What goes into creating a language textbook, and how can instructors evaluate and adapt teaching materials for their own classrooms? These questions will be at the center of the second North American Association of Teachers of Polish event of the Fall 2026 semester, featuring Dr. Izolda Wolski-Moskoff of the University of Chicago.
In this presentation, Dr. Izolda Wolski-Moskoff will discuss her ongoing project of designing Pani Kowalska, a new textbook for second-year Polish. The textbook is designed to address the diverse needs of college-level learners, including both L2 learners and heritage speakers, while developing intermediate proficiency in all four skills as defined by ACTFL. It combines communicative activities, extensive vocabulary development, and a focus-on-form approach to expanding first-year grammar.
The textbook also presents Polish culture from a contemporary and more inclusive perspective, introducing students to a broader range of voices, communities, and identities while still engaging with iconic figures and traditions such as Chopin. Through interactive classroom activities and authentic cultural content, Pani Kowalska aims to provide a practical and engaging path toward greater linguistic proficiency and cultural understanding.
We invite all members of the Polish language teaching community to join us for what promises to be an engaging and insightful conversation about language materials, curriculum design, and innovation in Polish language education. As is customary, the working languages of the event will be Polish and English.
About the speaker: Dr. Izolda Wolski-Moskoff holds a Ph.D. in Slavic linguistics from The Ohio State University, where she researched heritage Polish and taught Polish language and culture courses. She has taught Polish at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh’s intensive summer program, and the University of Illinois Chicago, where she built and led a program serving a diverse urban student population. Her work focuses on both the linguistic features of heritage Polish and the experiences of the Polish diaspora, including the chapter Poles and Their Language in the U.S. “Melting Pot”: How Polish is Preserved and/or Lost in Chicago, featured in Polish as a Heritage Language Around the World. She is currently developing Pani Kowalska, a second-year textbook for mixed-level Polish classrooms. Wolski-Moskoff has also served on the board of the North American Association of Teachers of Polish for seven years, including four as President.
Event details
Title: Beyond the First Year: Pani Kowalska and a New Vision for Second-Year Polish
Date: October 15, 2026
Time: 2 pm (Chicago) / 3 pm ( New York) / 9 pm (Warsaw)
Location: Zoom (waiting room initially).
The Zoom link will be shared among current active members ahead of time. To join and receive the link to this meeting, please complete this form.
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