Seventh Heritage Language Research Institute

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Changing demographics: Implications for teaching Polish in Chicago

Chicago is the second largest Polish city after Warsaw, and is home to several generations of heritage speaking Polish Americans.  Our presentation focuses on two educational contexts with these students.  The first is the relatively large K-12 Polish Chicago Saturday school network.  Given that the Polish immigrant population has been declining, we can expect the proportion of third generation Polish Americans to increase relative to the more proficient second generation.  To reflect this demographic shift, teaching methods must become attractive and enjoyable to an English-dominant student population, including educational games, hands-on common experiences, and online interactive communication with peers in Poland. 

The second context we explore is the heritage speaker Polish program at the university level, such as those offered at the University of Illinois at Chicago and at Loyola University.  Enrollment of second generation heritage Polish speakers is still high, yet as is the case with most heritage speaker populations, students' proficiency depends on exposure to Polish, involvement in local cultural activities, and the regional and socioeconomic background of the family.  We present the most common features in second generation U.S. Polish grammar, orthography, and lexicon, with an eye towards classroom activities that can foster writing skills for both personal and professional purposes.