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Short Article 05

The Development of Language Skills  in a Little Polish Primary School in Olsztyn, Poland

Dorota Klus-Stańska

Dorota Klus-Stańska is professor the Warmia and Mazury University in Olsztyn, Poland. Her main research  areas  are: constructivist didactics and barriers to teachers’ professional creativity. Her book  „Konstruowanie wiedzy w szkole” ( On Constructing Knowledge at School) won the award of the Polish Ministry of Education, MEN and of the Polish Academy of  Science. She is the author and editor of almost well over 10 books. In her own opinion her greatest achievement was the setting up and managing of an experimental primary school called Autorska Szkoła Podstawowa „Żak”  in Olsztyn, Poland (1994 – 2002). E-mail: klus_stanska@op.pl

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A glance at Polish schools
A glance at the region
General Overview 
English classes at Żak
Our graduates

A glance at Polish schools
In Poland state schools  play a dominant role  in the educational system. Their teachers  can be  divided roughly into two groups. One -  these who accept well-established in our country traditional teaching methods, based on a teacher’s managerial role, dominance of oral transmission of knowledge and traditional  discipline at lessons. The others  believe in pupils’ independence and their ability  to solve  artistic and intellectual problems. They experiment as if “across” or even opposite  the prevailing system. Sometimes these teachers are accepted, even admired, sometimes treated as freaks, and sometimes fought against. Parents’ expectations also differ a lot and they range from a traditional image of quiet lessons with memorising words and formula, to a picture of a pupil-thinker and artist, maybe a bit too talkative and expansive, but always resourceful, independent and cooperative.

Traditional school is an inherent part of general traditional  Polish culture, and a model of a creative pupil – that is still some departure from “Polishness” – triggers only grassroots,  private (e.g. parents’) educational initiative, and it generally doesn’t change the educational system. As a result we get quite a paradoxical situation. Numerous private and so called “community” schools established by grassroots associations and parents belong rather to the less traditional trend than state schools. And it is private schools where you find spirit of progressivism. Their teachers – often without realising it – accomplish the constructive model of teaching and try to depart from the behaviouristic climate of state schools. In state schools even the youngest pupils are dead scared not to make a mistake. They learn definitions by heart, read the same passages many times and answer the teacher’s questions exactly as expected. They act as if they played the game “guess what your teacher means”. In  private schools the staff is held together by common pedagogical ideas, which creates conditions for good teacher – pupil - parent relations, strengthens children’s feeling of security and their trust in self-competence.

A glance at the region
Primary School “Żak”, which is the subject of this text, was established in the mid-90s  in Olsztyn. Olsztyn is a tourist town in the north-eastern part of Poland, situated in Warmia and Mazury – the district of Poland called the Land of Thousand Lakes. An impressive redbrick cathedral and a castle, which used to be lived in by Copernicus, overlook the town. Olsztyn’s character  has been influenced by the big, multi-faculty Warmia and Mazury University with the most beautiful campus in Poland. 

Olsztyn has convenient infrastructure and a lot of recreation grounds; there are a few lakes in the town and a huge forest with many tracks. The town has also become the area of educational quests and innovations. A lot of original curricula have been created and new schools meeting public expectations have been opened. In Olsztyn there are several non–state educational establishments: kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, and colleges. They could appear thanks to the political transformation in our country. Some of the schools are almost 20 years old and have good prospects, others were just short experiments but brought a lot of educational experience. The Primary School “Żak” belonged to the latter.

General Overview 
“Żak” was an experimental primary school (for 7 – 12- year- olds) run by an association of university teachers and other people interested in supporting creative education. It was named Authorial Primary School “Żak”. It means that it was based on an personal idea of sort of “copy right” curriculum. The School functioned for 8 years and  provided both teachers and pupils with exceptional  - as for Polish conditions- educational experience. The experience I  want to focus on refers to different aspects of  the development of language competence. 

The pupils of “Żak” were taught with active methods (projects, laboratories, workshops). It  was supposed that using these methods pupils would be able to analyse relatively advanced scientific problems and learn – without ‘directives’ and as if ‘by the way’- advanced scientific vocabulary. Seven-year-olds, for example, created their models of ordering domains in magnetized materials. At the same time, eight-year-olds examined the properties of sound waves, and nine-year-olds wrote the alternative version of the code of Hammurabi. Their successes taught us, teachers, that new vocabulary, especially the scientific one, generally treated as too difficult for children, constitutes a barrier not because it is alien, rarely used or has a complex designatum. We realised that this vocabulary is a barrier because of the context in which it is introduced to children’s lexicon. In “Żak” we gave up the formalisation of defining, writing down the words to be memorised and testing the definitions. Instead, we offered the scientific language in the context of scientific activity, narration, instruction to an experiment or a vivid para-scientific story. For our personal use we called this method “discreet introduction of concepts”. It resulted in reading the meanings from the context and natural including them in pupils’ lexicon. Terms like: mitochondrium, dispersion of light, electron or meniscus were acquired and actively used by pupils as easily as little children learn words like swimming, television or toothbrush.                                                             

Everyday group work also helped the development of the language. Peer communication is obviously different from teacher – pupil communication which is always of expert – layman sort. Peer communication is also, although taking place in the classroom, less official  because occurring not in front of the class but in the cosy atmosphere of a little table. All these aspects make the peer communication more colloquial and free of formal restrictions. It makes it easier for pupils to become familiar with the reality and to acquire  terms and phrasing  from work sheet or source materials. Essentially enough, this kind of work at lesson makes the class more egalitarian, and encourages the shy, reserved or less clever pupils to take the floor.  These are obvious things for a reader from Western Europe, but in Polish schools  work in small groups is very rare and lots of teachers never practise it. That is why students cannot recognise its educational significance and do not quite understand what its purpose is ( apart from getting out of the teacher’s sight for a moment). In this respect “Żak” was for its teachers an important experience. The myth of the value of “silence discipline”, so popular in the Polish school, lost in the competition with what the teachers observed. Group work developed their pupils’ intellectual and language competition much more than traditionally guided lessons.

Effective communication and using the language in different conditions and for different purposes was strengthened in “Żak” also by systematic making pupils deal with their matters  themselves. They contacted the headmaster or the secretary directly, and not through the teachers or parents. They wrote applications and telephoned the institutions whose help they needed. In this way they learned responsibility and being a citizen. They also learned to speak,  demand, argue and use bureaucratic terminology accurately.  In short, they managed.

English classes at Żak
The foreign language  at ”Żak”  was English which was taught with the use of the most up-to-date textbooks, recordings and materials. The teacher was trying to introduce the same principles which we accepted as important for the whole school, but of course she was limited in some way by the pupils’ low language competence. Some of her more interesting techniques were sketches and mini-plays. Our pupils were accustomed to this form of work because each of them belonged to the school theatre and twice a year took part in a bigger performance. But this time they had to memorise the text in English. Although the performances were short, they provided a chance of gaining new experience.

We also decided to accustom our pupils to future efforts to get certificates. We did this through exams, which were unknown in Polish schools with pupils of that age. Those exams, although in formal setting (formal clothes, the examination board), were carried out in a relaxed atmosphere and the familiar surroundings so the children felt confident. The assessment of pupils’ individual language competence was rather a secondary aim, if any. It was diagnosed at lessons. Experiencing the exam, including all the requirements and motivation,  was what mattered to us.

One of such exams was the English exam. It consisted of two parts: grammar and vocabulary test and speaking. Pupils were given a few topics to prepare for the speaking exam, for example: My city, My room, My family, My hobby or My pet and others. With time the exchange of information among pupils worked, but before the first exam of this type there were a lot of questions. A funny story is connected with one of them. The pupils asked how long the speech should be. We answered there were not any stiff regulations but it should not be shorter than 15 sentences. Some pupils prepared really impressive speeches. The greatest surprise was what Filip told us. He stood up straight and excited in front of the board. He was speaking with commitment, obviously relieved that he remembered what he had prepared. The examination board were listening with growing surprise: “My name is Filip. My hair is black and my eyes are black. My mother’s name is Dorota. Her hair is black and her eyes are black. My father’s name is Krzysztof. His hair is brown and his eyes are brown.. My brother’s name is Konrad. His hair is brown and his eyes are brown. My grandmother’s name is...”.
When we already got to know what colour Filip’s grandparents‘ and other relatives’ hair and eyes were,  it was difficult for us to keep a straight face. Well, each teacher’s experience turns out to be fruitful in the future. The next years we  informed our pupils that not only the length of the speech was important but also how rich and varied it was.

Our graduates
The pupils of “Żak“ continued their education in different schools. They usually managed well or very well. We were always interested in how they were doing and we talked about it to their new teachers. Most of them were satisfied with the former pupils of “Żak”  but they always repeated one characteristic: “They talk a lot and easily”.