Page 80 - Compétences plurilingues : perspectives et actions / Plurilingual competencies: perspectives and actions

A. Alchazidu: Building Presentation and Communication Skills...

Course Preparation and Organisation

The combination of the above-mentioned factors enabled the educators to take into con-
sideration all the special needs of their students and to prepare a new tailor-made course
with a ixed syllabus and well-de ined lesson plans. Given the pluricultural focus, the topics
concentrated on the cultural and social aspects of different societies, but at the same time
students were provided with ample space to bring their own suggestions for topics that in-
terested them and that itted within the outlined framework. The syllabus of the course thus
included topics related to a wide range of issues, such as cultural differences in etiquette and
conduct manners, body language, and cultural stereotypes.
Three languages of instruction were of icially established in the course, namely English,
Czech and Ukrainian. As Slavic languages, Czech and Ukrainian are close to each other such
that the linguistic distance is relatively small but this af inity can have certain pitfalls. That is
why students were invited to observe similarities and differences speci ically between these
̌
two languages. As the distinguished Czech linguist Vladimı́r Skalicka stated already in the
middle of the 20th Century: “If we get to know our own language thoroughly, we will be
̌
able to penetrate more deeply into foreign languages.” (Skalicka, 2004). Here it may be nec-
essary to mention another remarkable and unusual situation related to the course. Many of
the students from Ukraine came from originally Russian-speaking backgrounds, and there-
fore their mother tongue or irst language was Russian, not Ukrainian. However, under the
impact of events related to aggression and war, they decided to consciously abandon Rus-
sian, and choose the Ukrainian language for everyday communication with their friends and
family instead.

Seventeen students enrolled in this new CLIL course, and they were divided into two sem-
inar groups, in which classes were mostly held in parallel. Every week teachers alternated
between the seminar groups, which were intentionally small given the particular format.
During the semester, however, four joint workshops were also scheduled—two at the be-
ginning of the course and two at the end—in which both seminar groups participated to-
gether and the teachers conducted the activities in tandem.
At this point it should be emphasised that the course was attended exclusively by Ukrainian
students, though this does not mean they represented a homogeneous group. The students
had diverse educational backgrounds and were enrolled in various programmes at the dif-
ferent faculties of Masaryk University. Most students came from the Faculty of Social Stud-
ies, represented by 7 students, and this was followed by the Faculty of Computer Science
with 6 students. There were 3 students from the Faculty of Economics and Administration,
2 students from the Faculty of Science, 2 students from the Faculty of Law, and 1 student
from the Faculty of Sports Studies.
The con luence of all the aforementioned factors were foundational to the course design.
Apart from the determination and desire to contribute to the urgent need to prepare a spe-
cialised course in the shortest possible time, designed for a speci ic group of students from
Ukraine, another challenge was the imminent need for lexibility and especially for the syn-
ergy of both teachers, based on close cooperation not only during the preparation of the
course, but also during its actual implementation. As in any other course, an emphasis was

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