9^th May, Thursday

Surprise, surprise! Rychu, our PE teacher, has asked me a favour. Does he take me for a good Samaritan? His sister came to Poland for a couple of days bringing her family. She’s married to a Dane and has been living in Copenhagen for the last fifteen years or so. Apparently there’s some family reunion taking place over the weekend, hence the visit. All in all, Rychu’s niece and nephew don’t speak much Polish and are rather bored here, so could I please let them come to my lessons? Their English is very good and it may be some fun for the class. For better or worse I agreed and Rychu actually said, ”thank you”. Just a knee-jerk response, I guess. I teach three lessons on Friday so that should keep them busy, whether interested is another matter.

10^th May, Friday

Lesson 1

At eight o’clock sharp Rychu brought the twins in. Peter and Petra. Both the spitting image of him. Is his own sister an identical twin? The class was II d, the original plan for the lesson - revision of  ‘conditional sentences’. Quite unexpectedly the kids proved to be manna from heaven. Instead of all these worn out questions, like ‘what would you do if you won a lot of money?’ or ‘if you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?’ my class had to produce some sentences starting ‘if we were pupils in Denmark’. And that meant they had to get some information from our guests. I was happy to see that they took pains to complete the task and by the end of the lesson all group secretaries (I decided to have group work, after all, II d is a mixed ability class) had written their sentences on the board.

            If we were pupils in Denmark....

... our English would be much better than it is now. (Hardly a compliment to my teaching methods and a gross exaggeration.)

... our English teacher would also teach us cooking. (Adding insult to injury?)

... we could also learn German, Russian, Swedish and Norwegian. (Soon they’ll tell me multilingualism is the best thing since sliced bread)

... we would get better marks, like 7,8,9 or even 13. (A pie in the sky and jam tomorrow. And since when is 13 their lucky number?)

... we would be able to play football at school. (So football is still all the rage? Yes, cooking and football, someone’s the follower of the politics of bread and circuses.)

The lesson was a success, as good as it gets, even the Passive Voice was correctly used so I felt quite optimistic before the next one.

Lesson 2

Blackboard jungle: Class III a. I slightly modified the task. Now they had to decide what were the greatest differences between Polish and Danish schools. (Why didn’t I remember that comparisons are odious?) Perhaps I expected to hear about cooking again or the system of grading, from 0 to 13. To my surprise the class found out even stranger things. English is taught from books written by Danish authors! The same teacher may teach different subjects! Most teachers are qualified to teach four or even six! I dreaded someone asking me which extra five subjects I would choose as a speciality. I couldn’t even think of one! Luckily the bell rang and the lesson was over. All’s well that ends well.

Lesson 3

Slightly apprehensive and expecting a bumpy ride I waited for what class II b would uncover - my class, the pick of the bunch, many of them rather inquisitive. It was to be ‘conversation practice’, but soon changed into students trying to learn from Peter and Petra ‘some useful Danish phrases’ and paying them back with ‘the most vital Polish expressions.’ This was no longer good clean fun. Suddenly Konrad suggested writing things on the board so that ‘everybody could copy and memorise something important’. They were getting out of line and the situation was turning into ‘there are no taboo words in foreign languages and anything goes’. I had to intervene. I asked P. and P. to write in Danish a sentence about Poland. After a short exchange, Peter wrote on the board:

            Polen er et smukt og gaestfri land -  and then in English

            Poland is a beautiful and hospitable country.

 Dominik added:

            Polska to piękny i gościnny kraj.

And Petra wrote:

            Polen ist ein schones und gastfreundliches Land.

And before I realized what was happening, kids were queuing to put more versions.

            Polonia es un pais bonito y hospitalario.

            La Pologne est un pays beau et accueillant.

            Polonia e un paese pieno di ospitalita e bellezze.

            Lengyelorszag szep es vendegszereto orszag.

            Polska e prekrasna i gostoprimliva zemja.

So we had German, Spanish, French, Italian and even Hungarian and Macedonian. The kids looked at me, proud of themselves and yet expectant. Could I add anything to the list? A Polish teacher of English, qualified to teach one subject only - would they witness my abject failure or did I have an ace up my sleeve? I slowly wrote in careful lettering:

            Polsa xaza, komiarsall miettig yu.

”That’s in Chechen, if you want to know.” I don’t think they believed me.

1. You can try the quiz based on some of the idioms.
2. For the full list of idioms used in the diary, click here.