Teaching Right off the Bat!

Day 2
Monday morning at 9 am Waldek walked me the short distance to Zespol Szkol Ponadgimnazjianych nr 1 w Krotosynie. (Complex School Upper High School number 1 in Krotoszyn.) I met several of the teachers in the teachers’ lounge. Many of them immediately giggled and apologized for not speaking English. Some asked me if I spoke German or Russian. I asked if they spoke Spanish or Japanese. Ironically with 6 languages between us we could not find a common one. Somehow we seemed to communicate the necessities, though.

It was an incredibly busy day. These three students took me on a guided tour of the campus. They showed me their favorite classroom which was large and had a multi-paneled black chalkboard at the front. The furniture was modern, typical of most high schools. The young women were very excited to speak with me and seemed proud of their school. They made sure to tell me not to drink the soup from the snack bar because it is so hot that there must be some kind of chemical reaction with the Styrofoam cups they are served in. I heeded their advice.

Waldek and I met with the director and vice director of the school for about an hour. We discussed a brief history of the school which used to be a center for ceramics and art instruction. The evidence was displayed in murals and emblems throughout the classrooms. Some of the crests were of professional detail and design. We also exchanged common frustration with state control of school curriculum. We discussed the advantages of each educational setting. American schools tend to have more new technology and more extracurricular activities while Polish schools have a lower dropout rate and more parity in access to resources than American schools. I think the law that mandates school attendance until age 18 contributes to the low drop out rate.

I did a short presentation to the freshman class of about 90 students in a small hall with large support pillars blocking large parts of the Powerpoint slides I had

carefully prepared. I tossed out Hershey’s candy to any student brave enough to speak English to me when I asked questions. The Polish teachers’ faces barely hid their shock and disdain for such a breech of teacher-student etiquette. Interestingly enough, the students paid attention for the entire presentation on American Culture even though they probably understood about 10% of what I was saying. Waldek commented that he was worried at first, but surprised at how well the students were listening even when they were having side conversations. I felt proud that the students attempted to communicate as much as they did.

I did the same presentation with the similarly sized sophomore class as well. In contrast to the freshmen’s open participation, the sophomores were very reserved and did not volunteer to respond to direct questions even with the bribe of chocolate before them. I wonder if the teachers had previously warned them to have better deportment than the younger students.

The students were much more serious about the information and only responded after much encouragement. I ended up speaking most of the time instead of interacting with the students. The Polish teachers seemed more pleased at this presentation. I wondered whether the difference in response was a symptom of their group mentality, maturity, English level, or adult influence. Mostly a combination of all the above.

I went almost immediately into the first of three English classes. The students were at a high intermediate language level and enjoyed the “hot potato” speaking game that required them to respond to each toss of the stuffed bear with a word from the category I had set. I started with colors then moved to words that begin with the letter s and finished by having them add a word to a sentence each time the bear was tossed. They struggled to find vocabulary, but were quite capable of adding an appropriate word to what turned out to be a very long sentence. I ended the class by describing how to play the Fact vs. Opinion game I had sent Waldek earlier in the Month. It was a challenge, but they seemed more comfortable reading than asking questions or conversation.

The next class had a quite different response to the games.

They were more reserved and less responsive even though they were leveled as intermediate students. I showed them how to play a few language games that I had sent to Waldek via the U.S. Embassy. The purpose of the games was to get the students to react to each other as they played instead of translating a response into English. If Waldek continues playing the games as he said he would, the students will become much more fluent in speaking English.



The third class was mostly beginner level English learners. They struggled with the hot potato game and I did not even attempt to play the board game. Conversely, they were more interested in asking questions and conversation. I felt they learned more than the second group because they were less inhibited as a class.