Warsaw for the Intermediates

The Museum of Warsaw has been running the project Warsaw for the Intermediates since 2017. It acquaints adult foreigners learning the Polish language with the capital city’s history and culture. By doing so, it invites them to integrate with the community of Varsovians.

It is hard to learn about the culture of a given country without knowing the language, and the other way round—it is a challenge to learn a language without its cultural context. That is why we’ve taken on a task of developing a language class to be run directly in the exhibition halls, based on the original Museum artefacts.

During such classes, the students act as the Museum visitors, readers at the Museum library, clients at the Museum café or at the store selling books and souvenirs. They read texts about Warsaw—both original and those prepared specially for them. They solve tasks, riddles and quizzes. They master the lexicon related to the city, culture and art. They learn new grammar constructions and revise those they are familiar with already, they learn to communicate. They realise that acquiring information in a foreign-language environment does not have to be daunting and complicated. The participants of such classes have lots of fun while developing creative thinking and aesthetic sensitivity.

It is also an interesting experience for the Museum of Warsaw. Thanks to our cooperation with the foreigners, we familiarize ourselves with their point of view and their interpretation of Warsaw culture and history which may often be altogether different from our own. Such an exchange enriches us and allows us to look at the familiar topics from a different perspective.

We invite universities, language schools and private individuals to collaborate with us. The classes are run by a teacher of Czech and Polish as a foreign language, an international instructor with experience in the field of intercultural education, and by the Museum of Warsaw educators.

The project was awarded at the European Language Label competition three times already—in 2019, 2020 and 2021.