This article deals with the history of the teaching of Polish and the curriculum for Polish junior secondary schools in the school year 1934/1935. First, the author points out that in the process of training teachers of Polish there is not much time to devote to history of didactics. Nevertheless, many of the issues, such as the celibacy of female teachers in the Silesia region between 1926 and 1938, could be interesting for students, as well as being professionally motivational. The analysis of the curriculum encompasses: educational aims, consistent with the general educational model of the interwar period, the syllabus, the educational content (reading material), methods and educational strategies as well as guidelines for analyzing literary texts, which take into consideration three factors: teleological, psychological and objective (immanent). This analysis encompasses some suggestions of the curriculum concerning the integration of the material taught, cross-curricular correlation and regionalization. The article presents the innovativeness of the curriculum in the field of literary education and the roots of contemporary curricula of literature education for junior secondary schools in the school practice of the interwar period.

The article presents a lesson plan allowing the combination of teaching the reception of a poetic text with a deeper inteUectual reflection on the significance of literature in the life of contemporary people. This lesson is a comparative analysis of two poems: Zbigniew Herbert’s Podróż do Krakowa (Journey to Cracow) and Andrzej Kusniewicz’s Bohaterowie (Heroes), and it aims to sensitize students to the values of literature. Because of the metapoetic character of the two poems, the comparison may have a motivational value, i.e. it may encourage students to a more conscious contact with literary texts.

The author of this article suggests that a new concept in literature methodology should be introduced - “responsibility for a literary text”. Basically, this responsibility consists of two aspects: a historical phenomenon of creating a text and its formal, semantic idiom. The problem of responsibility for a literary text is developed by scholars from the so-called Ethical Turn movement. It is a movement which attempts to go beyond the methodological borders defined by Linguistic Turn. The ethics of reading or ethical criticism deals with the description of the interactions between the sphere of a text and the context of a particular reader. What is brought into existence at that meeting place is the responsibility of a reader for a text’s distinctness, idiosyncrasy and experiencing reading as a change of a particular reader, resulting from the experience of distinctness of language and problems of that text.

This article presents the possibility of using computers by Polish teachers in high schools. The author concentrates on selected methods of using the Internet and educational software in teaching Polish, e.g. Literat (Literature specialist), Dyktando (Dictation), Wielkie dzieła literatury polskiej (Great works of Polish literature). The aims of such a lesson can be varied: checking knowledge, improving spelling skills, revising knowledge of a given literary period or material covered during a given period of time (e.g. tests and quizzes), reviewing the understanding of a given literary text, improving the skill of creating written texts. The last aim is related to the presentation which is a requirement of the oral part of the new matura exam in Polish. Moreover, the article includes organizational tips concerning both hardware and software in the classroom. It also stresses the importance of cooperation with other teachers. Apart from that, the author strongly believes that uncritical and unlimited use of computer software or EDU-ROMs would ruin the competence and skills of a modem teacher and the attitude towards the learner.

The author of this article attempts to compare two models of developing practical skills of using a language. The first model - established in the 1960s and 1970s - is known as the language exercise model. The other - the art of writing model - has been created by A. Dyduchowa in her work Metody kształcenia sprawności językowej uczniów (Methods of developing pupil’s linguistic skills) in 1988. This analysis has been based on national curricula and methodology handbooks, focusing on such issues as: linguistic education versus literary and cultural education, understanding a student-oriented approach, integrating the teaching of various segments of Polish studies, defining aims and methods used in developing linguistic skills. The differences between the models result from different interpretations of the traditional literature on didactics, as well as reference to different linguistic theories. The elimination of linguistic education during the Stalinist period influenced the language exercise model. Its authors, struggling to restore the segment concerning the skills of expression, overestimated the importance of specialized knowledge. The art of writing is the next step in the development of the methodology of Polish, which was responsible for the creation of a well-thought out structure of method, thus, adjusting the theory to school practice.

This article defines globalization not only as a concept but also as a controversial phenomenon which affects people’s awareness in various ways. Apart from discussing various types of globalization, the author presents more details of the theories concerning cultural globalization and the positive and negative positions of Polish linguists with reference to globalization problems. The role of education in the process of increase of globalization is also discussed in the article. The research conducted between 2002 and 2004 among junior secondary pupils and university students in Kraków has revealed a spectrum of attitudes towards globalization. Most of them define globalization as a process leading to a homogenization of various aspects of the world. According to the people interviewed, characteristic determinants of globalization include: communication, economy, trade, development, commonwealth and organizations. The responses indicate that the lexicon describing globalization is expanding and it includes mostly classifying expressions - characteristic of the media - as well as a growing body of foreign expressions.

Taking into account the linguistic system and the diachronic conditions in which Polish orthography developed, the author presents the state of spelling during the period of development of electronic media (word processors, e-mails, internet, text messages and MMS). By presenting - among others - etymological arguments, the author objects to the suggestions that the use of diacritics should be discontinued. He also opposes the use of misspelled words and expressions promoted recently by internet users or other radical spelling changes. Nevertheless, the author notes that The Orthography and Onomastics Committee is working on some changes of the spelling rules, which would adapt them more to contemporary Polish and its users. These changes - if accepted by Polish Language Council - would be binding for users of Polish.

The article deals with the communicational, social and systemic aspects of Internet spelling and the correlation between official, fixed spelling and Internet spelling, which is still being created. The author discusses characteristic features of Internet spelling, such as the rejection of diacritics, greater use of non-functional letters (e.g. X, Q), introduction of figures and letters from outside Polish alphabet, wide use of abbreviations, lexemes and conventional iconic signs. The authors points out Internet-users’ attempts to codify the rules of using orthographic innovations. He also quotes Internet-users’ opinions concerning people who communicate breaking the traditional rules of spelling. He also poses a question what is better: a mass participation in Internet discussions or a codified orthographic accuracy which would exclude many users? The author stresses the negative impact of Internet spelling on non-Internet communication and growing difficulties in teaching spelling at school.

Phraseology is not a dead science, encyclopaedic knowledge that students meet during their school education. Fixed, semantically irregular combinations of words - equivalents of single lexemes, are met by a young person in many, more or less official, real life situations. The article presents selected issues in phraseology and is aimed to help teachers sensitise students to the processes which take place in modern Polish. The content to be taught - surrounding the issue of innovativeness and phraseological mistake - can be introduced in a new, attractive way for the students. Examining advertisements, the author shows some ways of using expressions; ranging from the use of canonical idiomatic forms, through less complicated modifications (e.g. adding a new component or substituting one of the components) to allusive references. Phraseology is a store of ideas how to create a catchy, attractive slogan. The author encourages teachers to run classes dealing with idioms in advertising, which may be more interesting for students and may facilitate the process of learning and remembering new material.

This article is a neuropsychological and linguistic study of synaesthesia. It is based on the assumption that senses - which help children “get acquainted” with reality - are very important for children’s cognition. Also neuro-cognitive research on synaesthesia indicates that the language is heavily influenced, apart from culture, also by biology (human cognitive apparatus). The author, referring to existing studies of synaesthesia, examines a body of texts created by Polish children, aged 7 to 10, which comprise more than 200 synaesthetic metaphors. This study gives answers to the questions concerning the ranking system of senses expressed by children’s synaesthetic metaphors and the impact of the developmental aspect on the metaphor.

This article analyses selected expressive speech acts - praise, reprimands, criticism, insult and rebuke - employed by teachers during their lessons. This study is based on empirical material, i.e. recorded lessons in upper primary and lower secondary schools in Bytom, Dąbrowa Górnicza, Katowice and Siemianowice Śląskie between 1998 and 2001. Expressive speech acts appear at all stages of lessons and co-function with other speech acts. The analysis of speech acts encompasses both their linguistic structure and pragmatic elements.

Literatura dziecięca : funkcje, kategorie, gatunki / Zofia Adamczykowa. Warszawa, 2004 [recenzja]

Językowy obraz pór roku i tradycji kulturowych w twórczości dzieci / Bernadeta Niesporek-Szamburska. - Katowice, 2004. [recenzja]

Dziecko w świecie języka. - Kraków, 2004 / Danuta Bula, Danuta Krzyżyk, Bernadeta Niesporek-Szamburska, Helena Synowiec. - Kraków 2004 [recenzja]

Praktyczna stylistyka nie tylko dla polonistów. - Warszawa, 2003 [recenzja]

Zasady pisowni słownictwa religijnego. - Tarnów, 2004 [recenzja]