Structural, socio-pragmatic, and cultural aspects of teaching African languages in Poland

Abstract

The 60th anniversary of the African Studies program was celebrated at the University of Warsaw in the academic year 2022/23. This is equivalent to 60 years of experience in teaching African languages to Polish students. Since every anniversary encourages reflection, we take this opportunity to summarize the challenges we faced in this endeavour. Teaching foreign languages is not only about presenting new words and structures; it is even more about other cultures, people’s lives, and beliefs. Teaching and learning languages of such distant cultures as we encounter in Africa is quite a challenge to both the teachers and students found in the European context. In the article, we focus on two African languages; Hausa and Swahili, taught at the Chair of African Languages and Cultures, University of Warsaw. We aim to discuss chosen grammatical and cultural differences that pose problems during the teaching of these languages to Polish students.