Feeling at home with English - interview with Monika Rozmiarek
I'm here with Monika Rozmiarek today. Monika, where are you?
Hi, so I'm calling from the UK, from England to be exact.
I see. And you're not originally from the UK?
No, hence probably you've got some troubles pronouncing my surname I'm originally from Poland. I'm Polish but I moved, I moved to the UK five years ago, about five years ago.
And you're an English teacher?
That's right. I am an English language teacher. I was teaching in Poland back when I was still there and I started doing the same when I arrived in the UK. Now, I can say that I finally teach full -time and I teach adults only. I work, I help expats improve their English so they can feel at home in the UK.
That's so important.
Are you in the UK?
No, I'm in Japan.
Right. But originally?
Yeah. I'm from the UK. Yeah, the West country. Where are you in the UK now?
Oxfordshire, Bicester to be exact. I don't know if you know where that is.
Yeah, vaguely near Oxford.
Yeah, in the South. Yeah.
Okay, so you're helping expats with their English. So important. Just Polish or any anyone?
So I have my private students that I teach online and these are so far they've been Polish people only just because I know this environment, I know how to reach people and but I work college as well. I teach ESOL in college and there's a mixture of nationalities. So, it's teaching English using English only. It's interesting, exciting to some extent.
So, do you find that people have studied English in school and then they come to UK and they're a bit shocked or a bit surprised how different school English is to real life English?
Right, to be honest I was shocked and surprised myself when I came here even if I studied that language at the university. So I was already at a very advanced level but still understanding native speakers was really hard, not only about the accent but also the words they used. You know, there's a specific British slang that they use that it's not so familiar to people who come to the UK because this type of language is not being taught at schools. So, yeah, I've had many people with the same problems as me when I came here.
Yes, so you understand the sort of surprise and what, yeah, what are people talking about? This is not like the books.
Yes, yes, I understand the frustration as well, because even if your English is really good and you can speak, you communicate, and then you come here and you suddenly start thinking, I don't know anything. I don't know any English at all. And it is, you know, it is frustrating because you want to feel here at home as you decided to live here. So I try helping them as much as I can, understanding the British aspects of it as well.
Yeah, exactly. Have you got any memorable moments from your teaching or students that sort of stand out in your mind for you?
]Many of them, you know. What changes usually, what I've noticed and what the students have told me. It's their feelings about their, well, their life and their English in general. What I mean is when they came here, they didn't know any English or they knew little English. They didn't have the confidence to open up, to speak and they just felt a bit lonely. And then after a few lessons or a few months lessons with me, they started feeling more confident. So, I that's the biggest change, not so much about how much your English has improved. It's more about the confidence and not being scared to speak, not being scared, oh my God, what's going to happen if I don't understand or if someone doesn't understand me? Just okay. You'll see. This is how you learn and you'll find out.
Yeah, that's really important, isn't it? Because often we've got a lot of language inside our heads, but having the confidence to use it and not be afraid of people speaking to you as well, it's the biggest barrier.
Exactly, yeah, barrier. I like and I don't like this word because it really represents what those people have in their heads and what I've had myself as well. Or the feeling of, you know, the fear of being judged when you use your English. It's really, really to get rid of.
Yeah, it is and it's something I understand living here in Japan, it's hard and it's something that you have to overcome, no matter how much you study you have to go out there and speak and use your language.
Exactly, because language barriers has nothing to do with the level of your English, the level of your language. It really can happen to anyone. Yeah. So that's what people confuse as well. They think that they need to know more, they need to learn more, they need to have more classes and it turns out it's really not the thing.
That's right. Yeah, that's right. You get the feeling you need to stuff your brain full of the language.
Yeah, it's not always true. Yeah, that's why we have people with basic English but who are more confident and they don't have this language barrier and they can really become independent which is all right as well because this is what I think it's this is all about.
It's interesting to see that in some people they just talk and they really don't care if their grammar is right or their vocabulary is correct they just talk
Yeah I'm kind of jealous yeah I'm not one of those people!
So, what keeps you being a teacher? Why do you love teaching?
It's a question hard to answer because I just love it. I mean, I started learning myself when I was 10 and I started learning English at school and I just immediately fell in love with this language. There was like no, you know, no hesitations. It's just, yeah, I just liked it. And very early, I started helping my classmates at school. And it's just developed. It's just something that happened so naturally. So then I decided to do it because I really didn't think of anything else I could do. It was like the only thing I knew really. I liked it, so I mean, why not go for it? But living here in the UK, I think I started loving it even more just because I've seen the impact the language has on people and I stopped seeing language only as like a pleasure because here people really needed to live, to communicate so it was more of like language as a tool you know to just help you live really in a foreign country.
I see, great. Okay Monika it's really great to speak to you today.
Thank you, thank you so much, it's great speaking with you too.
You can get in touch with Monika through the Elevate directory of English language teachers
