Abstract
The contribution focuses on two important and ongoing areas of education in the Czech Republic. These are the inclusion of foreigners or non-Czech speakers (main focus on secondary school situation) and the practical work of teachers who have to functionally convey expert-level information in different subjects in Czech language.
Our team will first report on the approaches the Czech Republic is taking to integrate speakers of other languages into secondary schools, we will mention the current projects and activities, and talk about the difficulties we have to overcome on the national level. The presentation will give examples of current problems and, in particular, the solutions that the state administration is implementing to help foreigners integrate as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Last but not least, the consequences of the war in Ukraine will be mentioned and the steps taken by the state administration to address schooling-related issues will be presented.
The second part of the paper will deal with the practical problems that a teacher needs to overcome when a non-Czech speaker is present in the classroom (e.g. teaching in a class of Czech-speaking pupils where one non-Czech speaker is present at the same time). The focus will not be on practical language teaching, but on functional ways of conveying terminology and explaining professional content.
In particular, the best practices of the Czech Republic has successfully inspired by CLIL principles will be presented. Specific activities to retain vocabulary will be commented on. We will share an example of good practice from a vocational school where an experienced teacher succeeds in teaching non-Czech speakers. This example of good practice will be commented on and viewed from different perspectives.
The methods that the team will report on were introduced in September 2022. The Ministry of Education will observe the implementation of these methods and monitor their effectiveness, but no research has been conducted to date.