Czech schools offering bilingual lessons face legal hurdle

Czech schools offering bilingual lessons face legal hurdle

A Czech schools which are trying to improve their pupils’ chances in life by offering bilingual courses are now facing a problem. The extra charges that some of them are making for lessons in English are illegal. And that fact looks like putting the brake on one way of improving Czechs’ poor foreign language skills.

B Given the fact that Czech is not an international language, for many parents and schools one way of doing just that is by offering part of the curriculum in the main international language, English. But Czech schools which have opted for that approach and have gone to the expense of specially recruiting teachers or language schools to help them out with lessons in English are now facing a problem. Under the law, Czech state schools cannot make extra charges for basic lessons, only for after school activities.

C Vítězslav Bican is the president of the Association of Language Schools and Agencies which groups around 40 companies and agencies. He says the problem of parents paying for bilingual lessons probably affects a few dozen schools so far who have so far taken the ambitious step of trying to offer such courses. But he does not expect a solution to the problem in the short term.

D “I am in contact with people from the Spanish market, or Spanish schools, and the Spanish government, for example, has the policy to have 100 percent of schools bilingual by 2020. At the moment it is about 40 percent of schools which are bilingual, which means this integrated learning, content and language. And the Czech government has no such target, nothing. Maybe some government will be able to set out a position to move towards bilingual teaching but I don’t think this government will be able to do that or it’s possible in this situation. In comparison with Spain we have nothing. The Spanish have 40 percent now and plan for 100 percent in the next six years. ”

E Obviously do you think this is quite a big handicap for the Czech Republic? “Spaniards try to do something with that and we don’t. We see students from elementary schools and grammar schools coming to our classes and trying to improve their English because the English or foreign language classes at their schools are just not good enough. And they are not improving, and so they need more. And we can see the demand from parents very clearly.”

Adjusted to (1)

opt for – rozhodnout se

1) Read the article and match each of the headings to a paragraph.

1 Comparison of Spanish and Czech systems

2 Offering bilingual education is problematic

3 Foreign language education is not sufficient

4 Charge for basic lessons is illegal

5 A few schools offer bilingual courses

2) Read the article and answer the questions.

1 What is the situation concerning bilingual education in the Czech Republic like?

2 Which lessons may be charged?

3 What is the situation concerning bilingual education in Spain like?

4 Who is Vítězslav Bican? What are his opinions concerning education of foreign languages

5 What is his prognosis concerning bilingual education?

3) Explain the following words and phrases.

1 putting the brake on one way

2 curriculum

3 integrated learning

4 bilingual teaching

5 elementary schools

4) Answer the following questions.

What is bilingual education? What are types of bilingual education? What is CLIL? How does CLIL work? What are positives and negatives of bilingual education? What are tips for effective bilingual education? When should children start learning a foreign language?

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Source:

(1)

JOHNSTONE, Chris. Czech schools offering bilingual lessons face legal hurdle. Český rozhlas [online]. 2014 [cit. 2015-09-21]. Available at: http://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/czech-schools-offering-bilingual-lessons-face-legal-hurdle