Untitled

saxelmwifo enis swavlebis sakiTxebi:
problemebi da gamowvevebi
Issues of State Language Teaching;
Problems and Challenges
facultative languages must not necessarily be evaluated at the leaving examination (Structure of Education
System in Finland).
Normally, an A1 starts in the third grade of comprehensive school, while some schools offer a foreign
language in the first or second grade or at the optional kindergarten level (for example, this combination is
available from 2009 at the Käpylä school in Helsinki, Ojala 2010). The early start has become popular, and
more and more parents wish their children to start learning of the foreign languages at least at the kindergarten
level. Yet, English is by far the most popular A1-language (up to 95% prefer it as an A1, partly because there
is no other choice). An A2 belongs usually to the fifth grade, sometimes it commences a year earlier. English
(everywhere) and German (in more than 200 municipalities) are more easy to begin with, but Russian can be
chosen only in about 30 municipalities. Girls chose an optional language two times more often than boys, especially
for French, but not for Russian. Almost all school achievers had finished a course in English and
Swedish; nearly half of them had been studying German, 20% French, 6% Russian, 5% Spanish and 2% Italian.
Some graduates have been studying two or more A languages (NCC; Pöyhönen 2009).
Every Finnish speaking student studies Swedish at school as a second official language. The number of
the lessons of the Swedish language in the upper-secondary school is nowadays less than before, 6 from 1994
on against 9 in 1985 and even 12 in 1970. Most of the Finnish-speaking learners (90%) start it compulsory
only by the age of 14, and only 1% at the age of 9. The rest 8% start to learn Swedish out of their own desire
by the age of 13 (Pekkarinen 2011). The popularity of Swedish as an A1 decreased, but it increased as an A2.
In Sweden, the most frequently chosen foreign languages after English are Spanish (28%), German (22%) and
French (22%).
The National Board of Education underlines that the official national bilingualism must be supported, and
the research results showed that the studies of the Swedish as a second language are not sufficiently effective
and those who learned it do not want to use it in real-life situations. The Swedish immersion program of Vaasa
inspired hope for language immersion programs. It was introduced by professor Christer Laurén at the University
of Vaasa in the late 1980 and supported by all political authorities. They are available for those who can
cherish their first language at home. Consequently and increasingly, they become enough help from the school
to support their first language as a subject and as a mean of instruction, from communicating and acquaintance
with the cultural heritage to literacy skills. Foremost, they must be learnt in the second language, and when
they are stable, respective skills in all other languages must be acquired. The third and the fourth languages
are taught once or twice per week through communication and Content and Language Integrated Learning
(CLIL); this approach leads to functional competence in each language (Björklund 2011).
A description of possible bilingual education programs was published by the National Board of Education.
It was proclaimed that the evaluation must be responsible, outcome-orientated, visible and continuant
from national to individual levels. The development of students’ first language and of their academic mastery
in a second or foreign language are being researched. The experiments with a foreign language as the language
of instruction opened the way to different teaching strategies in schools. Abundant information can be
obtained from the website of the National board of education (FNBE).
Education in a language other than Finnish or Swedish has become increasingly available in Finland, especially
in the capital region, including English, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Estonian and Chinese.
The schools can be attended by native speakers and Finnish-speaking children, but usually include a language
test to ensure the children’s capability to follow classes. A number of public Finnish-language schools offer
basic education in another language for children from an immigrant background. The subjects taught include
mathematics and environmental science and do not concentrate exclusively on learning the language. The
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