Inclusion of children and pupils with DIFFERENT MATERNITY LANGUAGE

The number of children who come to the Czech Republic from abroad from a culturally and linguistically different background has increased in recent years. At present, around 30,000 pupils with a different mother tongue (OMJ) are educated at Czech primary schools, and their number is constantly increasing. Most of them, over 40% of them live and study in Prague. The most common countries of origin are Ukraine, Slovakia, Vietnam, Russia and Mongolia.

Some of these pupils have no problem with Czech, but others enter Czech schools with little or no knowledge of the language of instruction. This situation is difficult not only for them, but also for teachers: mastering the Czech language is not a matter of a few weeks or months, and the language barrier that both parties face can significantly limit the school success of these children. Nevertheless, students with OMJ are expected to join the educational process as soon as possible. In order to be able to meet these demands, they and their teachers need adequate support.

InBáze has been addressing the topic of supporting the integration of pupils with OMJ into Czech education for a long time. Currently in the project Bridges to Schools II, in which we cooperate with three Prague schools: Masaryk Elementary School, Prague 9 – Újezd ​​nad Lesy, Zárubova Elementary School in Prague 12 and Olešská Elementary School, Prague 10. In cooperation with these schools we try to set up a comprehensive support system from the allocation of the function of inclusion coordinator through methodological support of pedagogical staff, language support of children and communication with parents to work with the children’s team, more information can be found here.