Untitled

saxelmwifo enis swavlebis sakiTxebi:
problemebi da gamowvevebi
Issues of State Language Teaching;
Problems and Challenges
topics envisaged in the program, in this way providing students with language expression possibilities in interesting
and useful spheres of life.
When transferring to bilingual education it is easy to associate the communicative functions and thinking
skills and to keep such type of L2 teaching –learning program as a basis for the content and language integrated
learning.
Reconceptualising culture teaching
It is obvious, that the teaching of culture is an integral, organized component of the every language teaching
programme. Nevertheless, as it is formulated by Kenneth Chastain:
“Culture is one of the two major areas (the other being communication skills) in second language
education in which the greatest need and the greatest potential for improvement exist”.
One of the major hurdles to the successful implementation of culture goals in language classes revolves
around attitudes. This accounts for learners as well as teachers and those who are responsible for language
content and teaching. For years, culture teaching typically looked like a monologue from a representative of
one majority culture about particularity their own culture. The old approaches to the culture teaching were no
longer adequate to society in which learners are not (should not?) treated as travellers, visitors but as equal
citizens in the society. Culture teaching in a form of introducing visitors to majority culture should be replaced
by learning to live together and celebrating cultural diversity.
New approach to teaching culture became visible in Latvian as second language text-books at the end of
the 90s: by researching and including interesting age appropriate content. For the first time characters were
not only called by typical Latvian names. Writing a text-book for Grade 6 the authors together with the Publishing
house Zvaigzne ABC announced a competition for text-book design. Minority school students were
asked to send in interesting photos on different themes such as “my friend as I had never seen before”. That
way minority school children literally “came” into text-books with their life and interests.
In basic school education standard and program for minorities (2001) socio-cultural competence is defined
as an understanding of cultural aspects in Latvia and intercultural dialogue, acquisition of literature and
cooperation. When selecting literary works for reading in Latvian it was advised to have: 50% – works of Latvian
authors and works that help develop an understanding of Latvian culture; 30% – literature in Latvian that
meets students’ interests; 20% – texts that are appropriate to students’ individual needs in order to prepare for
learning in the next stage of education.
The communicative, linguistic and socio-cultural competences are developed in an integrated way, gradually
and consecutively, appropriate to the interests and needs of age groups, in the following thematic areas:
� myself, others, everyday life and relationships;
� myself, others, free time, healthy lifestyle;
� myself, others, surrounding world and mutual interaction;
� myself, others, science, technology and sources of information;
� myself, others, school and education;
� myself, others and cultural life.
Intercultural education became part of L2 teachers in service training programme. Intercultural education,
intercultural dialogue, tolerance, management of interethnic relations are concepts of global education.
It is interesting to examine which of these terms have become commonly used and dominating in Post – soviet
countries’ discourse. In the Baltic States, the “intercultural dialogue” is more commonly used, in Middle Asia
– “tolerance”. The author prefers the use of term intercultural dialogue because ‘tolerance’ is a principle, intercultural
dialogue – a form. In order to substantially change the learning practice instead of just introducing
new terms the learning environment as well as the form of interaction must be changed, which certainly is a
transition to a dialogue.
All in al, I would like to conclude that second language teachers are facing a need of careful reexamination
of classical ideas, preconceptions, methods and ways in language education for understanding its
role and purposes in the multilingual education.
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