Ordered by Fundacja Innowacja (Innovation Foundation) and in cooperation with EDUSAT television, the language academy SCHOLA POLONICA took part in an international program concerning preparation of a language e-learning platform - ELBEP. http://elbep.anadolu.edu.tr (134295-LLP-1-2007-1-TR-GRUNDTVIG-GM).
SCHOLA POLONICA was invited due to its long-time experience in teaching Polish as a foreign language. On the e-learning platform the representatives of several European countries were to learn five languages, such as Turkish, Spanish, Greek, Russian, and Polish. The project began in 2007 and was completed in 2009.
Preparation of the A1 level Polish learning program, that would comply with the EU criteria, took more than one year. Finding the best possible solutions, allowing the participants for unaided learning, appeared to be the most fundamental issue.
The project gave us a great experience of work in an international team. By testing specific elements of our courses amongst ourselves, we could appreciate the tremendous role of intercultural communication in foreign language teaching. Over a period of four years, our course was participated by 600 students, even from such distant countries as Afghanistan.
Another EU program in which SCHOLA POLONICA participated was: Polish Language for Refugees. The program lasted about one year and consisted in teaching Polish language in refugee. The participants aged from their teens through to 70’s and came mainly from Chechnya, Dagestan, and Georgia.
Our task was not just to teach these people Polish, make them get closer to the Polish culture, but also teach them the learning process. Through a different language we helped them get to know and understand new customs and a different reality. Our key success was that the majority of these people passed their final tests positively, which gave them an opportunity to start a new independent life outside the refugee center.
With the achieved experience, SCHOLA POLONICA attempted to pass forward in another training program for teachers - How To Teach Refugee Children, within the project The First Step In Poland. This program was dedicated mainly to teachers in primary schools that enrolled refugee children - teenagers that came from outside of Poland and those already born in the country. The program was implemented in regions with the greatest numbers of refugees.
The next program in which we continued training courses for teachers, entitled School - the beginning of integration, was to prepare Warsaw and the Mazowsze province schoolteachers for work with refugees and immigrants.
Since in Poland there is a continually growing number of immigrants who come to work in our country, and whose children attend Polish schools, SCHOLA POLONICA participated in a program Language Learning - The Ground for Integration.
In this Project we continued training courses for teachers in primary schools attended by refugee children, and courses of Polish for immigrants. In order to help teachers in educating immigrant children, the Head of SCHOLA POLONICA - Mrs. Anna Pomykałło - prepared a Polish language school book, titled - ABC In Polish. The book consisted of a text book and an exercise book.
We are currently working on another program named Let’s Talk In Polish, addressed to both primary school teachers and immigrants. The project comprises training courses for both teachers and immigrants. The program will not only consist of methodological courses for teachers, but also courses of teaching Polish as a foreign language at levels A1, A2, and B1.