Introduction
Target & Shane Language Training was founded in 1993, with only two large commercial clients. The company expanded quickly, drawing in other companies from around Warsaw. By 1995 there were 10 teachers working full time, and expansion had started to include companies from all over Poland. In 1998, Target went into partnership with Saxoncourt International, making Target part of a world-wide group of schools. Our company presently has over 70 language instructors and a well-established position on the Polish/ English-teaching market.
Target & Shane Language Training deals with a very specific section of the English-teaching market in Poland - the corporate client. Our students need to use English on a regular basis with native and non-native speakers, and favor courses that focus on real day-to-day situations.
Target and Shane has built a substantial local reputation over the years for providing a professional and reliable service to the business community. We remain confident that this is where our strengths and competencies lie; and a friendly atmosphere, and attitude to teaching and learning is crucial to our success. Our administrative staff, and teachers continually strive towards ensuring high quality English language tuition.
In-company Language Tuition
Target & Shane provides professional in-company services tailored to meet the needs of a wide variety of businesses and institutions.
We aim to grow with our clients, providing teachers wherever they may be needed. We have placed teachers with clients in Warsaw, Żyrardów, Piaseczno, Kraków, Wrocłąw, Rzeszów, Gliwice, Katowice, Świecie, Poznań, Łódz, Olsztyn, Gdańsk, Gdynia, Augustów, Cieszyn, Leżajsk, Kwidzyń, and Mszczonów.
All programmes begin with detailed planning in consultation with our clients. We identify goals and the means by which they are to be achieved. Course implementation and progress is supervised by our customer services department. At the end of every programme we evaluate results and supply our clients with reports on progress made.
Our teachers
We place great importance on the ability and professional excellence of our teachers. We understand that for our students, the teacher is the main reason that their course with us will be successful. Our teachers are qualified, experienced and committed to providing enjoyable and rewarding lessons.
We possess a solid team of teachers who, through their experience of teaching in Poland, are aware of the specific needs of Polish students. Many of our teachers decide to work for our company for at least two years, in many cases longer.
The choice of teacher
Previously, we worked exclusively with native speaking English teachers. In response to the rising interest in native Polish-speaking teachers and dual-teaching systems, we have broadened our employment policy and now employ many qualified Polish speaking English teachers.
We offer our clients a choice of:
- lessons with a native English speaker
- lessons with a native Polish speaker
-
dual system - lessons shared between native English and native Polish speaker
Qualifications
Our teachers, regardless of their nationality:
- possess qualifications in teaching English as a foreign language (CELTA or Trinity College Certificates for native speakers, and higher professional education for Polish teachers)
- possess, if Polish, additional certification of their high level of English knowledge
- are teachers of general and business English to all ability levels
- are able and prepared to work in a business environment
- are enthusiastic and truly committed to their duties
Apart from their linguistic and pedagogic qualifications, many of our teachers also possess specialist knowledge acquired during their previous careers. Where possible, we try to combine this experience with the client's needs.
As a member of Saxoncourt Ltd., Target&Shane Language Training helps its teachers to obtain further qualifications such as the Cambridge DELTA.
Methodology
We use the communicative approach which is based on the recognition that a language can be easily learned through the development of communicative abilities by actively exercising the four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing. All teachers we employ are educated in the use of this methodology which encourages students to cultivate their skills through active participation in lessons.
The active use of the communicative method is backed by leading course books and other training materials published by the most renowned English language teaching publishers, These include: Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Longman, and Language Teaching Publications.
Types of Language Tuition Offered
Target & Shane in-company training is Warsaw-based but works throughout Poland for international and national companies and institutions. Our teachers provide lessons at the clients' offices for small groups and one-to-one students. Most of our work comes under three categories:
General English
General English courses provide a graduated learning path for students who want to learn a balance of skills, vocabulary and grammatical understanding in English, with the aim of becoming generally proficient in the language. These types of courses represent the vast majority of English taught worldwide, and are supported by a huge variety of published material.
Business English
These types of courses are run for students between A2 and C2 levels, and are designed to give confidence and fluency for people using English at work. There is an enormous amount of published material available, and we aim to choose course books that are the most appropriate for the students' needs and interests. In most cases this means either a book that looks at the language used in specific situations, such as in meetings or when traveling on business, or it means a course which uses texts that are about the world of commerce generally. For example there may be a text about how the fickle nature of sportswear fashion has made life difficult at Nike and Adidas, or a listening exercise about the unlikely origin of the Lego company in Denmark. The idea is that while most English books aim to please the widest range of potential students with their subject material, business books are more finely focused on the types of things that businessmen find interesting.
English for Specific Purposes
Specialized courses including English for banking, finance, logistics, HR, marketing, email writing, English for law, presentations, customer care, negotiations, and English for telephoning have become quite fashionable within the corporate world.
Student Profile
On the whole Poles are enormous fun to teach for three main reasons:
a. They are highly motivated to learn and will usually work hard.
b. Their culture considers education in general and teachers in particular to be honorable.
c. They have a great sense of humor.
There are of course exceptions, but in most cases your students will turn up on time, having done their homework, will follow your lead in the classroom and do their best to master the language and complete the tasks, and at the same time try to enjoy the experience. For anyone who has taught other nationalities, this makes for a near-paradise situation.
The other side of the coin is that students have high expectations of their teacher to provide them with the right learning environment and teaching to capitalize on their enthusiasm. They will be dismissive of anyone who has clearly not prepared their lesson material, who is unprofessional in appearance or behavior, or who doesn't seem to be taking them seriously. If you can show that you are as committed to their learning as they are, then they will do anything for you. This is why in our recruitment we look for a particular type of teacher, not only in terms of experience or qualifications, but in terms of attitude.
Teacher Profile
We are proud of our reputation as an inclusive company employing teachers of all ages and from a wide range of backgrounds. In recent years our staff have been former insurers, nurses, headmasters, landscapers, chefs, publishers, managers, policemen, miners, puppeteers, soldiers, hairdressers and so on.
Although their backgrounds may vary greatly, our teachers all have certain things in common. They are all outgoing, well spoken, and they all see teaching as a job that is a full time professional occupation. They may come to teaching at the very end of their work history, or this may be their first occupation after graduation from university. Some teachers may be looking for a longterm career in EFL and aiming towards becoming teacher trainers or educational administrators.
A lot of teachers who come to join us are worried about the prospect of in-company teaching because they feel they do not have an especially business-like background. This is a misconstruing of what Business English Teaching is all about. The emphasis should be on the word "Teaching", not the word "Business". You are first and foremost a teacher, and you are not expected to be an instant expert on everything from Balance Sheets to Futures Markets. If you do have any questions about what you are teaching, then there are plenty of people about who could give you the benefit of their experience and knowledge.
If you have just finished the CELTA or TESOL course, and passed, then our heartiest congratulations to you. It probably wasn't easy, and you may well have felt that your head was going to explode with all the new material you were being given. The good news is that you are ready to get out there and teach English. The bad news is that you will still need support and training to find your best teaching methods and to develop professionally.
Something about Poland
It is difficult to give an accurate impression of what Poland is like to anyone who hasn't been there without straying into the realm of cultural stereotypes on one side, or personal perceptions on the other. It is probably true to say that people in the UK or in the USA have a clearer mental image of the Brazilians or Thais, for example, than they do of the Poles. Trying to think back to what I thought I knew about the Poles before I first came here, I come up with phrases such as hospitable (true), gloomy (not true), heavy drinkers (absolutely true under certain circumstances such as weddings, and untrue the rest of the time), humorless (totally untrue) and unfortunately addicted to potatoes and cabbage (true, alas). Thirty years later I can say that they are a wonderful people with a strong sense of their own culture and that I enjoy living among them.
However, if you spend time living in any culture (including your own) there will be occasional moments when you come up against attitudes or behavior that is either inexplicable or infuriating or both. For some of us it is the apparent shortage of small change which means that waiters and shop assistants often ask for the exact money. For others it is the lack of courtesy between drivers, or the fact that the pub bands all seem to have learned the same songs. What I can say with absolute honesty is that all our teachers find the Poles to be good company, good hosts, and a good laugh.
About Poland, it would be easier to be informative, but also easier to ramble on at great length. As there is plenty of information available in travel guides and so on, I will try to limit myself to the basics. The culture is very European, with a high level of respect for education and a general sense among the under-40s that life is there to be enjoyed. The major towns and cities have boomed since the end of communism, and are as well equipped with hypermarkets, nightclubs, shopping malls, cinemas, bowling alleys and bars as anywhere else in the EU. Warsaw, as you might expect, has attracted the lion’s share of the development and is a cosmopolitan capital city.
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
The average length of teacher employment is 3- 5 years thanks to our friendly, cooperative, small-office environment. Our teachers are given the opportunity to show their initiative, and are entrusted with the responsibility of representing our company to very important clients.
Current Vacancies
We continuously seek both native and Polish speaking English language instructors to teach in-company throughout Poland.
If you are interested in joining us, please send your CV to:
Jack Gutkowski
Academic Director Saxoncourt Poland
email: jack@target.edu.pl