I hope You dance

At the end of September, all the participants of meetings with Native Speaker – organized by community of Zagórz – finished their work with one of the teachers Mr. Mariusz Hodyra. With this form of learning foreign language has become not only shaping of their skills but also a nice way to spend an afternoon in an unique company.    

As Mr. Mariusz said – I’m trying to teach with humor, open the door that student could go thru them and develop. It becomes less common to meet people who think this way. The interest of the phenomenon of the teacher has increased with every his word.

– I know English enough to share it with others. All thanks to the fact that I was lucky – or even blessed – to stay in New York. I finished there high school and college. Then I became a teacher, but not only… I also worked in radio. I had a radio show called Man of the month in which I invited people doing good things around them…

Each new word of our hero shows his spirituality beauty, sensitivity and a huge heart. He emphasizes this with his life motto, which is: Nothing is less worthy, if it was done out of love. Beautiful isn’t it? – I believe that man is the most important. When I teach, I pay attention to accuracy and  grammar, but more than this I try to cope with individuality. It is important to pass the knowledge, to have something left, to open doors…

When Mr. Mariusz was asked, how did You like working in Zagórz said: Very good. To be honest, it was my second experience to teach without a manual. I wasn’t quite sure how to do this. I hed to rely on my intuition, look for tips, pray for help. I tried to teach in variety of forms. Not only conversation, but also trough songs, movies and fun. Often it took long time, but now i know that it was worth it.

What can give language to the a man? – Ability to meet other people. Language is to speak and to open up to others. The more we know, the better chance we have to find it wealth and pass it on… – continues with joke. Personally I try to practice third language at home – common sense. – Summarizes teacher.

At the end of the conversation Mr. Mariusz was asked about a message from him. At this moment, with a smile on his face and hope in his eyes he said, referring to the song of Lee Ann Womack – I hope that despite the difficulties we are going to dance with every new word…

If learning of languages really helps us to meet such unique and clever people like our hero, then it’s worth to learn them. The more good people around us, the world becomes a better and more beautiful… Thank You for the nice time, every gesture of modesty and a smile directed toward us. Thank You for the language lessons and life lessons.

Jolanta Walko

(Youth Local Council in Zagórz)

P. S.

One of the most important activities of the “Academy of democracy and development” is to improve the language skills of participants through the organization of a 6-month intensive English course. There’s a 50 person group of participants. They were divided into several groups depending on the level of individual skills. The group of students is formed by councillors, employees of Municipal Office in Zagórz and local leaders associated in Youth Local Council. English as an universal code in international relationships is also widely used in Switzerland. People of Zagórz will have a practical test of knowledge assimilation during the study visits in Switzerland planned in the project. The Polish delegation will host in Villars-sur-Glâne in the first quarter of 2013. However, the Swiss visit Zagórz in the second quarter of next year.