Linguistic integration of middle school immigrant children in Czechia =Jazyková integrace dětí imigrantů navštěvujících 2. stupeň českých základních škol

Abstract

Acquiring the language of the host country is an important factor that influences the process of integration of immigrants into society. For the children of immigrants, proficiency in the official language of their new country is crucial for their success and their smooth integration into the education system and the wider community. This article analyses Czech language proficiency of immigrant children enrolled in middle school1 in Czechia and seeks to examine how their language skills develop over time and what factors impact the process of Czech language acquisition. The authors created a special diagnostic instrument to test students’ communicative competence. Subsequently, they used it in a pilot study they carried out on a sample of immigrant children enrolled in selected middle schools in Prague. The findings of this pilot study confirmed that the linguistic distance between Czech and the students’ mother tongue had a significant influence on how and how quickly they mastered the Czech language.