Historical Development of Czech Language Teaching for Pupils with Visual Impairment Klára Eliášková Czech Language Department Doc. PhDr. Martina Šmejkalová, Ph.D. Abstract The dissertation aims at the language education of pupils with visual impairment (VI) at high schools. Historical forming of Czech language didactics of teaching pupils with VI is analyzed in the framework of the cultural and social context of the period from 1807, when the first Institute for blinds was found in Prague at Hradčany, to a social and political milestone in 1989 with main view on the period dating from 1946 to present. Based on the suggestion from the report, attention will be paid to the present. There will be an identification of breakthroughs and positive locations (e.g. diversification of Czech language teaching in relation to individual types of VI), which would be useful in restoring our teaching practice, taking into account the current imperative of induced education. Historical research focuses on specific aspects of language education without a possibility of visual information. Methodological approaches common in linguistic and social pedagogical fields of study are combined in this purpose. The aim is to link both levels into the consistent perspective on the surveyed issue. Working out of the historical...

This thesis examines the differences between the Czech and Cuban phonological inventory. It aims to give a theoretical overview of both systems, to define phonemes, which do not exist in Cuban Spanish, and based on recordings of Cuban speakers living in Prague to give evidence of how they pronounce these phonemes. The paper is divided into two parts: in the theoretical part, the inventory of vowels and consonants in both Czech and Cuban language is thoroughly described, consequently the differences between those two inventories, and then the phonemes problematic for Cuban speakers are identified. In the experimental part, all the realizations of Czech phonemes appearing in the recordings are described. The paper looks at the realizations of Czech vowels and consonants in light of four main variables (level of Czech language, length of stay in Czechia, language used at home, and language used at work). Finally, the results of the research are summarized. Even though, there are quite a few different variations of the pronunciation, as the level of language goes up (also because of other variables), the number of variations is decreasing, in certain cases to only one variation that is corresponding with the pronunciation of the Czech speakers. Keywords Contrastive Phonetics; Czech; Cuban Spanish;...

Tato disertační práce studuje synchronní formální systémy založené na gramatikách a převodnících a zkoumá jak jejich teoretické vlastnosti, tak i perspektivy praktických aplikací. Práce představuje nové koncepty a definice vycházející ze známých principů řízeného přepisování a synchronizace. Navrhuje alternativní způsob synchronizace bezkontextových gramatik, založený na propojení pravidel. Tento princip rozšiřuje také na řízené gramatiky, konkrétně gramatiky s rozptýleným kontextem a maticové gramatiky. Dále je představen na podobném principu založený nový druh převodníku, tzv. pravidlově omezený převodník. Jedná se o systém složený z konečného automatu a bezkontextové gramatiky. Práce prezentuje nové teoretické výsledky ohledně generativní a přijímajicí síly. Poslední část práce zkoumá možnosti lingvisticky orientovaných aplikací se zameřením na překlad přirozeného jazyka. Diskutuje a srovnává hlavní výhody nových modelů s využitím vybraných případových studií z českého, anglického a japonského jazyka pro ilustraci.

The question of the asset of early foreign language learning is a frequently discussed topic. Following prevailing opinion in society, that ‚the sooner, the better ', the beginning of compulsory foreign language learning is continually shifting in lower grades at primary school. A lot of children have already started with foreign language learning in kindergarten. Researches, which support the benefits of the approach, focus on a very narrow aspect of foreign language acquisition (pronunciation) or survey these facts with a specific group of inhabitants (immigrants). As experts point out, there is no significant benefit of early instructions ascertained in the Czech Republic. However, the research focused only on adults. We do not have any further evidence of the advantages of starting to learn a foreign language early. Therefore, the author focused on comparing the level of foreign language competences of two groups of pupils after their two-year compulsory instructions of English at primary school. The aim was to compare the level of their language competence in English and the learners' potential difficulties by the learners with early learning experience and by the learners without previous experience of foreign language learning before the beginning of compulsory learning at primary school....

The Mathematical Games in French language My diploma thesis deals with one of the possible strategies in bilingual education - CLIL method, which links teaching of a technical subject and a foreign language - mathematics and French, in this case. As a tool for its implementation, I chose games because I consider them as an entertaining and a very available way of teaching. The aim of this thesis was to find out and to describe the potential of this education at different school levels. At the beginning, I focus on general integration of the technical subject and the foreign language, and then I mention the importance of didactic games and basic terminology of mathematical terms in French. The core of this thesis is my own selection of games in Czech and French language intended for three levels of school. This file was inspired by several mathematical books on didactic games. The gained data have been processed on the base of observation and analysis of individual worksheets. The results show the potential of CLIL method as a new possibility for bilingual teaching of technical subjects.

This study attempts to identify learning opportunities at the Department of English Language and ELT Methodology at Charles University in Prague via a comparison with an Australian institution, The University of Queensland located in Brisbane. The secondary objective of the study is to further thesis writing culture at the Department at CU by cataloging and auditing past TEFL theses. Thus, future students could more easily and efficiently identify new areas for research and benefit from the foundations laid by previous students. The first half of this thesis provides a review of previous works conducted in the field of the history of English linguistics, with a special focus on ELT Methodology at CU. Thus, a list of Prague TEFL theses submitted between 1946-2008 follows. A similar list is created for UQ TEFL theses between 1994-2009 on the basis of research at UQ that was carried out in 2009-2010. This results in a comparison of TEFL theses topics from both universities' intersection 1994-2008. This information is then linked to establishment of areas of strength or improvement at CU. In phase two of this study, MA theses writing guidelines released by CU and UQ are compared. These guidelines are characterised into five categories, i.e. flexibility, structure, academic integrity, conformity, and...

The master's thesis describes the semantic development and usage of prefixes s-, z- and vz- in Czech. The thesis begins with a short summary of theoretical background, definition of the subject matter and terms used. It then proceeds with etymological analysis and description of meanings of equivalents of these prefixes in Old Slavic. Following chapters analyze the competition of the three prefixes in Old Czech, describing the factors that impacted their use and provide an overview of the matter in New Czech, with regards to the semantic aspect of the mentioned prefixes. Subsequently, the thesis summarizes orthographic principles of s- and z- (and vz-) from the 16th century up to present times. The last chapter provides an overview of the situation in other Slavic languages with respect to the West Slavic branch. Attention is also paid to the matter of merging the prefixes s- and z- into one.

The thesis examines the utilization of linguogenetic (Proto-Indo-European) and cultural- historic (through borrowing) relationships among European languages in instruction and self- study of foreign languages, and as a means of strengthening European unity. As an example serves German, English and Czech, occasionally Latin and Old Greek, in Teaching German as a Foreign Language. The methods are secondary sources research (to present concise history of the languages and their ancestral proto-languages), analysis of linguistic relationships (between 450 lexemes of the German basic vocabulary and their semantic equivalents - translations - in English, Czech, occasionally Latin and Old Greek) and an opinion survey (among 75 respondents about their interest in the historiolinguistic approach and about their belief in this improving the international relations). The results showed that more than a half of the 450 German words are linguogenetically cognate to English and a significant amount of them also to Czech and Latin. On the contrary, borrowings did not play such an important role within the basic wordstock. Most respondents expressed some kind of interest into the historiolinguistic approach and many of them also believed this approach to have a positive impact on intercultural aspects. KEY WORDS...

The goal of this diploma thesis is to describe the origin and development of the concept of national language in France and to analyze the meaning of this concept in the French environment. Task of the first part is to define the key concepts like "langue nationale", "langue officielle" and to explain their conception in the French environment. The next part pays attention to the relation between national language and dialects and describe the approach to dialects during the French revolution. The aim of the third chapter is to introduce the issue of "grammatisation" and to outline the proces of grammatization of the French language. Follows the chapter analyzing the chronological development of the French as the national language of France, the most important periods of the 18th century and the French revolution are described in particular chapters. The final chapter outlines the importance and role of the language policy and mentions some most significant institutional interventions into the development of the French.

The proposed thesis treats the topic of multilingual language acquisition and the occurring language interference. It aims to demonstrate the negative language transfer by the means of the results of a field research. The theoretical part introduces and discusses relevant topics, such as language learning, language processing, bilingualism and multilingualism. Furthermore, it focuses on the character of language transfer itself. In the practical part, two hypotheses are presented, specifically "the interference of the dominant foreign language is considerably higher than the interference of the other language, i.e. L3" and "passive interference reaches a higher degree than the active one". Eventually, the results interpretation is presented and both the hypotheses are verified.