Zofia Piekarec-Papuzińska (1944-2024)

Zofia Piekarec was a striking presence in the Institute of English Studies from the early 1970s through to the first decade of the 21^st century. Indeed, she was voted ‘Miss Anglistyka’ in the late ’70s, a form of relaxed social approbation that was considered quite acceptable at the time.

She was one of the few members of staff of the Institute of English Studies in the second half of the 20th century who had not studied at the University of Warsaw, and who therefore had experienced a different system of higher education from the majority of faculty members. She was a graduate of InYaz, the acclaimed Moscow State Linguistic University, at the time called the Maurice Thorez Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages (Московский институт иностранных языков имени Мориса Тореза). On her return to Warsaw, she had been employed in the recently-opened Advanced Centre for Foreign-Language Study (Wyższe Studium Języków Obcych – WSJO) of the University of Warsaw, before beginning work as a language teacher in the Institute of English Studies in 1972.

Zofia was deeply committed to her responsibilities in this area and followed with interest all the many contemporary developments in the field of Applied Linguistics. She was an enthusiastic participant in the DUET  [Development of University English Teaching] seminars, organised in Poland from the 1980s together with the University of East Anglia, for example the 1984 DUET ‘Off the Page’ in Katowice and at the University of East Anglia; the 1998 DUET ‘Imagination and Creativity in Teaching English’ held at Kazimierz nad Wisłą; or the 2001 DUET ‘Translation in Context’ in Kazimierz. She also took part in the 1990s TEMPUS project which linked the Institute with the University of Warwick, the University of Bratislava and the La Sapienza University in Rome. She joined professional bodies like the Polskie Towarzystwo Neofilologiczne [Polish Modern Languages Association] and later PASE [The Polish Society for the Study of English] and from 1994 IATEFL Poland. She co-authored textbooks for students of English and Applied Linguistics, like the We Learn English series published by Wydawnictwo Szkolne i Pedagogiczne (1994-1996), and translated texts such as the Edinburgh Applied Linguistics Coursebook (co-translator, Warszawa 1983). She also ran workshops in teaching methods for voivodeship teachers’ centres as far apart as Szczecin and Kielce, as well as courses in the newly-opened teacher training colleges of the 1990s.

She was interested in the role of language teaching within the framework of the course of study in the Institute of English Studies and kept a keen eye on overall university developments, serving as an elected member of the Faculty Council in 1996-9 and 2002-2005. She commented openly on her assessment of the situation in successive periodic evaluation forms submitted to the university authorities. Already in 1979 she noted: ‘My work in recent years in the Institute of English Studies has been dominated by reforms in the programme of studies’; she also pointed out that she was involved in implementing current guidelines to accept ‘the necessity of maximum introduction in classes of elements of information about the culture of the English-speaking countries’. By 1990, she was pointing to problems connected with contemporary political upheavals, noting ‘what I hope are temporary difficulties in using language laboratories, which up to now were readily available, and also the need to use commercial photocopying services at our own expense’. In 1998, there is a note of irritation in her comment: ‘In connection with the ongoing reform in the Institute of English Studies of Practical English classes, we are continually working on new syllabuses for this subject.’

Zofia was always prepared to give up time to perform tasks which she felt advanced the functioning of the Institute, some of them time-consuming and apparently menial. She agreed to draw up the timetable for the Institute for three years between 1981 and 1984 – a tedious and unrewarding task which had not yet been transferred to the office staff (something that Zofia enthusiastically supported in 1990). In the 1970s and ’80s, she took charge of the language tape recordings and recording equipment of the Institute and also served on the Faculty committee to advise on the purchase of equipment of this kind. Believing it important to support achievement among secondary school pupils, she regularly took part in the organisation of the nation-wide competition, Olympiada Języka Angielskiego [English Language Olympics] in the 1990s.

Zofia’s relaxed and positive approach to life made her popular with students. In this context, she undertook various additional roles throughout her career, serving for example in 1980 as supervisor of the student work experience group delegated to the POLFA pharmaceutical factory, and a few years later taking charge of the group of Warsaw students sent to the annual language summer camp in Poznań. Through the 1980s, she also undertook more routine functions as year tutor for first-year students, or secretary or member of the Institute admissions committee, before taking on the role in 1990 of deputy director of the Institute for Student Affairs (with, incidentally, a monthly supplementary payment of 124,000 zł, a reminder of contemporary levels of inflation). This was the moment when the Institute introduced its new programme of studies, a then-revolutionary undertaking based on student choice that basically remains in place to the present day, despite recent, more prescriptive modifications. In 1990, all of Zofia’s cheerful good humour was required to get the new programme off the ground and keep it afloat.

Zofia summed up her feelings about the Institute in yet another evaluation form in 2007, towards the end of her career at the University, writing: ‘I am enormously appreciative of the excellent atmosphere in my own department of the Institute, as well as throughout the Institute as a whole. And in this connection I must praise all the staff of the Institute Library’. Her own contribution to this ‘excellent atmosphere’ was unquestioned.