On the Benefits of Using Social Research in Teaching Polish Culture and Language to Foreigners

Background: The use of social research in the work of a philologist has become a standard scientific procedure, with the survey emerging as the particularly preferred method — among those developed within sociology — for supporting one’s research. Linguists (especially ethnolinguists studying the linguistic worldview) are the most frequent users of this tool. In glottodidactics, the results obtained through surveys may be helpful for cognitive reasons (serving as a source of knowledge about the development of language and its users, as well as a basis and inspiration for further research) and for pragmatic reasons (by indirectly influencing the selection of content or the form of teaching materials). Through specialized courses in sociological sciences, the survey can also become an independent subject of methodological reflection, with international students of Polish philology assuming a doubly active role — as social researchers and as philologists continually developing their linguistic and cultural competencies. Purpose: The article concerns the benefits of participation in classes on the basics of social research in teaching Polish culture and language to foreigners. An examination of the "Fundamentals of Social Research" course in terms of its curriculum content and teaching methods aims to demonstrate that this subject not only prepares students to conduct social research but also —much like courses in linguistics and literary studies – contributes to the teaching of Polish culture and the Polish language. Results: After presenting the motives, circumstances, and results of the use of survey research in the philologist's work (as most often borrowed by humanists), the less apparent advantages associated with the use of sociological methods and techniques by international students of Polish studies are presented: developing transceiver language skills (especially in understanding and writing utterances of different genres, expanding the lexical resources, using various varieties of the Polish language), deepening knowledge (mainly about culture and society), developing social competences (in contact with representatives of other environments and in solving cognitive, ethical, and organizational problems). Keywords: social research, survey, Polish philology as a foreign language, teaching Polish, didactics of culture.