Page 56 - Linguistically Diverse Educational Contexts

LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS
years of her research activity (1970s) she dealt with the issues of Slavic historical grammar. In the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, she undertook research on semantics, became interested in applied linguistics and finally laid the foundations for educational linguistics (1994). In her 1998 publication57, she presents views from the 1970s58 relating to educational discourse as linguistic interaction during learning in the school classroom. The Polish researcher classified educational discourse as a knowledge-transferring discourse that mediates between learning and the potential recipient, and she presented this understanding of educational discourse in her concept of educational linguistics59.
Linguistic research in the first half of the twentieth century in Europe found practical application primarily in foreign language teaching, as well as mother tongue and deaf education (see Doroszewski, 1962, p. 362). By the middle of the 20th century, however, and especially in the 1960s, several important publications on language teaching appeared in Europe, for example, in 1945 the first edition of C. Fries' classic Teaching and learning English as a foreign language, in R. Lado's 1964 book Language teaching, in Halliday et al.'s 1965 The linguistic sciences and language teaching, and in B. Libbish's 1964 Advances in the teaching of modern languages. At the end of the 20th century, in 1997, D. Crystal published a work entitled English as a global language. D. Christian's (1994) work on bilingual curricula suitable for immigrants to English-speaking countries was also published.
In post-war Poland, the situation was quite different. Language education was dominated by learning Russian, and the curricula and textbooks approved in 1949 were overloaded and politicised, which undoubtedly had an impact on the teaching of that language60. From 1948 onwards, only the bimonthly magazine Russian language was published in Poland61. The first periodical in Poland devoted to linguistics, literary studies, and the methodology of teaching all Western European languages, Foreign languages in school (Języki Obce w Szkole)62 was published. It was established two months after the so-called October Thaw in January 195763. At that time, Russian was still compulsorily taught in primary and secondary schools. In May 1957, a general congress of ZNP64 was held, also attended by Jean Piaget, to discuss the merits of teaching Western European languages in schools65. From 1958, Western European languages appeared in the curricula of secondary school classes. Curricula were also modified, reducing the excess of curricular slogans and significantly removing ideological content66. In
57 Rittel, 1998, p. 221.
58Discourse and Education W: Encyclopedia of Language and Education, N.H. Hornberger (red.), vol. 3, Springer Netherlands, 2010.
59 Rittel, 1998, p. 221.
60 To illustrate this, I would like to mention the article by A. Prejbisz entitled "Foreign language teaching programmes in the twenty years 1944-69" in the journal Foreign Languages in School 4/1969, in which he gives examples of curriculum content, such as the exploitation and misery of English workers in the first half of the 19th century, the social activities of Robert Owen, and Statements by Marx and Engels about the labour movement in England. See Komorowska, 2017, p. 24.
61 The last issue was published in November 1990, when compulsory Russian language teaching ended.
62 The journal is now published by FRSE, who continue to publish articles by both researchers and teachers of all languages. http://jows.pl.
63 "The direct cause of the so-called October Thaw was the decision of the then PZPR authorities, taken on 18 October 1956 at the 8th Plenum of the PZPR, to remove from power the most loyal allies of the Stalinist party [...]. The situation in Poland changed significantly. There was a marked liberalisation in the economy [... in foreign policy [...].Education also began to operate more freely: new curricula were created and textbook content was largely de-ideologised"(Komorowska, 2017, p. 16).
64 ZNP is a Polish teachers’ union.
65 Ibid., p. 22.
66 Ibid., p. 17–18.
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