EVS in Pomiechówek

From polish children and english fairy tales - or how to teach English in kindergarten Hello everyone! It’s been a while, but I wish everyone a belated Happy New Year! As some of you may already know from the instagram page of the library,I've been going to the kindergarten to read English fairy tales to the children there for a few months now.  At first I was surprised by the request. In Austria, I learned my first English words at the age of nine in fourth grade of primary school. That's why I was amazed that children here in Poland are getting in touch with other languages at an early age, especially since it's much easier for younger children to learn foreign languages than when they are older.  So I asked myself - how can I teach English in kindergarten? The answer was not that complicated. For the reading I always tried to choose famous fairy tales, which the kids already knew, so it’s going to be easier for them to understand. Beforehand I always prepared some vocab...

Hello everyone! Some weeks ago two volunteers from the SPW organization visited me in the  library and interviewed me about my different tasks and activities there. They made pictures and filmed me while I showed them around the library. So if you're interested in getting a deeper insight of my work there check  the instagram page of SPW out!  The pictures and videos turned out great so it's worth a look - Here's the link to the interview! To the video! Have an amazing week and until next time!

Hello everyone! Last week I took part in my first ESC training at the Agrykola Youth Hostel. Together with 15 other volunteers from all over Poland, who like me have "just landed" here, I spent a whole week in Warsaw. We had the opportunity to learn and gain a lot of new skills and experiences through this training, but also shared what abilities we have already gained during our stay here.  But most of all, we had the chance to meet many new people and their cultures. There were volunteers from Spain, France, Italy, Turkey, Georgia, Ukraine, Latvia, Germany, and Greece. Through this whole week of spending time together during sessions, team building activities but also just eating lunch or going out together we build up lots of connection with each other. We shared experiences or challenges we face in Poland or talked about things like culture shock and how to deal with it.    An important part was also learning more about Poland, its culture and language. In the morning...

Every year Poland celebrates the “Libraries Week,” consisting on different events and activities during the week for everyone. During my stay in the country it happened from the 8th till the 15th of May and, of course, the library in Pomiechówek wouldn’t be less and plenty of workshops and other events were held here. I also decided to do my part and create a new escape room -once again following the idea of the previous volunteer, Angeline. After much discussion, we decided that the story theme would be “Alice in Wonderland,” merging the fairyland kingdom with the writer Lewis Carroll’s room. The final composition turned out pretty cool in my opinion. The pre-game story explained that the Queen of Hearts had stolen some pages of Carroll’s manuscript, so that Wonderland would never be the same and she could take over it. The participants had 40 minutes to find the 10 missing pages in the room and save the Kingdom. First, the children (though not only did we have childr...

One of the things that scared me the most before coming to Poland was, without a doubt, the Polish language -and I bet it’s a shared feeling by most of the volunteers. It is truth that most of the languages spoken in Europe descend from Indoeuropean, but nowadays they don’t really look alike anymore. Polish, belonging to the Slavic languages family, has very little to do with Spanish (which derives from Latin) or English (German and Latin descent). Also it’s easy to spot some Latin-derived words in Polish, like “biblioteka” or even from French, like “parasol” (meaning umbrella), but these are mainly exceptions and the bulk of vocabulary and grammar forms have nothing to do with anything I am familiar with. Therefore, I was really worried about how would I communicate with everyone here, especially since Pomiechówek is a small town and I had no high expectations with people speaking English. Fortunately, everyone at the library speaks quite good English –and also Marine, the v...

Not many people is totally aware of how EVS projects work.   As volunteers of the European Solidarity Corps, our main job is at our host organization, which for me is the library in Pomiechówek. However, we are part of a bigger organization that coordinates the individual projects of the volunteers, thus, every once in a while, we have the chance to take part in other events different from our own jobs. This was the case of the weekend of the Polish independence anniversary.   On the 8 th of November our team of volunteers was kindly invited to Serock – a little town close to Pomiechówek– to collaborate in the activities the social center had prepared for its users in commemoration of the 100 years of Polish independence. After a short presentation about the function of the institution and a comforting lunch the activities started. To run the workshops the participants and we were divided into three groups, so that they would have 45 minutes of each activity. Travis, vo...

July 16, 2018 Cześć ! My name is Angeline , I am 21 and I come from France. I started my EVS (aka European Voluntary Service) in the library of Pomiechówek, Poland, in September 2017 and this amazing experience will end in August 2018. 12 months in Poland... 12 months of discoveries, meetings, personal challenges and travels... 12 months with everything to learn, a culture shock and a language barrier to overcome and a new environment to adapt... But also 12 months sharing time with amazingly nice people in a place I will miss as soon as I will leave. 12 months, that's a lot to share with you, dear reader ! Let's go step by step and start with the beginning... After two years of French preparatory class focused on Humanities and a third year at the university to study English Literature and Civilization, I finally got graduated in English in 2017. Then I should have naturally kept on studying to obtain a Master and start my professional life... However, I dreamt ...

From October to December 2017 Cześć ! When you start living abroad, the first main difficulty you have to overcome is the adaptation to a new environment and a new culture. Poland is a part of Europe so the culture shock wasn't that violent contrary to Asian countries for example, but still, you need time to adapt. As a volunteer, my role was not only to discover and understand this foreign culture but also to share my own culture and my experience as a foreign volunteer in Poland with local people. Creating a presentation about my homeland was one of my first tasks at the library. I met many classes of Primary School and Gymnazjum (aka Secondary School) to share pictures and explanations about France. We talked about food (frogs, snails and stinky cheeses... but not only !!), landscapes, houses architecture, famous actors and singers and even famous international events and festivals which usually take place in France. Then I presented the place where I used to live...

September 2017 Cześć ! As time flies and I'm almost at the end of my volunteering, I'm going to share with you some articles about the main activities I did during my EVS in Poland to give you an idea of how I spent my time at work during all these months. To begin with, it's important to notice that I'm working in a library, which means I have the opportunity to participate to many different activities linked with libraries' international events. The National Reading Day is one of them as promoting the benefits of reading is one of the major role of a library. For this specific day, we decided to gather English language and reading promotion so we went to the Kindergarten of Pomiechówek to read a book in English. As I wanted something easy for children to understand, I chose one of the most famous stories I found: "The Three Little Pigs" ! I visited four classes and, each time, the children were really kind and interested. What is so good with ch...