Job Discussion Forums

[dynow]

[scottie1113]

And I'll be here for quite a while also. Yeah, theather's not as sunny and warm as in San Diego, but I lived in or near Seattle for eight years and I've lived in a lot of colder winter areas so it's not a big deal to me.

dynow's list of things is pretty acurate, except that I live five minutes from Old Town in Gdansk and there's Madison, a mall, across the street. There are teo BOMI markets just minutes away and Although I walk a lot every day it's not because I have to go any great distance to find a shop that sells what I want.

The Finnish teacher that MasterShake mentioned is leaving at the end of the semester for a summer in Malta and may not return next fall. She wants to see another country.

Poland's not for everyone for a lot of reasons, but I love it. I've made friends with my fellow teachers and some other folks I've met here including some of my students. I'm not some young guy here for booze and broads. I'm 60, though I don't look a day over 59. If I meet a woman, fine. Same thing could have happened in California. The way I see it, you might as well give it a shot. You'll never know unless you try it, and if you don't like it enough to want to stay you can always go back to the States with an experience of your lifetime under your belt.

[JPM]

I've a 40yo English guy who's lived in Krakow for 2 1/2 years.

I'm making good progress with my Polish language. Sure, it's dang difficult but it does get easier after the first year or so. Poles love it when you even try to learn the language. It also gets you socially involved with people: exchanges, private classes, etc etc. And, anyway, we're all teachers, right? This is my first time outside of high school that I've been a language student: the experience really helps with my own English teaching.

Pila, don't be so re worried about 'the language barrier'. If you're planning to come to a large city like Krakow or Warsaw the only barrier is that too many people know or want to practice their English (in my experience). I bet I'd be fluent by now if I taught in a village!

With your interest in Polish culture, you'll have no problem settling in and getting it going socially. Also, with your interest in creative/freelance writing, there'll always be something to do in the Krak. It's such an artistic city. As a writer and performer myself, this has certainly been my experience.

Good luck!

[scottie1113]

Yeah, don't worry about the language thing. I was in my favorite tiny-4 tables- Chinese restaurant tonight having a bowl of soup, trying to speak Polish to Alina, my Chinese waitress, when the pass through window to the kitchen opened and the cook stuck his hand through it to shake my hand. He had been listening to us and and told me in English that the hardest part is the first 20 years! Really. He had lived in Germany for 24 years and said for the first couple of them he was completely at sea. He said-duh-the key to learning a language is practice. He also said that for having been here for such a short time I was doing well. Right. All it takes is a lot of hard work, as everyone who lives here will tell you.

We agreed that from now on we'd speak only in Polish so I've got to step up my studying.

You'll have lots of experiences like this when you come to Poland. I go to a very small market-your living room is bigger, believe me, near my school. Whenever I enter and say dzien dobry I get a hello in return. The sales girl always tells me the price in English. Finally I asked them to say it po polsku. Now they do.

You'll be fine. You've obviously got the right attitude for it.

[DrVanNostrand]

Don't mean to highjack your thread, Pila, but I just have a general question for some who have contributed to this forum.

Just curious how some of you manage to put aside money for retirement living in Poland or C. Europe in general?

I've read that the pay is good enough to enjoy your time in Europe, but saving isn't a reasonable goal.

With that in mind, is it best to come to a place like Poland with the mentality of staying a year or two so as to not completely lose out on valuable compound interest building potential?

Or can you actually come to Poland, stay for 5-7 years and not go back to the States scrambling to make up for 'lost' time?

I'm just interested in knowing how TEFL lifers build retirement accounts and what they do during their retirement years. The answer is obvious in a place like S. Korea, but if you're on subsistence wages I just don't see how you can reasonably expect to put away enough money for retirement.

Again, sorry Pila! Good luck with your experience.

[Richfilth]

It all depends on the wages you get, the hours you put in, and your lifestyle around it. Some of us scrape through the week in torn jeans and burned-out Converse trainers, others can afford more than one holiday a year, a car and a house (albeit on a mortgage) on a TEFLers wage, in Poland.

My wage enables me to invest in a property portfolio, private medicine, a pension plan, an expensive hobby in classic cars and still leaves weekends and holidays time for myself. I know there are more lucrative places around the globe, but life in Poland is hardly poverty-line.

[DrVanNostrand]

Thanks so much for the quick response, Richfilth!

Another quick question. How much money could someone with a current teaching license (albeit in middle grades Social Studies) expect to command/make as a newbie in Poland?

Also, how does one go about making the kind of lavish lifestyle that you describe for themself?

Thanks again for the response.

[Richfilth]

When I had very little experience and just my English degree and CELTA, I was getting 50PLN under the table for a small school teaching teenagers in Warsaw. That was three years ago, so it should have gone up by now.

I was teaching in the evenings, and after six months of working out Poland and teaching in general, I got business English classes with executives in the mornings, and dropped teaching kids a year after that (little f*ckers that they are.) Now I work as much or as little as I choose, no school bosses me about, and as long as the clients are happy the money comes in from six to ten different sources. It's not hard to do as long as you don't live the barfly life.

[spiral78]

Richfilth, I'm curious. Are you living only on your own income? Married to a Pole? Two income family? Other contacts? Qualifications?

My questions are genuine as I would like very much to be able to make it in the Czech Rep, where I have language skills, local contacts, and a flat already...but I don't think it's possible. Which is why I'm sitting here in the Netherlands (not the worst fate, but it isn't where my heart lives).

Is the pay in Poland for qualified, reputable, and well-connected teachers so different to the CR?

[Richfilth]

I really dont know about the CR so I can't compare it. AS a low-down though, I do a 30hour week (30 x 60mins), I've got a Bachelors degree in Linguistics alongside my teaching cert, and although the girlfriend lives in the flat with me she's "only" a student, so she's not really contributing to the income.

There's no kids, so no serious money-leaks, and I bought my place before the property prices got stupidly high, but een so, I don't see why a professional teacher (not a dreadlocked unshaven backpacker) can't earn him or herself a comfortable lifestyle in any of the big cities in Poland - there's more than enough companies constantly looking for in-house teachers.