Since 2022, the arrival of Ukrainian refugee students in the Czech Republic has strained the education system. Between 2020 and 2025, the number of Ukrainian students enrolled in Czech primary and lower-secondary schools rose from 8,408 to 51,416 (Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports, 2025).

In Czechia, initial teacher education has traditionally prepared teachers for linguistically and culturally homogeneous classrooms (Bačáková, 2011). Teachers, who had always worked with uniform student populations, now had to navigate multilingual classrooms with trauma-affected children. Foreign language teachers face a unique challenge. Teachers of other subjects simplify Czech instruction, whereas foreign language teachers deliver lessons in a third language, navigating Ukrainian, Czech, and the target language simultaneously. This combination creates a triple language challenge.

Beyond linguistic complexity, foreign language teachers must also address trauma's impact on learning. Ukrainian children carry impacts of war, displacement, and family separation. Trauma-informed pedagogy recognises that such experiences affect students’ learning. Psychological safety and strong relationships are as vital as academic content (Bath, 2008). Therefore, teachers balance several responsibilities, such as subject instruction, language support, and students’ emotional safety.

Research on Ukrainian refugee children addresses school enrolment and curriculum adaptation to learners’ needs (Lintner et al., 2025; Šeďová et al., 2025). Yet, teachers encounter language barriers, cultural differences, and insufficient formal training (Hauge et al., 2024; Frazier et al., 2025). Though trauma-informed pedagogy has gained recognition (Bath, 2008), little research has investigated how teachers without specialised training apply trauma-sensitive approaches in their classrooms (Cerna, 2019; Stathopoulou & Dassi, 2020). Even fewer studies investigate the institutional support that would make these approaches sustainable. Current research documents teachers' challenges, but it fails to explore why teachers remain professionally isolated when surrounded by colleagues facing identical challenges.

The integration of displaced children into Czech schools is one of the biggest challenges for teachers. By 2025, the Czech Republic had welcomed a disproportionate number of Ukrainian refugees, about 36–37 per 1,000 residents, compared to 25 in Poland and 17 in Germany (UNHCR, 2025). This has placed a heavy burden on the unprepared education system. Most newly graduated Czech teachers are confident they know their subject well (74.6%), but only 15.4% feel prepared to teach multicultural classrooms, and 24.5% feel ready to meet students' social-emotional needs (OECD, 2025). These reveal the need for a systemic approach to teacher learning.

The study follows Cerna's (2019) framework, which examines refugee integration across three levels: national policy (macro), school organisation (meso), and classroom practice (micro). Cerna's model underscores the importance of coordination across all levels for the system to function effectively. This study extends the framework, demonstrating that teachers' professional learning isn't a separate issue to address alongside integration. It's a foundation that must exist at all three levels simultaneously. Without it, integration policies become mandates with no real support, forcing teachers to carry the weight of systemic problems by themselves.

Three research questions guide this study: (1) What difficulties do Czech foreign language teachers face in crisis-affected classrooms? (2) What pedagogical approaches do they develop to meet refugee students' needs? (3) What institutional support structures exist, and how do they enable or constrain effective teaching in crisis contexts? Beyond teachers' personal experiences, these questions examine how institutional support shapes teachers’ adaptation to a crisis.

This research makes three contributions. Empirically, it shows how foreign language teachers navigate the previously undocumented triple-language challenge in crisis contexts. Conceptually, it highlights that professional isolation is a structural issue, not a lack of resources. Practically, it offers policy recommendations that reconceptualise how crisis-responsive education systems should support teacher learning, showing that teacher development and student integration are inseparable.

Grounded in sociocultural learning theory, which views professional development as situated in social practice rather than isolated skill acquisition (Wenger, 1998), this qualitative study adopts thematic analysis to investigate Czech foreign language teachers' experiences in classrooms with refugee students. Data were collected between October 2024 and March 2025 through fifteen in-depth semi-structured individual interviews (n=15) and two focus groups with five participants each (n=10). Teachers from five Czech regions with the highest enrolment rate of Ukrainian refugee students were recruited using purposeful sampling. The regions comprised Hlavní město Praha (12,984), Středočeský kraj (7,898), Jihomoravský kraj (4,017), Plzeňský kraj (3,948), and Ústecký kraj (2,966). Inclusion criteria specified lower-secondary teachers (grades 6-9), who were fluent in English (the data collection language) and taught classrooms with 1-5 displaced Ukrainian children. This classroom composition represents 44% of all classes with refugee students in the Czech Republic. Participants were contacted via emails listed on official school websites. All interviews and focus group discussions took place online via MS Teams. Conducting research online facilitated the recruitment from geographically diverse regions and eliminated travel expenses (Flick, 2023). Whereas the English-language requirement may have excluded some perspectives, it allowed data collection and analysis to proceed consistently without translation. Semi-structured interviews recorded teachers' experiences, beliefs, and perceptions, acknowledging that educational issues are rooted in authentic human experiences (Seidman, 2019). Focus groups supplemented individual interviews, allowing participants to explore their perceptions in greater depth. The researcher made sure that every participant in the group shared relevant social or cultural experiences related to the study, creating a comfortable group atmosphere. With five participants per focus group, each individual had sufficient time to expand on topics. Focus groups were guided by a protocol to track discussion progress and steer conversations effectively. Data analysis followed Creswell and Poth's (2023) systematic Data Analysis Spiral. It involved organising data files, reading and memoing emergent ideas, categorising codes into themes, interpretating the data through horizontalisation, and presenting the findings. Focus group analysis used Flick's (2023) comparative approach, examining both content (specific ideas and themes) and process (group dynamics and evolving views) within and across groups. Through thematic analysis, 24 subthemes emerged, forming 8 core themes aligned with the three research questions. They provided a clear understanding of challenges, pedagogical adaptations, and required institutional support.

The analysis indicates that Czech foreign language teachers find themselves in an educational crisis. As classroom composition shifted, teachers began to encounter overlapping language, cultural, and emotional pressures. Teachers share a common set of challenges. They teach in multiple languages, address trauma in their students, and question their assumptions, all while feeling professionally isolated. The need for systemic support becomes evident. It should include the provision of teaching assistants, trauma-informed training, and fair compensation that matches the demands of teaching in a crisis. Teachers need sustained professional development and policies that respond to teaching practices in crisis-affected classrooms. The most significant finding is teachers' professional isolation. Many teachers describe this as "reinventing the wheel". This isolation limits collaborations and weakens existing support programmes. Teachers need structured, peer-driven professional development built into their school routines. This connects with sociocultural learning theory, which stresses that professional knowledge is built through communities of practice. This research offers two theoretical contributions. First, it extends Cerna's (2019) holistic integration framework by demonstrating that teacher professional learning is an essential part to be incorporated at the macro (policy), meso (institutional), and micro (classroom) levels. Second, professional isolation is the structural barrier preventing teachers from implementing trauma-informed pedagogy, challenging the idea that teacher struggles are due to skill deficiencies. Findings indicate the need for a rethink of professional development during crisis. The policy recommendations suggest some important changes: mandatory trauma-informed pedagogy training, stronger peer networks for teachers, daily teaching assistant support, and bias-awareness training. There’s also a call for better national oversight to ensure changes are lasting. At the EU level, the findings emphasise the need for clear frameworks to set professional development standards for crisis-affected education, promote teacher collaboration across countries, and ensure refugee teaching skills are included in teacher training programmes.

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