however, entirely compatible with aristocracy and monarchy; indeed the various European countries (plus Canada, Australia, New Zealand) that have a monarchy and in some cases an aristocracy are among the healthiest, most stable and most thriving democracies in the world.

For people in Poland, it's something that never worked well for them and something that only the lunatic fringe would want to re-establish. In Poland, people are largely happy with the constitutional republic that they dreamed of for so long.

History / Polish nobility - what is the status of princes and aristocrats in modern Poland? [33]

Only the gentry (szlachta in Polish) could vote. They held the elections on the Election Field in those days outside Warsaw (now in Wola, behind Powązki Cemetery).

Hard to imagine many people wanting that back.

Work / Where can I find a fax machine for public use in Poznan? [3]

Try one of the nicer hotels near the conference centre. They usually have a hotel 'business centre' where you can fax for a fee, assuming they haven't stopped with faxes too.

Alternatively, scan and email?

If that's not what you need, try:
wirtualnyfaks.pl
or
tanifax.pl
or
e-fax.pl

Or Google 'popfax' for something similar in English.

History / Polish nobility - what is the status of princes and aristocrats in modern Poland? [33]

Other direction, near the Pałac Bruhl'a.

Too late to edit. If I remember correctly there's an informal (and informal is the key word here) organisation set up post-1989 by aristocracy in Poland which compiles a list of them. Being Poland there are in fact at least 2 rival organisations.

One issue is where the titles derive from, given that all szlachta are supposed to be equal (though in practice they were never anything like equal). Some come from the Lithuanian part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. These are the old and truly posh ones. The others were given by Russia, Austria or Germany during the partitions and some argue (very reasonably) that they aren't Polish at all and in fact conflict with Polish tradition.

There are also Poles who've received titles abroad. If Lech Wałęsa took British citizenship he'd be entitled to style himself 'Sir Lech', and Pope JPII (although as Head of State in the Vatican he automatically lost any citizenship he held elsewhere, including Poland) had a bevy of titles.

History / Polish nobility - what is the status of princes and aristocrats in modern Poland? [33]


Unofficially is the key here. In England, Scotland, Spain, Holland, Scandinavia etc the courts rule on succession to titles and arbitrate in disputes. In Poland it's all unofficial for the reason (the constitution) that you mentioned.

As for being negatively disposed, it's worth reminding that there's the tradition that all the gentry (szlachty) were considered equal in theory. One reason why Joseph Conrad declined a knighthood which he was offered coincidentally during the period of great optimism when Poland regained independence.

Another negative point, I once heard a lady say, who lives as it happens in the same building as myself and a Count (one of the better known Polish aristocratic surnames but who doesn't use his title) some amusing things about the poor taste of certain people who' we build modern houses in our neighbourhood with porticos and pillars to underline their noble origins.

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]

Some people (perhaps including the OP) prefer the arts and humanities and dislike science.

Great that you managed to take time out from your prestigious and ruthlessly focused career path to teach English in that great metropolis Skierniewice, but how exactly are these pearls of wisdom going to help the OP in his intended move to Wroclaw/Bielsko or his chosen career in ELT?

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]


I wonder if you really do think that EL trainers can't afford food. Yes, there are some who choose to work in nice pretty places for not much money, but also those who are, to use a crude expression, 'coining it in'. And most people somewhere between. It's a very broad profession.


I work with petrochemical engineers. They always seem to look older than they are. Sure some earn more than I do, but not much more and not always.


That's achievable if you're good at saving/chasing opportunities. Some can do it and some can't. I know people in both categories. When I was working in Poland however I mostly had a decent income but never really could save much. As Cary Grant said "They say money talks; all it ever said to me was Goodbye".


Exactly - one reason that textbooks for low levels start off with those topics that are easiest to speak about in your own language. If someone only ever reads Autotrader it isn't doing them any favours pushing them to read Jane Austin. An authentic text can be a pizza shop leaflet, a parish bulletin, a holiday brochure or a 'Now wash your hands' sign - all part of that balance between staying in a learner's comfort zone and going outside it. I use a lot of oilfield health and safety documents since that's a big part of my job. Understanding the English they see written perhaps on labels or signs or TV credits hear spoken every day but blank out or let wash over them is so important. Part of it all slotting into place. Neurolinguistically, that is.


Advanced knowledge? We're training not educating and in any case we should remember that for in-company training our learners have different levels of intelligence and ways of thinking/approaching the world.


One of the best sources of authentic text and almost always something in there to catch the learner's interest - this is of course vital.


That suggests America/Canada. If the first of those, think about South Korea as a step on your journey. They tend to slightly favour Americans over Brits, there are some lovely opportunities there, decent jobs aren't hard to find, and in a year you could comfortably save enough to give yourself a nice financial buffer to make things easier in a nicer place. Cambodia by the way may well be 'the next big thing' in TEFL (when oil prices start to go back up). They've struck black gold, thrown off a communist regime and the market is like Poland 20 years ago. Lovely place and people too.

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]

Anyway, he's asking about achievable salary for a young, presumably graduate but so far non-CELTA qualified, language trainer in Wroclaw. How to go about it, how much is possible. Not about whether or not he should be a corporate clone with a gym membership and an ulcer.

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]


The guy's 25! Better to see the world as he's doing. And it's possible by the way to earn a high income teaching. Just not usually in Poland, though that is a good place to cut your teeth. The OP doesn't say where he's from, however I hope for his sake by the way that it's somewhere that people don't have to pay for tuition.

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]

We have a trainer who once worked at a Callan Method School in Poland. It was years ago and he's got a DELTA now so nobody cares, plus employers in this region have no idea what Callan is. Fortunately for him.


A very very good one

Learning Teaching: A guidebook for English language teachers by Jim Scrivener is also handy.

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]

When you said you want to earn 6400zl, you didn't mention that you're unqualified. There are people with DELTA, never mind CELTA who barely make that (and some on less).

'Direct method' language schools tend to pay peanuts (and in fact do employ monkeys sometimes, strategically shaved and dressed in suits). At least they're mostly organised on the basis that anyone can deliver the training without any special skills. For real teaching, it's a little different. Conversation classes by the way are not an easy option - real ones aren't just chatting, they require longer and more complex preparation than most other types of lessons and a more sophisticated understanding of what learning goals the client needs and precisely how you're going to ensure they meet them.

Being a professional trainer is a serious thing. You need to understand about the learning process, language acquisition, classroom dynamics and interaction patterns, how to use threads through the course, error analysis, many other things too long to mention at this time of the morning, as well as having a large toolkit of techniques. I wouldn't call it 'the teaching game'.

Teachers (not just bods who use phrases like 'the teaching game'), trainers and lecturers are in fact highly respected in Poland. Especially if they're good at it.

I notice you baulk at paying 5,000zl for a course that gives you the absolute basic techniques yet you hope/expect that companies will pay you many times that over the course of a year for delivering a product that you have not training for. Worth remembering that most of the people who will come to you for lessons have paid good money (often making sacrifices so they can afford it) as well as committing time and effort. It isn't unreasonable that you know how to deliver the goods and not just punt out 40 hours a week of something that you don't really understand.

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]

Too many to count in Warsaw.

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]


This was someone barely qualified with a card on the noticeboard in a local supermarket. Remember that in PL if something is cheap, people are suspicious.


This is true. Most of them haven't got that much work to give.


Warsaw is possible, but you have to have the credibility and the ability to sell to corporate clients. Plus specialisms help.

Love / How are lesbians seen in Poland (more info inside)? [30]


I think so too. Crime rates (regarding womens' safety) are low and the people generally well mannered.


Most don't attend Church regularly or read religious texts - especially in cities - and in any case, people in PL (in Warsaw/Kraków anyway) are generally too classy to be openly judgemental about other people's personal lives. It isn't Alabama.

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]

You'd be surprised. In Poland people often think that if something is expensive, it's worth having. There's a story (sounds apocryphal but apparently true) about someone advertising private lessons at 40zl a pop. She didn't get many takers and was short of money so she put the price up to 60zl and got a lot more enquiries...

But yes, I agree, suck it and see. If it doesn't work out, the OP can always move on elsewhere and as long as he's not afraid of hard work (and doing 40 teaching hours is hard for one week, never mind week in week out - think of all the planning time and materials writing too!) then he does have a chance to make a decent income.

Work / What is a good monthly salary for an English teacher in Poland? [124]

How long is a piece of string? It's just about possible to make that amount in Wroclaw, however you'd need to be very well established and teach a lot of hours. You'd also have to deal directly with corporate clients (the kind who have an in-tray full of offers from tried and tested training providers).

As a newbie, forget it. In Warsaw, the British Council pay around that, however they have a lot of highly qualified and experienced people they can call on if they have a vacancy and plenty of part-time people who would be ahead of you in the queue.