The aim of the project was to present the acquired knowledge from the education of Slovak as a second language, to innovate the current teaching methods so that teachers in the majority environment outside the Slovak Republic remove language barriers with optimal tools for learning foreign languages, taking into account the specifics of the language in question. The partnership has been successful in creating innovative teaching and testing tools that will improve the quality of Slovak language teaching in the specific conditions in partner countries, while accepting the particularities of the majority language. In the case of teaching Slovak in a student environment where the majority language is another genetically close Slavic language, the impact of negative interference needs to be particularly emphasised. The starting point for the development of a more effective model of Slovak language teaching was an initial comparative analysis of Slovak and the majority language, but especially the practical experience of educators in partner countries with problematic linguistic and intercultural phenomena that make it challenging to teach Slovak. The stated aims have been achieved and are summarized in 4 main intellectual results.
The project is based on the cooperation of three universities:the coordinator of the project–Faculty of Arts UCM in Trnava and foreign partners–Faculty of Arts University of Novi Sad and Faculty of Arts University in Ljubljana.The aim of the project is to increase the effectiveness of teaching Slovak language at universities outside Slovakia,in an environment where contact with the language is essential,covering all functional areas in an environment where it naturally develops.At the University of Novi Sad,Slovak is also taught as the language of the Slovak national minority living in Serbia.Language is considered to be the basis of individual and group identification,therefore the maintenance and development of the mother tongue is a key tool for the preservation of ethnic identity.The project coordinator is a workplace where methods of teaching Slovak as a foreign language have already been developed and researched in special projects aimed at improving the teaching of Slovak as an official language in the environment of linguistic minorities in Slovakia.The project is designed to respond to the needs of partners in the field of Slovak language teaching and to promote direct contact with the ancestral homeland and its speakers.