Warsaw for beginners

The project within which we have been running Polish as a foreign language classes since 2020 is aimed at young foreigners (including Ukrainians, Belarussians, Tajiks and Chechens) who attend schools and kindergartens in Warsaw and its vicinity, as well as their parents. Activities are based on both intercultural dialogue (participants-educators) and intergenerational dialogue (children-parents).

Three basic methods used during sensory activities are:

the CLIL subject-language method (learning the Polish language by getting acquainted with the culture and history of Warsaw),
gamification for the sake of cultural integration and exchange of experiences (stirring positive emotions and a sense of satisfaction from being in touch with culture and cooperating in a multicultural group),
learning by action (children teaching one another/children teaching their parents).

The project’s main goal is to increase the participation of foreign school-age children and their parents in culture, creative family time centred around the theme of books and Warsaw, and a pleasant and fun way of learning Polish as a foreign language through work and play while visiting a museum exhibition or library collections.

Everybody is always welcome at the Museum of Warsaw. We create a museum offer based on dialogue and cultural exchange which takes into account the needs of foreign nationals residing in our city.

We invite associations and organisations engaged in providing aid to the foreigners residing in Warsaw to collaborate with us.

Examples of lesson topics:

Colourful Warsaw… Let us colour our city (90 minutes)

Museum game: Basements, Room of Postcards and Room of Views of Warsaw
CLIL workshop: the flag, Warsaw’s code of arms, the legend of Wars and Sawa, Old Town tenement houses
Creative activities: colouring the tenements which house our Museum,

Sweet Warsaw… or what you simply must try

Museum game: Room of Warsaw Packaging
Workshops, quiz: Did you know…?; sweets from Wedel, names of Warsaw’s famed desserts: zygmuntówka (Sigismund’s cake), wuzetka (W-Z cake), donuts from Blikle and their recipe, map of sweet places in Warsaw
Creative activities: a project for the cover of a recipes collection titled Sweet Warsaw and the recipes for the Varsovians’ most beloved desserts.

The project has been awarded an honourable mention at the 2020 European Language Label.