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saxelmwifo enis swavlebis sakiTxebi:
problemebi da gamowvevebi
Issues of State Language Teaching;
Problems and Challenges
The following multicultural features turn up at national schools in Latvia, for instance, different ethnic
traditions, speech behavior, style of clothes, experience of the language, psychological and social development,
material and spiritual values, beliefs, motivation to learn, previous learning habits and abilities. According
to empirical observations in a multicultural environment various students groups are allowed to
keep their own special features.
Minority students with different ethnic background are not isolated from other ethnic groups, but they
coexist and value the cultural and ethnic diversity. Students need to develop identities- as individuals, as
members of communities and a sense of solidarity with all people. According to empirical observations
and questionnaire minority students and their teachers have some psychological, linguistic and pedagogical
problems.
Psychological problems are connected with emotional stress. 52.8% from 154 students feel a certain discomfort.
In such a case a new cultural environment is going to reinforce this discomfort. It may result in emotional
anxiety, irritation, annoyance, fear to speak and to make mistakes, sudden and striking changes in the
mood. A part of pupils try to get rid of the feeling of discomfort by isolation from the peers or on the contrary,
by shocking misbehavior to attract attention and to excell in front of the peers ( the pupil’s learning process
does not comply with acceptable cultural norms) (Anspoka, Silina- Jasjukevica, 2006).
Linguistic problems are very diverse. The students who begin to learn the state language in these schools
can be divided into two groups: one part of the pupils studies Latvian as their mother language, the other part -
as the second language, some times as a foreign language. The acquisition of the Latvian language as a second
language refers to those pupils who together with their parents return from the European countries when their
parents' work contract is over or to the children whose parents belong to the countries of the third world. These
students acquire the Latvian language and content of different subject by the model of submerse.
Empiric observations reflect student’s different former practice of the language skills: listening skills,
speaking skills, reading skills and written experience.
The linguistic problems for minority students disturb not only to learn different education content, to find,
to read and understand the information in order to comprehend it, to analyze, to classify, to discover new interconnections
among various facts, but to develop the dialogue between students and teachers in particular
sociocultural contexts at particular moments of time.
Among the minority pupils there are pupils who easily pass from one native language to the Latvian language,
but there are pupils who mix language codes. The mixing of codes most often is observed in oral
speech including the words, phrases, sentence constructions, grammatical forms etc. from their native language
or the foreign language acquired at school. The mixing of codes is caused by users' insufficient speaking
ability, as well as insufficient motivation to learn, effort of will etc.
When working with texts minority pupils also have mistakes of cultural character and it interferes with the
perception of the content, understanding and applying it in other communicative situations when making a
crosscultural dialogue. Minority pupils think more about the form of separate words but not about the content
and it results in losing the thought. Quite often in descriptions and compositions minority pupils use everyday
words acquired in informal communication with peers outside the school because their vocabulary does not
contain words corresponding to cultural norms of the Latvian language.
Minority students often cannot answer questions or form an independent narrative. In this case we have to be
careful and consider if it is a lack of language competence or like majority pupils they do not have enough
knowledge about the topic.
Minority pupils can make mistakes as a result of language interference, for example,
Latvian words are formed according to the model of the native language or previously acquired Latvian language
model. According to 49.9% respondents pupils do not have consistent knowledge about Latvian culture,
history, therefore it is difficult to understand folklore texts, proverbs and set expressions.
Similarly, minority pupils frequently do not have knowledge about their own ethnic culture and then pupils
accept Latvian traditions non-critically. Such a situation threatens pupils' assimilation or on the contrary –
causes intolerant attitude towards other traditions, wisdom. (Anspoka, Silina- Jasjukevica, 2006).
It is also an important conclusion (mentioned by 17.8 % of respondents) that a greater discomfort exists for
those pupils who come from monolingual, mostly from
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