A GOOD POLISH LESSON. WHAT SHOULD IT BE LIKE?
WHO IS YOUR STUDENT?
First of all, you need to figure out WHO the lesson is FOR. Who’s the foreigner you’re going to teach? Is it a businessperson who has no time to do the homework and wants to make full use of the lesson time, because that’s the only time when they can learn the language? Or is it a new mom who needs Polish to communicate with the doctor, do the shopping or to answer some question while in the park? Or maybe a student who is going to start attending university courses and needs to learn Polish as quickly as possible? Or is your student a keen language learner and the Polish course is simply another one of many in his life? Such a student is bound to ask you plenty of questions with the same level of enthusiasm as the fans of cars of sport when talking about their passions. If you love your job, a course like that will give you a lot of satisfaction.
GROUP COURSES
When conducting classes in groups, you should first try to figure out what the average level of the group is as soon as possible. That means that the pace, rhythm and your expectations as a teacher should be adjusted not to the weakest or the most gifted student but to the one between, the average one. The common mistake many teachers make, and we mean teachers in general, not only teachers of Polish as a foreign language, is that their lessons are „based“ either on the most gifted student (it’s easier for US to work like that, but is it the best solution for the group?), or they focus on the weakest student too much, trying to help him or her. Remember to note whether there are native speakers of any Slavic languages in the group. And if such students have been put in the same group as non-Slavic speakers learning Polish, that proves that the school running the course lacks professionalism. The differences between Slavic and non-Slavic students will be discussed in another entry.
COURSEBOOKS
You should be SELECTIVE about coursebooks available on the market. Believe me, most foreigners aren’t interested in lessons in which they’re asked to describe their flat, talk about fortune-telling and divination or analyse Polish legends. Do not torture foreigners by making them read Polish classics! Do not talk about the opera with a student who is a financial analyst and prefers golf; do not make an engineer read a text on classical music when he or she likes dark rock, and do not teach a mom who has decided to be a homemaker how to find a job in Poland. Obviously, that’s not the case when you are teaching a course preparing for a Polish language certificate exam. Then you need to go over the topics which are less practical for a student in everyday life.
MATERIALS FOR LEARNING POLISH
See that you use wide range of materials. If you use coursebooks available on the market on a regular basis, be sure to check whether the texts published there are up-to-date. Do not be afraid to use material from the press, radio or the Internet, especially when teaching advanced students. Make sure that the Polish language you teach is the „living language“, currently spoken by native speakers. Invite your students to like facebook pages which will support their learning: PoPolskuPFP , use materials available online, e.g. sites with conjugation of Polish verbs, suggest that your students become acquainted with applications, such as Polish for Foreigners, which will provide them with additional exercises and practice.
