ABSTRACTS

Paulina Dwużnik

Spoken Interaction in Teaching English for Legal Purposes

The article presents a definition of spoken interaction as well as its main characteristics. It indicates the importance of teaching spoken interaction and its strategies as an introduction to language mediation. The author lists main strategies and functions of spoken interaction in teaching English for Legal Purposes as well as linguistic and extralinguistic skills necessary to communicate effectively in professional legal background. Moreover, the article presents ways of creating appropriate conditions for interaction between a teacher and student as well as in a student-to-student interaction. The article also contains an example of a task aimed at developing the skill of spoken interaction.

Monika Janicka

Developing Key Competences as a Goal in Teaching Foreign Languages

In the Recommendations on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning the European Commission emphasises the role of key competences in modern societies as crucial for personal fulfilment and development, employability, social inclusion and active citizenship. Moreover, because of the possibility of cross-border communication and mobility language learning is becoming increasingly important. The aim of the article is to present the tenets of the project method as an example of a student-oriented, activating method, fostering students’ creativity and enabling them to develop their soft skills as well as their key competences. The last part of the article consists of the description of the methodological project, implemented by the students of Applied Linguistics – future language teachers – and also encompasses the analysis of its capacities to increase and improve the level of students’ key competences.

Katarzyna Sowa-Bacia

Selecting Materials in Foreign Language Teaching in Kindergarten

The aim of this paper is an attempt at selecting criteria which could be of use for teachers when selecting didactic materials for preschool children. Establishing criteria for choosing appropriate materials seems to be of particular importance in light of the current educational policy in Poland – according to the core curriculum for nursery and primary school education (cf. Ministry of National Education regulation from 14.02.2017) elements of foreign language are obligatory for all kindergarten children. The present paper discusses, among others, such criteria as: the presence in didactic materials of a high number of listening texts, the appropriate amount of language input included in listening and written texts or the presence of illustrations.

Martín Testa

Previously Known Language in Learning a Third Language

Knowing more than one language has been found to be an advantage when it comes to learning a third (or further) language. However, on the market a number of ‘successful’ methods can be found that either ban the mother tongue (or another foreign language) from the learning process, or else use it (or them) for constant comparison with the target language. Assuming that both types of approach lead to at least some degree of success (i.e. depending on the individual and sociocultural background of students), the question whether to allow or forbid using another language in the foreign language classroom is an issue that still haunts teachers.

Dorota Werbińska

Successful Foreign Language Teaching: Three Teaching Suggestions

Successful language teaching is the basic aim of all language teachers. Although this aim has not changed for decades, the understanding of what brings success in language teaching is not unanimous in different times and contexts. This article aims at presenting the understanding of successful language teaching at present. It briefly describes three historicwal, overlapping waves of different understandings of language teaching, followed by the discussion of three practical foreign language classroom techniques: conceptual maps, the flipped classroom, and duoethnographic dialogues. As these classroom activities encourage students to learn deeply and actively, which aligns with the contemporary criteria of good language teaching, they are argued to be successful and worth applying in the language classroom.