Comparative assessment of young learners' foreign language competence in three Eastern European countries

This paper concerns teacher practices in, and beliefs about, the assessment of young learners' progress in English in three Eastern European countries (Slovenia, Croatia, and the Czech Republic). The central part of the paper focuses on an international project involving empirical research into assessment of young learners' foreign language competence in Slovenia, Croatia and the Czech Republic. With the help of an adapted questionnaire, we collected data from a non-random sample of primary and foreign language teachers who teach foreign languages at the primary level in these countries. The research shows that English as a foreign language is taught mostly by young teachers either primary specialists or foreign language teachers. These teachers most frequently use oral assessment/interviews or self-developed tests. Other more authentic types of assessment, such as language portfolios, are rarely used. The teachers most frequently assess speaking and listening skills, and they use assessment involving vocabulary the most frequently of all. However, there are significant differences in practice among the three countries

An Index of Child Well-being in the European Union

While the living conditions of children and young people in the European Union have gained increasing recognition across the EU, the well-being of children is not monitored on the European level. Based on a rights-based, multi-dimensional understanding of child well-being we analyse data already available for the EU 25, using series data as well as comparative surveys of children and young people. We compare the performance of EU Member States on eight clusters with 23 domains and 51 indicators and give a picture of children’s overall well-being in the European Union. The clusters are children’s material situation, housing, health, subjective well-being, education, children’s relationships, civic participation and risk and safety

Jiří Menzel’s treatment of sacrifice

The paper explores the philosophical treatment of sacrifice in four of Jiří Menzel’s films of the 1960’s, Closely observed trains (Ostře sledované vlaky), Capricious summer (Rozmarné léto), Mr Balthazar’s death (Smrt pana Baltazara), his short film contribution to the anthology film of the New Wave, Pearls of the deep (Perličky na dně), and Larks on a string (Skřivánci na niti). The paper argues that Menzel problematizes romanticized versions of messianic sacrifice as they all too easily disregard the moral significance of mundane relations. By analysing the treatment of sacrifice in each of these films, the paper makes a case for the significance of Menzel’s treatment of sacrifice for current philosophical debates

Is there the rule of law in Russia? The case of corporate raiding: a note

Our leaders constantly proclaim that Russia is building a democratic state and moving along the road to the rule of law in the market economy. The rhetoric is fine, but what is really happening? In order to answer this question I would like to tackle the problem of raiding in the Russian economy, the problem most acute, urgent and illustrative of the present state of affairs. First, I'd introduce the definitions, then describe the process going on in Russia and then try to make some tentative conclusions regarding the future trends

Challenges to Slovakia and Poland health policy decisions: use of investment treaties to claim compensation for reversal of privatisation/liberalisation policies

Investment treaties, and possibly the EU Treaty itself, are being used by multinational companies Penta and Eureko to try and force the Slovak government to pay compensation for reversing health privatisation and liberalisation policies. Similar action has been used against the Polish government by Eureko to win compensation worth nearly 2 billion Euros and a policy commitment to further privatisation

Exploring the trend of Czech FDIs and their effect to institutional environment

This paper is the result of Metropolitan University Prague research project no. 68-02“Territorial Studies, Economics, International Relations” (2019) based on a grant from the Institutional Fund for the Long-term Strategic Development of Research Organisations. The authors would like to thank for useful comments and suggestions professors and participants of the 7th edition of the Conference IFRS Global Rules and Local Use - Beyond the Numbers in Prague 2019 and participants at conference ICABE 2019 in Thessaloniki Greece.Purpose: The goal of this paper is to explore the trend of FDIs in the Czech Republic and its changes in recent years using the gravity model. Apart from traditional variables used in FDI models we also introduce IFRS in national accounting rules. Design/Methodology/Approach: We use open-source data from the World Bank and FDI data from the Czech national bank, to analyse a panel data of bilateral FDI for 19 EU countries over the period 2008–2017 by PPML specification. Findings: We have observed significant effect of positive impact on broader introduction of IFRS in 2010 in terms of country imports and exports. We observed lower significance of IFRS dummy in the gravity model, where dependent variable is the sum of FDI inflow and FDI outflow it is not significant in the models which dependent variables are FDI inward and FDI outward for FDIs. Practical Implications: In general, FDIs increased productivity in the Czech Republic, especially in 1990s. We assess the effect and possible contribution of traditional variables like size, GDP, border and distance to Czech FDIs. Originality/Value: We find that the positive effect of IFRS exists at 10 percent significance for FDIs. Nevertheless we claim that this effect is mixed with other institutional issues, namely institutional isomorphism. Further tests will be needed after the forthcoming change of the Czech accounting act, which is approaching after 2020.peer-reviewe