Poland’s economy is closely connected with European markets, particularly within the European Union: almost 90% of Polish commodity export goes to European countries and 80% is absorbed by other EU countries. The common European market is absorptive, safe and stabile, and goods and services sold there are duty free. But the high concentration of exports in this market implies a strong dependence on the modest growth dynamics and local fluctuations of demand, while reducing the gains that could be obtained from the presence in emerging markets which include several large and rapidly growing developing economies. The paper gives a general characteristics of those markets, including the information on their economic and population potential, and their place in the world economy – at present and in the future (according to current statistical data and long-run forecasts). The statistics of Polish foreign trade indicates a very small share of emerging countries in the geographical structure of Poland’s exports. The author describes the chances and threats combined with export expansion to these markets, emphasizing that the net balance of benefits and risks is clearly positive, which should encourage Polish enterprises to take a more active part in trade and cooperation with those countries and regions.

This paper presents the acoustic features of speech recorded during interactions with foreigners in Danish and Finnish languages in the light of Speech Accommodation Theory. It presents selective aspects of speech attuning to linguistically less-fluent interlocutors in temporal and spectral perspectives. Foreigner-directed speech and native talk were compared in a spectral (F0, vowel space and intensity) and a temporal domain (phones per second). The results were correlated with the participants’ degree of exposure to foreigners and attitude towards them measured by means of a questionnaire. It was concluded that personal attitude towards interlocutors causes hyperarticulation. It was also shown, however, that the differences between the given instances of conversation are the strongest in the temporal domain, and not in the spectral domain.

The article presents Model Integration of Immigrants in Gdańsk in the field of education, based on two years of experience of schools, local government institutions and social organizations involved in the creation of conditions for the education of immigrants. & e foreign pupils, defined as “someone else”, not belonging to the community of “our”, are not the subject of educational policy, but immediately a} er crossing the threshold of schools become its object. The law and school practices define their place in the system, that becomes a huge challenge for both teachers and for students themselves and their parents. Gdańsk way to develop urban educational policy for immigrants led from intervention by the diagnosis of problems and learning from others, to seek their own innovative solutions.

Use of technology in different didactic approaches and methods. Diachronic review. – The present paper aims to present how different methods and approaches of teaching and learning foreign languages make use of new technologies. Every method is innovative and somehow also revolutionary. It’s quite easy to define and recognize which technologies are applied in modern methods. But when it comes to traditional methods it is not so evident. However according to research findings an appropriate application of new technologies can influence the effectiveness of the learning process.

The aim of this article is to analyze both the motivations of foreign scholars to come to work in Poland – specifically Kraków – and their ways of adapting to this significant Polish academic center. Most studies on highly skilled migrants (HSMs) concentrate on the flows between developing and highly developed countries. We concentrate on Central and Eastern Europe. This paper, based on in-depth interviews with 23 foreign scholars working full-time at four universities in Kraków, is a follow-up to a study presenting a 2015 analysis of websites of universities from Kraków. We look closely at barriers to and facilitators of foreign scholars’ adaptation to Poland and their perceived image of Poland and Polishness, their national identification and international contacts. We propose a typology comprised of “cosmopolitans”, “status seekers”, “enthusiasts”, and “commuters”. Our investigations reveal who decides to move to a semi-peripheral country such as Poland, and why. Certain parts of the narratives can be used in building a strategy of attracting more international scholars to academic centers such as Kraków.

This article contains an analysis of the issues of cultural transfer during the First World War in the areas occupied by the Central Powers and the territories affected by the war. The German propaganda institutions that emerged after August 1914 functioned, somewhat contrary to initial intentions, as a network for transnational exchanges and were used by publishers, translators, writers, and other actors in the cultural sphere of the time. On the basis of archival research, the author advances several ideas on, respectively, culturalmobility in the years 1914–1918, cultural propaganda in the period of the First World War as the prehistory (and not the antithesis) of later cultural policy, and the role of cultural propaganda/cultural policy in research into literary transfers.

In this study, effects of political stability, economic freedom and trade freedom of above-stated Fragile Five Countries consisting of Brazil, Indonesia,India, Turkey, and South Africa on the performance of FDI appeal was analyzed with first generation panel data analysis method for the 1996-2017 period. The cointegration analysis between series was conducted by means of Kao (1999) and Pedroni (2004) test. The analyses showed that political stability and trade freedom have a significant positive coefficient on the Fragile Five Countries’FDI. It was also determined that the impact of economic freedom on FDI was statistically insignificant. Thus, it was concluded that the most important determinant of FDI entry into countries is political stability. Error correction mechanisms of models have been working well. In addition, it was found that political stability, economic freedom, and trade freedom are the cause of foreign direct investment in the long-run.

This article presents selected results from a survey conducted in 2014 and 2015 in the Province of Opole, among 263 entrepreneurs representing companies from different sectors which varied due to the number of employees and the labour market segment. Organisations with experience in employing a foreign workforce as well as those who had not previously employed foreigners were asked about their willingness to engage a foreign workforce. The analysis was made taking into account the labour market segment. Majority of respondents claimed that the country of origin of the foreign workforce is irrelevant. Such attitude was more frequent among entrepreneurs with experience in hiring foreigners than among those who have not yet taken on foreign labour. Entrepreneurs, especially those employing foreigners during the study, tended to view foreigners as more available and more willing to work overtime, hence ‘better’ then Polish employees. Interestingly, among respondents representing the secondary labour market, the opinion that foreigners are ‘better’ employees was more common than in the group representing the primary labour market.

The present study is the first attempt at examining the perception and evaluation of 10 internationally known political and religious leaders’ English pronunciation. 40 Polish students’ assessed their speech samples in terms of the degree of foreign accentedness, comprehensibility and acceptability. We examine whether the following factors affect the assessors’ judgements: their personal attitude to the speakers, the students’ level of English proficiency and the genetic proximity between between the speakers’ and the listeners’ L1s combined with the raters’ familiarity with foreign accents of English. It is demonstrated that the listeners’ attitude to the speakers has no impact on the ratings of the samples’ comprehensibility and accentedness, but plays an important role in their evaluations of acceptability. The participants’ level of English proficiency is crucial for their assessment of comprehensibility, but not accentedness and acceptability. Finally, the genetic proximity between the involved languages and the listeners’ familiarity with varieties of foreign-accented English are shown to be relevant for all the presented accent jugdements.

The article shows, on the example of the accounts of the journey of John James Blunt and Auguste de Forbin, how the folk religiosity of Sicilians, especially patron saints, was perceived. The analysis of the texts showed that the newcomers who come into contact with the Sicilian culture notice that patron saints are a very characteristic phenomenon for this area and play an important role in social and political life.

Dialogue in the Classroom: Teaching Strategies and Their Reception by Students – The paper aims to explore Student Voice research within the academic context in terms of theoretical assumptions and a practical approach to its application in the classroom. In the first part, we focus on three main themes which build the explanatory framework: (1) Italian language teaching at Polish universities, (2) the current teaching methodology implemented in the classroom, and (3) Student Voice as a tool to better plan teaching activities. In the second part, we present the findings of a survey conducted among students learning Italian at the Faculty of Applied Linguistics, and we analyze their value for the teaching and learning process.

Celebrating patron saints as an element of the Sicilian character: the foreign travelers point of view – This article will look at descriptions of some patronal festivals in Sicily drawn from the works of the most important foreign travelers and will try to show how such celebrations represent a fundamental aspect of Sicilianity.

This article discusses the professional careers of foreign scholars in Krakow, one of the leading academic centres in Poland and a regional ‘silicon valley’ (toutes proportions gardées). Central and Eastern Europe is understudied as an immigration region for highly skilled migrants (HSMs). To bridge this gap, we concentrate on three interrelated topics: (a) the perception of Polish science and its infrastruc-ture; (b) careers of international staff employed in Polish academia; and (c) their perception of their achievements in Poland. Foreign scholars come to Poland for various reasons. Two of the most important are the cultural proximity between Poland and their country of origin, and research interests focused directly in Poland. Our findings show that Poland attracts first and foremost scholars with average scientific achievements. We discuss major problems they encounter (e.g., shortage of funds, uncomfortable office space, restricted access to books and papers) and their expectations of life in a semi-periphery country. The paper is mainly based on in-depth interviews with 23 foreign scholars working full time at four universities in Krakow and, as a secondary source, on the analysis of websites of these universities.