When I came to work at Adam Mickiewicz School students were learning English from the same books I remembered from my school times. Full of fresh ideas I introduced The Blueprint series and soon many other teachers were using it too.
My other idea was to take the students (at the smallest cost possible) on a trip to the UK and it was a big challenge those days, back in 1994. I wanted them to experience the language at first hand... My vision was to make it possible for every student, but that proved impossible, unfortunately...
Anyway, that December, after lots of preparations, we went in an old coach, travelled overnight, crossed the Channel by ferry, were greeted by The White Cliffs of Dover and travelled along the coast all the way to a public boarding school near Lyme Regis, then via Stonhenge and Windsor to London, to stay with host families and went back home to return in time for Christmas. Mind you, we were served the traditional Christmas dinner and pulled the crackers at the college, but there were no English students to share the fun with as they had already gone home for Christmas... What a surprise it was to find out that most of the host families in London didn't serve full English breakfast... Anyway, enough of that or I can write and write...
Can you believe? We set off on the anniversary of the day martial law had been declared in Poland by General Jaruzelski! Then, a few years later Poland joined the EU and since then everyone can travel freely!
One day back in Poland I shall 'excavate' some students' memories of that trip and share them somewhere if they let me... They were great fun to read, but some things we had to go through were not funny at the time. For instance, the coach broke down and we needed to find the right garage to get it fixed which meant spending almost four hours in a sleepy hollow... Memories...
My old workplace of many years is celebrating the 100th anniversary today, on the 17 of October 2015.... It brings about nostalgia...
Warmest greetings to all there!:-)
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