Masaryk University (Czech: Masarykova univerzita) is the second largest university in the Czech Republic, a member of the Compostela Group and the Utrecht Network. Founded in 1919 in Brno as the second Czech university, it now consists of nine faculties. Masaryk University has over 35,000 students and over 2,200 pedagogical staff and offers over 200 bachelor, 290 masters and 130 doctoral full-time study programmes, some of them being offered in English or German as well as in a combined form. The Office of International Studies helps facilitate incoming and outgoing student mobility. Students with special needs are assisted by the Teiresiás Centre.
The primary goal of the Faculty of Education is to provide education to the teachers of primary and lower secondary schools, and of secondary schools in certain fields. Apart from pre-service study programmes, also in-service programmes are offered, either as combined study programmes or as study programmes within the framework of lifelong education. Moreover, we offer short-term courses for practising teachers.
The members of the English and German departments participated in “Special Educational Needs in the Context of Framework Educational Programmes for Basic Schools” Research Centre co-ordinated by the Department of Special Education at the Faculty of Education, Masaryk University (VZ MSM 0021622443, 2007 – 2013). The long-term research realized by the Centre focused on the education of pupils with SEN, including dyslexia. The key issues included the development of foreign language communicative competences of pupils with SEN, support of learning strategies, analysis of foreign language course books, use of alternative teaching methods and drama education in foreign language classes, and evaluation and self-evaluation of pupils with SEN.
From 2011 to 2013 the members of the English Department participated in Comenius Lifelong Project 518466-LLP-1-2011-1-PL-COMEDyslexia for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language. The project consortium of partners from 6 European countries designed a training course and course materials for teachers of English as a foreign language who teach learners with dyslexia. The course was published in 2013 and also offered to teachers and teacher trainers online in a self-study mode (http://dystefl.eu/index.php).
Participating staff