z przyjemnością

My school background and interests inspired my lesson plans this month – a unit centered on how we learn foreign languages. My educational psychology studies and the liberal arts philosophy of my university have significantly influenced how I teach. Educational psychology, in a nutshell, is the study of how people learn, and, therefore, how teachers should teach. My liberal arts education upbringing taught me that it’s important to individualize learning and that teachers should empower students to become life-long learners (one of my favorite essays on the benefits of a liberal arts education says that it “frees you from fear”).

For me, teaching and learning are two of life’s greatest joys. I’m arguably equally happy sitting in a desk learning as I am teaching at the blackboard. Throughout this year, I’ve experienced dozens of amazing teaching moments where I’ve felt a wonderfully overwhelming feeling of connection with my students.

Here’s one of my favorite teaching quotations:

"Students learn what they care about," Ericksen said. Goethe knew that: "In all things we learn only from those we love." Add Emerson's declaration: "the secret of education lies in respecting the pupil," and we have this formula: "Students learn what they care about, from people they care about and who, they know, care about them." Barbara Carson

In my opinion, mutual respect between students and teachers is the key to a successful learning environment. It’s very important to me to show my students that I respect them and the knowledge and experiences they have. I never forget that, especially here in Poland, I am frequently the pupil too in a new school system and culture with lots to learn. My students are always fantastic teachers, eagerly explaining peculiar (to me) school traditions or translating posters and bulletin boards for me.

I created this “language learning” unit to help students better understand how we learn foreign languages and to also give them the opportunity to “officially” or “formally” teach a lesson of their own creation. All, of course, in a unit that maximized the time they also spent speaking in English in my classroom.

The goals/objectives of my “how we learn foreign languages” unit included:

• To discuss and analyze different language learning theories
• To help students recognize that individuals differ in their learning styles and ask them to identify their language learning style(s)
• To ask students to think critically about how we learn – and therefore how we should teach – languages and apply different methods in mini-lessons
• To give students an authentic teaching experience where they taught a 10-minute foreign language lesson

Here’s how I tried to accomplish these goals:

WEEK 1: I created handouts for the students outlining half a dozen language learning theories and other theories about how people differ in how they learn best (example: multiple intelligences). We discussed the theories and then I asked students to identify the theory or theories that best describe how they learn English. We had great conversations because students were excited to discuss with their classmates how they differed in their language learning styles.

WEEK 2: The following week, students worked in pairs and had to create three mini-lessons where they taught their classmates only one new English word. In their three mini-lessons, they had to incorporate their knowledge of language learning theories from our Week 1 discussion and create three different ways to teach one new word. (They did a fantastic job and I’m planning to copy a couple of their brilliant lesson plans in the future. They were extremely creative and thoughtful.)

WEEK 3: To conclude the unit, I wanted to give my students an authentic language teaching experience and therefore...every pair of students had to create a 10-minute lesson where they taught me 10 Polish words! I know, you’re thinking “What?!? Polish?!? Isn’t it English conversation?”

One of the challenges I’ve enjoyed this year is creating lessons that get students interested because then they forget that I’m [forcing] them to speak English. It’s way better to design engaging lessons than having to repeatedly say, “Now, I expect to hear you speaking in English.”

The students’ lessons were, despite the fact that they taught me 10 Polish words, conducted in English 90% of the time. They had to justify their lesson plan in English, describe all directions for games and tests in English, give me feedback on my pronunciation and spelling in English, and answer my questions in English if I was confused. They spoke longer than they had in any previous speaking task I’ve assigned them this year, and no one complained!

To me, the project was a win-win situation. It was an authentic learning situation. I don’t know Polish; they do. Sometimes I can’t imagine forcing my students to act out another “authentic” dialogue where one person “pretends” to be, for example, the waiter at a restaurant, and the other person is ordering food. Let’s face it. It’s not 100% authentic unless you’re sitting in a restaurant where the waiter only speaks English and you have to order. Of course, language learning is about preparing for authentic language interactions (like ordering at a restaurant in a foreign country), but no matter how good the lesson, it’s not exactly like the authentic experience. I know that when I learn a new Polish word out of necessity (i.e., I need to buy something at a store but it’s kept behind a counter and I’ll have to ask for it), I retain the knowledge because I need to. My students don’t [currently] need English to survive (well, except to “survive” a conversation or class with me) like I need Polish, and it’s a fact I’m very conscious of when I try to create lessons that have a clear purpose and are engaging for them. For this project, having the students “teach” me English words wasn’t authentic, but switch to Polish, and bam, it’s an authentic teaching experience.

When I announced this project, the students were extremely excited. They talked about the project outside of class because numerous teachers said, “Oh, I heard that you’re...” and by the end of the week students arrived to my class and were bouncing with excitement in their seats for class to begin because they had heard from their peers about the project.

They had 45 minutes in class to prepare their 10-minute lesson and to...

1. Select a theme and select ten words to teach.

2. Decide how they would introduce the words to me.

3. Decide how they would help me practice the words.

4. Decide how they would test to determine if I remembered the words.

5. Decide how to assign me a grade for my work/performance.

6. Justify all the steps of their lesson plan with “evidence” from the language theories we discussed Week 1.

Typically if I give students a “work session day,” I walk around the classroom, answer questions, and encourage students who are less motivated, but my students were very secretive when planning their lessons and frequently hurried to hide their work if I walked too close to them. They kept saying, “It’s a surprise!” I finally sat down at my desk and watched my students in a flurry of picture-drawing, flashcard-making, game-designing, and lesson-rehearsing. Two groups did let me photograph them working.

WEEK 4: The fourth week they taught me their lessons. Hands down, it was my favorite week of the unit. Their lessons were magnificently designed, revealing their unique personalities, their creativity, kindness, humor, and excitement to teach. We had a blast and a lot of laughs.

Here are the highlights of their “Teach Miss Sarah Polish” lessons:

1. I loved gaining new insights into how my students learn languages because their lessons reflected their individual learning styles. Interestingly, almost all of my students included visuals in their lessons. It’s sometimes a little difficult for me to include visuals in my lessons because I don’t have a computer/projector in the classroom, nor do I have access to a color printer or a lot of magazines or books with photographs. But after hearing my students say that visuals help them remember new English words, I’m going to (somehow!) try to incorporate a lot of images into my future lessons.

2. Seeing how kind, patient, and encouraging my students were as teachers. I was their vulnerable pupil, and they cared for me. They patiently repeated a difficult word half a dozen times, gave me a second chance at an exercise, or provided suggestions about how I could remember the word. They never mocked me (and trust me, my Polish skills are frequently mock-worthy). They “caught me” and “help me up” when I fell. They encouraged me and praised me. I trusted them with my “sensitive soul,” and they didn’t disappoint me. I also loved watching students who are sometimes shy or quiet in class thrive because they were less self-conscious and felt more confident because they were teaching Polish (again, despite the fact that they were, nevertheless, speaking in English 90% of the time). My butchering of Polish words also provided a lot of comic relief and helped everyone relax.

3. We were very playful. Laughter, excitement, and enthusiasm are infectious, and they filled the room when the students taught. My students never mocked me, but we laughed and laughed and laughed during their language lessons. It’s important for students to feel safe in the classroom because then they risk mistakes. We had a lot of shared laughter during the lessons that showed that mistakes are a natural – and necessary – part of the learning process. Laughing because someone drew a picture on the board that no one could identify (see the photograph of the two boys below – sadly, you can’t see the unidentifiable fish that they had drawn on the board – I also had no right to laugh because my drawing skills are non-existent), because my pronunciation was hilariously bad, or because of other silly mistakes. For example, one group had me play a game of memory where the Polish words and their English equivalents were written on cards and turned upside down. You flip over two words at a time and try to match the Polish with the English. I had a lot of issues. Not because I couldn’t remember the words, but because I forgot (ironically, in a game called “Memory”) that you don’t continually flip over two random cards, you try to REMEMBER where a correct pair is located. Whoops. In one class, an observing student asked one of the current “teachers” for permission to go to the bathroom, and I almost died laughing.

4. The students were incredibly engaged, even when they weren’t teaching but watching their classmates teach me. They were very, very eager to teach me and help me learn the words...frequently (and hilariously) even if they weren’t technically one of the two partners currently presenting/teaching.

5. My students’ lessons were fantastic. They were unbelievably creative in the themes they selected, ranging from vegetables to insects to Russia to pirates to Harry Potter. I’m also proud to report that I earned “As” (or 6s here in Poland) in almost all of my lessons. (I enjoyed “bargaining” with my teachers for partial credit if I only missed one teeny-tiny letter in a twelve letter word, and students were also very forgiving and sometimes “turned a blind eye” if I said the wrong word but realized my mistake and quickly corrected myself.) That’s not to say I didn’t have difficulties. Here are my favorite challenging words:

• “Wrzesień” or “September” If anyone asks, I’ve decided to create a new “Polish birthday” for myself to avoid ever needing to tell someone that I’m born in the month of September. I think I’ll adopt a “Maj” or “May” birthday. Just looking at the word (especially the “wrz”) terrifies me.

• “dżdżownica” or “earthworm” Ironically, it’s quite easy to pronounce (juh-jove-knee-sa), but I’m always baffled by four consonants in a row, especially when two of them are the letter “z”.

• “z przyjemnością” or “with pleasure” For a phrase that expresses a feeling of, well, pleasure, I feel extremely pained when I try to say it. Word of my inability – despite a lot of practice I must admit – to pronounce this phrase has swept the school, and this week almost every class began with one [class elected and brave] student asking, “Miss Sarah, how do you say ‘with pleasure’ in Polish?” I always try, but I’m sad to say that my learning “curve” with this phrase currently resembles a plateau. Some day.

I could write 10-pages detailing all of my students’ lessons, but here are a couple photographs and a couple favorite teaching (or should I say “learning”) moments.

One group (they taught me “computer game words”) gave me an oral test and when I got the right answer to a question, they held up a sign that read “That’s wonderful! You have an amazing talent for learning languages.” It put a smile on my face.

The two photographs below show the lesson materials from students who taught me farm words. They were incredibly thorough in their teaching and included the phonetic spelling of every Polish word to help me with my pronunciation. They also brought dirt (“gleba”) and hay (“siano”) for me to touch when learning the words. We then sang a song they wrote to the tune of “Old McDonald” with their 10 Polish words.

Lots of students drew pictures on the blackboard. Here’s the group that taught me one of my challenge words, “dżdżownica,” or “earthworm.”

One group of three girls taught me 10 meat words (poultry, bacon...). For their lesson, they wrote and performed a puppet show where a butcher visits a farm and (close your eyes if you don’t like blood and I also apologize in advance to all the vegetarians) well, butchers all the animals. For example, he meets (or should I say “meats”) a cow and then kills the cow and then the students showed me the Polish word for “beef.” The students concluded their show with the statement “No animals were killed in our production.”

When you look at the last two photographs, you’ll probably first wonder, “Why is that poor boy chained to a pole” and then, “Why is Sarah allowed to work with children?” Of course, there’s a logical explanation. The boys (including Adam, who’s chained to the pole) taught me 10 pirate words. Next time I meet someone on the street, I’ll tell him or her [in Polish, of course] that my parrot has a wooden leg and an eye patch and that I’m off to bury my treasure on a tropical island. For their lesson, one student was the pirate ship’s prisoner who was (naturally) tied up for the part of the lesson when I first learned the words. Then, they put him on an imaginary “plank” and quizzed me on the words. If I forgot a word, Adam walked one step closer to the edge of the plank and, I was warned, a “watery death.” I am happy to report that thanks to my students’ superior teaching skills and my “superior” Polish skills, no students drown in my class that day.

6. At the end of every class, I said goodbye to them in Polish (“do widzenia!”), and they laughed. This week, I’m grateful that I could show my students that “I am the teacher, but see? I have something to learn too. And you can teach me.” And they replied to my request with an enthusiastic, “Yes!” Thanks for the lessons. A+, kids. A+.

Why Poland?

Here's a reflection I wrote for St. Luke's upcoming April newsletter.

When I tell people I’m a volunteer English teacher at a Lutheran middle school and high school in Poland, they occasionally ask “Why Poland?” Some people quickly add the [logical] follow-up question that would help clarify my decision for them: “Are you Polish?” they ask. “No,” I reply.

I’m not critical of people who say “Why Poland?” when I tell them of my work because I understand that it’s new territory: for me, for the people in my life, for the ELCA.

Last February, I applied for an ELCA teaching position in Slovakia. In May, the ELCA contacted me and asked if I was open to serving in Poland instead. (Yes!) It’s the first year the ELCA has sent teachers to Poland. I quickly switched from researching Slovakia to researching Poland and the concentrated population of Lutherans who live in the south of this Roman Catholic country. “Lutheran missionary in Poland” isn’t a phrase we’ve frequently heard. We know about missionaries in Africa and Americans teaching English in India, but Poland is unknown territory. Why would a central European country need a partnership with the ELCA?

When my school asked me to return for a second year of teaching, I said an enthusiastic “yes” because of my answers to the “Why Poland?” question. Now I’d like to share my answers with you. Why should the ELCA send English teachers to Poland?

Because Lutherans are a minority here. Of the 38 million people in Poland, only 76,000 are Lutheran (0.2% of the population), and the majority of them live in southern Poland where I teach. Lutheran schools – few and far between – allow Lutheran youth in a Roman Catholic country to learn about their faith in school. This opportunity is so unique that students travel up to 70 minutes by bus to attend my school. (All students in public Polish schools are enrolled in required Roman Catholicism courses; Lutheran courses are not offered except at Lutheran schools.) One way that the Lutheran schools in Cieszyn attract students is by having native speakers teach English classes. By partnering with the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland and providing native speaker English teachers, the ELCA supports schools that allow Lutheran youth to learn and grow with people in their faith community.

Because learning English creates opportunities for people here. This fall, when I asked my students why they wanted to learn English, dozens replied that after graduating from university they plan to move to an English-speaking country, find a job, and send money back to Poland to help support their families. A lot of people here struggle financially. They cannot afford to heat their homes, or they can only afford to heat their homes with coal. The country also struggles. The Polish government cannot afford to support its rail system and has all but shut it down. Towns cannot afford to salt their roads or plow their streets in the winter. Schools cannot afford to offer extracurricular activities or after school programming. Poland is working to secure a place in the global economy, and having citizens who know English is one step toward achieving that goal. Because adults living here often need better English-speaking skills before their companies will promote them to mid-level or management positions, I offer free English tutoring and conversation classes in the evenings.

Because Poland is a country with a rich, vibrant culture and history, but also a country battered by a century of war and oppression. It’s the land of Chopin, Copernicus, and Marie Curie, amazing hospitality, beautiful historic cities, gorgeous landscapes, and friendly people proud of their heritage and centuries-old traditions. But it’s also a country recovering from a terrible century. The Soviets and the Nazis did their best to eradicate Poland, destroying its cities, stripping the country of its leadership, and murdering almost 6 million of its citizens during WWII. Poland’s crime? It’s geographical location between Germany and Russia. The people here have always fought back; they’ve always resisted. But resistance (especially to the Nazis) had terrible ramifications. I’ll never forget the sickening piles of baskets at Auschwitz, identical to the baskets women in Cieszyn carry when grocery shopping on Saturday mornings. Americans call communism “evil,” but for the people here it provided a little stability after a horrific war. For Poles, learning English and striving to enter the global economy is also their way of recovering after a century of loss and destruction.

Because we are more alike than we are different. Because Polish teenagers, like American teenagers, need a kind ear. Because my students’ senses of humor, kindness, and intelligence shine through despite the language barrier. Because people here welcomed me, a stranger. Because with the people here I’ve experienced God’s compassion, God’s love.

Because we are called to serve one another, to love one another. Because we are all God’s children and God is everywhere – in Poland too.

So in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Romans 12:5.

Thanks to everyone who supports my work here.

Peace,
Sarah

Rule #1: Always Bribe the Judges

This past Friday, we didn’t have school. Instead, from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., we had school-wide Olympics at our local university’s gym and pool. The 7 gimnazjum (middle school) homerooms competed against each other and the 6 liceum (high school) homerooms competed against each other in swimming races, jumping events, running events, volleyball matches, etc.

Like Studniówka (the Polish senior prom I attended in January), the Olympics celebrated school community. Here are photographs and stories from the Olympics!

Costumes

Every homeroom had picked a theme and dressed up according to their theme (homeroom teachers too!). I was very impressed with their creativity!

This 7^th grade homeroom wore elementary school uniforms (suspenders and all!).

A freshmen class of construction workers (they also created a fantastic construction zone in their section of the gym).

7^th grade vampires. (I'm pretty certain the Twilight-Robert-Pattinson-obsessed girls in their class picked this theme.)

7^th grade mimes.

My personal favorite – this senior class was on a safari/camping trip.

They sang “camp songs” during breaks and hung out by the tent they had pitched in the corner of the gym.

Events

Here’s a photograph of the opening ceremony for the gimnazjum (middle school). Let the games begin!

Middle school basketball events.

High school volleyball matches.

Swimming relay races – my favorite event!

The cheering squads at the pool waiting for the next event.

Food – the key to a successful Olympics

Knowing that the Olympics lasted all day (and knowing how crabby and unpleasant I am when hungry), I packed a lunch on Friday. What I had forgotten was that I was attending a Polish gathering, where serving guests lots of food is a responsibility taken very seriously. I arrived at 8:45 a.m. and by 9:30 a.m. I had received a stack of cookies, chocolates, three drinks, and a sandwich to eat. At 9:30 a.m.! Why all the food?

Well, it’s an “Olympic tradition” for teams to bribe the judges (teachers at our school) with food and drink. I wasn’t a judge, but was showered with bribes anyways.

Here’s a photograph of the judges’ table. It was always well stocked with drink and food bribes from various teams.

One freshmen class had a “tea theme,” and they bribed the judges with wonderful tea. Agnes walked around with the menu (see it printed on the side of the box?), you picked your flavor, and her accomplices served you your tea!

“Vampire blood” (with the blood type of the unfortunate human donor noted on the cup) from the 7^th grade vampires.

Me with a piece of delicious traditional Polish apple cake - a bribe from my class of sophomores who were “village people”.

Needless to say, I didn’t starve at the Olympics or eat my packed lunch. I also went home with a bag of leftover sandwiches (that I tried to politely refuse but my attempts failed miserably) that I could (theoretically) live off of for two weeks. Polish hospitality (including the importance of food at celebrations) is best summed-up with the Polish proverb “Gosc w dom, Bog, w dom” (“A guest in the home is God in the home”).

Twirling, Spinning, Dancing

This weekend I’m uploading two posts about school events. It’s wonderful to work in a school and have the opportunity to attend all of the students’ special events and celebrations!

Prom in January

“Studniówka” in Poland is the equivalent of senior prom in America. However, it occurs in January (not in the spring), 100 days before the seniors’ final exit exams in May (called the Matura exams). Here are my favorite memories from my 1^st Studniówka.

(Sadly, I don’t have a lot of photographs to post because they hired a professional photographer and I can’t post his [beautiful!] photographs on the Internet. I only have a couple personal photographs to upload here, and not a lot of photographs of students unfortunately.)

One disadvantage to a “100 days prior to the Matura” prom? Well, “100 days before May exams” equals a prom in January, when the temperature is below zero. My “traveling to prom” fashion statement included my knee-high ski socks over my panty hose. (Thanks to my friend Kamila for lending me a dress for Studniówka!)

The Polonez Dance

I don’t teach any of the seniors this year, but it’s a tradition to invite the American volunteers (typically only the teachers currently teaching the seniors are invited). The day before Studniówka the seniors invited Colleen and me to learn the traditional polonez dance with them.

(Before reading on, I’d encourage you to watch this YouTube video of the dance. You’ll understand what I say next better if you do! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxqIyWK4cFI&feature=quicklist&playnext=13&playnext_from=QL)

It’s a Studniówka tradition that the polonez is always the opening dance. It’s a beautiful, straightforward, traditional Polish dance, set in 3/4 time, and you accent the 1^st beat by bending your knee. Between the 17^th and 19^th centuries, the dance opened court balls and royal ceremonies. It’s a very dignified dance and couples always dance according to their social status. Appropriately, therefore, according to my “social status” at school (i.e., I’m a 1^st year teacher), I lined up and danced smack dab in the middle, after all the other teachers (lead by the school directors, then the senior class homeroom teachers, then the other teachers in attendance), but before the students, who directly followed me. I love this dance and how majestic the music is. I especially love it when couples join together ("four across") and the “tunnel.”

Gratitude

What’s unique about “Polish prom” is that teachers are invited, and at our school (but not all Polish schools), parents also attend for the 1^st 2-3 hours. What I love about Studniówka is that it celebrates the students and lets them celebrate with and thank the important people in their “school lives” – their parents and teachers. Lots of Polish celebrations include opportunities for people to say thank you to the people who support them, and I love this! At weddings, there’s a special time when the bride and groom say thank you to their parents, and at Studniówka, there’s a special time when the students say thank you to their teachers, especially their homeroom teachers. We should always remember to thank the people in our lives, and I love how Polish celebrations have “built-in” gratitude traditions where people get to say “thanks!”

A Joyful Celebration of School Community

I’ve only substituted for the seniors on a couple of occasions, and I don’t know them well, but I loved watching them at Studniówka. They deeply care about their classmates. At prom, they did skits, showed videos they created about their class, and danced together for 6+ hours (the celebration lasted almost 12 hours total). I have a wonderful memory of the students dancing to one song. “Dancing” isn’t exactly the correct word; I remember one song where they “whirled” and “twirled” on the dance floor, separate (each person whirling and twirling alone) but together, free, themselves, happy. Studniówka is a celebration of school community and watching the students unconsciously and joyously twirl (literally, they were twirling in circles) on the dance floor with their classmates warmed my heart.

Here’s a photograph of all the seniors at my school after their skit at the prom (you’ll notice that sadly, no, they aren’t in their formal prom attire here but their skit costumes. I don’t have a personal photograph of them in their formal wear.) It’s a very tiny class, and I think that contributes to how close they are. It was a very intimate prom.

Here’s a photograph of me and Colleen at Studniówka with our two school directors, Lidia and Ola. They are wonderful directors and very caring supervisors! And here's a photograph Lidia took of me and Colleen.

How to Receive New Blog Posts by Email

Happy news! Want to have an email sent to your email account whenever I upload a new post to my blog? Here’s how!

• Go to http://www.stlukespr.org/missionaries.html.
• Scroll down to “Check out Sarah’s blog” and under “Out of Great Joy” click on “Subscribe to this Feed.”
• In the little “Subscribe Now!” box, click on “Get Out of Great Joy delivered by email.”
• Then type in your e-mail address and the text (to prevent spam). Then click “Complete Subscription Request.”
• You’ll get an e-mail from “FeedBurner Email Subscriptions” named “Activate your Email Subscription” at the email address you typed in.
• Go to your email account, open the email, and click on the link in the e-mail.
• You’ll receive a message that your subscription is confirmed.
• Now you’ll receive an email whenever I upload a new post or photographs!

It’s wonderful! (I subscribed myself to test the system and it worked perfectly.) :)

If you have questions or difficulties, please send me an email at sarahpolandsarah@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks, St. Luke's!

A joyful and grateful shout-out to everyone who organized and participated in the St. Luke’s Adult Forum Skype Chat on Sunday. Your support is instrumental to my work here, and talking to and hearing from my home congregation family was wonderful! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Accompaniment is Relationships

Today I’d like to tell you about 6 people. I have lots of wonderful people in my life here, and what I love is that every week I have my “kid time,” my “young people time,” and time with “older and wiser grown-ups.”

(All photographs published here with permission.)

Dominika: Tuesday and Thursday evenings, I walk across the border to the Czech Republic and meet with Dominika, a spirited and intelligent 10 year old. Next year she’ll attend 5th grade in America, and for one hour twice a week we read, write, spell, and review math vocabulary together (she’s a math whiz, but only knows the names of concepts in Czech, not English). Our lessons are very playful. We’ll dance to a Hannah Montana song to celebrate four A+ math worksheets, and we have a “put-on-all-your-winter-gear-quickly” race at the conclusion of our lessons. Sometimes she wears barrettes with strands of hot pink, blue, and purple hair. Last month, she received a magnetic necklace as a gift and after one lesson we spent 10 minutes descending three flights of stairs, testing for “magnetism” every step of the way. Here she’s showing her “karate strength” by lifting her 55-pound American math textbook above her head. If she’s having a bad day, I get her to laugh by doing a terrible impression of her kitten Roxy getting squashed by her math book (it’s awful, I know, but she loves it).

Bozena and Rafal: I met them on the Internet. Well, no, but the Internet is involved. When we arrived in August and discovered we didn’t have Internet in our apartments, Colleen and I called one of Cieszyn’s Internet companies and they sent Rafal to help. Rafal is a year younger than me, and he’s engaged to Bozena who’s studying English education at university. One day when Rafal needed to fix our satellite, Bozena accompanied him, and now they’re great friends. Their kindness is unparalleled. I remember going with them to the grocery store in September (when I felt quite overwhelmed), and they enthusiastically showed me the best brands, the best deals, and their favorite foods. They chastise me if I have a problem but don’t ask for their help. When I visit them, they feed me tons of food. I’m friends with their small furry pets (a hamster and rabbit). We go to McDonald’s and eat McFlurries, and we went mushroom picking in the fall. Rafal is hilariously funny, and when Bozena calls and says, “What are you doing,” I know the hidden question is “Can I kidnap you for 10 hours? We’ll have a fun adventure!” I love having them over for “dinner parties” and surprising them with American or international dishes they’ve never tasted before – tacos, risotto, chocolate chip cookies. We listen to music and watch YouTube videos. They keep me young. :)

Kasia: She’s a local doctor and my language teacher, personal trainer, fellow tea lover, and the person who always greets me with a hug. We meet for 2-3 hours every Tuesday at one of our two favorite cafes in Cieszyn. We spend an hour or two talking in English and then an hour with my “Perfect Polish in 4 Weeks” (ha, ha) textbook. She’d probably meet with me for 6 hours if I didn’t have to teach in the evenings. She gives me a healthy dose of advanced English conversation every week. She introduced me to my favorite Polish cheesecake and told me where to buy jeans. We exchange granola recipes. I now work out at her gym and she personally showed me all the machines when I first joined. I know I could call her and rely on her in a crisis. Her generosity with her time is an amazing gift. Her wisdom about the world, curiosity, compassion, sense of humor, patience, and desire to seek out friendships with all types of people inspire me.

Ada and Danuta: They are members of my church (or perhaps I should say that I am a member of their church), and I teach their grandsons at school. I teach them for one hour on Mondays, and when I ask them about their weekends, they always say that they “learned a lot of English” (in Polish the verb “to learn” is identical to the verb “to study”). They are perfect students, always doing their homework and always arriving early to our lessons. They explain the mysteries of church services to me. (For example, I learned from them that all the “baptisms” I thought I’d witnessed this year were not baptisms but one-year-old child blessing ceremonies.) I baked them brownies for their birthdays and they brought me their special brew of coffee. We share photographs of our families and travels. Their desire to learn a new language is wonderful. A lot of our lesson involves everyone speaking slowly and clearly in either Polish or English, with lots of hand gestures, smiling, Polish-English dictionary consulting, and drawing. Our lessons are proof that when people have a desire to communicate, they find a way. They’re pictured here (Ada next to me on my right and Danuta next to me on my left) in a photograph from the Christmas party I hosted for my Cieszyn adult English students in December.