Job Discussion Forums

[RobertF]

I'm new to the world of ESL and new to eslcafe.com. I'm currently trying to decide where in the world I want to look for work. My qualifications are as follows: Bachelor of Arts Degree in Fine Art, TEFL certification, and 4 years of informal (not a certified teacher) teaching experience. I'm an American. In the process of my job search i've been trying to dedcide whether I'd want to focus my search on Europe or Asia. I've been reading the individual European country forums as well as the General Discussion forums and the impression I'm getting is that, as far as Europe goes, Poland might be a wise place for me to consider. I'm not interested in working illegally in Europe. In this forum i've repeatedly seen people asking the question "Why Poland?" Although I get the impression that Poland might be my best European option, I admit that I don't know very much about it. I'm very interested in hearing other peoples' experience working or living in Poland and "why" or "why not" an ESL teacher might want to work there.

[mitsui]

I had a good time there.
As long as your job is decent, it will be a good experience.
With a bad employer, you experience would sour.

It was nice to take a train and go to Germany, Slovakia and Prague during my vacations.
I taught at a university with good students.

[nickpellatt]

Im sure you may have read and researched the difficulties US passport holders have in the EU, so I will leave that for now.

Anyway .. Im not in Poland, but am looking to Poland in the near future ... well, in the next 12 months or so. My reasons are a) wanting to be nearer to my UK home b) some of the chain schools offer the kind of teacher development I am looking for and c) lots of other EU countries are quite familiar to me as a Brit ... Spain, France, Italy etc have always been quite accessible, so Poland offers something I am less familiar with, and might be a bit different.

[TwinCentre]

Why Poland? Er...guess in the past it was because is was easier to get first time EFL gigs here than other European countries, there were loads of openings. Also, it was a cheap place to live and foreigners were seen as somewhat 'exotic'... so you know the rest..

But that has all changed. Warsaw, at least, is no-longer cheap, it is quite expensive now, more so than Berlin. EFL wages haven't risen in a good 10 years.

There are less full-time openings, the EFL market has peaked and the language schools are fighting each other to pick up what's still left to choose from in the market, which tends to be young learners and lower income Poles, who tend to need English tuition more urgently. The middle classes speak English quite well these days, they no longer need lessons all that much.

There is a trend at the moment for higher income Poles to skip language schools and have their own 'native speaker' teaching them privately...it is a bit of a status thing. Faith in Language schools has dropped considerably amongst would-be students

Poles can go anywhere these days and are not at all surprised to find out that you are a foreigner, in fact, they no-longer see the UK or USA as a place to goto to find a better life as conditions have improved at home.

It is all a very different story from pre-2004!

Reckon Ukraine is the 'new Poland'...I'd go there! It's like Poland 20 years ago.

[justflyingin]

[TwinCentre]

I was talking about the market as a whole.

[dynow]

sure, Poland isn't the ESL haven it used to be, and there certainly aren't as many schools looking to hire natives and give them a full week's work, but i think the work is still out there. only, you gotta change your game a little. private lessons, when you find the right (rich) people, pay really well, but teaching privates is a different mentality, different game plan. i personally couldn't do it, but for someone with a reliable car, their own teaching materials and some talent in selling themselves, you can do quite well.

in the end, after 3 years here, i think to myself, "why poland" with nearly any newbie on this forum. poland's maybe a good place to get your feet wet, but do no more than a year here. the winters suck, it's getting awfully overpriced, the polish language isn't lucrative and in my opinion there are so many other places with more fun to be had if you're a traveling guy (or gal).

[RobertF]

Just want to say,thanks for all these responses. I'm trying to learn what I can about Poland but there's no substitute for people who have lived there and worked there. I would most likely be interested in working in small cities or suburban areas. I've definitely come across job postings in Warsaw and Krakow, but can anyone reccommend other areas that they've had success in? -RobertF

[maniak]

At this point I ask myself that question everyday...

[dynow]

speaking of "why Poland" and crappy winters, holy moly it's cold this week. how do you all stay warm?

today's temperature is "man this weather sucks" and for thursday/friday they're forecasting "frostbite without a polar bear fur coat".

on a brighter note about "why Poland", work has been picking up in language schools, at least with the ones I work for along with some friends working in a few others in Wroclaw.

[Sgt Bilko]

The weather is great!

I had three winters in the middle east and I couldn't wait to get back to Europe and real seasons.

Plus, flats seem to be heated to a ridiculous degree so you're cosy at home. In Cairo, you shiver indoors because no-one bothered to put in heating and the flats are designed to keep heat out. Then, you wake up one day in early March and it's suddenly summer again. No crocuses and daffodils to look forward to over there...

[scottie1113]

[simon_porter00]

Someone, sometime recently mentioned Gdansk or the north coast as a place to go if you wanted more temperate weather. I didn't comment then but I didn't think the north coast was THAT different to the rest of Poland weather wise, especially as Suławki s in the north east of Poland. At time of writing at silly o'clock in the morning it's -13 and the gritters haven't been out so there's a nice carpet of snow everywhere.

I'm going back to the UK later on today and it's snowing heavily in the south-east at the moment. I'm going to look forward to the discussions of "my God, how can you work in this weather?" and "because it's so cold all the schools have to shut" etc and calmly remind them that it's -x degrees in Poland and everything continues as normal. Even the crazy guy selling vegetables on the street was there until 10am in the morning before he gave up.

[Master Shake]

[Blasphemer]

I went out sled riding with kids on Saturday, it was a blast! I don't mind cold or the winter... it is what it is, you might as well make the best of it!