New Opportunities of School Foreign Language Education in Poland:

Modern Development and Perspectives

A decree of application by the Ministry of National Education made on 4 October

2001 states that all migrants must be enrolled in school in the same way as Polish
children, i.e. according to the school catchment areas which are based on where the
parents live. This principle applies to nursery, primary and secondary schools.
Schooling is free for all pupils, regardless of nationality, until the age of 14. After this,
foreign national pupils must pay for their schooling.
Between 1385 and 1795, the countries which are now known as Lithuania and
Belarus, together with a large part of Ukraine and Poland, formed one state as part of a
voluntary union. The religious tolerance of the state at that time attracted a number of
followers of different religions. Before the Second World War, minority nationals in
Poland made up around 30% of the total population. This demographic split was shaken
up so badly by the Holocaust that today, minorities make up just 3% of the population.
In conformity with the European Charter on Regional or Minority Languages
signed in 2003, the Polish authorities distinguish between three categories of minority
and regional nationals: the members of nine national minorities, the members of four
ethnic minorities and a community which uses a regional language.
The minority nationals are the Germans (according to the minority speakers:
300,000 to 400,000), Belarusians (250,000 to 300,000), Ukrainians (300,000),
Lithuanians (30,000), Russians (20,000), Slovaks (15,000), Czechs (3,000), Jews
(5,000) and Armenians (1,500). The ethnic minorities are the Ruthenians (50,000), the
Roma (20,000), the Tatars (2,000) and the Karaites (150). The only regional group
recognised is the Kashubians (250,000 to 300,000). In total, 1,200,000 people belong to
regional and national minorities, even though the latest census statistics from 2002 on
ethnicity and nationality only note 417,000, including the Germans (147,000),
Belarusians (48,000), Ukrainians (34,000), Slovaks (2,000). The strongest
concentrations of minority nationals can be found in the provinces of Warmia-Masuria,
Podlachia and Opole.
 The law on national minorities was adopted on 6 January 2005 by the Diet. It
introduces a definition of national minorities. It specifies that the term refers to a group
of people whose origins are other than Polish, who have traditionally lived in Poland
and who are a minority in numerical terms when compared with the other citizens. The
law is characterised by support for the culture, traditions and languages of minorities as
well as protecting their national awareness. It also specifies that whether or not one
considers oneself to belong to a minority is a matter of free, individual choice. It
guarantees that all national minority citizens are equal before the law, as well as the
following rights: to develop their culture, create their own associations, practise their
religion, have free access to the medias, use their own language in their public and
private lives, use proper names in their own language, make public information
available in their language, study their native language, etc.
The law provides for the creation of a National Minorities Council, a consultative
body which reports to the Prime Minister. It also aims to ensure that all national
minorities are represented as well as they can be in Parliament. At present, minorities
are represented quite well at local council level, but very poorly in the administrations
of the provinces, where the Germans and Lithuanians have demanded to be represented.
Minorities have a lot of difficulty in getting elected to a Parliamentary seat. Only the
German minority has succeeded in gaining any seats, thanks to their strength in
numbers in the region of Opole.
Article 27 of the Constitution specifies that the rights of national minorities as
provided for in ratified treaties will be protected. Article 35 states that all ethnic
minorities and national minorities have freedom to develop their own language. At
present, minority languages are used before the commune authorities in only 28
communes.
In the justice sphere, the law on the constitution of common law tribunals of 27
July 2001 allows individuals who do not speak or speak very little Polish to express
themselves in front of the judges in a language which they do know or to receive the
services of an interpreter for free.
 As far as schooling is concerned, the Polish education system in principle
guarantees the right to learn a minority language and takes responsibility for creating
the right conditions for such lessons and for organising lessons in minority languages. In
addition, in conformity with Article 35 of the Constitution, it is possible to receive
teaching in one’s native language. This is available at all levels, from nursery to
secondary school. Most schools which offer lessons in minority languages are public
establishments run by the local authority. Nonetheless, a very limited number of schools
are in a position to be able to offer this choice.
Representatives from the Jewish minority only have founded private
establishments known as Lauder-Morasha, with the help of the Roland S. Lauder
foundation. In Poland, there are no national minority schools, but Polish schools can be
divided into four categories:
 schools where the language of teaching is the minority language in
language, literature and history lessons, where enough volunteers are available and
outside school hours
 bilingual school (with equal time spent teaching in Polish and another
language)
 school councils which can authorise schools to provide supplementary
classes in a minority language
 local authorities which organise inter-school groups where pupils from
several different schools are brought together to be taught in their native language

In principle, a class can be formed wherever there at least seven primary school
pupils or 15 secondary school pupils who wish to learn. The problem lies both in the
fact that it is optional and in the numbers requirement. In total, the Germans have 170
schools, the Ukrainians 70 and the Lithuanians two. Belarusian is taught as a second
language in around 50 primary schools and two Belarusian schools. In total, more than
450 establishments offer teaching in a minority language. The publication and printing
of school textbooks, as well as the drawing up of school curricula are both financed by
the State.
 In the media world, there has been a significant increase in the number of
publications. The Ministry of Culture and Heritage has announced that all national
minorities have the right to publish their own magazine in Polish or another language.
Almost all the cost is met by the State. All the country’s minorities now have a
newspaper in their own language. Some public radio stations broadcast programmes in
minority languages, but most minorities have their own local stations which broadcast
mostly in German, Ukrainian and Belarusian.
Since the fall of Communism, the Polish Government has signed a number of
international treaties. The treaty of good neighbourliness and friendly cooperation
signed with Germany in 1991 has served as a model for the protection of the rights of
all minorities. Similar agreements have been reached with Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus
and Russia. These treaties guarantee the right to non-discrimination, to learn and receive
teaching in one’s native language, to spell one’s name as it is in one’s own language, to
profess and practise one’s religion, to found one’s own associations and to hold
exchanges with citizens of other countries which speak the same language.
Teaching foreign languages within the education system
Official instructions specify that two lessons of 45 minutes each per week in
primary school should be devoted to the study of a foreign language during the fourth
and fifth years and four in the sixth year. At gimnazjum (a kind of secondary school),
three lessons per week of 45 minutes each are devoted to foreign languages during the
three years. In general secondary schools, each of the two compulsory languages is
assigned two to three lessons per week. In technical or vocational colleges, between two
and six lessons may be devoted to the compulsory language, depending on the type of
establishment.
A second language chosen by the head of the establishment may be taught as an
optional subject for two lessons a week. For the specific intensive French programme,
and the DELF preparatory programme, the number of lessons is generally increased to
six. For higher education, 100 hours per year are permitted. Education authorities plan
to make one foreign language lesson of 45 minutes per week the norm in the first three
years of primary school from Autumn 2008.
 In Autumn 2005, French was studied by 256,000 primary and secondary school
pupils (270,760 in Autumn 2004, so a reduction of 14,760 pupils). Percentage-wise, the
number of pupils studying French is decreasing slightly, from 4.4% in 2004/2005 to
4.3% in 2005/2006 (statistics published by the Centre for Continuous Education,
CODN). Traditionally little taught at primary level (1.2%), it is becoming less popular
in secondary schools, dropping from 43,108 to 28,600 pupils or from 2.6 % (2003/2004)
to 1.7 % (2004/2005). It should be noted that at college only one language is
compulsory, which partly explains the growing hegemony of English and Germany at
this level of teaching. In general secondary schools, where two languages are
compulsory, the growth is quite spectacular. Numbers have risen from 94,800
(2003/2004) to 100,210 (2004/2005). French is chosen by 13.4% of college students
(12.6 % in 2003/2004). For the first time ever, French is overtaking Russian to be the
third most taught language at this level. Poland’s admission to the EU has certainly
contributed to this rise in the number of pupils learning French in colleges.
English and German remain in first and second place with 77.1 % and 43.4 %
respectively. Italian and Spanish continue to improve, but in limited numbers (+ 1,130
for Spanish and + 1,460 for Italian) while Russian is in an inexorable decline (- 14.7 %).
It seems likely that, in the long term, English will maintain its hegemony while
German, French, Russian and Spanish share the market in second languages.

University of Warsaw, Poland >

Dr Magdalena Szpotowicz, ELLiE Project Country Manager
Magdalena Szpotowicz is an assistant professor at the Department Education,
School of Early Education, University of Warsaw. She previously worked at the Centre
for Foreign Language Teacher Training and European Education, University of Warsaw.
She has been involved in foreign language teacher education for the last 15 years,
recently with the focus on educating teachers of young learners. She supervises BA
TEFL projects and runs courses on Teaching English to Young Learners. She also
works at the Institute of Educational Research in Warsaw where she supervises research
projects connected with foreign language teaching in Polish schools. She is a member of
a Thematic Group for Early Language Learning at the European Commission.
She graduated from the Department of English Studies, University of Warsaw
where she did her MA (1993) and PhD (2003) in the field of SLA and TEFL. Her
research interests include: early foreign language acquisition, foreign language policy
changes and young learner teacher development. She has been involved in a number of
educational and research projects supported by the British Council, ECML in Graz and
the Socrates Agency. Her main publications include: coursebooks for primary
children (OUP), syllabuses approved for school use, and a number of training and
research papers published locally and abroad. In 2008 she was appointed by the
Minister of Education to head the team developing a new National Curriculum for
foreign language education in Poland.
Polish Language and Foreign Language Policy in Postcommunist Poland: New
Educational Challenges
Dr Łucja Biel
Department of Translation Studies and Intercultural Communication
Institute of English
University of Gdansk
Poland
The paper discusses the current language policy (unilingualism) and shifts in
attitudes towards foreign languages under political and economic transformations.
Owing to frequent contacts, Polish was to a certain degree affected by Russian in the
Communist era. In the late 80ties and the 90ties an unparalleled number of borrowings
from English entered Polish, in line with the global trend. In the mid 90ties it was felt
necessary to protect Polish against the growing imperialism of English; hence, to protect
the national identity in the globalisation process. As a result, the Polish Language
Protection Act 1999 was adopted, imposing an obligation to use Polish in legal
transactions (contracts), press advertisements, product descriptions, etc. The purist
attitudes stem to a large degree from the historic experience when Poland was without a
state for 123 years and restrictions on the use of Polish were regarded as a threat to the
national identity.
The high impact of English on Polish is also due to the fact that English has
become the dominant foreign language learnt in Poland. In the Communist era Russian
was a compulsory language at primary and secondary schools (it is spoken by ca. 23%
of Poles). In the early 90ties the prestige of Russian was declining rapidly; it was no
longer an obligatory subject and a large number of Russian teachers had to requalify.
The shift in foreign language preferences is well visible in the discrepancy between the
number of pupils learning English and Russian at primary and secondary schools:
English (4m), German (2m), Russian (0.4m). It is also worth noting that in the period of
2000-2004 the number of pupils learning Russian further decreased by more than 50%,
even though it is relatively easy for a Pole to learn Russian. This trend is confirmed by
the choice of a foreign language at the secondary school graduation examination: 76%
English, 18% German, 6% Russian, 1% French. Therefore, the Western languages are
chosen by 94% of students, symbolising Poland’s redirection towards the West. The
popular approach “you have to know a language of your enemy and of your friend”,
where German was officially supposed to be a language of enemy and Russian was a
language of friend, is no longer applied. What counts are prospects on the job market.
Knowledge of foreign languages is an important skill in Postcommunist Poland in
light of the high inflow of foreign direct investments, in particular business process
offshoring. Being one of the largest markets in the EU, the Polish market is attractive to
foreign investors due to its low labour costs, access to well-qualified and young human
resources. Poland’s accession to the EU means increased contacts with other official
languages and gives access to the Single Market with ca. 500 million consumers.
Furthermore, Polish is an official language of the EU and under the principle of
multilingualism all relevant legislative and other texts have to be translated into Polish,
increasing the demand for LSP translators. The article will analyse other political,
economic and cultural changes that generate the demand for translators, in particular
LSP translators and teachers, and require changes in university-level language
education.
 Minority languages in education in Poland
Poland made agreements with the hinterlands of its national minorities. Some
minorities in Poland can make use of learning materials from their home countries,
where teachers can also be educated.[1]
One of the minority languages in Poland is Belorussian. Belorussian is the main
instructive language in one kindergarten in Poland. There are no primary schools or
secondary schools in Poland in which Belorussian is the medium of instruction.
However, according to a report on education in minority languages in some of the new
member states (written under the authorization of the European parliament), there are
still 43 public primary schools (3.075 pupils) and two secondary schools (878 pupils)
where Belorussian is being taught as a subject.[2]According to Wicherkiewicz (1998)
Belorussian is being offered as a subject in as much as 50 primary schools.[3]Learning
materials are imported from Belarus.
According to the report mentioned earlier, German is not usedas an instructive
language in education in Poland. During part of the communist era, or - to be more
precise - from 1963 to 1980, the use of the German language in public was even
forbidden. This has led to the present situation in which a lot of people, who consider
themselves Germans from Poland, do not have a proper command of the language
anymore.
Still, German is taught as a subject in 164 public schools. According to Vaughan
(2002) there are bilingual classes (Polish-German) at secondary schools as well.
[4]Teachers usually come from Germany, as do most learning materials, but some
(Polish) teachers are educated by the Goethe Institute as well. A striking fact is that,
over the years, an increasing number of schools have introduced German as a subject in
their curriculum. More and more, people view German as the main second language of
the country; it has come to be considered even more important than English for
example.
Kashubian is a unique minority language, spoken only in Poland. Kashubian used
to be spoken in Germany as well, but in that country the language died out over time.
The other minority languages spoken in Poland differ from Kashubian as they are
unique minority languages spread over more states (such as Ruthenian, which is also
spoken in Czech Republic and Estonia and Latvia), or trans-frontier languages
(languages that are both minority and majority, depending on the state, such as German,
Belorussian and Lithuanian), or non-territorial languages (such as Romani and Yiddish).

Kashubian is often considered merely a dialectic variation of Polish, and until 1989 this
also was the general view inlanguage politics. However, according to Wicherkiewicz
(1998), Kashubian has a lot of specific features which make it a language in itself.[5]
Now consider the present day situation of Kashubian in education in Poland. A lot has
happened over the past ten years.[6]In the school year 2002/2003 Kashubian was used
at pre-school education in only 2 private kindergartens, attended by ca. 30 children.
Only 3 secondary schools provided education of Kashubian in any form. The first
provided classes in the Kashubian language (3 hours a week; 66 students), the second
school taught Kashubian language and regional classes (2 hours a week, 232 students),
and the third school offered classes in regional education with elements of Kashubian
language (1 hour a week; 14 students). A total sum of 312 students received a form of
Kashubian education at secondary schools. Furthermore, one vocational school at
secondary level provided lessons in regional education with elements of Kashubian
language (2 hours a week; 26 students).
In the school year 2003/2004 52 primary schools in the region offered Kashubian
as a subject during part of the curriculum (2951 pupils). The subject was called
"Kashubian language", "Kashubian language with elements of regional culture", or
"Regional education with elements of Kashubian language" and was taught only one up
to four hours a week. Another 14 schools provided classes in Kashubian (again
"Kashubian language", "Kashubian language with elements of regional culture", or
"Regional education with elements of Kashubian language")in 2003/2004 at secondary
school level (179 pupils).[7]
In 2002/2003 teacher training in the regional language also became available. A
Qualification course for teachers of Kashubian language and regional culture" was
offered at the university of Gdansk, in cooperation with the Section for Education of the
Kashubian-Pomeranian Association. These course would last 1,5 years; 41 teachers
completed the first edition which started in December 2002; the second course was
attended by 51 teachers and will finished in May 2004. At present there are 25 qualified
teachers of Kashubian, and 41 graduates from the first edition of the course for teachers
and 51 graduates of the second edition (in total 117 teachers). Kashubian has never been
used as a language of instruction. Over the last four years learning materials of
Kashubian have been developed for primary education and secondary education. In
1992 a language course-book for university students was published.
The situation of the Lithuanian language community seems to be far better when it
comes to education.[8]Lithuanian is the main instructive language in four kindergartens,
four primary schools (182 pupils) and two secondary schools (161 pupils). Additionally,
there are two bilingual primary schools (Polish-Lithuanian; 318 pupils). Another 148
pupils from primary schools take Lithuanian as a subject at school. However there is no
proper training system for the thirty teachers of Lithuanian at these schools. Learning
materials are published by the Polish state and some of them are imported from
Lithuania.
The situation of the Roma’s is quite bad all over Central-Europe, and the situation
of the Roma’s in Poland is no different in that perspective. However, in one private
primary school pupils do receive education in the Romany language. Furthermore, there
are 24 state schools with 24 experimental classes consisting of Roma-children, but
Romany is not the instructive language there.
A small Slovakian and Czech language community exists in the Polish/Slovakian
border region as well. 125 pupils receive education in the Slovakian language at two
primary schools, and Slovakian is offered as a subject at one pre-primary school (six
children), 11 primary schools (346 pupils), and one secondary school (38 pupils). Some
Slovakian children from Poland go to a secondary school across the border in Slovakia.
Teachers teaching Slovakian or teaching in Slovakian are usually educated in Prague or
Bratislava. Slovakian learning materials on geography or history are printed in Poland;
all other learning materials are imported from Slovakia. Czech is used as an instructive
language nowhere in Poland and it is not part of the curriculum either.
 Education in Ukrainian is also offered for its language community in Poland.
There are four primary schools (393 children) and four secondary schools (972 pupils)
in Poland in which Ukrainian is the main instructive language. Moreover, Ukrainian is
in the curriculum of 52 other primary schools; 1174 pupils have chosen the language as
a subject. A new Ukrainian secondary school was opened in 2001 and in 70 so-called
“Ukrainian classes”, 600 pupils receive education in Ukrainian. 82 teachers/professors
teach Ukrainian in Poland. According to the European Parliament report of 2001, a lot
of new learning materials are used in Ukrainian schools while, at the same time,
outdated materials are used a lot as well. Although, there is no education in Ruthenian in
Poland, the Ruthenes do strive for proper education in their mother tongue at present.[9]
The Russian language community in Poland is rather small and has a more
religious character. Russian is not used in daily live or in public services, or educated at
school; however, some 1000 children in the area learn the language at catechism classes
in church. It is not modern Russian that these children learn; it is the so-called Old
Church Slavonic, a Russian dialect. This language minority belongs to the ethno-
confessional group of the ‘Old Believers’. Their predecessors were chased away from
Russia because of religious reasons in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Their
Russian is rather archaic but at the same time of an ornate style as well.[10]
The Yiddish language community in Poland is also quite small. Today only 6.000
to 15.000 Jewish people live in Poland. A small group of them still speaks Yiddish. It
was forbidden to teach, or to teach in Yiddish in Poland from 1968 till 1980. Nowadays,
there are two private schools in which Yiddish, Hebrew and Jewish culture and history
are part of the curriculum. Before the Second World War 3,5 million Jews lived in
Poland; 90% of them died in the Holocaust. The majority of the survivors emigrated.
Close to the Jewish religion is the religion of the Karaim. From a linguistic point
of view however, Karaim and Yiddish do not show any such resemblances. Still some
200 elderly people in Poland speak Karaim, a Turkic language. There are no educational
or media facilities for the Karaim
 Poland signed (1995), ratified (2000) and implemented (2001) the Framework
Convention for National Minorities. Poland signed the European Charter for Regional
and Minority Languages in 2003, but has not yet ratified it.
Bibliography
Pan, C & B.S. Pfeil. 2002. Ethnos. Minderheitenrechte in Europa. Handbuch der
europaïschen Volksgruppen. Vienna: Braumüller.
Vaughan, D. 2002. Ethnic German Minorities in the Czech Republic, Poland and
Slovakia. Radio Prague (www.radio.cz; 23-04-’02).
Wicherkiewicz, T. 1998. Minderheden en mensenrechten in Polen in het
perspectief van de toetreding tot de Europese Unie.In: Contactblad Oost-Europa :
tijdschrift van het Interuniversitair Centrum voor Oosteuropakunde. - Jrg. XX, nr. 35: p.
4-19.
Wicherkiewicz, T. 2004. Kashubian, the Kashubian language in education in
Poland. Regional Dossiers Series. Mercator-Education, Fryske Akademy.
Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.
Winther, P (ed.). 2001. Lesser-used languages in states applying for EU
Membership. European Parliament. Directorate-General for Research. Education and
Culture Series. Working Paper. Abridged edition.
[1]All the data mentioned in this article concerning minority languages in
education in Poland, except for the role of Kashubian in education, is taken from a
report written in 2001 under the authorization of the European Parliament on the
position of minority languages in Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Estonia
and Cyprus, unless otherwise specified.
The data on Kashubian in education is based on the regional dossier The
Kashubian language in education in Poland (2004), written by Tomasz Wicherkiewicz
and published by Mercator-Education.
[2]Winther, P (ed.). 2001. Lesser-used languages in states applying for EU
Membership. European Parliament. Directorate-General for Research. Education and
Culture Series. Working Paper. Abridged edition, p. 17
 [3]Wicherkiewicz, T. 1998. Minderhedenpolitiek en mensenrechten. In:
Contactblad Oost-Europa 1998/2 – nr. 35. Gent: Interuniversitair centrum voor Oost-
Europakunde, p. 9.
[4]Vaughan, D. 2002. Ethnic German Minorities in the Czech Republic, Poland
and Slovakia. Radio Prague (www.radio.cz; 23-04-’02).
[5]Wicherkiewicz, T. 1998. Minderhedenpolitiek en mensenrechten. In:
Contactblad Oost-Europa 1998/2 – nr. 35. Gent: Interuniversitair centrum voor Oost-
Europakunde, p.10.
[6]Wicherkiewicz, T. 2004. Kashubian, the Kashubian language in education in
Poland. Regional Dossiers Series. Mercator-Education, Fryske Akademy.
Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. All of the following information is taken from
this regional dossier on Kashubian in education, which will be published by Mercator-
Education in November 2004
[7]“Middle education” in Poland includes children from 12-13 to 15-16 years of
age (in prospect exclusively 13 to 16 years).
[8]Winther, P (ed.). 2001. Lesser-used languages in states applying for EU
Membership. European Parliament. Directorate-General for Research. Education and
Culture Series. Working Paper. Abridged edition, p. 18/19.
[9]Wicherkiewicz, T. 1998. Minderhedenpolitiek en mensenrechten. In:
Contactblad Oost-Europa 1998/2 – nr. 35. Gent: Interuniversitair centrum voor Oost-
Europakunde, p. 9.
[10]Wicherkiewicz, T. 1998. Minderhedenpolitiek en mensenrechten. In:
Contactblad Oost-Europa 1998/2 – nr. 35. Gent: Interuniversitair centrum voor Oost-
Europakunde, p. 5/6.
[11] These numbers are taken from Pan (2002), Minderheitenrechte in Polen. In:
Pan & Pfeil, Minderheitenrechte in Europa, Vienna: Braumüller, 2002, p. 340.