Bilingualism
Bilingualism: questions and answers – a guide for parents and teachers
The guide has been created by Dr Anna Martowicz, Polish teacher and linguistics researcher, the founder of “Give your child the gift of your mother tongue” campaign. The campaign is run by the Association for the Promotion of Polish Language Abroad (APPLA) based in Edinburgh.
We’d like to thank Dr Anna Martowicz for kindly allowing us to publish the Guide.
dwujezycznosc.info – the web portal dedicated to bilingual matters
The dwujezycznosc.info web portal is dedicated to parents of Polish children living abroad as well as Poles who speak at least two languages or live in a multi-language environment. The web portal offers many, valuable and useful materials, articles and presentations, which are a great source of information and resources suitable for parents’ meetings and teachers’ workshops on bilingualism.
The editing team of the dwujezycznosc.info web portal consists of very well acclaimed psychologists from the Jagiellonian University and specialists on language studies and bilingualism involved in various linguistic and bilingual projects.
A guide for parents of bilingual children – published by Polish University Abroad
A collection of articles written by Polish University Abroad teachers and researchers from other institutions can be found on the Polish University Abroad website (in Polish).
Multilingual Families – an international project that helps parents bring up their children multilingually
This is an education project funded by the European Union that supports immigrant or multilingual parents and informs them how and why to raise their children multilingually. It is targeted at preserving the languages and culture of the 47.3 million immigrants living in the European Union and the many families with parents with more than one language.
On the project’s website, you’ll find a base of resources for parents and teachers such as guides, methodological manuals, exercises and case studies.
Guides, tips and other materials for parents can be found here.
Bilingualism Matters
This is an international project aiming to bridge the gap between researchers and the community.
On the project’s website there is a number of interesting and valuable resources as well as information about forthcoming events and information sessions regarding bilingualism.
We recommend especially the blog containing lots of very informative reading about bilingualism.
Notable Poles on the subject of bilingualism and the importance of learning your mother tongue
Polish Ambassador in Great Britain, Witold Sobków in The Guardian: “Learning Polish, the UK’s second most spoken language, is a plus”. Read the full article here.
Vice-chancellor of the Cambridge University, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz in The Guardian: “Bilingualism offers ‘huge advantages’”. Read the full article here.
“Backup to Poland” On-line consultations
The “Sto Pociech” Foundation runs on-line consultations via e-mail or Skype as part of the project (Z)Powrotem w Polsce (Back to Poland). The purpose of the consultation is to support pupils and their parents who are planning to return to Poland or those who suffer from adaptation difficulties.