Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies.

Managed to teach me a thing or two.
Finding materials that explore the right vocabulary and grammar is very hard.

Exactly. They're also something to have at home rather than just in class, to revisit, to reflect on etc. plus they all have workbooks, many have interactive online self-study materials tied to the scheme of work, videos in sequence and the newer ones have QR codes embedded.

Since different people learn in different ways it's important to go at it from different angles, and that is bloody hard if you have to make every lesson from scratch.

Plus, any given class might have doctors in who are very good at learning quickly together with people who left school at 16 with no qualifications and everything in between. And people with plenty of time on their hands as well as single parents with hard jobs.

Coursebooks have good graphics, a logical progression of learning and a wide variety of topics and type of activity. The material is also tied to the outcome of the course. Tried and tested over decades and have to be fit for purpose or they just don't sell.

A thread about St Patrick has been popular in the forum for a few days.
Polish schools also notice the tradition. e.g,, by displays, costumes, theatricals etc. Both in primary and high schools.

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It looks like a celebration of the green party.

Emerald, more precisely. :):):)

That's nice :) I especially like the pic where they've done some kind of project and there are photos of the beautiful coastline. How come I wasn't invited? ;)

I mentioned it at all coz this year a St Patrick corridor display appeared in our school, too. Other younger teachers of English took care of it,

Of course. Here is a photo showing a hand out with a map of Americas for a test in primary school - Polish students have to know all major ranges, lakes, rivers, flatlands and uplands.

Show us a primary school in US where Am students learn about the landform features of Europe. :):):)

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AI enters education!

What do I think of it? Well, it is helpful for weaker students who lack imagination and are unable to write a final exam text, either an email/blog entry or a longer essay/article/formal letter on their own coz they are completely devoid of ideas. And it isn`t the problem with their English, they aren`t able to write such a text even in Polish which is a real tragedy.

That is why I encourage those less proficient students to use AI ChatGPT site to have a nice text written. Later on they need to learn it - either my heart or by mind, whatever, and write it on a short exam in our class. Each year they take about 6-7 such text writing exams which I dutifully correct and mark. There is a chance that after writing two or 3 dozen of them before the final exam they will eventually find enough ideas in their heads to compose their own production in the time of trial.