Work / The level of English of Polish teachers of English. What do you think of it? [101]

I have one pet peeve with my partner's former English teachers: they taught her too many American terms and expressions. She often refers to tomatoes as "tomAYtoes" and to lifts as "elevators" etc. It can be very frustrating at times but, other than that, her accent is barely noticeable, her range of vocabulary is magnificent, her spelling is very near perfect and her grammar only ever fails in the smallest ways.

Other than that, Id like to add that I find it very hard to learn Polish due to lack of exposure to it and imagine that it's the same for Poles learning English without holding regular enough conversations with English speakers. I'm sure that this applies to all languages and a wonderful example of native speakers being the best source for picking up a language was recently highlighted on a Michael Palin documentary in an interview with a British ex-pat in the Polish fire brigade. He said that he learned Polish mainly (if not exclusively) by sitting down for a drink with Polish friends as often as possible.