Lessons in teaching Polish
"In the mid 1990s there was a huge demand for Polish language teaching - a lot of foreign corporations were establishing branches in Poland and the general tendency was to hire expatriates," the director of Schola Polonica, Anna Pomykałło, says.
She explains that the more recent tendency within companies to replace expats with Poles has affected her business. However, while the number of CEOs from Western Europe is falling, new groups are turning up in the classes.
"We are getting more and more students from the former Soviet Union and from Far East countries like Japan, China and Korea," Pomykałło says.
She adds that courses are popular among certain professional groups like lawyers, architects, and bank presidents, among which a working knowledge of Polish is required. "We have also seen more and more translators from different European agencies come to our school for additional training," she said. However, she sees the people from the former Soviet Union as the group with the largest perspectives for growth.
The Institute of Polish for Foreigners (IKO) targets a more diverse group of students, which includes businesspeople, their family members, as well as foreigners studying in Poland. At one point the school also provided lessons for refugees. Despite the falling number of expatriates in Poland the school has managed to keep the number of students at around 800 and the income at zł.1.7-1.8 million over the last years.
IKO offers individual or group classes, the former ones being especially preferred by business clients. The school has also introduced some less common methods of studying.
"Courses in Poland for foreign groups are gaining in popularity, when people from abroad come to take part in classes and live with Polish families. Another very popular method is our ImmerActive Learning Experience - small groups of students go to a seven day language camp where Polish is spoken all day round. We are also planning to launch summer courses," co-owner of IKO Małgorzata Kujawska revealed.
But does it pay to teach only Polish? Most of the largest schools now offer Polish for foreigners providing competition for schools who chose to concentrate on Polish only. According to Pomykałło, competition is fierce. She admits that courses organized by the universities and large schools, which have also introduced Polish classes, are taking clients away from her. The school had around 90 students in 2004, compared to over 200 in the previous years and even 370 in 2001.
"Because those schools have other languages in their portfolio, they are able to offer lower prices on Polish. However, the quality of teaching Polish to foreigners in many of these schools doesn't look good. You just can't transfer methods of teaching one language to another. Schola Polonica concentrates on quality and professionalism and we will not compete with others at the expense of quality," Pomykałło says.
Kujawska also sees quality as the key to success in the struggle with competition. "In 1994 we made a decision to concentrate on teaching the Polish language. We were one of the pioneers, introducing new methods and new materials. Any competition is good and we are competing with them by constantly expanding our offer and guaranteeing high quality of services," she said.
She explains that the more recent tendency within companies to replace expats with Poles has affected her business. However, while the number of CEOs from Western Europe is falling, new groups are turning up in the classes.
"We are getting more and more students from the former Soviet Union and from Far East countries like Japan, China and Korea," Pomykałło says.
She adds that courses are popular among certain professional groups like lawyers, architects, and bank presidents, among which a working knowledge of Polish is required. "We have also seen more and more translators from different European agencies come to our school for additional training," she said. However, she sees the people from the former Soviet Union as the group with the largest perspectives for growth.
The Institute of Polish for Foreigners (IKO) targets a more diverse group of students, which includes businesspeople, their family members, as well as foreigners studying in Poland. At one point the school also provided lessons for refugees. Despite the falling number of expatriates in Poland the school has managed to keep the number of students at around 800 and the income at zł.1.7-1.8 million over the last years.
IKO offers individual or group classes, the former ones being especially preferred by business clients. The school has also introduced some less common methods of studying.
"Courses in Poland for foreign groups are gaining in popularity, when people from abroad come to take part in classes and live with Polish families. Another very popular method is our ImmerActive Learning Experience - small groups of students go to a seven day language camp where Polish is spoken all day round. We are also planning to launch summer courses," co-owner of IKO Małgorzata Kujawska revealed.
But does it pay to teach only Polish? Most of the largest schools now offer Polish for foreigners providing competition for schools who chose to concentrate on Polish only. According to Pomykałło, competition is fierce. She admits that courses organized by the universities and large schools, which have also introduced Polish classes, are taking clients away from her. The school had around 90 students in 2004, compared to over 200 in the previous years and even 370 in 2001.
"Because those schools have other languages in their portfolio, they are able to offer lower prices on Polish. However, the quality of teaching Polish to foreigners in many of these schools doesn't look good. You just can't transfer methods of teaching one language to another. Schola Polonica concentrates on quality and professionalism and we will not compete with others at the expense of quality," Pomykałło says.
Kujawska also sees quality as the key to success in the struggle with competition. "In 1994 we made a decision to concentrate on teaching the Polish language. We were one of the pioneers, introducing new methods and new materials. Any competition is good and we are competing with them by constantly expanding our offer and guaranteeing high quality of services," she said.
