Advice on Teaching English in Poland

I'd never have signed anything which I don't understand! Signing something means: I hereby give my consent to anything which is written here.

20PLN per hour? That's just odd! Anything under 50PLN per hour gross isn't that good.

Trust me, in gid auld Krakowia, it does happen at 20pln an hour :/

That's VERY low but chancers are chancers.

Can I ask why you accepted such a pathetic rate? Seems rather strange that a native teacher would willingly accept such a poor salary. I've walked away from 40-45zl an hour recently.


This sounds odd. You don't have to pay ZUS in Poland, it's not compulsory - you can have a so-called "umowa o dzielo" in which there are no obligations to ZUS, but equally so, no pension or healthcare. If you had a different contract, then the school has obligations to pay their share of ZUS and they cannot "transfer" this obligation to the teacher.

In all honesty, many of the problems native teachers have is simply a result of their own inability to think for themselves. I certainly wouldn't sign a thing in Polish without having it thoroughly checked first.

Quite right! You go to a foreign land and you need to be prepared to go the extra mile to get things right. Polish is the official language here so foreigners have to get accustomed to it.

I don't get you Michal, the British Council in Warsaw pays full time teachers around 11k a month, that is not that bad is it?

Completely and utterly out of sync with reality though - just like the BC as a whole.

Can't see how it's out of sync. If the BC is turning a profit, which it is in Poland, then that signifies 2 things:

The people are willing to pay the course fee, well upwards of 2k per semester
The people obviously see value in the course
The price to study at the BC maybe more expensive then virtually any school in Poland (not counting freelancers and individual contracts) but people are willing to pay the cost. It's not "out of sync".

Furthermore if the BC grows, has more students, needs to expand, gets more students and still puts the prices of its courses up, it should tell everyone else interested in teaching English in Poland something of the possibilities and earning potential that awaits.

See the value or just all conned? I can't make an informed comment either way as I've never been interested in the BC but I've heard mixed reports, generally negative.

Or, more accurately, that they're willing to pay for the name. The British Council has been established in Poland for years - even during Communist times. Older people in particular pay great emphasis on the name - particularly the ones who are now directors of companies.


From what I know, most of them are paid for by their companies.

Also, given that the BC is one of the worst examples of a British quango, it wouldn't surprise me if many students are studying there as a result of dubious links between the BC and Polish businesses.

I don't know why the BC gets such a bashing/poor opinion, I guess it must be in the annuls of this forum somewhere.

I guess the only way to find out for sure is to see if all schools published pass results for courses, but this of course would never happen for reasons that either the schools charging too much would get embarrassed or that rubbish schools are identified would outweigh the possibility of finding the best schools in Poland.

Yes, the BC is a brand, even well-respected, and yes I also think the BC CELTA course will become far more popular than any other CELTA course in Poland even though it uses the same tutors as were in IH BUT.....

If hundreds of people pay way over the odds for a course which doesn't produce results, don't you think, in that case the brand name would crumble? Or is it the case there are a hundreds or so new students every single year that the BC finds, who don't listen to the inevitable feedback from the hundreds that preceeded them?

I know I'm swimming in hypotheses, the point is the BC must, in part, be a good school or it wouldn't survive. It's not as if there's no choice in the market in Warsaw for those willing to pay lots - Mike Mills for example.

Of course the argument will go round in circles until of course, schools publish retainment figures, new turnover, results etc etc

Quite the opposite - look at how Profi-Lingua is still in business despite doing an awful job in general and producing many unsatisfied students. Their marketing is second-to-none, and people always want to learn English.


There are unofficial results available if you know the right people, but whether or not they're genuine, I have no idea. And yes, I agree - it would never happen. In some respects, it's not fair either - I taught occasionally an FCE group who were told that they shouldn't attempt the exam. They did anyway, and failed miserably - and it was all their own fault because they were lazy, unmotivated and with a real problem with accepting their true level.


It wouldn't surprise me. The British Council brand, for all the corrupt, jobs-for-the-boys-and-wives-of-the-boys nonsense that goes on with it throughout the world, is still exceptionally strong even in light of their cost-cutting and "refocusing". IH, for what it's worth, is hardly a reputable brand.


I don't think they're bad, but Poland is littered with examples of bad schools that not only survive, but flourish - mainly due to excellent marketing. Look at Speak Up for instance - many unhappy clients, yet they prosper.

I take on board everything that you're saying and agree with most, but you simply can't compare any school with the BC.
An exam course at Profi in Warsaw costs 850zł per semester.
A BC course costs 2470 or 2700zł per semester. That's 3x as much or even more.

850zł is a fairly competitive price in the Warsaw market , whereas 2400zł ..... isn't.
850zł aims at a lot more people and so Profi can afford to have a much higher turnover of students because more can afford it.

I'm not on a BC love fest, I'm just saying that given the money and relative success of the BC and the (possible) relative lack of super earners in Poland, the quality of the course must, in some way, justify the fee.

On the marketing side - yes Profi are everywhere, but TBH the BC hardly bother and (at risk of repeating myself endlessly) seem to have a model that works well.

Anyway, I'd be interested to know where these unofficial sources are - just for interests sake :p

You can't make blanket statements like that, Delph. Speak Up has a good rep here and, I hope, with good reason.

To be fair, it's more to do with their nasty habit of not telling people about what they sign - though in all fairness, they're the ones idiotic enough to sign credit agreements without actually reading it!

Teachers do seem very happy with Speak Up though - I know several from the Poznan branch and all of them are very content with the lack of hassle and the fact that it runs throughout summer.

Do they have the amazing write-on-glass-walls trick there too?

Caveat emptor applies. It's such a basic thing to read the contract, together with the smallprint. Rush it at your peril!

I arrived in southern Poland from UK at the end of last year, no degree (i entered the buisness world young instead of uni) no tefl/tesol/anything and no teaching experience. I was the manager of a fair sized hotel in the UK so 'good with people' was pretty much all I had going for me. December was considered to be a pretty poor time to apply for teaching jobs but I flung out a load of CV's anyway, and luckily landed a few interviews with private schools, two of which offered me conversational jobs, both of which i accepted.

Both schools have treated me (so far!) very kindly, and I will continue to work for them again in september for the next year, despite now having two other schools asking for me. One school is around 26 hours of evening classes a week, at the 'normal' rate of 40zl/hour, while the other is EU sponsored to the local high schools and pays more than double that for high school classes. So i work daytime in public schools and evenings in private. I enjoy both jobs immensely, and both public and private school teachers have been friendly and welcoming despite my lack of experience.

The students, (and im really talking about the public schools here) are miles apart from UK students, being far more disciplined, behaved and eager to learn. They are also in many ways far younger mentally than the UK equivilants, or less corrupted by MTV, I'm not sure which. Many of my classes are at the 16-18 age mark, yet teenage pregnancy and public drug use scandalises them, and I havent seen any knife culture or violence problems that are so common in the UK. Its a very pleasant experiance teaching them. Maybe I just got lucky.

The older Polish people are a strange lot at first glance, and I was amazed at how suspicious and wary there were of each other when i first arrived. I've had to modify lifelong behaviour like innocently smiling at a person you're passing on an empty street or bumping into a stranger at the supermarket and smiling and nodding apologies. This will get you nothing more than a cold stare and a feeling they're pulling their children closer. In all honesty though, whereas in the UK people are polite on the surface they are often nasty buggers to the core, in Poland this seems to be the opposite. On the surface they appear to be rather wary and untrusting of strangers, but once you persuade them you don't want to eat their children and pose no danger to their perogi, they're incredibly welcoming and tolerant. They only have 2 downsides as a society that I have seen, (which is pretty good compared to the 10 or so i can think of in the UK). The first is they have no, (and i mean absolutly no) concept of how to queue. For anything. Even the nuns. Secondly, they drive like people are shooting at them, (or about to shoot at them possibly). When you see the cars going round tesco car park at 50mph (speedbumps and all) you'll understand what I mean.

And thats the experience of an individual native speaker after 8 months. I just passed my tefl exam over the holidays to expand my teaching knowledge a bit, ive got about 700 hours of experience in teaching now so I'm not as completely virgin as i was, and i'm looking forward to the new school year starting next month. The people are nice, the food is less nice (but im a fussy bugger who grew up on roast beef and yorkshire pud so don't pay any attention to that), and no employer has yet to bum-rush me. Of course I earn less now than in the UK, but considering local standards im actually not bad at all, and I'm not sure any teacher with 6 months experience in the UK could do a huge amount better.

All in all, very glad I came, and would recommend it to others.

Which part of Poland is that, Thayli? Maybe you should teach how to queue, you know, the etiquette side of things :) :)

Hi there. I'm thinking about making a move some time next year. I won't be very original If I say I'm considering Krakow. Not only because I'd been there before but mainly due to it's commute link with Leeds. There is also a family history motif in it as my Nana was born in Kazimierz; sadly she'd passed away before I decided to go over.

I'm submitting my PhD dissertation next year, hopefully in March, currently working in the University. I have a pgce in post compulsory education enabling me to teach the over 16s. My question: do you think I will need CELTA or TEFL to teach English there.?I don't suspect I will be able to gain a post as a lecturer straight away as I have heard it is very competitive and difficult if you don't know anybody in the University. I speak some Polish and have a good grasp of Polish customs but I will be travelling on my own hence I'm even more anxious.

What's the PGCE in? If it's not in English, then it might be helpful to do the CELTA course anyway - but it's definitely by no means required as you've got a PGCE anyway.

In Social Sciences and Humanites as a subject specialism. I'm looking for the CELTA course in my area anyway and will consider it further perhaps early next year. Just want to hand my dissertation in first so at least one thing is off my shoulders.

With the PGCE and CELTA, you should have absolutely no problem getting a good job - in fact, my advice to you would be to only consider Poland if you can get a very good job here. You'll certainly be well qualified in Krakow and more than capable of landing a job worth doing. I don't know the market well, but it should be easy for you to walk into a very good job.

thanks a lot.Very encouraging! I have an experience of teaching English, however to the natives ;)in a form of a functional skill/skills for life course. I can speak and read some polish but I'm still well behind with writing. I do admit that may final goal is to secure an academic job, however I realise it wont't happen over night but rather gradually as I settle there, therefore patience may be needed. I'm right excited now and cannot wait to move. I'm going to Krakow next week (long planned) so will have an informal look around.

Practical advice. As soon as you're settled (or have even chosen the city) visit as many universities as possible in person. Poland is very much a 'bird in the hand' place when it comes to asking for a job and often serious hiring decisions aren't made until the last minute. That you've been there in person will count for more than a more impressive resume.

Remember. There are usually more English teaching positions outside the English department than inside. (Also, Polytechnics and Agricultural and Medical Universities are liable to have their own English teachers too). Traditionally, any unit that requires/offers English has to provide its own teachers. Sometimes there's a source (outside the English department) that supplies teachers, find out where it is and go there.

At the university, ask to meet and subsequently network with as many native speakers in the university as possible, especially those that know Polish (that's often who administrators go to when looking for native speakers - native speakers who have adapted successfully to local conditions).

Hi,

I am going to be graduating university this year in Canada, and I am interested in teaching english in Krakow next year. I don't have any type of certification as of yet, and many of the schools that I've researched don't really give specifics on what type/level of certification they are looking for. Courses range from 150$ on-line to over 1000$ dollars in-class. So I was just wondering what would be my best bet in terms of certification. I don't want to spend a thousand dollars on a course that will give me the same job as the 150$ dollar one.

Thanks

Online courses are a complete waste of time. Any school which will hire teachers who only have an online course will also hire completely unqualified teachers.

Six-day courses are a complete waste of time. Any school which will hire teachers who only have a six-day course will also hire completely unqualified teachers.

The only two qualifications to even think about are the CELTA and the Trinity Cert. TESOL.

You and thousands of others. I've got a friend who manages a small-ish school there, and she told me that she's spoiled for choice if she wants a fresh graduate with a CELTA in his hand. She's actually managed to get someone this year for 30zl an hour - he's happy, she's happy (he's cheap and capable) - but it tells you what you're up against.

In all seriousness, the Krakow market is like Prague - oversaturated and full of people willing to work for nothing, just to get some income. It doesn't help that the university there has been doing a good job of attracting Americans.

hahahahahaha :D

I've never understood why single people want to move to such difficult places. I mean, if they really wanted to teach, wouldn't it be easier as a newbie teacher to go to some small town?

(of course, they wouldn't get to party that way)