British Council: Slovaks poor at understanding English

The ability of Slovaks to comprehend English is poor, which is related to the quality of English language teaching at schools, British Council Slovensko representatives stated at a press conference in Bratislava on Monday. The organisation was referring to the results of a recent Eurobarometer survey and of its own survey among more than 400 English teachers at primary and secondary schools carried out at the end of last year. "English is viewed as the most useful language in the world by 67 percent of Europeans and 63 percent of Slovaks, as reads the Eurobarometer survey, but the ability to comprehend information delivered in this language in the EU is 25 percent on average, while in Slovakia it amounts to a mere 14 percent," stated the director of British Council Slovensko Alena Rebrová. According to the British Council survey, as many as 11 percent of English teachers don't feel confident about their performance in the language. "There are many passionate teachers, but they lack the support to provide a teaching of higher quality," said Rebrová. According to her, the surveyed teachers pointed to the system lacking additional education, some teachers admitted that they lack proper training in making their students more active in classes and they also voiced their will to be more involved in the creation of new textbooks. In order to remedy the situation, the British Council is launching a campaign entitled 'The Better English Initiative', within which English teachers will be able to download teaching resources, for instance. Also speaking at the press conference was Education, Science, Research and Sport Minister Juraj Draxler. According to him the ministry wants to fund projects aimed at making English language teaching better and more effective. The minister went on to say that there is to be a call for applications for a project that is set to bring digital teaching resources to schools. The ministry will fork out over €11 million for this purpose.