IMPLEMENTING COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING IN UZBEKISTAN

IMPLEMENTING COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING IN UZBEKISTAN DILBARHON HASANOVA Brescia University Owensboro, Kentucky, United States TATYANA SHADIEVA Westminster International University Tashkent, Uzbekistan Ⅲ Uzbekistan, a multilingual post-Soviet republic, is the most populous country in Central Asia with 26.8 million people Ethnically, 80% identify themselves as Uzbek, with Russian, Tajik, Kazakh, Karakalpak, and Tatar groups also represented The country is 88% Muslim and 9% Eastern Orthodox (U.S Department of State, 2007) The country’s official language is Uzbek, one of the Turkic family of languages It is the language of government administration, law, and place names (including streets, squares, and regions), but other indigenous languages and Russian supplement Uzbek in publishing, advertising, public announcements, TV and radio, and all levels of education The majority of citizens are at least bilingual (usually first language plus Russian) In Soviet times, English was taught in Uzbekistan as just another foreign language However, after the Soviet Union fell, a new era began for English education Because of its role as the language of international communication and the peoples’ generally favorable attitude toward it, English has become the country’s most widely learned foreign language (Hasanova, 2007; Khalilova, 2007) The rapid growth and high demand for English have led the Ministry of Public Education to seek the assistance of foreign governmental agencies such as the British Council and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) 138 TESOL QUARTERLY NATIONAL CURRICULUM FOR TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES Major educational reforms in the late 1990s brought about the revision of curricular standards for foreign language teaching To undertake this project, the Ministry of Public Education developed the State Educational Standards (SES) in 1998 The SES promote a curriculum that enhances the quality of education through developing knowledge and critical thinking skills in student-centered classrooms (ПРИЛОЖЕНИЕ 1, 1998) The basic goal of the revised curriculum is to equip students with knowledge sufficient to meet the demands of global education Among the changes stipulated is a gradual shift from traditional grammartranslation and audiolingual methods to communicative language teaching (CLT) so that students develop not only linguistic knowledge but also communicative fluency Over the last decade, CLT has been promoted and supported in teaching conferences by local as well as international English educators and curriculum developers as the major new trend in English language teaching in Uzbekistan (Matskevich, 2002) Uzbek English teachers were first exposed to CLT on a large scale more than a decade ago Nevertheless, continued lack of financial support and insufficient teacher training have made CLT more a topic of discussion than an approach being implemented in many Uzbek classrooms In theory, local teachers are thought to be aware of CLT and providing it in their classes, but in practice they still use traditional methods in teacher-fronted classrooms In fact, Hasanova’s (2007) research findings suggest that most EFL teachers have scant theoretical knowledge of CLT and perceive it merely as an oral method with little or no instruction in grammar PRESERVICE TEACHER EDUCATION Uzbekistan has 18 state institutions and universities preparing English teachers (КВОТЫ ПРИЕМА, 2007/2008) Applicants need a certificate of completion of secondary education and must pass a state examination to enter; they then study for years During the first three or four semesters students take general subjects like philosophy, economics, and national history Specialized classes begin in the third and continue in the fourth year During this 4-year period students take 4,500–5,000 hours of face-to-face instruction in 20–30 subjects, depending on their field of concentration (Khalilova, 2007) During their senior year, students complete a 6-week practicum For the first couple of weeks students observe EFL classes at local schools and TEACHING ISSUES 139 have formal and informal meetings with mentors, who are university professors, and local school teachers Afterward, they are required to conduct teaching simulations and interact with students At the end of this training period, students have to pass an oral and written examination on teaching methodology To complete their degrees, students write a qualification article and pass exams in English, national history, and an additional foreign language Qualification articles can be written in English, Uzbek, or Russian A bachelor’s degree in English language and literature enables graduates to work at secondary schools, community colleges offering a 2or 3-year education, and public and private language learning centers To teach in postsecondary institutions, EFL teachers must have a master’s degree or a doctorate in English or a closely related field IN-SERVICE TEACHER EDUCATION Once every years, in-service teachers are required to attend classes at local teacher-training institutes for weeks (144 hours) This training has three main objectives: to help local teachers adjust to the revised foreign language curriculum, to improve their pedagogical expertise, and to enhance the quality of classroom instruction (ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЕ ТРЕБОВАНИЯ, 2006) Teacher trainers try to equip local teachers with both theoretical knowledge and practical activities that emphasize student-centered and interactive teaching and learning During the training period, EFL teachers are expected to familiarize themselves with pedagogical innovations in English language teaching, attend workshops, and observe demonstration classes conducted by teacherinnovators Along with this mandatory training, in-service teachers are encouraged to participate in training provided by such organizations as the Uzbekistan Teachers of English Association, the Regional English Language Office of the American Embassy, and the British Council, but the fact that they must so on their own time and at their own expense prevents many teachers from actually doing so In view of the importance of teacher education, the Asian Development Bank initiated a multimillion dollar project in 2005 to help Uzbekistan improve its quality of education, integrate information and communications technology into teaching and learning, and educate and train teachers, curriculum designers, and administrators This project is designed to “emphasize teacher training, materials development, ereadiness in schools, operation and maintenance, and financial sustainability through adequate budget allocations” (Asian Development Bank, 2005, n.p.) During the next years, more than million students and 140 TESOL QUARTERLY 90,000 teachers, teacher trainers, material developers, and administrators are expected to benefit from this project To ensure its success, the Uzbek “government will contribute $13 million toward the project’s total cost of $43 million” (Asian Development Bank, n.p.) However, these budgetary resources have yet to be appropriately allocated, leading to continued inadequate teacher training, lack of proper materials and equipment, and less than well-prepared teacher trainers These poorly prepared teacher trainers are likely to “provide outdated training by focusing on ‘new’ factual information, instead of preparing teachers for working in a ‘new’ environment through introducing child-centered, interactive teaching/learning methods” (Huttova & Silova, 2002, p 18) PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES IN ENGLISH EDUCATION Schools and institutions of higher education in Uzbekistan face a number of challenges and obstacles that prevent the implementation of the new curriculum First, because teachers and administrators face both a highly bureaucratic system and the need to find nongovernmental funding, new ideas and approaches developed in workshops and teacher training seminars rarely find their way into EFL classrooms As a result, approaches currently followed in many classrooms still “pay tribute to practices dating back to Soviet times: they are still excessively encyclopedic; knowledge-, content- and information-centered, instead of aiming at developing students’ critical thinking skills, self-reliance and an attitude of ‘learning to learn’” (Huttova & Silova, 2002, p 14) Second, efforts to implement the new curriculum have been hampered by a lack of textbooks Although the education reforms of the early 1990s sought to provide up-to-date textbooks, many schools still not have textbooks that reflect the new approaches and incorporate studentcentered activities It should be noted that, unlike the Soviet era when textbooks were distributed free of charge, parents must now purchase them for their children Third, in addition to the textbook shortage, most schools are unable to provide their teachers and students with supplemental teaching materials such as workbooks, teaching manuals, educational games, maps, and audio- or videotapes Much the same goes for audio and video equipment and computers, and even where available they are rarely used for fear of damaging them Fourth, local teachers have been facing economic instability brought on by the collapse of the Soviet Union Low salaries and insufficient benefits have forced a number of highly qualified teachers to leave for TEACHING ISSUES 141 better paying jobs in business and private tutoring Those who remain seem less passionate about devoting time and energy to understanding the new methodologies promoted by the current curriculum This attitude is perhaps understandable, given that supporting oneself on a teacher’s salary has become increasingly difficult Fifth, the problems mentioned so far play a significant role in reducing student motivation to learn a foreign language In many cases, students go to school simply to register their attendance rather than to gain the knowledge needed to pursue higher education Those who plan to go to a postsecondary institution tend to take private classes in specific subject areas, but many cannot afford these classes CONCLUSION A number of projects have been undertaken by the Ministry of Education and other organizations since the early 1990s to implement curriculum change and improve the quality of English education in Uzbekistan However, in practice, curriculum changes have only been partly implemented largely because of insufficient financial support and teacher training To improve English education and make it more responsive to learner needs will require appropriate textbooks and teaching materials, improved teacher training, and adequate teacher salaries Without such urgent improvements, teachers will be discouraged from devoting sufficient time and energy to their professional development, and, above all else, to their students’ educational success ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank Dr Dwight Atkinson for reviewing this report and for his valuable suggestions and comments and Elena Volkova, who helped gather data for the article THE AUTHORS Dilbarhon Hasanova is a director of the Center for ESL at Brescia University, Owensboro, Kentucky, United States Her research interests include sociolinguistics, World Englishes, and communicative language teaching Originally from an ancient central Asian town, Tatyana Shadieva, teaches at Westminster International University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan Her research interests include TEFL, inclusive and special education (visual impairment), literature and gender studies 142 TESOL QUARTERLY REFERENCES Asian Development Bank (2005, 10 November) ADB to help integrate ICT into basic education in Uzbekistan [News Release] Retrieved August 2006 from http://www adb.org/Documents/News/2005/nr2005174.asp ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЕ ТРЕБОВАНИЯ к переподготовке и повышению квалификации педагогических кадров ПРИЛОЖЕНИЕ N к Постановлению КМ РУз от 16.02.2006 г N 25 [State requirements on in-service teacher training] Hasanova, D (2007) Teaching and learning English in post-Soviet Uzbekistan English Today, 89(23), 3–9 Huttova, J., & Silova, I (2002) Education development in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan: Challenges and ways forward Budapest, Hungary: Open Society Institute Education Support Program Retrieved June 25, 2007, from http://www.soros org/initiatives/esp/articles_ publications/publications/development_20020401 Khalilova, F (2007) Educational developments in Uzbekistan Retrieved January 15, 2007, from http://www.bibl.u-szeged.hu/oseas/uzbek.html КВОТЫ ПРИЕМА по подготовке бакалавров в высших образовательных учреждениях Республики Узбекистан на 2007/2008 учебный год ПРИЛОЖЕНИЕ N к Постановлению Президента РУз от 30.05.2007 г N ПП-645 [Supplement No to the resolution of the president of Uzbekistan, May 30, 2007] Matskevich, L (2002) New trends in teaching English in Uzbekistan Retrieved December 10, 2005 (the website is no longer available) ПРИЛОЖЕНИЕ ПОЛОЖЕНИЕ о государственных образовательных стандартах ПРИЛОЖЕНИЕ N к Постановлению КМ РУз от 05.01.1998 г N [Regulations of the state education standards] U.S Department of State (2007) Background note: Uzbekistan Retrieved January 31, 2008, from http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2924.htm TEACHING ISSUES 143