Lower Secondary School Teacher Training in French Language

The main objective of the study of Lower Secondary School Teacher Training in French Language is to produce fully qualified teachers who have acquired solid knowledge and skills in the spheres of French language and the ways of teaching it, who can research and deal with professional issues and who are capable of further self-education based on their own self-reflection. The focus of this Master's degree is to synthesise and expand on existing professional linguistic, literary and historical knowledge as well as to develop further didactic methods of teaching French. The individual specialisations of each student play an important role. Emphasis is placed on acquiring active knowledge of contemporary language and culture of the French and francophone world, based on a solid methodological approach, and the ways in which these can be applied to teaching practice.

Real education is not about telling you something but leading you.
(Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – Le petit prince /The Little Prince)

Unlike the courses which concentrate on philology and translation studies as well as the courses preparing secondary school teachers which are based at Philosophical Faculties, Teaching French at Primary and Lower Secondary School Level is only available at the Faculty of Education, Masaryk University (MU).

The well-structured common core basis of the Faculty's teaching courses which concentrate on the pedagogical and psychological aspects, a combination of theoretical studies with practical work experience in schools and other cultural institutions, and a focused concentration on the appropriate didactic methods contribute to the undisputed high quality of graduates.

Aims - Department of Education:

Through studying for the Master’s degree graduates gain the necessary competences that allow them to critically apply the use of their pedagogical and psychological knowledge in practice as a teacher at a primary or secondary school. Graduates are fully qualified to pursue the profession of a teacher. They are ready to base their professional conduct on well-structured knowledge and skills from their fields of approbation (content knowledge). The effectiveness of their professional conduct is conditioned by their subject-didactic (pedagogical content knowledge) and broader pedagogical and psychological knowledge and skills (knowledge of the broader background of education, knowledge of educational practices, knowledge about people involved in education, etc.).

The degree develops students’ analytical and comparative skills, which enable them to understand the diverse pedagogical reality and to use subject-specific, pedagogical, and psychological publications in their work for planning, implementing and reflecting on educational activities. They develop communication skills important for communication and collaboration with pupils/clients, colleagues in the workplace, with parents of pupils/clients and with practitioners. An important benefit of the degree is the development of self-reflective skills that provide space for the development of attitudes towards one another, to educated individuals and to the profession: perception of the responsibility of the teaching profession, the acceptance of the moral obligations of a helping profession and its ethics.

The studies emphasise the principle of interdisciplinarity (interconnection of some pedagogical and psychological subjects) and the principle of sequence and gradation of themes and courses, from the more general to the more specific. The concept is also characterized by the interdependence of theory and practice. An important part of the concept is the reflective teaching practice. The principles of reflection on teaching practice and self-reflection are related both to practice and to other experience-oriented subjects. An important part of the concept is also the promotion of inclusion, which is perceived as a cross-curricular theme (also supported by a separate course)

Practical training

Teaching practice is an obligatory part of the curriculum for this field. These courses are compulsory and are carried out in accordance with the Guidelines for Educating Future Teachers. The mandatory work experience is organised between the specialist subject departments and the Department of Education. After the final teaching practice on the Master's course, the student should be able to work autonomously in a classroom and become a teacher who is ready to strengthen their competency in further education.

Practical Trainig - department of Education:

The teaching practice is conceived as a coherent and gradated system with an emphasis on interconnection with theory and reflection and self-reflection of the student as a teacher.

The aim of the teaching practice is to acquire the professional competences necessary in the daily work of the teacher, to become acquainted with the roles which the teacher enters into in their work, to realize their own professional needs and to gradually take responsibility for the planning, implementation and evaluation of lessons. Throughout the teaching practice, students get a real idea of what a teacher's everyday work involves.

The teaching practice forms a coherent system of consecutive subjects. In the follow-up master's programmes, these are the subjects Teaching Practice 1 (1st semester), Teaching Practice 2 (2nd semester) and Teaching Practice 3 (3rd semester). In total, this makes up 280 hours (double-subject programme), followed by Seminar on Teaching Practice. Students enrol in the Seminar on Teaching Practice 1 twice during their studies (in the first and second semesters). The aim of the reflection is to provide students with a space for sharing and reflecting on experiences from their own teaching practice and helping them to deepen their reflective and self-reflective skills.

The system of teaching practice is regularly evaluated both through open and closed questions, both by students and the mentor teachers. The reflective seminars are also evaluated.

Further information

https://francouzstina.ped.muni.cz/

The graduates of this study programme are ready to actively and independently apply their well structured professional knowledge and skills within the framework of an educational curriculum at primary and lower level secondary schools and also in the sphere of after-school and leisure time activities. They are fully qualified teachers of French language for primary and lower level secondary schools. They are also qualified to work in institutions which require a pedagogical qualification, e.g. instructors or tutors at language schools authorised for state language examinations.

No information available

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Minimum score and numbers of accepted applicants in past years

After passing the degree, it is possible to continue further with the postgraduate course Teaching a Foreign Language (after satisfying the admission requirements). There is also an option to undertake the State 'Examen Rigorosum' which tests whether the graduate has expanded their theoretical knowledge in the studied field, increased their ability to work unsupervised with new theoretical and practical developments, and commands academic methodology and research methods.