Work / English teaching or English language preschool in Poland? [15]

Your best bet is just to approach schools directly. Trot along in person with your CV and if they like the cut of your jib you might be lucky. However.........I don't want to be a negative Nelly but I wouldn't be too optimistic. Firstly most of the international schools have English speaking staff and won't need specialist English teachers as such. Schools both international and Polish often don't care whether you're a native speaker or not and won't pay anything extra for it. Actually that's another point, do you want to support yourself through teaching? If so you might struggle. I'm interested in why you're choosing pre-school as opposed to widening your options to all ages? By the way I'm CraggyIsland the teacher who posted here about children weeing on the floor etc! I wasn't a member at the time. I joined the forum a few weeks later I think.

Work / English teaching or English language preschool in Poland? [15]

But can she? I mean does she have any actual experience with that age group? TEFL for young learners doesn't really cover the pre-school age group does it? Isn't it six to twelve years. Very different ball game. Of course a school might be willing to try her out and she might have a flair for it. She can but try.

UK, Ireland / Common pitfalls for Poles learning English [187]


Now that's interesting Roz because I'm Irish and I always say 'shall I/we?'. I never really noticed it until someone pointed it out to me. Mind you, I use a lot of vintage English, probably from reading too many 'jolly hockey sticks' school stories when I was a child!

loved the Jennings books and Billy Bunter. Strangely enough Jennings was based on an Irish boy whom the author was at school with.


But we usually say 'I went to the museum today' rather than 'I have been'. Simple past is more likely to be used especially if some hours have elapsed since the event. In my experience this is one that Poles often have trouble with, using the present perfect incorrectly in places where they should use the simple past.



The argument between prescriptive grammar and descriptive. Most native speakers don't use 'correct' grammar all the time when we speak because it sometimes sounds stilted and overly formal.

UK, Ireland / Common pitfalls for Poles learning English [187]


I think perhaps you misunderstood. Roz was referring to the use of 'shall' and said that it is never used in Ireland, which it is, as I use it myself. I am pointing out that I use a British form in my speech though I am Irish.



But for Poles like my husband who learned their English in Ireland it's very relevant and there are, at a conservative estimate, about a quarter of a million of them.


Absolutely correct. Standard English in Ireland is pretty much exactly the same, certainly in business communications etc, it's identical.

UK, Ireland / Common pitfalls for Poles learning English [187]


I think that may be because they learned their English in class, rather than in the real world. My husband spoke no English at all beyond hello, goodbye, please and thank you when he came to Ireland thus his English which he learned initially through conversation and listening to radio and television is very idiomatic and rich in both Hiberno-English and British English influences. He now finds it easier to express himself in English than in Polish!

Life / Canadian Moving to Poznan, Poland - what to bring over, areas to avoid, school for a child. [54]


What would you consider hot? Polish spring and summer are beautiful usually and in my experience it can get uncomfortably hot in summer. Even here in damp and chilly Ireland the thermometer is often between 30 and 35 degrees in direct sunlight on a summer's day and if you're travelling on a tram or waiting in direct sunlight at a bus stop in Warsaw, you will suffer. If it's 25 degrees outdoors it can be 30+ indoors which is not pleasant although I totally agree with you that air conditioning is not necessary in the home. A very unhealthy thing. Also drying washing in driers instead of hanging it outdoors is something I can't abide.

News / Degenerate "rainbow" eyesore to disappear from Saviour Square (Plac Zbawiciela) in Warsaw [297]


This from the man who never stops complaining about the moral decline of the USA.


It's not a great piece of art. It's not there because of its artistic merit or its beauty. It's there to make a point and I think it was placed where it was in an historic setting, precisely for that reason. The coming together of the old world and the new world where homosexuals have their place along side everyone else. However, I agree that it didn't look good there and now that it's done what it set out to do, it should still be on view somewhere but would look nicer and more appropriate in a public park perhaps.

Life / Canadian Moving to Poznan, Poland - what to bring over, areas to avoid, school for a child. [54]


Yes but it always rains a lot in August, it's a month of intense heat, thunder storms and torrential rain.


Yes we're the same in Ireland. We don't get extremes of cold in winter. Overnight during a cold spell ground temp might drop as low as minus five or six but air temp rarely drops below freezing. Temperatures in December can be fifteen degrees! Then the next day it might be five degrees.....our weather simply defies logic. I actually like the cold Polish winters and the overall predictability of Polish weather.


You're absolutely right, I know nothing about the mechanics of air conditioning. Thank you for the information. In the past they've certainly been linked with health risks and somehow I always associate them with dust and dry air. Your comment about humidity makes sense. That would deal with the dry air issue.

Life / Canadian Moving to Poznan, Poland - what to bring over, areas to avoid, school for a child. [54]


Now, do you know it's very interesting but our perception is often not quite as accurate as we think. In school when teaching the infant classes (four and five years old) we always keep a weather chart with pics of the sun, rain etc. At the end of the school year when we spread them out on the floor and look back over them, there's a good deal more sun/dry weather than I would have thought. You should try it next summer!


Do as we do in Ireland. Buy them anyway, shiver defiantly in them and adapt them for winter with nice colourful woollies and thermal undies!

Life / Canadian Moving to Poznan, Poland - what to bring over, areas to avoid, school for a child. [54]


But Peru is pretty much a third world country and Poland isn't.

News / Have PO (Platforma) operatives in Poland fallen into a panic? [332]

Are there any stats relating to how many parents object and why?

News / Have PO (Platforma) operatives in Poland fallen into a panic? [332]


Yes, I suspected as much. I would imagine most of the objections come from the mothers who want to keep their 'babies' in a state of arrested development. Polish mothers are very over-protective and do far too much for their children which they could easily and happily do themselves.


Yes, I was three! Started September, turned four in November. But of course the Irish education system has always been set up to cater for the 'infants' as we call them. Junior and Senior infants are two lovely years which break the children in gently but give them a great start with concrete learning, motor skills development, oral language development etc. Makes a huge difference for children from disadvantaged backgrounds who don't get that input at home. Polish primary schools on the other hand expect a lot of children in their first year, loads of rote learning etc. If they're bringing children straight from pre-school or no pre-school at all into that kind of setting, they really need to make that first year a transition year or the kids will find it a bit grim.

News / Have PO (Platforma) operatives in Poland fallen into a panic? [332]


I'll try to be patient here.........without wanting to sound like a twat, in my own case, I was a somewhat 'gifted' child although that term wasn't used back then. and my mother never considered me to be anything special academically. However, I was already reading quite fluently at three. I tried reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time when I was six! I will admit though that I gave up after the first few pages. I finally completed it when I was ten. My mother said that I was never taught to read, I just started on my own. My sister was the same. We enjoyed learning. In fact I was bored a lot of the time in primary school as the work was too easy. The main reason my mother sent me to school was because there were very few children where we lived and she wanted me to have the opportunity to mix and play with other kids.

Now from my viewpoint and experience as a Montessori trained teacher, I know very well what children are capable of learning if it's taught in the appropriate manner. It is a child's natural impulse to learn in order to develop. They love learning and they do so in many different ways, partly through fantasy play, but they also enjoy directed play, learning 'real' things through carefully designed activities which are 'play' to them. Keeping a child in a state of arrested development because it fits your idea of 'childhood' is not beneficial to them. One of the great strengths of the Montessori system is that everything in it is there because Dr Montessori observed the children and then designed every aspect of the curriculum around their natural behaviours.


In the infant classes in schools in the British Isles children are read to every day. In my class the children sat on cushions on the carpeted floor and I read to them, all the classic fairy tales etc and we often acted out the stories. The stories are used for indirect learning. For example Goldilocks is a great favourite, using different sized bowls and chairs, (where the children are learning about comparative sizes, a maths activity) then one day making real porridge and eating it for lunch with honey. Talking about how the honey comes from bees, how the bees make it and so on. (We had a staff kitchen which we were allowed to use for cooking with the children). Stories are a huge part of language development, social development, general learning and are a very important part of the infant curriculum.

News / Have PO (Platforma) operatives in Poland fallen into a panic? [332]


I most certainly wasn't a child genius. I had way above average language skills, that's all. The reading thing is uncommon but I have a friend who was exactly the same, was reading the newspaper when she was three, much to the amusement of her parents! We both simply grew into adults who love books and reading, not geniuses of any kind.


My qualification is three years of training to teach children from ages 3-12 years and 17 years of teaching experience. Whats yours? And by the way child development is the same regardless of nationality.


Thanks for that. God Almighty the molly-coddling of Polish children is chronic isn't it? Dump them down in a big inner city Dublin family and let them fend for themselves for six months and it'd be the making of them!


I bet you were a little sweetie!

Keep to the topic of the title please

Life / Any Indians/Pakistanis living in Rzeszow ? [16]

InPolska that's unkind and unfair too.

@Majha are you on your own or do you have wife and kids with you? Sometimes it's easier to make friends through your children if they're attending school or whatever. You meet other parents. Sorry I can't really offer advice but maybe google Indian Expats in Poland and see what you come up. Good luck. And don't worry if you persevere I'm sure you'll make some friends.

Life / Any Indians/Pakistanis living in Rzeszow ? [16]

Why should it be a troll?? There are plenty of Indians in Poland especially working in IT and lots of them in Ireland too. I've taught their kids.

Life / Any Indians/Pakistanis living in Rzeszow ? [16]


But if you think it's a troll trying to start something then why do you comply?? Because that's when you're doing when you make mildly racist comment in response to his query.


And I also think that you appear to be quite a nice person, though I know many forum members dislike you and think you're a trifle 'uppity' as they might say in the Southern States! Basically InPolska, I'm not naive but I take people as I find them until they give me reason to think otherwise. However I am sensible enough to temper that with a measure of caution and when I meet people in person I have a gut feeling about them, as most of us do I think. There are loads of obvious trolls on this forum, like the guy who was supposedly being sexually harrassed by his Polish maid and the Bible belt Christian with a Polish fiancee (the fiancee/wife is always a great excuse for being here) who wanted to bring the light of Christ to Poland, 'because she tells me they're all Catholics and Aetheists'. What a yawn.


Fair enough but Punjab is not exclusively Sikh and in Ireland anyway, Indians of both the Hindu and Muslim faiths mix and socialize together. I think when people are away from their own countries what they have in common is more important to them than their differences.

Love / Just started dating Polish guy - what is typical of a man from Poland? Cultural differences. [78]


If you want to go to Poland for a holiday, do so by all means. I wouldn't stay with his family if I were you. December is a busy month with all the preparations for Christmas, most of the family won't speak any English, your sleeping arrangements won't be the most comfortable (sofa bed in living room if you're lucky), you will have no privacy among complete strangers and it might be a bit overwhelming and stressful for you. Depending on where in Poland he lives, it should be possible for you to get reasonably priced accommodation; there are lots of nice, clean hostels and budget hotels. If he's asking for pics then he clearly likes you but I would agree with Terri that he's probably just being hospitable by inviting you to stay. I don't think he's expecting to start a relationship with you, but he's a young guy so if you thinks you like him he'll be up for whatever you're offering - so don't offer anything, that's my advice as a 'mature' woman with a bit of life experience behind her!

News / Poles v Tusk's school 'reform' [58]


I must say Smurf that surprises me, being a primary school teacher myself and having taught Polish children in Ireland. I found them to be great little students. They are generally bright, very well behaved in class and fast learners. They also have to learn Irish and often do better at it than their Irish peers. Their problem tend to be poor attendance, fussy mothers keeping them off school when they sneeze and getting them dosed with anti-biotics if they have a slight sore throat or a bit of a temp. The boys are usually very lively and quickly learn to join in and play with others kids, the girls are a bit Miss Prissy Prim and overly sedate and demure. But as I say, never a problem with them in terms of learning.

News / Poles v Tusk's school 'reform' [58]


It's a bit tricky but it's not really that much of a problem. We've been dealing with this in Ireland for years now and every year I've had to deal with at least a fifth of my class having limited language skills. It actually doesn't matter at all whether Paweł can read and write in his own language. It's better in fact if he can't read at all. If he can, then he will start applying the rules of Polish phonics to English and that will be more of hindrance than a help. A six or seven year old can learn to read basic three and four letter phonetic words and a few sight words within about two months.

As for writing, there's two aspects to that; the physical mechanics of letter formation and then the ability to express oneself in written language. If the child hasn't developed their fine motor skills through pincer grip activities etc then they will struggle, no doubt about that. At that age they take about a year to get their writing skills up to speed. A Polish child is also at a disadvantage because by the age of six in the Irish system, children are able to copy from the blackboard/whiteboard, another skill that takes time to acquire. However in my own experience with the Irish kids who've been learning for two years their writing is fairly laboured and slow and still developing so again it's a minor issue. As far as expressing oneself on paper goes, generally six to seven year olds are beginners at that so it's not really a worry.

One of the big advantages is that Polish parents are very willing to spend time working with their child at home if the teacher requests it.

News / Poles v Tusk's school 'reform' [58]


I'm sure she isn't/wasn't! I think the training you receive has a lot to do with it. The education system in the UK is very different to Ireland. She probably felt under pressure to have them up to speed with the rest of the class. The old pastoral care role is very strong here and the child comes first, the curriculum second. Your job as a teacher, particularly in primary school is to assist the child in their development and that should never be compromised in order to tick check boxes on a curriculum plan. You have to have individual education plans for several children in your class who aren't in the average zone for whatever reason, either because they're foreign nationals, super bright or slow learners. It isn't easy if you haven't been trained that way and if the system doesn't support it but it's do-able.


That's interesting. I imagine that Poles in Ireland, as immigrants are a very different kettle of fish to Poles in expensive private schools in Poland Delph. Parents of foreign nationals in Ireland are very anxious for their children to do well and extremely concerned about their English. I suppose in Poland affluent parents feel you are only a humble teacher and they're paying you to provide a service. It's your job, not theirs. What's your own view?

Life / Christian Fellowships & Prayer groups in Poland - Szczecin [43]


A common misconception. God's word regarding graven images refers to investing physical objects with divine properties, perceiving the object itself as a God. Catholics don't worship objects. The objects are purely symbolic. People like to gaze at the benevolent countenance of Our Lady or the beautiful little Infant of Prague whilst praying. It often helps people to focus their mind; they meditate upon the face of the statue whilst they pray but they are not praying to the statue. The objects, like all pieces of art, vary in quality and design, some are tacky and vaguely hideous, some are quite lovely, but none are divine.

Life / Poles hard working or just born lazy. [58]

But it's the same in the British Isles. There's an even old joke 'we're a bit shorthanded, can we have another man watching here?'

Life / Your favorite Chopin piece / Chopin Competition in Poland [23]


Don't want to sound condescending but coming from a family of musicians I would say that her teacher is the best person to choose the piece, based on your daughter's abilities and technical skill, unless you are a pianist yourself, in which case you should reach a conclusion after discussion with her teacher. My sister is a singer and harpist, my mother a singer and pianist. That's how the pieces were chosen when my sister was beyond the beginner stage.

Food / Supermarket or small corner shop for grocery shopping in Poland? [23]


The 'targi' for fruit, veg,eggs and meat, supermarket for tinned and dried goods and things like detergent.


Yes, in my local Warsaw supermarket there's a choice of buying from the pre-packed or the butcher counter. The quality of meat in Poland varies regardless of where you buy it but on the whole it's probably better than America. I saw a truly horrendous documentary about the American food production industry and large scale farming which would really put me off eating meat from an American supermarket.

Food / Supermarket or small corner shop for grocery shopping in Poland? [23]


Well there's no doubt Irish beef is far better than Polish. I'm also surprised at the poor quality of milk in Poland. I'm not a milk drinker but I use it in cooking for things like porridge and my husband likes to drink hot milk. Even though the percentage of fat in Irish milk is no higher than Polish, it's so much creamier. You can really see the difference when you boil it and the that lovely creamy froth rises to the top with Irish milk. You don't get that with Polish milk, it's very watery by comparison.

Food / Supermarket or small corner shop for grocery shopping in Poland? [23]

I meant the fresh milk. It's about the same fat content as Irish. UHT is an abomination. Along with prawns and elasticated underpants (according to Harry, see this thread polishforums.com/news/poland-duda-invited-march-independence-day-76186/ it's an affront to the Almighty. Unlike the Almighty I'm a great fan of prawns. I'm too much of a lady to comment on the underpants.

Feedback / Staying on thread (re-closed) [26]

Ethnic/religious minorities are always relevant when discussing any country where such communities exist and they pretty much exist everywhere. There's nothing wrong as such, in my view, with anyone discussing the issue of Muslims in Poland. Speculating as to how Muslim culture might affect Polish society is reasonable I think. The only problem I have with it is that it will turn into the usual badgering, baiting and trading insults rather than an interesting discussion.

Travel / I discovered Poland - a nice country [62]


Yes, Poland is very much Central European. But because it's a former communist country, it's perceived as Eastern Europe in the sense of former Iron Curtain territory. And you can't deny that Poland still bears the scars and carries the legacy of those years.


Wulkan don't be so cross with people. Try to be a little understanding. The girl is trying to say something nice and positive about Poland. She might be just a kid for all you know. If you want to know what she means by Westernised, then ask her but don't eat the head off her. Same goes for you Lyzko though you're not as grumpy as Wulkan. I understand your frustrations, my husband still suffers with this at times, the perception people have of Poland as some Godforsaken backwater and their amazement that there are supermarkets and that people have televisions and washing machines...........but at this stage it's up to Poland, as a free nation, to dispel that myth. You need a much higher profile in the old tourist industry for one thing.

Travel / I'm so bored in Poland! [129]

Mulled wine is a much older British tradition than that British Bird. It dates back to the thirteenth or fourteenth century, the Wassail cup I think it was called then. It was more of a hot punch or ale than wine, but anyway alcohol based and spiced/sweetened. There's a carol called '|Here We Go A- Wassaling'! Then it seems to have fallen out of fashion.