Photo by Erika Tricroche

We just got an email from my mother-in-law that I am sooo excited about!

She works as a 1st grade teacher near Appleton, Wisconsin. When my wife and I were in Poland, we worked as English teachers. Although our students were a little older than hers, we set up a penpal project with her students in the USA.

So, our students in Poland wrote letters to her students in the USA. Then they wrote back - and so on. I think both groups managed to write two letters in the course of a school year.

My wife returned to the USA a few times to visit family. One of those times she went to her mother's class to talk about Poland. She told a few fairy tales about Kraków (from the book Legends of Cracow), including the one about the Wawel dragon. This was already almost two years ago.

Then, at the end of last month, Brooke, one of my mother-in-law's former students, wrote her a letter. This little girl - who has no Polish heritage - is still thinking about Poland! It appears we've managed to spread our love of Poland to her.

I think it's contagious. ;-)

Read more to see her actual letter!

Przepraszam wszystkich, którzy już przeczytali wczorajszy artykuł na ten sam temat! Ten filmik jest najbardziej skierowany do moich widzów na YouTubie. Większość z nich nie czytają mojego blogu i chciałbym zachęcić ich do dołączenia się z nami tutaj. :-)

Jeśli ten jest dla Ciebie nowy, zachęcam Ciebie do szybkiego działania! Tylko pierwszych 30 osób dostanie prezent!

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Photo by seanomatopoeia.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote an article about the importance of listening.

Thanks, everyone for the really excellent comments on that post! You helped me realize that I forgot to discuss a very critical point: how to listen effectively.

Read more for some helpful advice!

Just follow the guide to Language-ville! Photo by Kevin Jaako.

I receive a lot of emails and comments asking me for advice on language learning. I respond to all of them, so when I notice that I've answered the same question a lot, I try to write an article about it on my blog.

That way, when someone asks me that question again, I can point them to a well-polished article, instead of having to come up with a completely new explanation in the 5 minutes I have to respond to their email.

The article I wrote a couple weeks ago about the importance of listening is one example. However, I got some really great questions in the comments which helped me realize that I left out a very important piece: how to listen, when you don't yet speak the language very well.

Eventually, this will end up becoming a new article.

But wouldn't it be great if I could just have a page somewhere that includes all of my thoughts about listening? As new questions or ideas come up, I could continue to refine it.

This got me thinking that maybe I should be compiling a language learning guide, that covers my opinions about how to learn a language effectively, lots of tips, and the basics of my method.

Read more for my thoughts and let me know what you think!