U.S. Foreign Service Institute
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Overview of the Czech FAST Course

The Czech FAST course is designed to help students acquire the communications skills necessary to deal with the most common social and everyday situations encountered.

Designed as an 8-week introductory course, the FAST course does not attempt to present a systematic and comprehensive introduction to Czech grammar. Grammar is instead presented in a very elementary form to help gain some undertanding of "what is happening."

The course is divided into 12 lessons, plus an introductory lesson. The lessons cover the following topics: introductions, asking directions, public transportation, using the telephone, at a restaurant, shopping, at a hotel, car trouble, at work, car accident, and dealing with servants.

The learning activities for most units are: cultural notes, dialogues, exercises, vocabulary, and language notes.

Preface

The Czech Familiarization and Short Term (FAST) Course is one of a series of similar foreign language courses produced at the Foreign Service Institute that are intended to train U.S. Government personnel assigned to overseas posts. The objective of the FAST Courses is to help students acquire the communication skills necessary to deal with the most common social and daily life situations they will encounter during their overseas assignment. Language forms adequate to satisfy personal needs, "how-to" informatio, and cultural highlights are presented in a format that will encourage students to try to use with confidence the language skills they have developed.

The original version of the Czech FAST Course was drafted in 1988 by Radovan Pletka under the direction of Hedy St. Denis and David Argoff. These materials were then edited by Jiri Cernik in 1989. Based on the observation of student performance and comments by both students and instructors at FSI. Mr. Pletka has revised some parts of the course. Especially due to the recent political changes in Czech Republic some segments of the Cultural Notes underwent significant changes.

The Czech text were proofread by Mirek Sablik and Dana Sablik, while the English parts were edited by Michael S. Allen. After finalizing the content Mr. Sablik prepared the camera-ready copy and Gelinda Giacomin from the FSI Audio-Visual Facility designed the cover. The whole course was then recorded by the Czech section with the technical assistance of Mark Macklow from the Language Laboratory. Christina N. Hoffman provided technical guidance and made arrangements for final publication.

The Czech FAST Course was designed as an eight week introductory course for employees and dependents with imminent assignments to Czech Republic who are unable to take the regular 44-week Czech Basic Course. It should be noted that the FAST course does not attempt to present a systematic and comprehensive introduction to the Czech grammar; instead bits and pieces of the grammar are practiced and explained as they appear naturally in the dialogues. In view of the emphasis on the immediately practical and the amount of time available, all linguistic explanations have been greatly simplified.