Q1. Is it possible to learn 5 times faster / 10 times faster using special English methods?

Be serious. At Sympozjum we have studied, used and invented many teaching methods; we have tested all the leading methods thoroughly. Each method has its good points and weak points. Each method works for some and not for others. We would even say that if a school says it has only X method, then probably the school is not professional – it’s just not enough to know only one method for teaching. Students are just too varied. At Sympozjum, we have adopted what we call a Renaissance approach – an approach that respects all the faculties of the human mind, and therefore all the teaching methods. “You are not a method – you are free man!” But generally, the biggest difference between schools – between an average school and the best - is maybe a question of ‘2 times faster’. A more important difference between schools is the quality of English students speak at the end. It’s easy to make sure your students pass FCE, for example at grade ‘C’. Just don’t let them enter for the exam under the school’s name until they are ready. But how many of the students pass with grade A or B?

For these grades you need a good accent, naturalness, richness of vocabulary, etc. In these areas you can really see a big difference between schools.

Q2. Many schools offer specialist courses. How specialist are they?

From what we can see from the web-pages of other schools and from teachers, most schools do not really offer very specialist courses. The courses seem to be just a mish-mash of standard courses, with a little specialist reading thrown in. For example, a ‘specialist course in legal English’ for most schools is often just a normal English course, plus some reading/discussion of a legal textbook. Something your average English teacher can teach without much preparation.

At Sympozjum, specialist courses are completely original courses, written by us, not available anywhere else. Teachers go through difficult training to be able to teach them. Our accountancy, legal, tax and business courses have been prepared with the help of top-experts from top international companies. You learn detailed practical knowledge how to write contracts in English according to English Law, or how to translate a Polish contract into English for foreign clients, how to write a balance sheet or profit and loss account, explain Polish tax principles to a foreign client in German etc. Real-life situations. We have produced completely original textbooks to do this. The other specialist textbooks we have seen on the market are very, very boring - very low-quality in comparison with regular English textbooks.

Sympozjum specialist course materials are at an even higher level than the best regular English textbooks. We do not know of any similar courses.

Q3. There are a range of prices for classes in Poland. Is it worth paying more?

First of all, there is not such a range of prices in language teaching as you might think. If you see a school offering very low prices, it’s almost certain that they have larger groups. The price for the whole group does not vary much from school to school – more or less from 70 PLN to 150 PLN for the whole group. You pay more for being in a smaller group (at Sympozjum we have only smaller groups and individual classes), but the price for individual classes is similar – the schools are receiving a similar amount of money.

There are a few schools which are really expensive, even for large groups. These schools use the longer tradition of their school/status as examination centre to charge high individual prices for students, and at the same time have large groups. We have heard negative opinions about these kind of schools – their classes are professional but nothing special; the higher price is not justified by quality of classes or speed of learning both of which are reduced by the class-numbers.

Q4. Does class size matter?

Yes, definitely. Generally the best price : quality ratio will be in a group of 2-6

persons. In groups up to 6 persons, you will definitely have faster learning, more attention from the teacher than groups of 10+. There tends to be more conversation groups and less with the teacher, for example, so there is less direct contact with a fluent speaker. Progress in accent and speech fluency usually suffers the most. High quality schools like Sympozjum avoid larger groups. It is true that a fantastic teacher, using classroom management skills and extra preparation, would be able to teach 12 people, and make the progress as fast as for a 5- person group. However, top teachers tend to gravitate towards high-quality schools with smaller groups where progress tends to be faster. Top-teachers can choose. So they tend to choose groups of 2-6 persons. But there are two BUTS:

‘BUT No. 1’: If you simply cannot afford to pay for a course with 6 or less people, then of course it’s fine to choose from schools with bigger groups. We wouldn’t like to criticise such schools – they are making classes financially accessible for a bigger range of people. In a group of 15 students, you might a price for 45 minutes less than 10 PLN, which is something many people could afford.

‘BUT No. 2’: If you know from experience that you learn much better in individual classes, then you should go for that. Or perhaps your schedule is so unpredictable, that you need to change class times often. Then a group course might also be inappropriate. Or perhaps your needs are very specific – you need to prepare for something very individual, which there would not be a group for. Then individual classes are the answer. At Sympozjum, we prepare completely new individual courses if necessary.

Q5. Can learning really be fun?

Yes indeed! A good teacher can make your lessons really entertaining. We think there are many good teachers who can make their classes enjoyable. At Sympozjum, many students say their classes are the most fun activity they do! But to tell the truth it is not too hard to make classes fun, what is harder is to make classes fun and very productive, focussed on the topic. This leads us to the next question:

Q6. Can fun classes be effective teaching?

This is a greater skill. There are quite a few competent teachers. There are quite a few entertaining teachers. But there aren’t so many classes which are entertaining at the same time being precisely focused on specific skills. In business terminology: is it possible to have hard skills (testable, measurable) and soft skills (personal skills, friendly, enjoyable) training at the same time?

How can we make classes entertaining, fun, like a party, but at the same time be very focused on the educational goals at hand? A fun atmosphere gives students energy, but this energy might not be focused. A boring grammar exercise is focused, but so what if you don’t have he energy to do it? If you can achieve both energy and focus, then you will have maximum progress - both maximum short-term motivation (fun classes) and long-term motivation (progress in language skills, qualifications). At Sympozjum we have created a whole series of original educational games. These games and other materials are extremely innovative and entertaining, at the same time being focused precisely on specific language learning skills. We have not heard about any other schools with comparable materials.

Q7. Is it better to learn with Polish teachers?

It’s not better or worse. Many Polish teachers do not have perfect accents. Unfortunately, because of low pay in state sector and consequent negative selection, many Polish teachers in state schools have even very poor accents. In state schools there are also (some rather irrelevant) additional state papers to obtain which discourage foreigners and reduces competition and standards. Especially for children this is a disaster. They learn bad accents, bad habits which are hard to ‘unlearn’. Polish teachers are usually professional about their job – they have had to work hard to become a teacher, it’s an economic and educational achievement, not just easy holiday money. Many English departments like ‘Anglistyka’ – English Philology - in Warsaw University are very competitive schools. At Sympozjum we employ only Polish teachers with perfect native speaker accents and native speaker level vocabulary. We don’t even interview candidate teachers who have less than perfect accents.

Q8. What is a native speaker?

The ‘native speaker’ is a bit of a popular myth in Poland. It was a natural product o the post-89 desire in a liberated Poland to meet foreign cultures as directly as possible. This combined with the low standard of accents and speech fluency of teachers in state institutions. However, in Poland today, most so-called ‘native speakers’ teachers, are in fact people who are half Polish, or who traveled in their childhood. Their parents left Poland when they were children in the 80’s, then they came back in the 90’s. Something like that. Also a very natural biography.

Besides that, we have met many teachers who say they are ‘native speakers’ when they come for interview because they spent 2 years of their childhood in e.g. Britain, but actually their English is far from perfect. We have also met teachers who say they are Polish - they spent only a short period abroad – but their foreign language is absolutely perfect. Sometimes, even their mannerisms are like British or Americans when speaking English! So you have to be careful, treat every candidate teacher on their merits - sometimes people are ready to say anything to get a job...

With translation the situation is a bit different. It is very rare to find an English person, say, who could check the last version of a translation into Polish - unless they are completely bilingual. You know, someone like Nabokov, who wrote English better than most English – and with a bigger vocabulary. Even here you need to check to be fair as an employer, but usually you need a native speaker to do the last proofreading of a translation.

Q9. Is it better to learn with ‘native speakers’?

It’s not better or worse. There are plenty of native speakers teaching in Poland with little qualification for teaching, it’s a kind of ‘summer job’, easy travel money, it’s not their profession. Or maybe they didn’t have a job back home, or they had a low-income job, and they heard you don’t need any qualifications to be a ‘native speaker’ in Poland. They may not know grammar principles at all. Their accent will be perfect, but might be a specific accent, which could confuse the student. (Sometimes foreign students – even those who have a good ear for accent – learn English or French with a funny mishmash of accents!) Such a nativespeaker’s vocabulary could be worse than that of a Polish teacher. We have interviewed several native-speakers who were not competent to teach a Cambridge Proficiency or TOEFL course for example – those exams require quite high general intelligence, not just fluent speech. (Both exams contain university level texts, formal writing, so a native-speaker without sufficient education might not be able to teach them.) Often students who have had classes with native speakers, especially ‘conversation classes’, is a good accent, but messy, ungrammatical speech, because the classes were not systematic enough – just chatting. And long-term progress is slower. Our experience in interviews is that it’s very hard to find good native speaker teachers in Poland – those who are committed to teaching as a vocation. Of course, a native- speaker is an interesting cultural experience – he or she is a person who has had a totally different social and cultural life. But even on this point you cannot be sure that being a native-speaker is better. One of the most interesting and observant commentators on America we have met at Sympozjum is a Polish man, who spent three months in America on an academic scholarship. You could learn more about America from him than from most Americans! Why was he such an expert on America? Partly because he was very intelligent; partly because he was a foreigner in the US, so he observed America more objectively and partly because he was a person who was personally interested in the question ‘How does life in Poland compare with other countries?’

At Sympozjum all teachers, Polish and native-speakers, are trained how to explain grammar vocabulary, pronunciation. They are selected on their merits – excellence for their job - according to the principle of equal-opportunities. All teachers must be experts on the cultures of English, French etc. That means they should know about different accents, history, politics – in their classes they can recreate the culture and atmosphere of England, America, France etc. All teachers continue to learn about new accents, new vocabulary, new dialects of thier foreign language – a never-ending journey!

Q10. Is it employment discrimination to employ only native speakers (or only Polish speakers)? (Some schools do this.)

It would seem so – criteria of employment should be skills to perform the job; as a language school, we cannot say that every native speaker will be better than every Polish teacher. You can’t even say for sure that a native speaker’s pronunciation or vocabulary will be better, so employing only native speakers or only Polish teachers would seem to be in opposition to equal opportunity principles.

Q11. There are a wide range of prices for translations on the market. Do these prices reflect quality? Is it worth paying more for a translation?

Generally – Yes and Yes. Prices for one standard page range from about 25 to 100 PLN. (Sometimes prices are offered per word – they are usually much higher prices, so be careful!) 25 zl is usually an inexperienced student-translator, 75 should be a high quality company with the extra guarantee of cross-checking by other translators. Cheap translations – 25-40 PLN are usually low-quality, absolutely full of mistakes and/or badly written. At Sympozjum we offer high-quality translation at an average to high price, 50 PLN per page at regular speed. This is the lowest price which we can offer, whilst keeping the best translators and having a triple- check system. This kind of system can only be offered by high quality team-work in a top translation company. Teamwork also makes fast, high-quality translation possible.

A second aspect of our service – specialisation. It takes a lot of experience to be qualified to translate in specific areas. Individual, lower-price translators may try to translate in areas they are not competent in – professional translation companies have invested too much to build up their reputation and cannot afford such irresponsible practices. At Sympozjum we specialise in business translations, especially company documents, marketing materials, financial reports, contracts. Our second area of specialisation is academic texts in the humanities

Q12. Another translation question. I need a sworn translation into English. But I cannot find an English sworn translator. Why is that?

The present situation is the result of many years of regulations in Poland, regulations which were contrary to equality of opportunity and free enterprise. Since the new Act on the Profession of Sworn Translator (2004) the situation has changed, but it will take many years for the market to improve. Under the past regulations, it was much harder/impossible for e.g. a German to become a sworn translator of Polish/German translations, although in general it is much harder for a Polish translator to be able to write perfect legal German than a German translator. As with teachers, candidates should be judged on their individual merits. The previous regulations were a form of protectionism and non-compliance with equal opportunity principles. Actually the word ‘protectionism’ is ironic – the market was not protected but damaged. Double-damaged in fact: 1. foreigners/graduates of non-listed universities were excluded, although they would have provided better services in many cases; 2. As with Notary Public services in Poland, the fees were fixed - statutory fees - so higher quality translators received received little financial benefit for their skills or efforts – weak or irresponsible translators could survive on the ‘protected’ market.

How do we solve this problem in Sympozjum Translation Services? Translations into English are prepared like every top-quality translation, double-checked both for agreement with the original and proofread by a native/bilingual English speaker. Only then the sworn translator ‘verifies’ the translation.

Q13. I’m 60, aren’t I too old for learning languages?

No! Definitely it’s part of every young child’s life to learn a language, there’s scientific evidence that our language learning abilities start to decline at about age 12. Experienced teachers notice this especially with accent – children until about 12 can usually easily learn a perfect accent, they can absorb new phonemes – linguistic sounds which don’t exist in the native language. But language learning is an amazingly wide ranging skill – it requires logic, rules (grammar), passive skills like reading and listening, creative skills like writing and speaking, social abilities, skills connected with sound, with sight – a huge range of the human mind. Many of these skills improve with age. Young children learn pronunciation easily, but they find grammar very, very hard. Older people are just the opposite. We have also noticed that people who like music very much seem not to lose their childhood ability to learn new sounds to the same extent. They have ‘young ears.’

Q14. My kids are 5, is it worth giving them classes?

Generally - not really. There has been this huge hyping of children’s English recently in Poland. Unfortunately, parents are easily manipulated by this kind of advertising – after all, they don’t want their children to miss opportunities, especially now we’re in the EU. But, unless the course is very professional and quite intensive (minimum 2 meetings week), the children probably won’t reach a very high level. If the children are very intelligent, and the group is small there is more chance of success. If you don’t have a lot of money for courses for your kids, don’t feel guilty. It’s much better to wait a little, till the kids are about 10 – at this age they can still learn sounds very easily, and their logical, grammar intelligence is much higher. At this age they will learn faster, not just vocabulary and pronunciation, but structures, grammar as well. Tt this age it would be worth investing in more intensive courses, 3 times a week, or two months in a good school in England. Sympozjum Study and Travel has organised such courses for 10+ year olds and the results are very good. The total cost is also less than 4 years of disorganised courses in large groups with slow progress.