Abstracts Magdalena Białek
Intercultural Sensitivity Training as a Goal of an Intercultural Approach Although the problem of interculturalism in language education is not a new issue, and the number of publications on this subject is impressive, this topic is still current and yet requires reflection and discussion. The dynamics of socio-economic changes, the education system reform, and, above all, Poland’s growing multiculturalism, make the specificity and possibilities of intercultural education in terms of formal language education worth paying attention to once again. In this article, particular attention was paid to intercultural sensitivity education – an indispensable feature in becoming a citizen of the world. Agnieszka Bryła-Cruz
Authentic Spoken Texts in Teaching Pragmatics The paper discusses the relationship between pragmatics and prosody and its implications for teaching English. The author proposes the use of authentic listening resources (podcasts) for making students more sensitive to pragmatically relevant features of natural speech. This is particularly important since texts for listening comprehension used in coursebooks are usually scripted and do not reflect fully phonetic properties of spontaneous discourse as far as prosody is concerned (limited types of intonation patterns, no hesitative pauses, rarely used connected speech phenomena, slower speaking rate). Dominika Bucko
How to Use Online Texts in an Effective Way in Teaching Polish as a Foreign Language? One should pay attention to incorporation of the new technologies into language education in the period of private and professional life digitalization. Many teachers take the use of online resources in teaching with a big dose of scepticism. As the main reason for this, they list lack
of assesment examples and missing suggestions on how to plan and design online activities. The ideas suggested in the article can be used for teaching lessons or can become an inspiration for creating activities of one’s own. The following types of activities are worth including into the teaching practice: showing different ways of working with online texts, verifying and synthetising information, choosing reliable sources, adapting the acquired knowledge to the needs of task fulfilment, expressing opinion and negotiating with other group members. Anna Jaworowska
The Influence of Media Input on Foreign Language Acquisition in Children This article shows the impact of media input in the form of audiovisual stories on the acquisition of German in children. Functions and input qualities and their influence on the learning process were discussed. An integral part of the article is a description of the development of the language competence of a boy at preschool age, who was taught using the storytelling method and who watched German cartoons at home. The results of tests checking the comprehension and memorisation of the content of a story are analysed. On the basis of the case study as well as professional literature, the outcome including recommendations on the best audiovisual input and effective learning strategies is formulated. Joanna Kic-Drgas
Intercultural Communication and Teaching Language for Specific Purposes Cultural diversity, being the result of overwhelming globalisation, can be observed at every step in private and professional life. In the following paper, the topic of the complexity and influence of intercultural dialogue on professional life is discussed. Moreover, the paper
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