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Posts by Michal  

Joined: 27 Feb 2007 / Male ♂
Last Post: 22 Feb 2010
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Posts: Total: 1,865 / Live: 330 / Archived: 1,535

Speaks Polish?: No

Displayed posts: 330 / page 7 of 11
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Michal   
21 Sep 2007
Classifieds / Asian community in Poland [113]

The new changing face of Poland. It will seem quite strange in the future to meet Polish speaking Indians!
Michal   
21 Sep 2007
Classifieds / Asian community in Poland [113]

Indians may be coming to Poland to study. I would have thought that Poland may still be quite a cheap place to live and study. I was in Sydney not long ago and I did not see many Indians in that city though there does seem to be quite a lot of people from South Est Asia though geographically that is to be expected. Maybe that is why Australia keeps its points system to keep people out?
Michal   
19 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

I do not know what the polish zloty is worth but 3000zl per month is still near on nothing. Just think that a Pole in England is entitled to a free council house and put the whole thing in to perspective!
Michal   
19 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

I have been talking to a Polish man from Wroclaw today as he has been employed on a temporary bases at my place of work. Besides from telling me that there may even be really two million Polish who have gone overseas recently to find work we turned to the subject of employment in Poland. He told me that teachers of English in Poland earn £300 per month and even he said for such a poor sum of money he would not consider it for himself. How can someone work for a month and earn less even that Job Seekers Allowance is in the U.K.? You are never going to buy a house or a flat or bring up a young family on that sort of mony, are you?
Michal   
16 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

Its Italian for 'I understand now'.... I think!!

Yes, I looked it up in my dictionary and worked it out.

concerning the private students, i find they do want to learn english, since it was them who came to me asking to. you can make 120pln an hour if you teach the right stuff. typically for basic english i ask 80pln. but 120 for when im teaching in hospitals because i teach medical terminology as i have degree in mental health nursing.

I think it is all a bit degrading myself earning money spreading the power of American imperialism around the world, not that I am left wing though it might sound it!. I like individualism and difference and no longer want to go to hundreds of McDonalds around the World.
Michal   
16 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

What does that mean then?

I am pleased that I have made the situation clear. I think the course cost around £520 in 1999 but I imagine that it would cost more like a £1000 today, which I would not pay for such a piece of paper. It was good fun at times and I met some interesting people but none as far as I know ever went on to do anything with it as a job.
Michal   
16 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

at should have been.....'learn English'(according to Michal).

No, I am no expert and that is for sure!

but you did say you once taught English to migrant workers who used this

I was refering to Czech and Hungarians attitudes in the classroom. I was a student in Guildford in the academic year 1999/2000 as an evening student and some of us did a TESOL Trinity course for fun. There were very few Polish then as they could not work legally but au-pairs from the Czech republic and Hungary could work in England for two years on their visas. We gave free lessons to our guinea pigs as we had to do controlled lessons, the equivalent of six hours for the final certificate. For the students who volunteered, it was simply a free lesson and an opportunity to sit and talk in Czech with your fellow countrymen for an hour! It was all for free and it was obviously not the same thing as working overseas, which I would never ever do.
Michal   
16 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

But do not let listen to "Michal".

I have never been a teacher of English either in England, Poland or anywhere overseas for that matter. I have never quoted pay rates in Poland as I have no idea of current levels today in 2007 but I do know that 2000 zl per month is the usual maximum wage for most jobs in Poland plus anything on the side for private tuition if you are a language teacher. No, do not listen to me as I have no interest whatsoever in working in Poland as a teacher, politician, policeman, nurse or anything else fore that matter.
Michal   
15 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

It must be an interesting life style whilst you are young with the thrill of adventure. Overseas teaching experience and meeting new people and being paid at the same time. Can't be bad! I suppose the only down side is you do not pay in to a pension scheme and you have little security of tenure unlike other state jobs.
Michal   
15 Sep 2007
Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]

I only know Kharkov and the lovely countryside en route. I remember the following morning looking out through the windows of the train and it was wonderful countryside. I was only in Kharkov and it was for a month so I am not able to comment on any other place. It is quite expensive to visit Russia from England but in those days everything for us was free as we were students. I suppose that we were really lucky as the one month programme in Kharkov was followed in a later year by a five month stint in Moscow as I was also at the famous (or at least it was then) Pushkin Institute in Moscow in 1984.
Michal   
14 Sep 2007
Love / Polish girls attitudes towards sex. [568]

I have never noticed that Polish girls are more 'free' than other races though I do remember in Moscow many years ago when I was a student we had a girl from London who's parents were Polish and she had traveled to Poland before coming to study in Moscow. She obviously had relatives in Poland and had traveled quite extensively throughout the country before starting her undergraduate studies at the London University. She hated her experience in Poland and said that all Polish women were sluts. "Believe me, they are all very 'free'. Just make sure that you are not used, that is all they do. They just use you." Words of advice indeed!
Michal   
14 Sep 2007
Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]

it is just the opposite in fact. :)

It was actually a Russian friend of mine who lives in Portsmouth but came from Moscow originally and then later studied with me many years ago who talked of the word similarity between the two languages. I have never made a study of it myself.
Michal   
13 Sep 2007
Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]

ote that Ukrainian is more similar to Polish than Russian to Polish. :)

It would be expected that Ukrainian and Polish may have similarities due to geographic location.
Michal   
13 Sep 2007
Language / Polish/Ukrainian words similarities [209]

I can say for sure that Ukrainian language is definitely more close to Polis

I believe I am right in saying that about eighty per cent of Ukrainian words are very similar to Russian words. I have been to the Ukraine as I spent a month in the summer time 1982 in a town called Kharkow. We flew to Moscow and then took an overnight train to Kharkow. Lovely weather during the summer time in the Ukraine.
Michal   
12 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

Mind you, if you are doing a DELTA which I imagine is a very intensive course, you will not have that amount of free time for sightseeing anyway. The powerful British pound might make Poland an even better choice of destination?
Michal   
12 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

(I'll be moving to Sopot in 2 weeks). I

I have been to Sopot many years ago. In fact there is a very nice modern private swimming pool there so if you enjoy swimming I can recommend it.
Michal   
10 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

m thinking about going to Prague for a TEFL certificate and

I would not want to try and influence you but I notice you say yhat you are going to Prague to do your training. You may find the Czech republic a good place to find a job. I know nothing about pay rates in the Czech Republic and I have never worked as a TESOL teacher but in class, I found the Czechs to be hard working and conscientious students who took everything very seriously indeed. I had many Czech students in my English Language classes and I always found those from Slovakia and the Czech Republic to be very well adjusted and polite. It might be worth you staying on the Czech Republic than moving on.
Michal   
10 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

. Is it true that English teachers are paid so little? I h

It was always the case but I am not sure of today's rates. I have not been to Poland for many years so it is unfair of me to judge. Certainly the rates in private schools were always traditionally more than in the state schools. If you want to earn money then I have heard that South Korea is the place to go, mind you, they only earn a thousand pound a month which still very very little indeed compared to U.K. rates. South Korea isnowhere near to Prague or Poland though!
Michal   
9 Sep 2007
Love / Polish girls attitudes towards sex. [568]

It is a well known fact that forty per cent of a woman's gens are lesbian and that is why they have a paternal instinct to form little groups.
Michal   
9 Sep 2007
Love / Polish girls attitudes towards sex. [568]

Is it true that all Polish girls have conservative moods today?

I think that on the whole most polish girls are rather conservative towards sex, it might be the lesbian gene at work but I have noticed that they like to be in little groups and they often invite each other to each other's houses for tea and a chat. They are quite different from men!
Michal   
8 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

attitudes are the ones who will get the furthest and enjoy their lives the most.

I think that is probably true of everybody all around the World.

ould I be throwing myself to the wolves by taking a teaching job? I'd like to hear of some experience

I think that it would be a very good idea and why would you be 'throwing yourself at the wolves?' It would be a great way to meet local people and you would learn something for yourself and maybe gain some useful experiences on the way. As you have a job it is not the 'end of the World' for you in any case'? However, I will say one thing from the outset to put your mind at rest. In Poland human life has no value whatsoever and there is no such thing as 'friendship'. There is simply no such expression in the Polish vocabulary if you get my drift. You are a member of their tightly knit family or you are just an acquaintance and nothing more. If you are invited out to dinner at a Poles house and especally if there is a white table cloth-beware! Their son wants to marry your daughter, their daughter wants to marry your son or the man of the house has been out of work for two years and it so happens that you will shortly be going back to the U.K. and you live near Gatwick Airport and the unemployed man of the house who has no job just so happened to be an airplane fitter during National Service thirty years ago!! It just happens that there is an advertisement in yesterdays local paper for engine fitters in Gatwick, does the penny finally drop! help them if you must but do not allow yourself to be used. I have seen it all in my time.
Michal   
7 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

ddmitadly=Admittedly

Yes, I know. It did not look right when I saw it but you will have to excuse me, partly my spelling in English is never and has never been the best, and partly as I start work at 5.30a.m. each morning by Friday afternoon I am beginning to sag a little.

Anyway, as a person with no education like myself, who can hardly spell-that is why I trained to be a quailified TESOL teacher!
Michal   
7 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

long ago was this? 5 years, 10 years ago,

Addmitadly, it was probably at least five or six years ago now but the school still exists. I do not know the latest pay rates but it is still my advice to anybody searching such work to simply steer clear.
Michal   
7 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

You do not have to read it or agree with it and in fact you were not there at the same time anyway. In fact Gospodin Pole at university who thinks he knows everything, I was a student in Krakow even before you were born during the communist era and to tell you the truth, it may be a famous university because it is one of Europe's oldest but in fact I was not very impressed with the Polish education which I received. Mind you, this is years and years ago so maybe it has improved a little. And yes B.S. I too can translate in to Polish!
Michal   
7 Sep 2007
Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

Thanks for your pointless and worthless contribution.

No and I know what I am talking about. I was once on holiday and was spending a few nights in Warsaw. I was bored so decided to go for an interview for a position as an English Language teacher in a private school in Warsaw. I can not tell you the name of the school for obvious reasons but I think it was called Angloschool on Popieluszki 9! A nice drive out and a nice chat over a cup of coffee. That evening on my return I went out with the husband of the Polish lady who is out mutual friend. Towards his car he asks me "what did you do today" My answer, "I went for a job interview at Angloschool". He asks "and how much did they offer you in return for your services?". I can not remember the rate of pay, it was about six years ago now but when I told him he laughed and said, "you know what, my mobile phone bill is more than that per month. You will just be sitting at home drinking beer and eating peanuts!" I think that being an English Language teacher must be the most degrading jobs there is, besides being a security guard, that is.