When I was going to Czech Republic, I knew a lot thanks to the podebrady.ru blog. Actually, while still in Russia you can already imagine a lot in your head, and most importantly - what's written there differs little from reality, sometimes, though, some information is already outdated, but these are trifles.
The only thing I couldn't find an answer to anywhere - how do humanities students live in Czech Republic in general, and especially, on courses in Poděbrady. In this article I'll try to describe what I've seen over 3 months of study. Unfortunately, there will be few photos and many words in the article.
Organization of the educational process at the beginning of the year
We started studying on September 9th. It was raining, students gathered near the castle. Even then it was slightly amazing that there would be so many of us. Then everyone went to something like an assembly hall - there was barely enough space, of course, but our future teachers quickly grabbed us and took us to classrooms.
Interestingly, the first time students were gathered without division by specialties at all. The logic of division wasn't very clear, but in our group absolutely everyone studied - both technical students, and humanities students, and economists (the latter, of course, the most, there won't be enough work for everyone for sure🙃).
We studied in this composition for the first 2 weeks. We only learned Czech and nothing else. This was like an express course (code name "AOK"), during which we learned everything needed for minimal communication in stores, ability to read signs. Russian-speaking students experienced minimal problems. Our group was led by Mrs. Bílková (later she taught me both Czech language and history), thanks to her we started speaking Czech quite well.
Placement test
In the middle of the express course we wrote a placement test - each specialty had its own. I, for example, wrote a test in English (very easy) and, so to speak, a test in a mixed bag of all subjects (there was geography, and history, and culture, and mathematics (!), which I hadn't seen for about 5 years, but everything was so easy that even remembering - not a problem).
Based on its results we were divided into groups. In our case, as I understood, the test was a formality - there are few humanities groups anyway. I ended up in group H3 (humanitní). Those who wanted to study philology and "Czech for foreigners" gathered there. Of course, all this is just speculation - I can't imagine how yesterday's schoolchildren can make a final choice. The academic year will put everything in its place.
Humanities group
By the way, our group is international. There are only 11 people in it - 6 from Russia, 1 from Ukraine, 3 from Guinea, 1 from Tunisia.
Foreigners could speak English (well, relatively). For them, of course, it's especially hard - Russian-speaking students (especially those who aren't lazy) master the language very quickly, understand speech well. There is, of course, also a huge minus - you always want to say it in Russian, and this is - most often wrong. You have to clear your head, and I noticed that not everyone is capable of this. Some students (not only in our group) still speak with a pronounced Russian pronunciation, express themselves 50\50 Russian-Czech. This is sad.
This is the schedule that awaited us. We study 5 days a week. In total it comes out to 36-38 academic hours. Classes go until one in the afternoon, or until three-four. They start at eight. Pretty good, everything suits me, after university it's not that hard, I have enough energy :)
By the way, we studied on the third floor, in the "premedical study" wing. That's quite a twist.
Subjects
First about additional ones.
Ú - this is introduction to the specialty. In practice, this is, you could say, literature. It's taught by two people - Mr. Bednář and Mr. Čejka. Both are men, the first is young, the second is already quite old (bearded), and therefore very educated and well-read, a walking Wikipedia. Mr. Bednář teaches more organized - with him we study everything in order, read. Mr. Čejka - with him we study everything in the form of organized chaos. Besides literature, we can say, we talk about everything - both about future specialties and about life. He likes to give various information for "inspiration" - in general, everything is interesting. And he knows, it seems, a lot, and for me, for example, it's always awkward in these classes - I feel unusually stupid :)
D - this is history. It's taught by the teacher who taught in my express group - Mrs. Bílková. She is also our "class teacher", i.e. watches over us, helps, communicates all important information. In principle, information always reaches quickly here - other teachers are also happy to share it.
We study mainly Czech history, with some inclusions of world history - it's interesting sometimes to draw parallels with the school curriculum in Russia. Personally, history never worked for me, but here everything seems fine so far. The learning process goes like this - the teacher writes the main information on the board, then - we discuss everything a bit, learn some details.
By the way, it's worth mentioning that still, additional subjects are given primarily to know vocabulary, and not to gain great knowledge. Very often among students you can hear: "Why do I need this school course of mathematics\physics\history, I already know all this anyway". They are fundamentally wrong, as I said earlier - this is done to learn vocabulary and be able to express a thought.
Speaking from the height of a two-year flight in Czech Republic - this knowledge was extremely useful when communicating with Czechs.
Ú - another part of this subject is the study of film history. This is one subject with literature, but for convenience I highlighted it separately. We study it only once a week. This subject is taught by Mrs. Jankulíková - a young Czech woman. She is very active, likes both to talk and teach Czech, and worthily present material. In general, the film lecture turns out to be comprehensively useful, and for me in general - a novelty.
Well, and actually, it's time to tell about the most important thing - about Czech language lessons (Č). In all groups it should be taught by 3 different teachers (this is done so students get used to the speech of different people, and different teachers present material differently). At the beginning of study, Czech was taught by already familiar Mrs. Bílková, Jankulíková, and also another young Czech woman - Mrs. Formánková.
Group division
Study went quite slowly - foreigners significantly slowed down the process for Russian-speaking students, and this is not surprising.
As a result, in early October it was decided to divide the group into 2 parts - Russian-speaking and foreigners. The same situation was in technical group T7, so foreigners from there now study Czech together with ours, and we study with Russian-speaking students from T7.
It should be said that now we study much faster, with minimal losses. Now we have 3 young teachers: most of the time - Mrs. Ilona Mazurková, and also Mrs. Aichlerová and Mrs. Nikola (I don't remember the surname, but this is a girl 🙃). A big plus that they're young - classes are really interesting.
We talk a lot (and this is a big plus, compared to other groups - we know how to do this). On the other hand, for especially young (not physically, mentally) students - a young teacher is not an authority, so in classes you can do anything except study. This is everyone's choice, of course, but such people really interfere.
Czech classes go differently - sometimes we just do exercises, often do dialogues, sometimes classes are in game form, sometimes we watch presentations.
Extracurricular activities
It's also worth talking about extracurricular activities. For example, on December 13th we'll go on a Christmas excursion. At the very beginning of the year we went on an overview excursion around Poděbrady, they showed us the main necessary places - banks, post office, police, etc.
Relations between teachers and students are warmer than in Russia. Still, both in school and at university, relations were more often purely professional, but here it's somehow easier - it's quite possible to see teachers in informal settings, for example, at various school parties, they stand there, drink beer, chat with students. Interesting in general, it will be new to many.
Division into bachelors and masters
It's also worth mentioning that in the middle of the academic year there will be a division into bachelor's and master's groups. The main difference is that future bachelors will study additional subjects as before, and future masters and doctors will instead study English and have 1 free day.
By the way, philology masters don't study in Poděbrady, only in Prague. Accordingly, I faced a choice to stay in Poděbrady or move to Prague in the middle of the year. I, of course, will stay here.
In general, the decision with additional English is very controversial. I believe that people with higher philological education can't know English poorly at all - I've been learning it for more than a dozen years already. I can't even imagine what exactly will be there, but I understand that most likely this time will be wasted. I believe that this time philology masters should use more rationally - for example, solve tests, have special seminars on studied literature.
Knowledge control
Every month like everyone else we write tests. They're quite easy, but everything is in them at once. Sometimes we also write small tests, for self-control. You need to be able to write small stories about yourself.
For example, in the December test we already wrote a story of 80 words or more. In January there will also be an oral test. For me the most difficult tests are literature tests. There are 30-40 questions in them, accordingly, to write for an acceptable score - you need to make minimal mistakes. We study, we try.
Probably it's worth paying attention to whether we know Czech better than others (we are philologists after all). Here I'm torn by vague doubts.
The thing is that they explain the language to us the same way as to others, without special terms, concepts, understandable only to philologists. And I was waiting for them.
Also, little time is devoted to phonetics, and it in a foreign country is the key to success. In general, I believe that philologists shouldn't write tests below 90% at all. If it's consistently less - it's worth seriously thinking about the approach to study, or drastically changing the specialty. There will be 100% inflated requirements for philologists' language knowledge (what kind of philologist doesn't know the language?), so it's worth thinking in advance whether you're ready for this. After all, you can always go to the technical direction, to a more popular specialty, with a clearer future and higher salaries.