Call for papers
Call for papers
Masaryk University Language Centre is pleased to invite academics pursuing Czech studies, teachers of Czech as a foreign language, and all those interested in the Czech language to the international conference
LANGUAGE DIVERSITY AND ITS POTENTIAL: CZECH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES AS A PATH TO CAREER SUCCESS
Dates: 14th and 15th June 2023, Masaryk University in Brno
The conference is an outcome of the international project Czech Online – Czech as a Foreign Language for Specific Purposes, which takes place from September 2020 to August 2023. It follows the successful conference entitled Key to Czech as a Foreign Language, hosted by Masaryk University in September 2015. A new web portal with a course of medical Czech was then introduced to the public, primarily intended for foreign students of medicine studying in the Czech Republic and for doctors from abroad who seek careers in the Czech Republic. The project gained two awards: the Seal of Excellence and the European Language Label. The multilingual portal was used by thousands of users from all over the world until the middle of 2020, when the time came to upgrade and complete it. The new web platform will provide medical Czech alongside legal Czech and Czech for business and economics in four language mutations (Czech, English, German and Polish).
Czech for specific purposes has been attracting attention in the 21st century. Hundreds of students from abroad pursue degree programmes in English or Czech, foreign doctors and health care professionals are a valuable addition to Czech hospitals, and experts from abroad work in many local companies. Cross-border cooperation brought about the demand for Czech language courses for police officers, firefighters and paramedics. A new incentive for the traditional teaching of Czech to foreigners was an influx of 400 thousand Ukrainian refugees in spring 2022, who have been offered Czech language courses in various forms including preparation for studies at higher education institutions.
Czech as a foreign language is also taught outside the Czech Republic at dozens of Czech studies departments all over the world. The didactics of Czech as a foreign language has been continuously developed. The standard part of Czech universities’ curricula is teaching of Czech as a foreign/second language both to adults and to children, which significantly enhances the teachers’ professional competence.
The goals of plurilingual Europe include the preservation of language diversity where less widely spoken languages like Czech play an important role. The plurilingual competence facilitates geographical mobility and search for jobs. It involves the ability to communicate in a diverse multicultural environment and to exchange information across languages and cultures. The development of acquired language competencies and the expanding of the individual language repertoire brings about new opportunities to learn further languages. It must also be noted how the student's mother tongue (and other languages learnt) affect the process of acquiring communication skills in a foreign language, and the importance of the place of the instruction: whether the language is taught within or outside its natural territory.
An integral part of language study is testing and assessment, which provide important feedback and awareness of the level of the communicative competence to the users. Language assessment in the EU has been constantly developed as testified by the Companion Volume to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
The conference hopes to welcome the widest range of experts dealing with Czech in this country and abroad: academics pursuing Czech studies, teachers, authors of textbooks, methodologists, testing specialists and translators. We look forward to receiving contributions from those working in tertiary and other education, as well as from practitioners. The meeting in Brno promises the opportunity of sharing best practices and establishing future cooperation at the local and international levels.
Thematic areas
- Teaching Czech as a foreign/second language in the Czech Republic and abroad (courses with academic/professional focus, field-specific courses, teaching abroad, and others)
- Methodological background for teaching Czech as a foreign language (teaching methods and strategies, theories of language acquisition and learning, and others)
- Development and design of new forms of courses (tandem learning, autonomous learning, hybrid learning, and others)
- Creation of learning materials in various forms (textbooks, online materials and tools, and others)
- Assessment and testing of Czech for specific purposes (implementation of the CEFR CV, standardized testing, portfolio assessment, task-based assessment, and others)
- Intercultural communicative competence (intercultural exchange, intercultural skills and abilities, intercultural courses, and others)
- Czech in a multilingual world (acquiring Czech against the background of other languages, influence of individual language repertoire, plurilingual competence, immersion method, language transfer, and others)
- Czech in translation (principles and potential pitfalls of translating a language for specific purposes, and others)
References
- ALTE (2011). Manual for Language Test Development and Examining. Available online: Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE) - Guides and Reference Materials.
- ALTE (2018). Guidelines for the Development of Language for Specific Purposes Tests. Available online: Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE) - Guides and Reference Materials.
- CEFR Companion Volume 2021. Available online: 16809ea0d4 (coe.int).
- Hádková, M. (2008). Čeština z druhé strany. (Czech from the other side.) Ústí nad Labem: PedF UJEP.
- Hrdlička, K. (2019). Kapitoly o češtině jako jazyku nemateřském. (Chapters on Czech as a non-native language.) Praha: Karolinum.
- Johnston, B., Janus, L. (2007). Developing Classroom Materials for Less Commonly Taught Languages. CARLA Working Paper Series. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
- Nekula, M., Šíchová, K. (2018). Variety češtiny a čeština jako cizí jazyk. (Varieties of Czech and Czech as a foreign language.) Praha: Akropolis.
- Pešková, M., Kubíková, K. (Eds.). (2016). Rozvíjení interkulturní komunikační kompetence ve výuce cizích jazyků. (Developing intercultural communicative competence in foreign language teaching.) Plzeň: Západočeská univerzita.
- Piccardo, E., Germain-Rutherford, A., Lawrence, G. (Eds.). (2021). The Routledge Handbook of Plurilingual Language Education. Routledge.
- Rešková, I. (2016). Budování komunikační kompetence v jazyce pro specifické účely. (Building communicative competence in a language for specific purposes.) CASALC Review, 101-107.
- Tedick, D.J. (Ed.). (2002). Proficiency-oriented language instruction and assessment: A curriculum handbook for teachers. CARLA Working Paper Series. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition.
- Vodičková, K. (2013). Vývoj jazykových zkoušek – nikdy nekončící příběh? (Language examination development – a never ending story?). Sborník Asociace učitelů češtiny jako cizího jazyka (AUČCJ), Praha: Akropolis, 205-211.
Oral presentations
30 minutes, i.e. 20-minute presentation + 10-minute discussion.
Talks can be delivered in one of the conference languages.
Workshops
45 minutes + 10-minute discussion
Workshops are practice-oriented sessions that are supposed to engage participants in a series of participative activities so that they can gain hands-on experience with tools, strategies or best practices. Presentation mode should take less than 25% of the workshop time. Workshops can be delivered in one of the conference languages.
Proposals must contain the following:
- title of the presentation/workshop,
- thematic area, body of abstract in the language of the presentation/workshop (300 words)
- biography (80–100 words)
- 1–5 references
Proposals will be blind reviewed by members of the Scientific Committee. The presenters will receive an answer of acceptance by 19 March 2023 and the proposals will be published on the conference website and in the conference booklet.
Proposals should be submitted in .docx (Word) format to abstrakty@cjv.muni.cz by 10 March 2023.
Written proposals will be peer-reviewed and selected texts published in CASALC Review.