Editors for the day

Welcome to a new feature in The World of English. For the next few editions we will be asking students from a chosen school to take over a section of the magazine and see what they come up with. They decide the stories, write and edit them. Then decide the stories, write and edit them. Then we present the results.

This time we went to the LXVII Liceum at Mokotowska. It's a good place to start as Mokotowska has been gaining excellent results in the Olympiad competition. For two years running they have placed 4 students in the top twenty finalists!

At present Mokotowska is among the best secondary schools in the country, according to the rankings. For the past 3 years it has been among the top 5 secondary schools in Warsaw as indicated by the ranking prepared by Perspektywy magazine. In fact, the majority of the students pass the CPE examination with flying colours. Before we let the students loose on our pages we had a quick chat to the main person responsible for the school's remarkable English language achievements - English teacher, Janka Radzewicz.

WoE: How long has the school existed and is there a history of good language exam results and achievement at the school?

Janka Radzewicz: Our school, commonly known as Mokotowska, was established in 1991. From the very beginning, understanding the importance of the knowledge of foreign languages and responding to public demand, we have focused among other things on teaching foreign languages, particularly English and German. The results achieved by our students in The English Language Olympiad may serve as yet another quantifiable indicator of the school's performance. Every year a number of my students qualify for the finals and become laureates of the Olympiad.

WoE: How important is the Olympiad to the school?

Janka Radzewicz: Since Olympiads are one of the indicators of a school's performance taken into consideration in school rankings, its importance for our school is quite obvious - it helps us greatly to maintain our high position.

WoE: Do you teach studients to pass the Olympiad specially, or is it a by-product, and not the main goal?

Janka Radzewicz: No. definitely not. It is something that happens and has never been treated as a priority. I just teach, and when the right time comes my students are simply ready to win and truly appreciate the English language.

WoE: You are obviously doing something special in your English classes? What is it?

Janka Radzewicz: Cézanne once said, "Give me a bundle of sticks and I will give you a painting." One may wonder what he really wanted to express. Well, a very simple truth. An artist doesn't need something beautiful to produce a good painting because it is not what we do; but how we do that matters, and this what I am first and foremost concerned with.

As an English language teacher I am expected to provide my students with the best opportunities to improve their language skills and I hope Ido, but from the very beginning they are expected to contribute and be engaged in the teaching-Ieaming process - this constitutes the first element of the teaching-learning sequence: ENGAGE - STUDY - ACTlVATE. Then the remaining two elements follow. I always vary teaching materials to use my students' abilities to the full. I treat course-books as a complementary element in the teaching process and never follow them blindly as this always stifles students' creativity and motivation. But before all this happens, I try to make my students realize that we are playing for the same team - the winning team.