Official Blog Entry #4

Reichelt, M. (2005). English-language Writing Instruction in Poland. Journal of Second

Language Writing, 14(4), 215-232.

 I chose this article for several reasons.  One is that the Polish language is related to the Czech language, more so than other Slavic languages like Russian or Serbian, and the two countries have some cultural similarities.  Another is that I privileged to interview a Polish classmate for another Linguistics class and was curious to see if I recognized any of the problems with the system that she had identified from a student’s perspective while working on her Master’s degree in in Poland.  Yet another reason was that Reichelt cites the Leki article that I blogged about in “Official Blog Entry # 3” last week.  I was curious to see what Reichelt had to say about the observations made by Leki.

 Some of Reichelt’s main points are that English holds a special privileged place in Polish foreign language education on the basis that it will positively influence one’s career options, writing instruction is “shaped significantly by pressure to prepare students for the writing sections of various English-language exams” (Reichelt 225), and fears regarding English’s “potential to erode local languages and values” (Reichelt 225) are largely unwarranted.  English is seen as a handy tool to interact in the European community and is in affect being “Europeanized.” (Reichelt 225).

To support this theory, Reichelt focused on a large metropolitan area of central Poland and studying English language learning at several levels:  “the university’s English Department, two secondary schools and the city’s largest private language institute.” (Reichelt 216)  Her interview questions, samples of a major writing exam, some writing assignments and writing samples are provided in the article appendices.  She discovered that following the fall of Communism English language learning became more popular than ever and surpassed Russian and German as the foreign language of preference in the schools.  Primary students receive basic grammar and language instruction.  Secondary students receive more and a little writing instruction.  The majority of L2 Writing instruction takes place at the college level and in private language instiutes.  While the writing assignments given at the college level are primarily for English majors and rely heavily on genre theory, they appear to neglect the reality of L1 writing tradition in Poland and are mostly geared to aiding the major required English writing exam.  Most adults that attend the private language institutes do so to further their careers or to aide in business communication throughout Europe and the world.  The fears of English surpassing Polish are not an issue as it is primarily a tool of international communication, not a replacement for Polish thought and literature and everyday interaction.

I would recommend this article to colleagues, particularly those interested in TEFLing in Central and Eastern Europe.  The insight into the system of this one particular country is invaluable.  It also helps solidify the reality of L2 language writing in a world environment.  It echoes the problems observed by my Polish friend during her studies and supports Leki’s arguments from last week’s blog post.  I consider this to be one of the most useful articles I have read so far for better understanding the EFL attitudes of my former Czech students and work environment.