English lessons in Nadleśnictwo

Volunteers in Pułtusk have more and more things to do! To prove this, today I am telling you about English lessons in Nadleśnictwo for its workers. Cooperation with this forest inspection office is not new, we have already had a mikroworkcamp in autumn where we planted about 1,200 trees.

This time, our cooperation does not require much physical work, we are rather concentrating on mental processes. After a technical meeting and some discussion, we set up two groups; a beginner and an intermediate one. Later on, the intermediate was divided into two smaller groups to give more time to everybody to speak during lessons. 

Sometimes, individual explanation is needed
 but we always have fun

The beginner group started with the alphabet and practicing pronouciation of different letter combinations. By now, they are also familiar with basic greetings and with the conjugation of the verb ‘to be’. Most of them did not have any English studies or just very basic so our common language is rather Polish. The level of communication then depends on how much I understand. Luckily,  the daughter of Nadleśnictwo’s boss is coming every week to assist me at these lessons with translation to make my work easier.

Lessons with the intermediate group are mostly about practicing and improving their existing knowledge. They are usually given a text to read and then they have to answer questions and we also have a discussion about it. We also started to revise the tenses and their homework is usually to write a short essay about a given topic.

I really enjoy teaching there, as the people are extremely nice and they seem to be truly interested about learning English. Also, the building of Nadleśnictwo is really beautiful, surrounded by nature, so the 10-minute-bus ride plus 10-15 minutes of walk is absolutely worth it.

That’s all folks,

Zsófi

English lessons in Świetlica

EVS in Pułtusk is becoming more and more lively every month! As a proof, last week we started going to Świetlica to have English lessons for the kids. Let’s see how it went so far. : )

The first lesson started out being a bit chaotic, we weren’t so prepared and kids preferred to play but soon they realized that it’s better to listen and learn as it might be useful for them. We taught them the alphabet and some basic greetings which was followed by games to make them remember.

Yesterday, we started our second lesson with a little revision. The children didn’t really feel like answering our questions about last week’s lesson so we switched to the new lesson’s material. I’m sure they remembered everything though. They just thought that it’s too easy for them and were more interested in learning new things. Right?

This time, things went so much better! Last Thursday we had a meeting with Maria, an English teacher who gave us tips on how to teach English to children. She even offered to visit us at one of our lesson to help us even more. Is she awesome,  or what? But now let’s go back to yesterday’s lesson. After introducing them to the numbers we sang a number song together with some movements. Thank you YouTube for always providing us what we need! Then, we stood in a circle and practiced counting with different games. We finished with bingo and another game that they already knew from the workcamps. 

The idea is simple: the first person to choose the said number from the little cards gets a point. After a few rounds, they really got the feeling of it. Unfortunately, our ‘1’ card got injured while there were many kids reaching for it. We are working on its recovery but it doesn’t look good. Let’s hope for the best! 

November is mostly the month of visiting schools, so now we are preparing for new presentations. On Thursday, we are going to Dzierżenin where after a presentation for the school, we will have two lessons with different classes. We will keep you updated with how it went there. And ‘til then, keep visiting our Facebook page and don’t hesitate to write us if you have a question!

Do zobaczenia,

Zsófi