The aim of this essay is to explore in what way Graded Readers are different from authentic texts against the background of English as a Second Language (ESL) and the use of authentic and simplified text in ESL teaching. The material used for this purpose is the authentic text of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and two upper-intermediate Graded Readers from two different publishers. The study uses the software readability-score and manual analysis to examine the texts with regards to lexical choice, language structure and story. The study showed that the Graded Readers are simplified in all aspects studied. Moreover, the Graded Readers differ from each other as well, most notably in the style of the text due to sentence structure and story simplification. This could imply that different authors of Graded Readers adopt different styles when simplifying text and that the grading levels are not comparable between different publishers. / <p>Engelska</p>

This master theses deals with certain aspects of Czech as foreign language. It comprises of 2 parts. The first one is theoretical background and explains key concepts as e.g. migration, foreign pupil in czech school, teaching of foreign pupils, reading comprehension, characteristic of level A1 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. It introduces European language portfolio and vocabulary for level A1. The second part is focused on field research that was realised at primary school in Prague. For this qualitative research were chosen 10 pupils from Slavic and Non-Slavic countries. The aim of this research was gaining of compact information about chosen pupils by analysing their individual educational plan, interviews with pupils, teachers and headmaster, analysing their tests and observation. The reseach was concentrated on reading comprehension. 3 different texts were made. One from them was made according to vocabulary for level A1. The other texts were text from textbook and it's simplified version. Each text had a few questions that pupils had to answer. The results of two texts were compared and commented. We cannot say that if pupil is longer time in Czech environment, he or she has better command of Czech language. Comparison of two types of texts did not bring...