Sociolinguistics in selected textbooks used for teaching Polish as a native language in a primary school

Abstract

The text is an effort to present a change which took place at the turn of centuries in teaching Polish as a native language. It is, first of all, about a new sociolinguistic perspective in teaching Polish which appeared at schools. The author analyses four selected series of textbooks used for teaching Polish in a primary school. Special attention was paid to activity books, which are analysed with regard for presence of situational exercises that make students analyse communication situations and their typical language behaviours. They also make them create effective utterances adequate to a specific context. The conducted research shows that a communication perspective is not represented well in school textbooks. Activities focusing on development of communication competence are rare, they are scattered or separated from other language actions. Thus, they do not fit into a general textbook concept, and they often are only a decoration required by the core curriculum.

Keywords

• communicative competence
• language teaching
• polish language teaching
• sociolinguistic
• textbook