The Communicative Approach in New Programs and Textbooks for Teaching Polish as a Foreign Language Wladyslaw Miodunka

Though the first program based on the communicative approach The Threshold Level English, elaborated by the Council of Europe, was published in 1975, the first Polish program based on that approach was published almost twenty years later, in 1992 in the volume entitled J&enasal;zyk polski jako obcy. Programy nauczania (Polish as a Foreign Language. Teaching Programs). This does not however mean that before 1992 there were no communicative textbooks for teaching Polish; Mów do mnie jeszcze (Talk to me more), a communicative textbook for teaching Polish as a foreign language by W. Martyniuk, had already been published in 1984.

This paper concerns the realization of communicative programs in both textbooks for teaching Polish as a foreign language that were published in the nineties and the video program Uczmy si&enasal; polskiego (Let's Learn Polish). It aims to reveal how particular authors understand the notion of the communicative approach, as well as which elements of that approach they teach and in what way. The paper will also analyze the relationships between the communicative approach and teaching languages like Polish, which is more distant from English than French, German and Spanish.