Is it normal for companies/schools in Poland to be rude?

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the Polish education system isn't already dumbed down?

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are you seriously telling me that the teaching of numeracy and literacy is more stringent or thorough in the UK? were the unions are boss, and everyone must have prizes and you don't fail it's called deferred achievement. You are seriously kidding yourself.

The problem here is that you're looking at it from the point of view of "how can I make as much cash as possible?". Sure, I would be shocked if many directors were taking home anywhere near a native that worked 25 hours a week - but at the same time, the teacher has absolutely no job security.

There's also the fact that you're absolutely at the whim of the director(s) in question - if they decide that you're dead wood, what can you do? It's much harder for school owners to remove a director mid-year than it is for a school to get rid of a teacher. Let's also not forget that natives are, by nature, higher paid - and if the school needs to save money, what are they going to cut? It'll be the native every time - after all, at least in big cities, it's really not hard to find a native teacher willing to take on a few hours here and there.

I don't know about he education system in the UK. I do know that in Poland, universities have been steadily dropping standards with the same "pass everyone" mentality.

This needs to change, and change quickly. It's the one huge failing in the Polish education system - and is the reason why many people don't have any faith whatsoever in Polish degrees.

Must be a European phenomenon.

That's true. In the 70's, 80's, only about 7% of people had university degrees and only
the best highschool graduates went to study at a university. Right now almost every
higschool graduate continues his/her education.

It was originally a way to keep young people from the work market, when the unemployment
was high, so that instead of looking for work when they were 19, they would spend 5 years
at the university. Some people hoped that the things would get better and with their
diplomas in hands it would be easier for them to find a decent job. Well, the things didn't
get better and it wasn't easier to find a job when virtually everyone around had a degree.

That's why 3 million people left Poland after our accession to EU in 2004. We lost as many
native Poles as we did in WW2 (and that's even worse, because the war took the old and
weak too, but the emmigration took mostly the young and healthy).

Some people in Poland (including those w4nkers in the government) are not aware of the
level of anger and feeling of harm in millions of young men in this country. The grapes of
wrath are growing heavy for the vintage...

Delphiandomine wrote:


No, i'm looking at it with the "why waste my time with a management position if I'm going to be paid less and given more responsibility" point of view. And again, like I said, I would never take a director's position if I couldn't speak Polish very very well. It simply doesn't work.

Delphiandomine wrote:


again, not what I saw. A year ago when the crisis hit, the ones who got eliminated from schools I either worked for or were familiar with, were the non-natives who weren't pulling their weight, had too many complaints or not enough requests from their students/classes, etc. So basically, the natives stayed, and the 25 year old girls with a "master's degree in English Philology" along with spending at the most 1 month in an English speaking country, got the boot.

You know, the Polish teachers who say things like, "I don't know what should I do."

Delphiandomine wrote:


well, if you're not a complete tool, go find another job at another language school. Of the schools I'm currently working for, I am the ONLY native speaker in both of them. There is always work for a GOOD native. The way I deal with bad directors is to simply do a kick a$$ job, get requested and offered lots of contracts as a result, and without me saying anything they are forced to be careful with how they are towards me. Simples. Hard work always pays off one way or another.

Delphiandomine wrote:


and this reflects the Polish business model, time and time again. they simply don't understand that "you have to spend money to make money". like I said, when the crisis began, I didn't see natives getting the axe, but when you have 1....maybe 2 natives working for you and half your contracts specifically request a native, letting the natives go is company suicide.

Delphiandomine wrote:


again, I live in a major city, and not only is it hard to find a native, but the odds start to near "needle in a haystack" to find a GOOD, responsible and experienced native.

Torq, it really doesn't work anyway. I've noticed that they almost always revert back to their mistakes after an intensive effort at eradicating them. The damage is done at their schools where Polish teachers drum crap into them. They go with RP and can't even get that right. I've worked with many Polish teachers and I think they are having a laugh when they ask me how to pronounce certain words. They go with feel and that's often wrong. If they really received such a schooling from their teachers, as they should, then I have no idea why they are so mistake prone. Philology is not a grounding for teaching phonology or general pronunciation. It's a way of getting people in work but many shouldn't have those positions. Besides, there is the tendency to overuse Polish and one teacher actually used Polish 90% of the time. This is a not a coffee shop.

No offence but there are some observers I just can't take seriously. One I just refused to listen to and I think that's why I didn't get my contract extended. She was an airhead with limited exposure to methodology and I wasn't even aware of the criteria I was being judged on. She was rude and I made her know that her views on my teaching, already award winning, were not welcome.

Look Seanus - you are right about Polish teachers being incompetent as often as native
language speakers and the Philology courses at universities very often failing at giving
students proper pronounciation training - it's all true.

Some learners of the language will very often come back to making their old mistakes
and that's also true. However, there is a fine line between teaching your students
proper received pronounciation and them still making a lot of mistakes, due to previous
teachers' errors for example, and refusing to teach them properly because you don't
want them to sound like...


You see what I'm getting at? We get native speakers who come from America, Australia,
Ireland and even those who are from UK are very often not educated teachers, but some
folks who just happen to be teaching and whose standard of teaching and general education
is in many cases appalling.

You're one of a few glorious exceptions, Seanus - a man with a university degree and years
of experience in teaching, but let me tell you - you wouldn't believe who some of the schools
(especially in smaller towns) employ as "native speaking teachers". You wouldn't believe.

It's not only the small towns. Here in Warsaw I know of 'teachers' with no qualifications at all (not even finished secondary school), 'teachers' who pass out in class because they're so drunk, even a 'teacher' who was pulled out of class by Interpol and sent back home to stand trial for killing his wife and mother-in-law with an axe! The really frightening thing is that under the current system that last guy wouldn't have been caught. With the current system of no background checks at all for EU citizens, it's only a matter of time until a convicted paedophile gets a job teaching EFL to seven-year olds and then makes full use of the opportunities which private lessons offer him.

Unbelievable... and that's in Warsaw!


It is frightening, all right. Parents should demand that schools do a background check
on every teacher they employ (even if it's not compulsory for EU citizens).

Given the errors in the above it seems as though the Aussie education system is failing as well.

I can believe it, Torq. I've seen and heard enough to know that you are right. Sound employers invest in educated people, that's why they receive bonuses. I remember one of my co-teachers in NOVA, Japan, telling me that I must have been disappointed to receive only the smallest increment going into my 2nd year of teaching. I wasn't for 2 reasons. I was already getting 5000Y (25 quid but hey) extra because of possessing a Masters. Besides, she was a top teacher and she only got the bare minumum payrise too. The extra cash was a token gesture but nonetheless signalled their intent to break from their stingy ways.

Harry is right too. There was one teacher here who was a pent-up Canuck who couldn't get a thing right. He stank to high heaven and was evicted for a COMPLETE lack of hygiene. Not only armpits I might add (yes, I'll stop there). I had to pull him out of class as he lost his patience. He then became a teaching forum hack and he is the sort that hits out at the host country for his own friggin ineptitude. He had no right being a teacher. That's why a CV is often worth jack these days. Schools here want bums on seats and don't hire the best candidates at all. Then there are thousands upon thousands of top graduates who don't get a look in. Life is far from fair!

Nothing is unbelievable in the world of ESL teaching and Poland is but one country in that murky matrix.

As long as customers are willing to settle for low quality, the schools will continue to provide it.

Yep, ultimately, the game is about keeping people happy - because otherwise they won't pay.

I've always thought that if a language school opened up, in which they demanded nothing but 100% excellence from staff and students - they would make a killing if they could see three years of losses. Imagine how wildly popular a school would be if they actively removed bad students?

Over december and january I worked in a small-town liceum/ZSZ school, to help out a friend whose ragular Engteach was on maternity leave. She asked me if I'd like to do the second semester as well. However, doing 18 hours a week (full etat), I'd only be getting about 1200 zlots A MONTH (and I'd have 80km round trip).

Next time I decide to whinge about my wages, I'll remember what some trained, professional Polish state-school teachers are taking home.

Trevek, do you know anything about what qualifications you need to teach in a state school in Poland? I've always been told a Masters is a minimum requirement with a teaching qualification, but do you know any better?

Is this any different from the many Poles who are on these forums moaning about UK but only too happy to take the wages?

As for trying to change things for the better, quite often some of us do try to change things and we're told not to bother. Apart from that, try to change things too much and there's always another NS just around the corner.

Personally, I'm lucky. I have open-minded bosses (who have to juggle open-mindedness with business reality) and a pretty progressive work environment, but I know of others who don't.


To be honest, I'm not sure. I think the law changed a little while ago and not only do you need a teaching cert but also a masters in your language (at least, if you were trained as a language teacher). The main problem for me was whether my CELTA was valid.

Apparently it was OK'd by the local ed authority, but perhaps it was because of the desperate situation the school was in.

Non-public schools (non-state) have a bit more leeway, I believe.

Exactly the same thing. The ones that complain because the NHS won't give them an instant referral to a specialist are the ones that particularly irritate me. I've heard of cases where Poles have been complaining bitterly because the NHS won't give them an instant referral to a gynaecologist as soon as they get pregnant - yet they can't seem to grasp that if everyone did that, the NHS would be bankrupt within weeks.

I'm not sure if it's just the old Polish obsession with qualifications, or simple ignorance of how good midwivery education is in the UK.


That's what I've heard as well, but thank you :)

(not a big fan at all of these integrated teaching Masters)

It must be a disincentive to work for so little. As I said, life costs here. It just means that all the goods which everyone consumes are bought cheaper. State-school teachers really get a raw deal, I'm surprised that they survive.

I think a lot of them survive by taking jobs in private schools. It's a vicious circle, though, because often, the only teachers who'd take a job in such state schools are the ones who might not get a job in a more prestigious school in a bigger town. Village schools particularly are not necessarily jobs to kill for.

I didn't take the job in the end, but I did run around like mad trying to find someone. Even people who'd just lost their jobs wouldn't take it because of the location. Eventually we did find someone, so i was happy about that.

As for it being a discentive, it didn't help that it was a small rural town and it was ZSZ kids who have it in their mind that they have little future and there's no point in learning English anyway.

I understood them on this point. I finally spent a lot of time speaking to them in my dodgy Polish saying, "Yeah, I learned French at school in England and never met a French person in 20 years of living there... But you guys could leave here and get a factory job in UK which pays ok... and you'd earn more if you spoke a bit more English..."

I'd like to kid myself it had some effect but I doubt it.

The ones who have reached the top of the tree aren't doing so badly - and let's not forget that private tuition can often be just as expensive as English teaching - I know a biology teacher who is charging 50zl an hour for private classes and getting it without trouble. They also have a far better deal in Poland than in the UK - because they don't have to be in the school full time, unlike British schools.

I suspect that salaries might rise quite a bit for teachers now that early retirement has been abolished.

But certainly for new teachers, it is an awful deal - and the reason why there's such a lack of talent when it comes to English teaching in schools.

Exactly, and often, in poorer towns and villages, it is only the less-able teachers who are prepared to work there, or some 90 year old maths teacher who has a leaving certificate in English from 70 years ago and doubles as the English teacher, thinks all Brits drink tea at 5pm and say "The ket set on the met".

The other side is that they are offered fairly stable hours, thus providing a greater degree of certainty. Private schools blow with the wind and we all know about the infamous Callan 'guarantee' of 26 hours a week. Some were lucky to hit 20 a week. Supplementary private lessons are the main plus of being a private school teacher. Imagine a public school teacher with a couple of kids. They must be exhausted at the end of the week. As a private school teacher, there is more flexibility in which to incorporate privates. In order to teach sth like CPE, I have to be sharp and on my game.

I'm sitting next to one right now!

One of the big pluses about working for a state school is the fact that you then don't need to worry about paying ZUS. Even if you're only part-time, ZUS is still paid for you, which pretty much doubles your salary (given that ZUS is about 900zl for a one-person company).

I wouldn't say it's limited to poorer towns and villages - even in Poznan, some of the stories I've heard about State teachers are incredible. I was teaching a class of teenagers for a while, and they would constantly tell me about how awful their teacher was - they used to ask me for the 'right' answer to things because they were certain that she was getting it wrong. And this is in Poznan!

I'd say it's only going to get worse as hardly any talented Polish English students are going to go anywhere near teaching in a State school - I know quite a few, and none of them have even considered teaching in a public school.


Yep - this is the one bribe in their direction, combined with the fact that it's nearly impossible to sack someone who has got to the point where they're not allowed to be dismissed for performance reasons. There's an excellent case in my local school where a friend teaches - they've got some woman, completely and utterly hopeless, teaching teenagers. From what I've seen, they completely crucify her - she can't control them, they know she can't do anything about it and thus the kids are being indirectly punished. Yet she's got a permanent contract and can't be sacked easily - which is utter nonsense, as these kids are clearly not getting anything resembling an education.

One thing Poland could do that would make a hell of a lot of sense would be to allow directors to hire language teachers on the basis of ability rather than papers.

oy mate, fooor having some bug up yer jacksie ye are alreet in my book torq. sure me mit be abrasive and i me dont fancy brits or rosie and crumpets or de olde hag queen, ey? oy dis lorry is out of petrol me thinks, mights well stop on er motorway, fancy takin a lift to de top guvnor?

... ah f this. that was lame for invoking some kind of country bumpkin ruse.

thats what i found that works, my students are satisified and have excellent pronunciation. and i dont have to be all high and mighty about it. so you can cram your fine line with walnuts, sir.

That's true. For the first 2 years it's around 330PLN. Then it jumps up to 840PLN in the 3rd year and beyond.

I much preferred the old system where ZUS was paid for me and I had a special E-111 card from Britain which entitled Poles and Brits to reciprocal healthcare. I feel that 840PLN is largely money down the drain.

Papers are about prestige as you know, delph. They just won't break that mindset. I've also seen some abominable teachers with letters.

why u think so?