The problem of usage bilingual textbooks - State Language and Education

State Language and Education

3. The problem of usage bilingual textbooks

According to the participants of focus group discussions, it is good that the state provides translation of textbooks. However, at this point teachers are not ready to fully use bilin-gual textbooks in the classroom.

„Even teachers of Georgian language do not know enough Georgian not to say any-thing about teachers of other subject areas whose competence in Georgian language is extremely poor. In this circumstance, certainly it is difficult for teachers to use a textbook where 30% of the material is given in Georgian.”

Teachers and other participants of focus group had greater complains toward the text-books of History and Geography. There have been many controversies about these textbooks. In bilingual textbooks, in which most of the materials are given in minority languages, some parts (especially citations from direct sources) are given in Georgian.

Teachers believe that pupils and teachers are not ready to teach and learn with bilingual textbooks. Majority of history and geography teachers does not know Georgian. Schools either do not have a qualified Georgian language teacher who can help geography and history teachers in comprehending given material during the teaching process. Therefore, teaching process with these textbooks is hampered. Those schools where there are quali-fied Georgian language teachers or a teacher assigned in the framework of “Qualiquali-fied Georgian Teachers Programme” face fewer problems in this regard, since in this case a teacher of Georgian language can provide translations into Georgian for subject area teachers or pupils.

„The most challengeable is the fact that the sources which should be found by a school-child independently are given in Georgian. Therefore, a school-child is not able to prepare lessen if she/he does not know Georgian or a teacher does not provide translation of sources or additional materials...“

Multilingual Education Support Programme

Since January 6, 2011in the framework of the “Multilingual Education Support Program”¹¹ the monitoring has been carried out in pilot MLE schools. Within the framework of the Programme and with the support of OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM), the new methodological Manual “Teacher’s Guideline in Multilingual Educa-tion” was developed, which has already been translated into Georgian language and its publication is intended at the beginning of 2012. In 2011, 12 Armenian, 12 Azerbaijani, nine Russian and one Ukrainian (overall 34) pilot MLE non-Georgian schools, where 30%

of the subjects are taught in Georgian language, were granted targeted subsidies which equaled to GEL 1000. The subsidies were allocated as a salary supplement for teachers engaged in multilingual education programme.

11 http://www.mes.gov.ge/content.php?id=547&lang=geo

Existing version of the Law of Georgia on General Education provides schools with direct and clear instructions on bilingual education programmes. According to the Point 4 of the Article 5 of the Law of Georgia on General Education, in those schools where the language of instruction is not Georgian, History and Geography of Georgia as well as other subjects under Social Sciences should be taught in Georgian and in the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia in Georgian or Abkhazian languages. In line with the Point 5 of the Article 58th of the same Law, “Point 4 of the Article 5 of the Law should be put into effect gradually but no later than the beginning of 2010-2011 academic year.” It is impossible teach and learn Social Sciences in Kvemo Kartli and Samtskhe-Javakheti regions from the academic year 2010-2011. The issue that non-Georgian schools cannot meet the requirements of the afore-mentioned regulation on teaching Social Sciences only in Geor-gian has been underlined and put forward during monitoring group members’ meetings with teachers, school administration and parents in minority regions. They consider this regulation inapt even in the context of bilingual education. They believe that learning of History, Geography and other Social Sciences require the highest linguistic competences.

Therefore, they believe that moving toward the achievement of such high linguistic com-petence can be a target but not the tool for achieving language comcom-petence.

In 2011, teachers were much more motivated to use bilingual textbooks in order to devel-op their own skills for passing Teacher’s certification exams until 2014. They believed that if they do not have direct connection with the new national curriculum, they could not pass Teacher’s Certification Exams. However, in 2012 rumor has spread that certification pro-cess for teachers in non-Georgian schools were delayed and there was even a possibility to revoke certification process. However, teachers who intend to take certification exams and prepare in professional skills have also participated in focus group discussions.

As mentioned, translation of only 70% of the materials of the textbooks into minority lan-guages is very problematic for non-Georgian schools in Kvemo Kartli region. Schoolchil-dren cannot acquire information presented in textbooks in Georgian language. Provision of Bilingual textbooks (70% of the materials in a textbook is translated in one of the minority languages, while 30% is given in Georgian) is considered to be one of the major directions toward implementation of multilingual education in Georgia. However, practical application of this initiative point to the negative effects. Materials given in the textbook in Georgian is not used for the improvement of Georgian language competence among pupils, but on the contrary _ these textbooks hinder the process of teaching and learning of a certain subject area since teachers do not know sufficient Georgian to ensure effective teaching process.

As focus group discussion revealed, some of the teachers try to lessen the problem in the following way: “teacher translates Georgian parts into Russian in advance and then delivers the material to the class. However, once a schoolchild is back home, he/she is not able to prepare and learn a lesson since does not have any notes from the class on what the teacher has delivered. Even if a child memorizes what a teacher said during the class, this is not still in line with bilingual teaching. The competence in Georgian language among minority students is not sufficient to prepare lessons in Georgian independently.”

The situation is getting even worse because a great number of parents do not know Geor-gian; therefore, they are not able to help and support their children during the study pro-cess. The level of education overall is very low.

2011

„During each class, my child got 1-2 lower score since he could not retell and present Georgian parts of the lesson. When we asked a teacher why she gave lower scores though she did not explain at the class the part given in Georgian, she replied that parents have to provide translation of the materials at home. However, to this end, it is crucial that Georgian language is taught and learnt in an adequate level. “

„If a child does not understand History in native language, how she/he can get the material in Georgian? Even the competence in native language among minority chil-dren is quite low to acquire given material. As a result, once a child graduates from the school s/he does not know neither Georgian nor Social Sciences and therefore cannot have an access to higher education. In addition, a school graduate is not able to use the “mitigating” policy for minority entrants – 4+1 system. “

„Maybe, theoretically it is good to have bilingual textbooks. But, teachers do not know how to conduct bilingual lesson since they do not know bilingual teaching methods.”

It should be pointed out that in Kvemo Kartli there is a different situation regarding gen-eral education compared with the previous year. In the previous years, many parents took their children to Georgian schools and engaged them in submersion programme of bilingual education. Nowadays, they underline that bringing a child to Georgian school is not a way out from the problem they face. It is necessary to teach Georgian as second language at Azeri schools with high quality so that they children will not have a problem in terms of access to higher education and for employment perspectives in Georgia. During the last few years, parents from Samtskhe-Javakheti region did not demonstrate a great interest to bring their children to Georgian schools. In this region, parents believe that their children should get education in Armenian schools, learn Georgian language and acquire state language along with native language.

Provision of Access to Education in Languages of National Minorities

According to the Law of Georgia on General Education and the data from 2009, 234 non-Georgian schools (404 non-Georgian schools and sectors in total) were functioning:

Language of Schools with mixed Schools where language Instruction language sectors of instruction is only one one of the minority languages Number Number Number Number

of Schools of Students of Schools of Students

Azerbaijani 124 27442 94 18462 Armenian 140 15592 124 14944 Russian 135 24512 14 3748 Ossetian 3 165 1 60 Other 2 242 1 37 Source: Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia (MoES)¹²

12 Tabatadze, Sh. Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD, 2010), “Cultural Dialogue and Civic Consciousness,” Article: “Intercultural Education in Georgia.” p. 85 .

2011 Notably, the above-mentioned figures were substantially changed in 2011. Namely, ac-cording to the data from 2011, there are 216 non-Georgian schools and 305 non-Geor-gian sectors functioning in the country.

Language of Schools with mixed Schools where language Instruction language sectors of instruction is only one one of the minority languages

Number Number

of Schools of Schools

Azerbaijani 123 88 Armenian 133 116 Russian 61 12 Note: there are

some schools where language of instruction are three languages.

Therefore, the figure in the table exceeds 305.

The difference from 2009 to 2011 is explicit. It should be underlined that the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia implements schools optimization process and the cut in number of non-Georgian schools is related to this factor. During optimization process, Georgian schools were also shut down. The problem regarding to Russian schools are even more overt. From 135 Russian schools and sectors in 2009, only 61 Russian schools and sectors are functioning in 2011. Kvemo Kartli and Samtskhe-Javakheti residents ex-plicitly talked about the problem of closing Russian schools and sectors. They underscored that the closure of Russian schools had hindering affect in terms of access to education for minority children. For those children who have been instructed in Russian, it is a great chal-lenge and struggle to pursue study in different language. There is another problem related to the same issue. It is possible to move a child to other Russian school, however in this case parent can face a problem of transportation and getting to a certain school because of the remote distance from the place of residence.¹³

Access to education in native language of minorities are administered either by establish-ment of private schools or/and through teaching in minority languages at public schools of Georgia. General educational institution can be established either as a legal entity of public law or commercial or non-commercial entity of private law (Law of Georgia on Le-gal Entity of Public Law, Article 31.1). There are 16 private schools in Georgia where mi-nority language is the only or one of the languages of instruction at schools¹⁴. It should be pointed out that the majority of such schools are located in big cities (Tbilisi – 11 schools,

13 Report of the monitoring group in Samtskhe-Javakheti and Kvemo Kartli regions.

14 Source: Letter of the MoES to the UNAG about the statistical information on private non-Georgian schools, May 20, 2010.

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Batumi – 2, Rustavi- 2). The only private school where the language of instruction other than Georgian is located in Algeti village of Marneuli municipality.

In 2011 in the framework of the Minority Languages Protection Sub-Programme of the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, funding for the Ossetian Sunday school (based on public school №11) was provided. In the Ossetian Sunday school, 20 students have the possibility to learn the Ossetian language, culture, history, folklore, Caucasian dances and song.

Georgian language lessons were held once a week in order to teach Georgian language to the parents of public school children in 19 minority villages of Bolnisi Municipality.

Georgian language teachers of the elementary, basic and secondary level and principals of non-Georgian language schools of Marneuli Municipality were trained in the integrat-ed teaching of language and subject by the initiative and funding of the “Center for Civil Integration and Ethnic Relations.” 50 Georgian language-learning circles were organized in 35 schools of the region by Azerbaijani Cultural Center of Marneuli. 52 principals of non-Georgian Armenian and Azerbaijani schools took intensive learning courses of Geor-gian language twice for 90 days.

Georgian Language Rooms function effectively in non-Georgian schools of Tetritskaro municipality. The meetings are held with the school staff as well as with the village com-munity. The courses for learning Georgian language function for non-Georgian speaking teachers and schoolchildren with the purpose of teaching and learning Georgian more effectively.

The learning courses/circles of computer and office programs were set in the municipali-ties of Akhmeta and Sagarejo municipalimunicipali-ties, where ethnic minorimunicipali-ties are densely settled.

Instruction in native languages for national minorities remains one of the major problems, as maintained by teachers and parents in Kvemo Kartli and Samtskhe-Javakheti regions.

In 2006-2007, Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia in partnership with OSCE/

HCNM developed draft of the curriculum of Azeri and Armenian as native languages.

Experts from Armenia and Azerbaijan took part in working out the curriculum. Accord-ing to the above-mentioned curriculum, trainAccord-ings for native language teachers were un-dertaken.¹⁵ From 2008, Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia did not continue working toward this direction. The curriculum was not approved, an effort toward its in-troduction was hampered and development of textbooks in line with the afore-mentioned curriculum was terminated. Proceeding from the above-mentioned challenges, quality of instruction in Armenian and Azeri languages as native languages for minority children is still problematic.

Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia did not maintain to work toward this direc-tion since 2011. Consequently, minority languages are not part of the nadirec-tional curriculum

15 Ibid

since there is no teaching and learning programme of these subject areas. Azeri and Ar-menian languages as subject areas are not presented in the Law of Georgia on General Education. The only document where these subject areas are mentioned is “Hour Net” of the national curriculum.

Akin to the afore-mentioned problems regarding the curriculum, there are no textbooks of Armenian and Azeri languages that are in line with the needs and context of the educa-tion system in Georgia. Therefore, teaching of native languages is conducted according to the curriculum and textbooks of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia is not aware of the details of the afore-mentioned curriculum, includ-ing content, structure and the programme, since there is no Georgian translation of the afore-mentioned curriculum¹⁶.

This problem is particularly acute in 12^th grades for Armenian and Azeri schools. Ac-cording to the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, teachers instruct at 12^th grades with textbooks published in Azerbaijan and Armenia. However, it is noteworthy that in Azerbaijan general education covers only 11 years, therefore textbooks of native language for 12^th graders are not available at all¹⁷. In Armenia, transfer to 12 years of general educations was introduced in 2009¹⁸. Therefore, in 2010, textbooks for native language acquisition for 12^th graders were not available for Armenian schools as well.

In addition to non-existence of the curriculum for teaching native languages to national minorities, there is no professional standard for minority language teachers. This fact ham-pers introduction of multilingual education and threatens the quality of teaching of native languages at non-Georgian schools. Since the language transfer is not implemented ef-fectively, poor quality of native language teaching has an impact in terms of acquiring other disciplines, including learning of Georgian as a second language. Considering all the above-mentioned challenges, it is decisive to establish specific mechanisms in order to improve teaching of native languages as independent subject areas at non-Georgian schools. This will substantially promote quality of education at non-Georgian schools of the country.

The problem of teaching of native languages for minorities has been identified as one of the major problems by the participants of focus group discussions. School leaving exams did not envisage taking an exam in native language at Azerbaijani schools, which some-how diminishes the importance of Azeri language acquisition among school graduates. As a result, schoolchildren of the upper classes do not learn Azerbaijani language. The same attitude and ideas were presented at focus group discussions in summer 2009 regarding acquisition of minority languages: participants underscored that schools cannot ensure quality education in terms of teaching of minority languages to schoolchildren. Teachers’

qualifications do not meet the necessary requirements to ensure delivering quality lessons to students.

16 Source: the official letter of the Legal Department of the MoES to the Deputy Public Defender of Georgia

№ 08-2-13/1907 (14.02.2012)

17 http:// unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002112/211298e.pdf

18 http:// unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002112/211297e.pdf

2011

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Improving Teaching of Georgian as a Second Language

Teaching and learning Georgian as a second language at general education level is one of the priorities of the National Concept on Tolerance and Civil Integration and Action Plan: “Priority task №2.4. Promotion of State Language Acquisition.”

During the reporting period, Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia took several tangible steps toward this direction. Specifically, the following activities and programmes were implemented:

a) In 2011, “The Manuals for Georgian as a Second Language of Elementary I-IV Lev-els” were developed that were founded on the communicative teaching principles of modern pedagogy. The Manual set includes the student book and the workbook; In addition, the teacher’s guidebook and thematic audio-material for class work was prepared. Each level of the Manual was printed in circulation of 20,000 copies and was distributed to non-Georgian schools in conformity with their requirements. Based on the developed materials, special 4-level computer games were created that are intended for non-Georgian speaking schoolchildren and are in line with the topics of a new Georgian language textbook. The games were loaded in the computer notebooks intended for the first grade schoolchildren and simultaneously were placed on the special web page www.buki.ge.

b) With an end to improve quality of state language teaching in schools, 340 teachers of Georgian as second language were tested. Testing was conducted on the entire territory of Georgia in seven municipalities (Akhaltsikhe, Akhalkalaki, Ninotsminda, Marneuli, Gardabani, Tsalka and Tbilisi). Based on the memorandum of understand-ing (MoU), National Curriculum and Assessment Center¹⁹ together with Teacher’s Pro-fessional Development Center²⁰ started Programme for Voucherization of Teachers of Georgian as Second Language. Corresponding training programmes for practical courses of language teaching were prepared for non-Georgian teachers. In addition, organizations for teacher professional development trainings were selected, which

Im Dokument Monitoring results of implementation of the National Concept and Action Plan on Tolerance and Civil Integration (Seite 104-111)