The level of English of Polish teachers of English. What do you think of it?

Oh, oh. Even more accurate, Maaarysia :) Polish teachers who teach rarely have a strong Polish accent. They wouldn't be selected if they had.

I only had one Polish English teacher with funny accent. The rest had a neutral one.

Seanus, we're talking about Eastern Europe now! If the right deal can be cut, the teacher in question can have an accent you could cut witha machete, so long as they lowball the competition-:)

Ukraine, Belarus? This is about Poland. I love my co-teachers (both pretty women, :)) as they often ask me. They value CPD and self improvement and I applaud them for that.

I have been with my partner for 6 years, she is an English teacher with a masters degree and I would not even let her teach our 5 year old daughter. Most evenings she sits there, marking her students papers and " forever" asking me the meanings, pronounciation, correct usage of the language she is teaching. When I tell her the answers that she requests, she argues with me. She has never lived in the UK. At the moment, she is in Spain for 10 days with 35 students who had a choice of learning English iin Spain or England, they chose Spain?

I love my partner too bits, but, she drives me "Fckin mad" because I have to repeat everything 20 times and she still does not understand or listen.

I have no problem with helping out with answers, my only problem is having to repeat myself all the time.
Polish/English teachers seem to think that because they have passed their exams, they have finished learning.
Even for "us", native speakers, the language is changing all the time, especially as we grow older.
On Thursday, I am going to my daughter's kindergarten to watch her having an "English" lesson. This should be fun, we pay an extra 20 PLN per month for her to have these lessons and I do not think that the teacher knows that her father is English. I am prepared for the usual embarassing situation while I attend.

Obviously. My partner takes about 12 students for private lessons to supliment her income. I take 4 of the best, at no cost, to help them out. They have all obtained top marks, which, pleases the parents and my partner. Its not about money, its about giving something back in the area where I live.

I earn my money in different ways, so a few hours a week is a small price to pay for the friendship I have been shown.

My partners students seem to worship her, but, as an English teacher, I think she is crap.

Oh, they have shortcomings and would be exposed by advanced learners. That I have no doubt about.

Dear Avalon, being an English teacher I'd say your written production is somewhere at B1/B2 level of language competence. I advise you revise basic rules concerning punctuation and work on your spelling - terrible! I wonder if you have any degree - based on what I've read, I would probably only let you have basic conversation classes so that students wouldn't copy your mistakes (or are they already errors?). Between the lines I can see a stuffed shirt with a tad of misogyny and a grudge against educated people who are appreciated for what they do. Ever occured to you that choosing 4 best students to tutor means your wife did all the work and you just put a cherry on top? Applauding yourself on them getting high scores signals the size of your ego - Mount Everest, most probably. Good day to you, Sir!

This should be fun.


I would advise you to revise the basic rules concerning the usage of articles.


What an interesting turn of phrase. I feel that we can add something to the list of things you need to revise the basic rules of the usage of: 'dashes', you clearly have no idea what they are for (and that a hyphen is not a dash).


No, dear child, you need to use the present perfect simple there: the time in the past of this action is unknown and unimportant, only it having happened at some point before now (or not) is important.

What were you saying about spelling? The word 'occurred' has a double r in it.


Oh dear, have you never heard the rule about writing out numbers up to ten? Also, do we know which four best students? Yes, we do: so we say "choosing the four best students".


Perhaps you would care to look up the meaning of the word 'signal' when you get home?

I do hope that you don't try to charge, as an English teacher, more than ten zloty per hour. If you do, your students are most certainly not getting remotely close to value for their money: you cannot even use articles correctly!

One last thing: please give my regards to milky mark.

I am not a teacher of English, but I've found the last three posts (by Avalon, Seanus and Lovelybridge) very interesting as a set. And yes, even before reading the critical overview of Avalon's post by Lovelybridge, I have spotted at once the over-inflated ego of Avalon. Still, neither Avalon nor Lovelybridge give any examples of bad English they are poining to. Yes, one may say these are clearly visible in the case of Avalon's English, but not everybody here is a native speaker of English, so a hint or two would be good. On the other hand, the comment of Seanus really adds nothing to the discussion, except for showing that he is, as usual, hypocritical for the Anglosaxon world and over-critical for the Slavic world.

Who is an English teacher? you or me?

A lot of people here seem to be confusing the "level of English" with "teaching ability."

In my experience, the average Polish teacher of English, in Poland, has a better command of grammar and quite possibly formal vocabulary than a lot of the native speakers of English in their home countries. That being said, an educated native speaker usually has a noticeably more diverse vocabulary. Comparing their spoken grammar to an educated native speaker? ehhhhh, that one could be a coin toss.

Does that answer your question?

Funny point by lovelybride (who I'm guessing is an offended Polish teacher of English) though- the 4 best students? Whoopdeef'ndoo! The 4 least successful students would warrant waxing on about being philanthropic.

(edit)


She better be writing about herself or I'll be confused.

Flame away motherf*ckers!

I take four of the older students for free English conversation lessons, this is usually on a weekend and its the amount of time I am prepared to set aside for this purpose. By the way, where did I say wife?

Read what is written, not what you think you see.

you use the students who already have the best marks to make yourself look/feel good>?

He provides free-of-charge lessons to people and you criticise him for it? What have you ever done for Poland? Other than reducing the criminal population of Poland by one.

You lot especially you Harry are so puffed up with a sense of false importance. You know nothing about me. My partner was here in UK before I met him. I have taught English in Poland, without thinking that makes me someone really special and clever like you..;) Also I have contributed in ways that I do not care to share on a public forum. Get a life, little man.

Sorry to sound negative but Avalon sounds like another Brit like you with his head up his azz.

This expression: "a sense of false importance", characterizes so well so many teachers of English on the PF that it seems to be a crucial description of them.

Of course you have, dear lady, of course you have.


Depends on whether one is too stupid to understand the words 'I am not a teacher of English' or not. To people who are, it most probably does seem that way.

[Edit to reflect the below: Case proven?]

Yes it certainly does.

This expression "to be puffed up with a sense of false importance" characterises you better than anyone else on the PF forum, even if you claim you are not a teacher of English yourself.

Not only am I not a teacher of English but there are people on this forum who know me in real life and can support that statement.

I think that when accusing me of lying you are confusing me with a person who says "I don't claim it [an Anglo-Czech treaty] existed" and then in the same post says "the Czech government abandoned by its Western allies". Who was it who told that lie? Oh yes, it was you.

I really cannot take my kids' teachers seriously .......and only private school teachers take children and their parents seriously.
'Training' them up to be shyte work fodder, to conform and be silent.

yes, you are negative.

patronizing people again? Yes I have, dear little man..xx

This is the only point I disagree with.You're right in saying it should the present perfect simple, but I read it as (has it) ever occurred to you that...Sort of a shortcut. I use the same form when speaking or writing to a friend-never in my classroom with students until they've gotten to a higher level and then only when talking about colloquial English.

*hangs head in shame*
Issues? I gots em.

Point taken. But didn't 'lovelybride' (somebody is such a lucky husband) make it rather clear that she was not writing to a friend?

Yes, she did. So your highlighting her mistake there should have been included in the laundry list of her other errors. I was picking nits.

Or even nit picking:-)

I taught in Poland for eight years being a native speaker, and had nothing but respect for the Polish teachers with whom I worked. Natives speakers have their role and Polish teachers of English have their own.

Yep. :)

Dear Harry, having read your comment, I consulted my grammar books, a dictionary, and two native speakers of English. You're right! I DID miss one 'r' in 'occurred'. Hope it made your day. Kind regards!