Authors

Karolina Rosiak¹;  ¹ Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland

Discussion

The mobility of contemporary societies requires not only skills in English to communicate and find employment, but also in the local languages of the countries of residence. Despite the increasing number of immigrants to Poland, Poland does not currently have the Immigration and Integration Policy, although several attempts have been made at establishing one over the years. Hence, the responsibility of integration was taken over by NGOs and local authorities. Consequently, no policy exists regarding linguistic integration of migrants and there is little institutional help in teaching Polish to migrants, although some language courses are offered to refugees. There are also some Polish language courses offered by non-governmental organisations. Yet, language skills are considered of vital importance for integration, both at formal legislative and societal levels.

The present paper will discuss findings of an ethnographic study of Polish Café - informal regular meetings of immigrants in Poznań (Poland) learning Polish with native speakers of Polish. Data for this study was obtained between May 2019 and October 2020 (with breaks as of March 2020 due to lockdowns) through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and action research. The emergent themes discussed in this paper will include (un)belonging and identity. In the presentation I will attempt to answer the question to what extent being able to speak Polish influences the study participants’ identity and belonging.