Prague primary school transforms teaching of Czech to foreigners with innovative textbooks
Teachers at a Prague primary school are changing how the Czech language is taught to foreign children, and have produced new textbooks that implement their method.
In today’s interconnected and multicultural world, Czech primary schools cannot count on all their young pupils being familiar with the Czech language. To improve their linguistic education, three new Czech textbooks are being used at the Marjánka Primary School in Břevnov (Prague 6) to help the children of foreigners to learn the Czech language. The books were prepared very locally – by the very teachers who work at the school!
The teachers have more than eight years of experience teaching students with a mother tongue other than Czech, but they have until now lacked comprehensive and interactive teaching materials. Now such materials have been published, in the form of a textbook called Čeština jinak (‘Czech differently’). One of the teachers, Ivana Kurková, describes the textbook:
“The first textbook is a kind of schematically made grammar that we follow. It's a textbook with non-classic methods. This means that it works with rhythmisation, dramatisation and then visualisation. Children who can't understand anything at all can orient themselves using the pictures.”
The textbooks contain plenty of pictures and exercises that give the young students tongue twisters, poems, memorable phrases and other fun ways to learn Czech vocabulary and hone their pronunciation.
It is no coincidence that the textbooks were created at this particular school. Marjánka Primary School offers extensive teaching in foreign languages, including Czech for foreigners, and the teachers are experienced in helping pupils to integrate, especially with Ukrainian children. The school’s headmistress, Ana Niklová, explains:
“Currently, 16.7% of our students at school are of foreign background. That's quite a large number. The awareness among foreigners and parents is great, so they try to get into our school, to register their child here, because they know that here we are able to ensure that the child accepts the Czech language, knows how to use it and fully completes school attendance with all the other children.”
The school was able to publish the textbooks thanks to a financial contribution from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Ministry of the Interior, and Prague 6. Three hundred copies have been printed in total, and almost all of them have already been accepted by schools throughout Czechia. There is great interest in the new teaching method, but there is no money for reprinting yet.
