Official Awarding of International Book Club Certificates #PROJECTS
On 20 May 2026, the official awarding of certificates for participation in the international International Book Club project took place. The project was carried out in cooperation with California State University, Bakersfield in the United States. The certificates were presented to students by Professor Monika Mazurek, Deputy Director of the Institute of English Studies and a scholar affiliated with the Department of Literary Studies.
This year’s edition involved over 100 participants from Poland and the USA, including approximately 70 students from the University of the National Education Commission, Krakow. The participants were students following a teacher-training profile, which made their involvement particularly significant from both a pedagogical and professional perspective. The project enabled them to experience how authentic intercultural communication can be organised, how group discussions can be moderated, how collaboration can be developed, and how literature can serve as a starting point for conversations about culture, identity, memory, and contemporary social experience.
The main project sessions were moderated by Professor Emerson Case, while discussions in breakout rooms were facilitated by students from California State University, Bakersfield. This format created space for authentic communication, collaborative learning, and intercultural dialogue. Participants discussed literature not only as a text to be interpreted, but also as a shared point of departure for reflection, exchange, and mutual understanding.
Participation in the International Book Club also corresponds with the current direction of educational change in Poland. According to the assumptions of Reform 2026, schools are expected to place greater emphasis on practical skills, cooperation, learner agency, communication, and the integration of knowledge across subject areas. One important element of the reform is the introduction of a compulsory project week, designed to move learning beyond passive acquisition of knowledge towards active inquiry, problem-solving, teamwork, and learning through experience.
According to the information provided as part of Reform 2026, the project week will be introduced gradually. It will be organised as a compulsory element:
in the school year 2027/2028 – in grades IV and V of primary school;
in the school year 2028/2029 – in grades IV–VI of primary school;
in the school year 2029/2030 – in grades IV–VII of primary school;
from the school year 2030/2031 onwards – in grades IV–VIII of primary school.
In this context, the International Book Club certificate is not only a confirmation of participation in an international academic project. It is also an opportunity to broaden the professional competences of future teachers. Students gained first-hand experience of project-based cooperation, online communication, group discussion, intercultural exchange, and reflective learning. These are precisely the kinds of competences that future teachers will need when designing and implementing educational projects in schools.
The International Book Club shows that teacher education should connect theory with lived educational experience. A future teacher should not only learn about project-based work, but also participate in it, observe its dynamics, and reflect on its value. Through this experience, students can better understand how to organise collaborative learning, how to support communication among learners, and how to create conditions for meaningful dialogue and shared responsibility for learning. The project was implemented as part of the courses Online Projects and Didactics of Virtual Exchanges. The project supervisors were Dr Werona Król-Gierat and Dr Sabina A. Nowak. The International Book Club brings together language education, literature, and intercultural learning, creating a space for authentic academic communication between students from Poland and the United States.
We warmly congratulate all participants and thank our partners from California State University, Bakersfield for their inspiring cooperation. The International Book Club remains an example of good practice in the internationalisation of teacher education, the development of intercultural competence, and the preparation of students for the challenges of contemporary schools.
