WHEN Polish Iwona Breisa-Kmiec came to this country to polish her English, she had no idea that she would fall in love with our way of life.

But such was Iwona's passion for England in general, and Peterborough in particular, that she decided to make her home here – and use her skills to teach locals her mother tongue.

The 30-year-old gained an MA in teaching Polish from the Academy Bydgoszcz in 2001, but decided that she wanted to speak fluent English, and so came to Peterborough in 2002 as she had a friend already living in the city.

Her English is now near-perfect, and she is leading Polish: An Introduction to Essential Language and Culture, at Peterborough College of Adult Education.

She said: "I always wanted to teach, and thought that if I came here I would get a combination and be able to teach both English and Polish.

"Polish people start learning English when they are 10, but when I came here my speaking skills were very basic. I had the theoretical knowledge, but not the practice, which meant that I could understand better than I could speak, which was very frustrating.

"The problem was that I learnt English using an American accent when I was at school, and so I found it very difficult to understand English when it was pronounced in a different way. I had to just study and study."

Iwona started work in an office, and her English soon got up to speed. She is now studying for a further qualification in English, and is nearly at the end of her course.

The last unit she must complete is called "proficiency in English", which is as difficult as the first year of an English course in a UK university, and has seen her learn how to speak in a variety of situations, using a mixture of medical, legal and technical phrases.

She has studied Russian and classes her skills as "intermediate," plans to learn Spanish next, and would consider working as a translator or an interpreter in future.

Iwona said that people in Peterborough have been very welcoming to her, and are

welcoming to Polish people in general, especially if they can speak English.

She said that the content of her courses at the college of adult education is determined by what people want to get from the course, as she knows that some people will want to speak it for business, while others will want it for tourist purposes.

"It will take the average person three years of very hard work to learn Polish to a fluent level," she said. "And the hardest thing for them will probably be the grammar and the pronunciation. We have a lot of sounds in Polish that you don't have in English.

"Polish grammar is similar to French. For example, both languages have feminine, masculine and neuter forms which determine the way the words' endings are used, and pronunciation of vowels is similar."

Iwona, from New England, said she is happy in Peterborough and has no plans at the moment to return to Poland.

"I think it really does make a difference if people can speak other languages," she said.

"Even if it is only a few words, it means so much to the person they are talking to, and they will always respond immediately in a friendly manner."

Article by: Jemma Walton, email:
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