Preface

We resolved to start publishing Theory and Practice of Second Language 
Acquisition despite the fact that Poland has a strong position in second language 
acquisition research and that quite a large number of monographic publications 
in this area come out every year—often published abroad with Multilingual 
Matters or Springer, among others. However, there was no academic research-
oriented journal devoted to the theory and practice of SLA which would be 
widely available to Polish academia. Following the publication of the first is-
sue, however, it became clear that its scope would attract submissions from not 
only Polish scholars but also international academics. Thus far, TAPSLA has 
featured articles by such renowned contributors as David Singleton, Larissa 
Aronin, Jean-Marc Dewaele—and many other scholars representing innovative 
movements in SLA research worldwide. The journal has become a venue for 
the exchange of ideas for academics at home and abroad, focusing on often 
unresearched issues and fairly new developments in SLA studies. The Editorial 
Board consists of both Polish and foreign experts in the area, and represents 
the wide range of research interests of its members. All updated information 
on the journal is available on the University of Silesia in Katowice, Institute 
of English webpage at www.ija.us.edu.pl (via a special link) and the journal 
webpage at http://www.journal.us.edu.pl/index.php/TAPSLA.

The present issue opens with an article by Ewa Piechurska-Kuciel “The 
Role of Social Support Systems in Adolescent Foreign Language Learning,” 
the main focus of which is on the role family, teachers, and peers play in the 
academic success of adolescent FL learners. Research on social support, though 
not very extensive, unanimously demonstrates that social support influences 
learners’ resilience to the stress generated by FL learning situations. It con-
tributes to the adolescent’s development of self-esteem, autonomy, and building 
social competence, among many other effects. The article overviews theoretical 
assumptions and selected studies on social support. Also, Anna Bąk-Średnicka, 



6 Preface

in her text “Pre-service Teachers’ Attitudes Related to Family Involvement in 
Light of Their School Placement Experience,” focuses on social support issues 
in relation to partnership between teachers and parents. The author reports on 
an empirical study conducted among pre-service EFL teachers on the effects of 
their collaboration with their learners’ parents and its visible effectiveness and 
impact on their learners’ success. The author stresses that despite the ministerial 
guidance for teacher training programmes, hardly any time is devoted to devel-
oping trainees’ awareness of this issue, thus more emphasis should be put on 
it in teacher training curricula. The main concern of the article by Małgorzata 
Szupica-Pyrzanowska and Katarzyna Malesa, entitled “Are They Part of the 
Equation? – Foreign Language Teachers vs. Language Attrition. A Diagnostic 
Study,” touches upon the problem of language competence deterioration in the 
case of foreign language teachers. The pilot study carried out in a group of 
MA students working as primary school EFL teachers revealed the plethora 
of factors contributing to the stagnation and even regression in their language 
competences. The authors, aware of the pilot nature of their study, suggest ways 
of researching the issue more thoroughly. The next article by Ewa Cieślicka and 
Arkadiusz Rojczyk, “Self-reported vs. Self-rated Pronunciation in a Non-native 
Language,” also focuses on non-native FL competence and, more precisely, on 
a non-native accent. In their empirical study, the authors observed that there 
were no visible differences between the way advanced students of English as-
sessed their accent in English in general and, later on, how they rated it on the 
basis of their own recorded performance. The authors conclude that one’s self-
image as expressed by the subjects of the study is a fairly stable characteristic. 
Konrad Szcześniak, in his article “Benefits of L1–L3 Similarities. The Case of 
the Dative Case,” discusses the influence of structural similarities between the 
Polish (L1) of a speaker and Portuguese (his/her L3). The author observes that 
the students are aware of similarities between L1 Polish and L3 Portuguese 
dative constructions and, indeed, positive transfer does occur in their perform-
ance. At the same time, it is not as frequent and widespread as might have 
been expected due to existing similarities in the dative case constructions of 
these two languages. The author discusses the reasons of this phenomenon.

The present issue of the journal inaugurates a new Reviews section with 
two recommendations. The first book review included is by Larissa Aronin. 
She fully endorses the value of Kurt Braunmüller and Christoph Gabriel’s 
(2012) edited volume Multilingual Individuals and Multilingual Societies pub-
lished by John Benjamins, which is an interesting collection of twenty-five 
articles on multilingualism as described from both synchronic and diachronic 
perspectives, and recommends it as a valuable source for researchers in the 
field of multilingualism. The other book review included in this issue is by 
Danuta Gabryś-Barker. It presents a very recent volume by Anna Mystkowska-
Wiertelak and Mirosław Pawlak (2017), entitled Willingness to Communicate 



7Preface

in Instructed Second Language Acquisition. Combining a Macro- and Micro-
Perspective and published by Multilingual Matters. This monographic volume 
focuses on individual learner differences, contextual factors, and their impact 
on FL learners’ willingness to communicate. It is an important publication for 
both SLA researchers and FL classroom practitioners.

We hope that this issue of the journal will be of interest to researchers 
working in the field of second language acquisition. We would like to invite 
Polish and foreign academics to share their scholarly research with us by sub-
mitting their work to the Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition 
journal, published by the prestigious Polish academic publisher, Wydawnictwo 
Uniwersytetu Śląskiego (University of Silesia Press).

Danuta Gabryś-Barker
Adam Wojtaszek