The Department of German Studies at the Faculty of Education, University of South Bohemia, is an accredited institution for the education and training of teachers of German

• at lower-secondary schools,
• and at upper-secondary schools.

Under Act No. 183/2023 Coll. of 1 June 2023, amending Act No. 563/2004 Coll. on Educational Staff, as subsequently amended, graduates of the Master’s degree programme Teaching German for Lower-Secondary Schools, offered by the Department of German Studies at the Faculty of Education, University of South Bohemia, are qualified to teach German at both lower- and upper-secondary schools.

Main Areas of Research

• German language didactics
• foreign language didactics
• didactics of Czech as a foreign language
• technology-enhanced foreign language learning and teaching
• rhetoric and teachers’ communication skills
• children’s and young adult literature
• text linguistics
• corpus linguistics
• historical German grammar
• early German literature
• modern German-language literature and Austrian literature after 1945
• history of German-speaking countries

International Academic Journal

The Department of German Studies is a co-publisher of the international academic journal LINGUA VIVA, which is indexed in the ERIH PLUS database.

Current International Projects

Sprachenbrücken – Jazykové mosty (Language Bridges)
Project duration: May 2025 – January 2028

International Relations

Members of the Department of German Studies are active in a number of international and national academic associations, including the Czech Association of German Studies, the Circle of Modern Philologists, the Association of German Studies Scholars and Teachers of German, and the Association of Teachers of Czech as a Foreign Language. They also serve on the editorial boards of academic journals, including ACC Journal.

The Department of German Studies maintains close cooperation with the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Passau, the University College of Teacher Education Upper Austria in Linz, the Universities of Vienna and Munich, and the University of Public Administration and Finance in Ludwigsburg, Germany. Within the framework of projects and student teaching placements, the Department also cooperates with the Faculty of Education’s partner school, the Neue Musikmittelschule Freistadt, and with Gymnasium Zwiesel.

Degree Programmes Offered by the Department

• five-year professional Master’s degree programme Teaching German for Lower-Secondary Schools (with the statutory qualification to teach at both lower- and upper-secondary schools)
• five-year professional Master’s degree programme Teaching for Lower-Secondary Schools with a Specialisation in Czech as a Second Language (with the statutory qualification to teach at both lower- and upper-secondary schools)

Degree Programmes Being Phased Out

• three-year Bachelor’s degree programme German Language with a Focus on Education at Lower-Secondary Schools
• two-year follow-up Master’s degree programme Teaching for Lower-Secondary Schools with a Specialisation in German (with the statutory qualification to teach at both lower- and upper-secondary schools)

Franz Kafka and South Bohemia – Travelling Exhibition Available for Loan

The Department of German Studies offers schools, libraries and cultural institutions the opportunity to borrow the travelling exhibition Franz Kafka and South Bohemia / Franz Kafka und Südböhmen, which explores lesser-known connections between Franz Kafka’s life and work and the South Bohemian region.

The exhibition was created to mark the 100th anniversary of Franz Kafka’s death (1924–2024).