SLOVAK AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN TERMS OF THE INTEGRATION PROCESSES IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC

The article represents a methodological starting point for research on teaching Slovak as a foreign language in the Slovak Republic. After the Slovak Republic joined the eurozone, it was necessary to start understanding Slovak as the state language – as a compulsory subject for Slovaks, but also to start teaching it to different groups of foreigners moving to Slovakia. This need has become even more pressing since February 2022, when the war conflict in Ukraine forced thousands of Ukrainians to leave their homes and seek refuge in neighbouring countries, including Slovakia. This raised the question of how to deal with Slovak as a foreign language within the educational system of the Slovak Republic. Legislation (a law on the Residence of Foreigners in Slovakia) is also currently being prepared that will require foreigners asking for living in Slovakia to take a standardized test/exam at an accredited educational institution. However, since very few research studies on this topic have been conducted, this scholarly article lays foundations and poses methodological questions within five key thematic areas (i.e., learners’ motivation, intermediary language, textbooks, testing reference levels and error analysis, particular case studies) when directing a follow-up series of research studies and to justify why these issues are relevant. Therefore, the article explains the starting points that are anchored in previous scientific works in the field. Furthermore, the elaborated theoretical foundations and proposed research studies that will be carried out by university teachers and educational researchers are aimed at deepening scientific knowledge not only in the context of Slovak as a foreign language, but also of other minor foreign languages (e.g. Polish, Czech, Croatian, etc.).