Oliver Podwysocki wants to win a class set of IPads to help his students learn English.
But the Port Moody secondary school teacher’s real goal is to improve communication between people so everyone will understand each other better.
Learning languages is Podwysocki’s passion. He learned French at PMSS when he was a late French Immersion student over a decade ago. He honed his Chinese language skills teaching in China for a year. Now he’s studying Vietnamese, his mother’s native language, Polish that his dad speaks and plans on adding Japanese to the mix.
“I want to be able to communicate with people,” said Podwysocki.
Helping him is a free language app called Duolingo, which Podwysocki said makes it easy to learn a new language, and he wants to introduce it to his class if he can win a set of iPads.
He’s entered Duolingo’s Back to School contest for teachers and is encouraging people to vote on his application and share his contest bid on Facebook. (Visit his Facebook page to vote; the contest closes Sept. 3).
For Podwysocki, who also teaches drama and dance at the Port Moody high school, communication is key to breaking down barriers and helping his students make new friends.
Duolingo will help, he said, because he can use it to monitor his students’ progress and there are many elements students can use to improve their language skills.
He remembers how lost he was in his first few months in China when he couldn’t talk to people or even know which washroom to visit because the signage was in Chinese characters.
His own ESL students will face similar challenges when they start school in September.
“I put myself in their shoes. I know what it’s like.”
However, if international students become confident in their English language skills they’ll be able to enjoy Canada more, learn about the culture and when they go home “they’ll be proud to put on the Canada flag,” Podwysocki said.
At the same time, he can get to know his students better if they can converse.
PMSS has one of the most diverse student populations in School District 43, with Podwysocki expecting to teach students whose first language is Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic.
“I’m proud of that,” he says.
