Within the framework of the Support Programme for the Gdańsk Humanities addressed to academic teachers at the University of Gdańsk, team and individual grants were awarded. Among the prize-winners, there is a team that will carry out a project concerning current linguistic issues: 'Communication barriers of migrants in the Polish-speaking environment. The situation of Slavic and non-Slavic speakers in Pomerania.'

Let us recall that the Gdańsk Humanities Support Programme is carried out within the framework of the Initiative for Excellence in the Research Universities (IDUB) and is addressed to UG academic teachers conducting research activities in the humanities. According to the university's authorities, with its help, unique works and projects can be created at the UG, which will increase the recognition of the Gdańsk humanities in Poland and worldwide. The activities of the IDUB programme and the Support Programme for the Gdańsk Humanities are also the implementation of the election programme of prof. dr hab. Piotr Stepnowski, Rector of UG.

'Communication barriers of migrants in the Polish-speaking environment. The situation of Slavic and non-Slavic speakers in Pomerania living in the Pomeranian region' is a project which aims at responding to the social problem generated by the increasing presence in Pomerania, as well as in Poland, of foreign language migrants, wishing to make Poland their place of residence.

The team from the Faculty of Philology of the University of Gdańsk consists of the following scientists: dr hab. Ewa Badyda, dr Irena Chawrilska, dr Elżbieta Czapka, dr hab. Ewa Czaplewska, dr Joanna Ginter, prof. dr hab. Aneta Lewińska, dr hab. dr Lucyna Warda-Radys. Most of them have been involved in training future teachers of Polish as a foreign language for many years. Dr hab. Ewa Czaplewska, prof. UG researches bilingualism in an international team in Iceland. Within the international action COST IS1406, she also researched speech therapy for monolingual and bilingual children in Europe. Prof. dr hab. Aneta Lewińska has been working for years on issues of school education of children with migration experience. She cooperates with the Municipal Office in Gdańsk, she participated in the creation of the Model of Immigrants' Integration, at the same time she created the Centre of Education and Examination of Foreigners at the University of Gdańsk, she conducted scientific research closely connected with teaching practice.

Data on the presence of immigrants in Pomerania: migrants from different cultural backgrounds are on the rise every year in Pomeranian Voivodeship. In 2019, 132 000 declarations of entrustment of work to foreigners and almost 30 000 work permits were issued. At the end of 2018, according to ZUS data, there were 35 000 foreigners registered there. Nearly 3 000 children with migration experience study in Pomeranian schools (data from Educational Information System), and 367 out of 440 schools in Pomerania have immigrant children.

The process of effective integration of foreigners in Polish social life often encounters obstacles, caused mainly by communication barriers resulting from cultural differences and insufficient knowledge of the Polish language. - 'This applies both to adults who come to Poland of their own choice and take up employment of various nature here, and to their children who start or continue their education in Polish educational institutions, in whose case the communication barrier - as indicated by the NIK report published in 2020 - is mainly responsible for school failures,' - explains dr hab. Ewa Czaplewska, prof. UG.

The team's project focuses on two closely related levels of integration: language and culture. They are essential factors for structural integration (achieving a certain social position: citizenship, permanent residence, professional achievements and qualifications, frequency of social contacts), social integration (individual attitude, interaction in public space, private social relations outside the immigrant group), identification integration (emotional and cognitive relation with the society: values, sense of civic duty or 'benevolent indifference').

Pomeranian immigrants are usually economic migrants, so an important aspect of their integration is economic integration, defined as free access of immigrants to the labour market and employment. As the researchers from the team explain, this is only possible if immigrants can obtain the same or a similar position in the market as native workers. - 'To do so, they are forced to go through a process of "catching up" with native workers in terms of work activity and earnings. The concept of 'catching up' implies that the integration of immigrants is blocked by deficits in language and culture, family structure, social structure and access to social capital,' they explain.

Lack of language skills

Foreign children studying in Polish schools face a similar challenge. The data presented in the NIK report shows that the basic problem in working with students coming from abroad, sometimes making it impossible to conduct classes, is the issue of communication, which is hindered by an insufficient command of the Polish language. Lack of proper identification of the level of command of the Polish language by foreign students is one of the reasons why appropriate textbooks and teaching materials are not developed for them, which would allow them to equalise their language level with their Polish peers. The school failures caused by these factors affect the lack of motivation to learn and loss of faith in the possibility of success, and in consequence cause adaptation problems and disrupt the integration of students with migrant experience into their Polish social environment.

Diagnosis of communication barrier mechanisms

Living in the Polish reality requires from migrants various social interactions, necessary for example in everyday contacts with institutions, especially such as school, office, clinic or hospital. The proposed project aims to prepare tools and materials for a detailed diagnosis of the mechanism of communication barriers that hinder migrants' contacts with native speakers of Polish in these situations.

Such a diagnosis cannot be made without a proper and detailed diagnosis of language used by migrants. This main goal is to be achieved through two tasks planned in the project: pilot testing of tools aimed at precise determination of the mechanism of communication barriers and collecting linguistic material for future research on this phenomenon. This will be a corpus of Polish-language texts by pupils with migration experience attending Polish schools.

- 'We hope that the interdisciplinarity of our team will result in the possibility of analysis and interpretation taking into account various aspects of the studied phenomenon. The more so, as some of us have been working on intercultural issues for some time already,' - convince the researchers. They believe that the current project will be the beginning of further scientific activities, which will contribute to the identification of social and cultural factors that hinder communication between migrants and representatives of the institutions included in the research.