FIVE Mistakes Foreign People Make when Learning Czech

This post was prompted in a discussion thread on Czechlist, our Facebook group for language professionals, following a post entitled Ten More English Mistakes Czech People Make by my fellow blogger Tom Czaban. Somehow it was agreed by the group that in order to tilt the balance, a post should be written for the adventurous …

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A Listicle!

I learnt two words from Matthew Noble: the word “listicle”, which had been completely new to me, and “life circumstances”, which is not new but is just the expression I needed. It’s Saturday evening, our place is quiet and I am back to blogging while giving up on watching a film with the rest of …

Beyond conversation in one-to-one classes

When you get hired to teach somebody one-one, it is probably because the student wants individual attention and lots of conversation and speaking activities. They might even tell you “not to bother preparing, because all they want is conversation”. Well, I advise caution. Private lessons are very expensive these days and we, teachers, should provide …

Teachers and translators talking together

Design credit: Václav Pinkava It is my great honour to introduce translator  Melvyn Clarke on Angels and Lions. Melvyn is one of the few people to have mastered the Czech language to the point of translating novels into English. His translations include the ever-popular Hrdý Budžes, while the sequel, Onegin Was a Rusky, was published at …

Pěší poutě Ladislava Zibury – TedxYouth@Prague

Ráda bych se svými kolegy, učiteli češtiny jako cizího jazyka, sdílela pracovní list založený na TedxYouth@Prague Ladislava Zibury, kde mluví o svých pěších poutích. Lekci jsem několikrát vyzkoušela na svých studentech a vždycky měla úspěch. Postup tvorby pracovního listu vychází z tohoto příspěvku mého internetového kolegy Anthonyho: Pracovní list je ke stažení přes Google Doc. Z videa …

Dialogue Procedure in Beginners’ Classes

Today a friend/colleague asked me if we could go over her lesson plan before her observed class. As we did, I realised I use different techniques for teaching dialogues than she does and thought they might be worth sharing. Also, following the hoo-ha of my two latest posts, I’m writing a humble, practical text to …

Warm-ups for Czech

I have a love- hate relationship with warm-ups. There have been times in my life where I had to do a warm-up in my class otherwise my ex-boss would get mad (I LOVE my ex-boss and we are still friends). Later, I realised that a warm-up planned for 10 minutes can easily stretch to 45 …

First Lessons in Czech – Unplugged but Planned

I would like to provide a framework here of a first lesson in Czech as a Foreign Language which I have successfully delivered several times and developed over a period of a year. The basic outline comes from my dear co-teachers at university to whom I am really grateful for sharing it with me. The …

TBLT Czech Lessons – Task 5: Giving Directions – Part 2

In this post I will explain the procedure of teaching the adverbials of location and giving directions as indicated in my previous post. Each time I teach location, in whatever language I happen to be teaching, I use LEGO bricks. It may not be particularly original, but it’s the most effective method I know of. …

TBLT Czech Lessons – Task 5: Giving Directions. Part 1 – Language Introduction

Our next task resulted from our needs analysis. However, I was facing some very difficult choices. Before I tell you how the task went, let me explain a little the problems Czech learners encounter when learning how to tell where things are. 1. The underlying principle when you’re speaking in Czech about the position and …