Bratislava

Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia, with a population of over 400,000. It is a dynamic city where construction and reconstruction projects are everywhere. Alongside this are reminders of the past with a castle overlooking the city, the Old Town with its narrow winding streets and sidewalk cafes, and many historic buildings. Bratislava is a cultural center with art galleries, museums, and an especially rich selection of music, from classical to jazz, from folk to rock. The city has a good public transportation system.

The Evangelical Lyceum

The Lutheran high school, the Evangelical Lyceum, was founded in 1606 as part of the Reformation. In the 1800s, many of the national leaders were students or teachers at the Lyceum. The school was closed during the Communist period, 1948-1989, but reopened in 1991 as a bilingual school. More than 100 Americans and Canadians have served as volunteer English teachers.

The Lyceum has five grades for students ages 13-19. For the first-year class, 300 students apply and 72 are chosen based on their academic record. In their first year, students have four hours of English classes a day, including grammar, reading and writing, and social studies (American and British history). In successive years, students have one hour of English per day to improve their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. Third-year students focus on American literature, fourth-year on British, and fifth-year on contemporary literature of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Fifth-year students mainly focus on preparing for their Maturita, a series of demanding written and oral comprehensive graduating exams.

Teaching at the Lyceum

The teaching assignment for American volunteer teachers may include English language (listening, speaking, reading and writing), grammar, conversation, thematic topics (including history and culture of Great Britain and the United States), and English literature. Teachers meet with all their students daily, 5 class hours per week. The normal number of teaching hours per week is 20 but could be expanded by substituting. Usually each teacher has two preparations: for example, two sections of second-year students and two of fourth year. In the school year 2005-2006, the school had five American teachers in addition to Slovak teachers of English at the school. Assignments are made according to the teacher interests and the needs of the school.

The New Maturita (National comprehensive graduating exam)

In 2005, the Slovak government standardized all graduating exams in high school subjects, including English. As such, Kosice’s Gymnasium utilizes their American volunteers to teach extensive year-long conversation classes. The new Maturita exam for English language requires students to know specific vocabulary, dialogue, description and basic comprehension in 25 topics (such as food, multi-cultural society, family, mass media, health care, etc.). Teachers of 4^th and 5^th year classes are expected to help students organize and review their materials for the comprehensive graduating exam given at the end of the 5^th year, in addition to presenting the assigned curriculum.

The school’s teacher resource library and circulation library has sufficient resources for English language classes; however, resources in English for selected units of content area study taught bilingually by Slovak teachers are lacking. In addition, the library holds reference works, magazines, videos, and provides Internet access.

Volunteers receive free housing in proximity to the school. Generally two teachers share an apartment.

In addition to the English teachers, ELCA Global Mission provides a coordinating teacher, a librarian, and one or more religion teachers.

Teachers find support and fellowship at the Bratislava International Congregation, an English-language congregation of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovakia.

Links:

• Pictures of the Lyceum
• International English-Language Congregation:

Evangelical (Lutheran) Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovakia