The Introduction presents a general outline of the assumptions and goals pursued in the articles collectively titled “From the Theory and Didactic Practice of the Polish Language”. Attention is drawn to the importance of humanistic education in the face of the threats of the contemporary world. The authors stress the need to look at social issues from the perspective of the new humanities, i.e., one that illuminates the problems related to the life of all the creatures that inhabit our planet. This perspective stresses man’s responsibility for the harmonious and safe development of all beings as well as his understanding of the need to give up his domination over, or colonization of, who-/whatever.

In this interview, Professor Tadeusz Sławek reflects on the contemporary story about the world and the obligations of the humanities in a world troubled by various crises, especially those related climate, refugees, and the epidemic or, broadly, ecology. These reflections are carried out in the context of the current social, political, and ethical situation and lead to the question regarding the contemporary way of practicing the humanities in school in general, and in the Polish school in particular. In the conversation, Tadeusz Sławek refers to some old masters: Friedrich Schiller, Plato, Baruch Spinoza, to justify the long-standing and venerable idea of education. According to this idea, students are faced with the task of telling what and how they think, rather than reporting on what they know. Education is a process of revealing doubts and asking questions, rather than reproducing received opinions and other people’s knowledge.

In his article, Maciej Michalski discusses some of the challenges of literary education caused by the pandemic and other contemporary crises (social, environmental, and cognitive). He argues that it is necessary to reduce the growing gap between the content of school education and the problems of the contemporary world. Michalski submits that more emphasis should be put on developing in students attitudes based on empathy, understanding, tolerance, and resilience, which will help them to cope with anxieties and the challenges of the contemporary world. He argues that it is crucial to abandon the text-centered perspective, to use a wider range of non-literary texts, and to show that interpretation can be conceived also as a type of social practice.

Elżbieta Koziołkiewicz’s aim in this article is to examine methods of including prose fiction in lessons of Polish as a foreign language offered to low-level students (up to B1 level). In the first part, Koziołkiewicz reviews available didactic materials and theoretical publications devoted to the topic of literature in foreign language teaching. On this basis, she formulates some general rules as regards the criteria for selecting literary texts, namely: the need to use contemporary fiction that is potentially accessible thanks to the inclusion of universal themes and, as far as possible, realities. She goes on to stress the need to adapt the original texts and puts her discussion in the context of other research articles dedicated to this issue. The second part of the article has been devised as a practical guide to adaptation. The text chosen as a sample in this case study is the short story “Pasażer” (“The Passenger”) by Olga Tokarczuk, published in the collection Opowiadania bizarne. Koziołkiewicz shows how the scope of interferences can be limited to necessary changes and highlights the use of internationalisms and synonyms. She points to the benefits of using multiple simplified versions of an original text in class.

The ecological crisis is regarded as one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Aleksandra Lange in this article argues that the issues of climate change ought to be addressed in Polish language lessons in primary schools. This may be achieved though the analysis and interpretation of literary texts in the spirit of the ecological and humanities committed to these issues. Lange gives examples of texts and specific ideas that can be used in the classroom. Non-fiction literature plays a special role in this proposal of environmental education in Polish language lessons. Based on contemporary reportages, Lange discusses the attitudes of the “humanist signaller” and “ecological disobedience”. She places work on these texts in a broad social, political, and moral context. In the conclusion, she draws attention to the idea of returning to nature and to the need to pay attention to the role of nature in home and school education.

In her article, Katarzyna Skoczek is concerned with disabled protagonists in literature for children and young adults. She makes a case for the value of class discussions about literary works which feature disabled protagonists, and of addressing in this way the topic of otherness, for such lessons will convince students that different does not mean worse. She recommends two books for Polish language lessons in primary school: O Kamilu, który patrzy rękami [About Kamil, Who Looks with His Hands] by Tomasz Małkowski and Wyspa mojej siostry [My Sister’s Island] by Katarzyna Ryrych. The protagonist of the former has a sensory, and of the latter – an intellectual disability. Skoczek argues that it is important to discuss different types of disability, for each person is different and has a different type of sensitivity. Yet differences do not justify discrimination.

The paper deals with the key problem of creating the learning and teaching environment: the relation of the input, processes and output of instruction. In Czech language teaching, we observe that their separation results in problems, especially in the area of the processes and results of instruction. On the one hand, we see innovative educational policies and field didactic theories; on the other hand, we have educational practices that remain in traditional, rather rigid positions. All that collides with the requirements of standardized examinations, which have greater influence on educational practice than educational policies or curricula. All in all, for all innovations in education, cohesion between the input, processes and output is an absolute necessity.

In their article, Marta Chyb-Winnicka and Anna Tabisz present a taxonomic approach to the teaching of listening and speaking skills in lessons of Polish as a native language. The authors show that the 2017 provisions of the core curriculum for the Polish language in primary schools in Poland put special emphasis on the development of reading and writing skills. For this reason, Chyb-Winnicka and Tabisz underline the importance of teaching the two other skills, i.e., listening and speaking, and argue that taxonomic categories should be used to systematize the knowledge of these skills.

This text presents results of the research of the analysis of a concept SPRAVEDLNOST (JUSTICE) in Czech language students’ linguistic picture of the world, on the basis of a questionnaire survey research. These are preliminary results of broad research of this concept in Czech language, which is conducted within the EUROJOS project.

The starting point of the article is the normative belief that some conjunctions, such as because (bo) and but (ale), are typical of speech and should be used in it, and others, such as because (ponieważ) and yet (lecz), are appropriate for written works. They were tested on the material of randomly selected short texts from philosophy, linguistics, literary studies, psychology, journalism, literary criticism and popular science texts about language. The research procedure had several stages: 1) beliefs, 2) doubts, different points of view, 3) material assembly, 4) study, 5) results, 6) interpretation, 7) conclusions. The author believes that this scheme is suitable for use in Polish lessons. The initial idea turned out to be wrong: conjunctions because (bo) and but (ale) occur in the reviewed texts much more often than because (ponieważ) and yet (lecz).

This text deals with a didactic situation in the context of a selected curriculum from word formation. It is based on the theory of didactic situations previously presented mainly in didactics of mathematics. The author tries to apply the theory to the curriculum of word formation at the 1st stage of primary school. The text further describes in more detail the course and the results of experiments applied in teaching.

The article presents the current situation, challenges and problems of Polish studies in China. The oldest department of Polish studies in the PRC was established in 1954 at the Beijing Foreign Studies University and has been functioning to the present day. For over 50 years, there was only one department of Polish studies in the China mainland. However, since 2009, more Chinese universities have started to establish departments of Polish studies. As a result of the China – Central Eastern Europe Cooperation and the “One Belt, One Road” Initiative, the China – Poland relation has been developing dynamically in recent years. Today, in the academic year 2020/2021, 20 Chinese universities offer Polish language programs. The development brings excellent opportunities as well as great challenges for Polish studies in China. Teaching Polish as a foreign language in China, a country remarkably distant in language and culture from Poland, can pose not only entirely new problems but also open new possibilities for further research.

The aim of the article is to attempt to situate the term “resilience competence”, which is not known to modern lexicographers (and thus troublesome), in the discourse about the competencies of a model teacher: academic teacher of the future. Resilience competences allow people to find themselves in the new, changing social space. In a situation of pandemic, the development of competencies is indisputable, regardless of profession. In the profession of a modern, also academic teacher, strengthening resilience seems to be a necessity. Resilience competencies support remote education processes. They undoubtedly facilitate meeting the demands of education in a pandemic.

The author of a critical review of the monograph entitled Język ojczysty w edukacji szkolnej w Polsce, Czechach i na Słowacji  [“The mother tongue in school education in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia”] presents the possibilities of conducting comparative research in the field of mother-tongue teaching. Until now, researchers of this sub-discipline have rarely used the achievements used by linguists from abroad. The situation – as the monograph analyzed by the author shows – is slowly changing. The studies presented in the reviewed book concern didactic aspects of various levels of language. They are similar in a functional approach to teaching the mother tongue. The author of the review points out that such profiled research on language education in one country may raise awareness of language education in neighboring countries.

In the book which is the subject of this review, Docenić szkołę. Dydaktyczna teoria i metodyczna praktyka [To appreciate the school: Didactic theory and methodological practice] Maria Kwiatkowska-Ratajczak documents plans of lessons carried out in one of Poznań’s secondary schools. This research material concerns the experience of students and teachers in studying the history of the ancestors fighting for the regaining of the independence of Wielkopolska, reviving the archive of paintings, of young people’s self-reflection on their cultural DNA, creative writing to the authorities, and profiled reading of The Doll. The author draws attention to the unjust and common criticism of the school and at the same time describes a model of education which promotes mental independence and an personal vision of the world, of education which engages students in a real dialogue with texts and which can arouse admiration.

The primary objective of the review is to present and discuss the monograph titled Po lekcjach [After school] by Małgorzata Wójcik-Dudek. In her work, the author collects and updates a set of previously published articles, in some of the cases broadening their scope. The examination of the texts in question reveals the multitude of topics and problems underlying their analysis. A context-embedded approach to reading and dialogue-based text comprehension prove crucial for providing a new perspective on the texts discussed by Wójcik-Dudek in Po lekcjach, which, in effect, develops the field of Polish education.