Accent on communicativeness remains an important aspect of foreign language teaching in the Euro-American region at the beginning of the 21st century (cf. Common European Framework of Reference, 2001). Within the communicative approach including its postmodern modifications the communicative competence does not only present the goal of foreign language instruction but also the means of the instruction, the way to the goal. The teacher is responsible for creating opportunities for the learners to practise communication in the language classroom in the situations that evoke real-life communicative needs (Brumfit, 1992; Littlewood, 1994; Widdowson, 1978). The recommended procedures differ considerably from earlier practice in the language classrooms, where teachers preferred accuracy to fluency and thus most of the learners´ output was controlled. As for the ratio of teacher talk and learner talk, the former should be reduced whereas the latter enhanced. Another key issue in the communicative paradigm is the use of mother tongue. Employing the target language where possible and the mother tongue only where necessary has been practically indisputable since the 1980s (Atkinson, 1987). The question remains to what degree these recommendations are actually reflected in everyday foreign language teaching at Czech schools. The aim of this paper is to present an analysis of the nature of pupils’ utterances made in 79 lessons of the everyday teaching in the lower secondary school in the Czech Republic. The analysis is a part of a broader project (CPV Video Study of English) carried out by the Educational Research Centre of the Faculty of Education, Masaryk University, Czech Republic (Najvar et al., 2009) that employed video study as a research approach. The analysis is based on the concept of opportunities to talk. Opportunities to talk are seen as one of the variables that influence the quality of ELT instruction and are accessible for research. Opportunities to learn enable learners to become active in the process of their learning (Seidel & Prenzel, 2006) and they are seen as allocated time (also engaged time, active learning time, time-on-task) the learner has for the task (Wiley & Harnischfeger, 1974). This analysis shows us what the nature of pupils’ utterances is. For the purpose of this analysis a system of categories was developed that consisted of 17 categories. These categories reflect three main dimensions of the analysed lessons – controlled practice, free communicative utterances and other utterances (in Czech language). The findings show that pupils often speak in a controlled-practice environment with few opportunities to practice in communicative situations. The use of the mother tongue in English language teaching is also analysed. The findings show that the mother tongue plays an important role in the everyday teaching of English in Czech lower-secondary schools.

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