FACTORS INFLUENCING LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY OF FOREIGN CHILDREN ATTENDING CZECH PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Following the fall of the Iron Curtain and mainly after the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union, immigration in the Czech Republic has increased very significantly. This tendency is still ongoing. Czech society, and subsequently the whole educational system, is learning to deal with this new phenomenon as well as to create favourable conditions for the successful integration of immigrant children into the school system, and thus indirectly to society. It appears that one of the key factors that positively affect integration is the ability to communicate in the language of the majority. In order to effectively tackle the issue of teaching Czech to foreign children, we need to answer the following questions: how do we determine the level of language proficiency of immigrant children, how do children proceed in learning Czech and what factors influence this process? This article's objective is to find answers to these questions.