Advice on Teaching English in Poland

Does that come out of your service costs? ;) Sounds like a nifty deal you have there - 2 hour lesson, lift to the location and meal included.

Damn, he picks you up from your flat and his wife cooks you dinner and on top of that they pay you ... do you get some a$s when you stay over your two hours too ?

That's bizarre and all that for a little bit of English? You guys have it made.

No, it doesn't. It's sort of a package deal. It doesn't hurt that they've been to quite a few dinner parties at my flat. I wasn't going to charge anything for the lessons because they're friends, but they insisted on paying. My Polish teacher does the same thing in reverse. She refuses to take any money for her lessons, and she comes to my flat. We've been friends for more than four years and she and her husband hve been to the same dinner parties as my other friends. Strange but true.

And for Havoc-no extras. I ain't that kind of guy.

YES this.

I've recently started working as an in-house English teacher at a company in Poland. I knew my job remit was going to be pretty unpredictable, but I was surprised at just how much of this kind of work I find myself doing. It's thrown my planning somewhat askew, as far as making some kind of business English syllabus goes, but if you look in the right places and ask the right questions you can find these self generating real life English lessons everywhere.

Advice? Get comfortable with the tenses is the best start I can suggest. Otherwise, strictly convo lessons will be all you see.

but not for long, if u don't offer to correct glaring mistakes

Thanks for the advice, I have spoken with my boss and understand the situation a bit better now. I was also wondering what is the best way to advertise myself for private lessons? My boss said that i could put a sign up in the school, but only after she has given me as many hours and she thinks she can. Any suggestions?

Go for it! You can always quit if it gets too stressful. The best way to learn how to teach is to teach. Quickly swot up on your grammar and go for it. Or leave the grammar to the Poles and concentrate on giving great conversation practice and pronunciation tips.

Sorry, but employers in major cities these days have no interest in such clowns. "quickly swotting up" won't help when you crash and burn in a trial lesson.

Advice?

Bone up on your Polish, have a fixed lesson plan in place for the subject you're teaching, be organized, iksnay with too many skits, jokes, impromptu conversations, slang or off-topic remarks and focus instead on a serious curriculum, using your much needed native English-speaker knowledge with which to teach your students solid, professional English from the bottom up!

I taught business English in Germany (in Freudenstadt, Baden-Wuerttemberg) and found that knowing the target language, i.e. the language of my students (in my case German!) was more than a plus; it was an absolute necessity!! More than US-style lax, casual, chatty teaching, Europeans respected like hell solid and even strict instructors who's actually TEACH them something rather than relying on American-style PR bullshit sessions, flirting with students and the like.

Have a goal and stick to it!

Very very sound advice.

The trick for a beginner if it's a conversation lesson is to decide the grammar skill and the set of vocab (which should be a coherent set) and figure out how you're going to steer the student in needing to use it. If the vocab and grammar come up naturally (so the student thinks!) in the lesson and then you give them a pre-printed summary with a homework exercise at the end, they'll think you're the god of teaching.

I do concur there too, Johnny O! As an experienced ESL teacher, I also used my proverbial 'bag of tricks' when teaching. Not sure about the Poles, but the Germans were sticklers for classroom procedure, not to mention having stuff WRITTEN DOWN!! I was not quite prepared for the slavish devotion still alive in Germany to the printed word. Without a syllabus, even during a guided 'free-style' conversation exercise, the class was dead, no interaction, zilch. Then, I'd (magicallyLOL) distribute the syllabus, painstakingly mapped out in German, and it was as though I'd been doling out Holy Writ or something:-)) The lesson would come to life and it was practically as though the class were teaching itself.

Merely sharing some of my experiences teaching English in Europe. Hope they've been at least a bit helpful. Would be glad to share more.

There's a hilarious novel called Demolishing Babel set in a summer school where one of the teachers has a panic attack and takes to her bed when she hears there are going to be Germans in her class. I found with them that they need to be sure that everything isstructured, has very clear goals and generally in ordnung but will open up if they think you're doing a favour by letting them. Works in Poznan too! Incidentally the book (out of print, but amazon have plenty) is a great read for anyone new to the work. It captures various stereotypes of teachers (and students) as well as giving insights into the business end of it and methodology!

Then again, it can't be easy doing Germans every day. Ugh, all those precise questions!

Exactly, except for boning up on your Polish. As I've mentioned many times on this forum, Polish is verbotten in my clasroom. It's an English lesson.

True enough, Scottie. But everyone knows, even the most enthusiatic of rank beginners needs some of his native language, if for no other reason than to work them slowly into the lesson. Young children are different, that's true. They might respond perfectly to a plunge into the deep end of an ice-cold pool. For the rest of us adults, particularly non-linguistically talented adults, no Polish at all may be just a tad more than most could bare. They would then give up, hence losing the struggle even before the first battle has been lost!

Actually Johnny, it wasn't the students' precise questions as much as the annoying (German) school administrators, hovering around very new instructor like a hawk, insisting on picking apart each lesson plan from stem to stern, even correcting my German and interrupting me in English before allowing the students a chance to participate in the entire curriculum! The students' questions by contrast were a pleasure, in fact:-)

This is all so true, if I prepare for a conversation class, there is no conversation. If I prepare for a structured class with writing and multi-media and vocabulary, there is only conversation :/

In other words, preprare for exactly the opposite, and you'll get what you actually prepared for, is that it?
Nice one!

Which "foreign country" do you hail from, by the way, Foreigner4?

How is that relevant to the conversation?

I'm curious, that's all. Why? Something to hide? I'm from New York.

I saw an ad in my local (Białystok) paper last week for English lessons given by a Polish Philology graduate. S/he wants 70PLN/hr. Anyone interested?

Get a sample of that person's English abilty ASAP, both written and spoken and run it past an educated native english speaker FIRST, before accepting any instruction!! Otherwise, you're likely setting yourself up for disaster.

OK, thanks.

Even from Stockholm, Sweden I received an employee's English resume, wherein they claimed that they had a high level of English like all SwedesLOL

Their cv, needless to add, was riddled with basic errors:-)

Don't YOU TOO get taken in!

hello, im starting my second level polish course tomorrow in dublin, im really finding polish difficult, do some people find it easier to learn by just conversing with a group and learning sentences,, instead of trying to learn ,, cases,, proper grammer etc /?

Sorry to butt in with a slight non sequitur, but - if anyone knows - what might the average rent be, exactly, for a shared apartment in central Warsaw?

Whole two room flats in the center are 1700-1800pln roughly at the low end lately...sky is the limit on the high end. Not sure what people are renting rooms for if you don't go in halfsies from the beginning. I'd guess around 800-1000.

(wow, that is a bit steep for the average polish wage isn't it?) Thanks!

Your first mistake is expecting things to make sense in Poland ;)

Lots of stuff doesn't quite work with the math like that here. I have never understood it. I have Polish friends I know don't make enough for what their rent is so not sure how that works.

That's for sure.


Yet people say the country is booming.

Very much so. People learn in different ways. Some, including myself, just by hearing the language, others by memorising grammar rules. When you actually come here I suspect the grammar you've learnt will fall into place. Especially when you hear what people actually say and how often (or how little) they use certain bits of grammar and why they use (or don't use) them.

If you're teaching one language however, you'll find it easier to learn another.