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Resources > Developing  Listening & Speaking Skills in Polish (for intermediate learners)

Introduction
Developing Listening and Speaking Skills in Polish is a self-study course for intermediate learners of Polish. It is designed for postgraduate students in social sciences on a two-year course (of which the second year is spent abroad). The materials are to be used in the third term of the first year of the course. They build on the solid foundation in grammar and reading skills that these students have acquired on the taught course. The linguistic standard of their listening and speaking skills is at level A2 as defined by the Council of Europe, and the materials serve as a bridge from a good passive command of the target language to a point where the students can express themselves orally with some degree of confidence.
The course comprises 7 units, one for each week of the term. Each unit includes spoken texts and dialogues with transcript option. The texts are preceded by text-related vocabulary practice, both audio and spoken, and followed by comprehension questions. The dialogues involve role-play. All spoken answers can be recorded and checked against model answers. There is a glossary and a notebook for the students’ private use.


Mode of Delivery
Online Learning
The Developing Listening and Speaking Skills in Polish materials are intended to be web-based, with all content presented online. Students themselves select the units and do all exercises. The textual material for listening and speaking practice focuses on the subject of their studies, and the aspects of the country being studied.

Course Types
Specific Skills
Developing Listening and Speaking Skills in Polish is designed to develop listening and speaking skills to an intermediate level in a specific context.

Syllabus Types
Skills-based
The primary purpose of the course is to improve the listening and speaking skills of the Polish language. Through listening to recordings, and role-playing, students learn to function in academic–related situations.

Situational
The course is built around the situations the students are likely to encounter in the country where they will continue their studies and carry out research. These include discussing the topic of their thesis, university registration, library use, finding accommodation, etc.

Activities
Listening
The listening activities are based on audio texts and conversations. Students carry out a number of exercises to practise listening for gist, and for more detailed information.

Speaking
Speaking exercises include asking and answering questions related to the previously-heard texts (example). Students record their answers, listen to them, and re-record if they want to. They also do role-play exercises based on conversations, taking in turn the part of each interlocutor. Model answers are provided.

Example of a self-correcting listening exercise in Polish Listening and Speaking .

Vocabulary

Vocabulary related to the topic is introduced at the beginning of each unit. Students listen to and practise the pronunciation, and check the meaning in the glossary.


Grammar

The course builds on the solid foundation in grammar and reading skills that these groups of students will have acquired on the MA New Language course. This means the equivalent of level B1 as defined by the European Council.


Levels
Intermediate
Students should have a linguistic standard equivalent to level A2 on the on the listening and speaking skills scale of the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). At the end of the course they should reach level B1.

Progression
Independent units
Developing Listening and Speaking Skills in Polish consists of 7 lessons divided into two parts: a text describing the situation and conversations around this situation. Every lesson has a different topic but mirrors the structure of the other lessons. Within each unit the language level is roughly the same, which allows the students flexibility as to the order in which they study particular lessons.

Assessment
Assignments
All assignments are self-correcting and self-scoring .

Web applications
Freeware
All materials were originally created using MALTED (Multimedia Authoring for Language Tutors and Educational Development), a free computer authoring tool designed to create and present multimedia, interactive activities and work units for language learning and teaching. MALTED resulted from one of the projects of the Educational Multimedia Task Force, supported by the European Union (Telematics Applications, Sócrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes). The software has been employed by the UCL Language Centre to create numerous multimedia language courses which are used in its language lab. The wholly online version can be produced using the Audacity freeware for recording and editing of sounds, or the SANAKO Media Assistant Lite digital recorder, and Hot Potatoes freeware.

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