Page 59 - Linguistically Diverse Educational Contexts

Sometimes one gets the impression that the English term pedagogy is incorrectly translated into Polish, and sometimes also quoted without thinking about the native cultural-historical context. As an example, here I will quote from Karpinska-Musiał (2015, p. 20): "Behind one of the goals of pedagogy in the first half of the twentieth century, which was the attempt to create a global knowledge society through mass education, was the risk of cultural homogenisation (Gidley, 2001)"77. Reading this excerpt, one can conclude that such a situation took place in Poland in the first half of the 20th century, as the author's publication deals with education in our country, while the quoted Gidley is a researcher from the University of Sydney, Australia, and the quoted excerpt deals with Americanisation and globalisation.
Researchers from Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-American countries do not use the word didactics in their research articles, and if they refer to the German tradition of didactics, they use the word didaktik, without the generic "die" (Kansanen, 2009). European researchers wishing to publish, in America for example, change the terms didactical thinking to pedagogical thinking (Kansanen et al. 2000). German didaktik developed both the theory and practice of instruction, the language of instruction, and introduced the need for a lesson plan (German: Lehrplan) (Hamilton, 1999, p. 144). During the Anglo- Saxon and Anglo-American tradition of education programmes, the focus was on psychological theories of learning, where the emphasis is on accountability and learning outcomes. Not surprisingly, the term didactic had negative connotations in Anglo-Saxon countries, as it was associated with the idea of direct instruction, where the teacher imposes his doctrine on the students (Tirri & Toom, 2020). This type of didactics seems to focus mainly on guidelines on how to teach a lesson effectively. Viewed from this perspective, being a didactician, or publishing in the field of didactics, has not gained respect by the academic community in Poland.
In Poland the term "language pedagogy" is translated as foreign language teaching and learning or foreign language didactics. The two terms overlap in meaning, as language pedagogy usually falls into the category of methods aiming to improve teaching practices (Bell, 2003). The concept of (second) language pedagogy, which operates in Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-American countries and is situated in applied linguistics, draws on research on language acquisition and from sociolinguistics, phonology, cognitive psychology, pedagogy, and psychology. American linguistics has different roots from European linguistics and a different way of defining field of research and problems, as linguistics in America is an ancillary science to American anthropology78, while in Europe it is linked to European philology (Malmberg, 1969, p. 262). The peculiarity of American linguistics stems from the fact that initially the object of study was indigenous tribes. This was due to practical reasons, to the need to know the languages, beliefs, and traditions of the indigenous Americans so that in missionary work one could communicate with them. American linguistics was also influenced by researchers from Europe who came to America as immigrants and became promoters of the European tradition and European modernism (Malmberg, 1969, p. 261).
We use the term "second language pedagogy" when we talk about teaching and learning a language that is not our mother tongue but is the official language of the country in which we reside. In this area the traditions of language education, of English as a second language of both North America (the present United States and Canada) and the United Kingdom are the oldest. Fries' classic Teaching and
77Gidley, 2001.
78 In a sense, American anthropology can be thought of as a kind of counterpart to the written cultural traditions of ancient peoples, with the difference that its object of study is non-written peoples.
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