IMPLEMENTING COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING IN UZBEKISTAN

The rapid growth and high demand for English have led the Ministry of Public Education to seek the assis-tance of foreign governmental agencies such as the British Council and the United

IMPLEMENTING COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE

TEACHING IN UZBEKISTAN

DILBARHON HASANOVA

Brescia University

Owensboro, Kentucky, United States

TATYANA SHADIEVA

Westminster International University

Tashkent, Uzbekistan

䡲 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 indig-enous languages and Russian supplement Uzbek in publishing, advertis-ing, 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 for-eign 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 assis-tance of foreign governmental agencies such as the British Council and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

NATIONAL CURRICULUM FOR TEACHING

FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Major educational reforms in the late 1990s brought about the revi-sion of curricular standards for foreign language teaching To undertake this project, the Ministry of Public Education developed the State Edu-cational Standards (SES) in 1998 The SES promote a curriculum that en-hances the quality of education through developing knowledge and criti-cal 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 grammar-translation and audiolingual methods to communicative language teach-ing (CLT) so that students develop not only lteach-inguistic knowledge but also communicative fluency Over the last decade, CLT has been pro-moted and supported in teaching conferences by local as well as inter-national 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 sup-port and insufficient teacher training have made CLT more a topic of discussion than an approach being implemented in many Uzbek class-rooms 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) re-search 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 certifi-cate of completion of secondary education and must pass a state exami-nation to enter; they then study for 4 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

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 examina-tion on teaching methodology

To complete their degrees, students write a qualification article and pass exams in English, national history, and an additional foreign lan-guage Qualification articles can be written in English, Uzbek, or Rus-sian A bachelor’s degree in English language and literature enables graduates to work at secondary schools, community colleges offering a

2-or 3-year education, and public and private language learning centers

To teach in postsecondary institutions, EFL teachers must have a mas-ter’s degree or a doctorate in English or a closely related field

IN-SERVICE TEACHER EDUCATION

Once every 3 years, in-service teachers are required to attend classes at local teacher-training institutes for 4 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 work-shops, and observe demonstration classes conducted by teacher-innovators 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 do 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 Develop-ment Bank initiated a multimillion dollar project in 2005 to help Uzbek-istan improve its quality of education, integrate information and com-munications technology into teaching and learning, and educate and train teachers, curriculum designers, and administrators This project is designed to “emphasize teacher training, materials development, e-readiness in schools, operation and maintenance, and financial sustain-ability through adequate budget allocations” (Asian Development Bank,

2005, n.p.) During the next 4 years, more than 6 million students and

90,000 teachers, teacher trainers, material developers, and administra-tors 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 encyclo-pedic; knowledge-, content- and information-centered, instead of aiming

at developing students’ critical thinking skills, self-reliance and an atti-tude of ‘learning to learn’” (Huttova & Silova, 2002, p 14)

Second, efforts to implement the new curriculum have been ham-pered by a lack of textbooks Although the education reforms of the early 1990s sought to provide up-to-date textbooks, many schools still do not have textbooks that reflect the new approaches and incorporate student-centered 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 ma-terials 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

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 atti-tude 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 reduc-ing student motivation to learn a foreign language In many cases, stu-dents go to school simply to register their attendance rather than to gain the knowledge needed to pursue higher education Those who do 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 Edu-cation and other organizations since the early 1990s to implement cur-riculum change and improve the quality of English education in Uzbe-kistan 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 re-sponsive to learner needs will require appropriate textbooks and teach-ing materials, improved teacher trainteach-ing, 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, Owens-boro, 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 West-minster International University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan Her research interests include TEFL, inclusive and special education (visual impairment), literature and gender studies.

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