The present study looks at the non-native teacher of English as a foreign language at the tertiary level of education (university and college level) and his/her lexical competence. It seeks to demonstrate the connection between that competence and the form of instruction given to language students. The opening part of the paper discusses in general terms the nature of teacher's professionalism (competences) emphasizing both methodological competence (e.g. strategies of instruction and explanation) and linguistic competence (e.g. language awareness and use of metalanguage). In its research part, the study is a partial replication of a pilot project carried out by Zimmerman (200 I), whose main aim was to evaluate awareness of lexical anomalies by native speakers (NS) acting as teachers of English as a second language at the tertiary level. The present study is based on a survey conducted among non- native speakers of English (NNS) i.e. Polish EFL teachers at a college level. The survey consisted of a lexical acceptability judgment test and teachers' comments on lexical instruction. Also a personal data questionnaire was administered to the group of informants (teachers) to ensure the homogcnous character of the group- first of all in terms of their learning history (type of teacher training received) and teaching history (levels, age groups and professional experience). The aim of the study was threefold: 1. To evaluate lexical awareness of the EFL teachers 2. To comment on teachers' instructional and explanatory competence 3. To compare NS teachers (Zimmermann 200 I) and NNS teachers in respect of language instruction. The conclusions of the study are to be implemented in courses of training of EFL teachers.

Do the humans nowadays enjoy the freedom of thinking? To what extent is the modern man critical of the flood of information, smooth words and beautiful truisms that come from newspapers, the Internet and television? G. K. Chesterton, an English writer and publicist of the 20th century, noticed the progressive decrease in thinking in the modern world, which seems to strive for relativization, shapelessness, disappearance of precisely defined words, and thus, for the lack of clear language. This is an extremely important phenomenon because human thoughtlessness leads to serious threats. For this reason the article analyzes the issues of Chesterton’s language blurs in contemporary discourse and their relation to the progressive thoughtlessness of the present times which increasingly absorb man into thoughtlessness of consumption. The second part of the article presents the concept of common sense by outlining its most important features and showing the inalienable need for religion and philosophy to return to clear thinking.

Tytus Działyński (1796-1861) collected in the Kórnik Castle a number of portraits of Polish and foreign kings, mainly from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including king Sigismund III of Vasa, his two sons Władysław IV and John II Casimir, Gustav Adolf of Sweden, Frederic V Wittelsbach, Charles XII of Sweden, John III Sobieski of Poland and his son Alexander, Stanisław Leszczyński of Poland and his daughter Mary, the queen of France, Frederic III the Wise of Wetting, August II of Poland, August III of Poland, his son Frederic Christian and his daughter-in-law Mary Antonina and Tsar Peter I the Great of the Romanov dynasty. Many of these paintings were produced by anonymous painters; however, some of them were painted by famous and distinguished painters, who acted during the reign of the Wettin kings, e.g. Louis de Silvestre, Pietro Rotari or the famous Slovak portraitist Jan Kupecky. The owner of the Kórnik Castle displaced the carefully collected paintings of the members of royal families in the Dinning Hall, ornamented with the coats of arms of the Polish knightly families which existed in the fifteenth century. All of them were placed onto the ceiling of this hall. He also promoted in this way the national spirit, reminding of the time of former Polish glory and of the many successes within the context of the great losses suffered in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Unfortunately, Działyński died before he completed his project. His son requested to move all the paintings to other rooms of the Kórnik castle.