Exploring English Language Teaching in Post-Soviet Era Countries: Perspectives from Azerbaijan (original) (raw)
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English as a foreign language in Azerbaijan: English teaching in the post-Soviet era
English Today, 2010
During the Soviet era, language teaching methodology in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was premised on promoting a deep knowledge of a language's grammar and vocabulary. To this end, the selection of texts was centrally mandated, and teaching techniques and activities were carefully controlled and monitored. This rigorous approach to language teaching had both benefits and drawbacks for teachers and students. In response to the drawbacks of traditional Soviet methodology, some teachers and teacher trainers in former Soviet republics are currently promoting communicative language teaching, also known as the communicative approach. Communicative language teaching, as opposed to more traditional Soviet teaching methodology, emphasizes learning to use language to communicate rather than learning language solely as a linguistic system. However, the implementation of communicative language teaching has been problematic, for reasons ranging from government policies to teachers' beliefs and training to students' expectations. The purpose of this article is twofold. We first describe important characteristics of traditional Soviet language teaching methodology and the consequences of that methodology for language learning. Then, we explore the challenges of transforming traditional language teaching methodology (for the teaching of English as a foreign language, in particular) in post-Soviet republics, using Azerbaijan as a specific example.
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English in higher education in the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan
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Correspondence AnastasiyaBezborodova,University ofWestminster, School ofHumanities,Collegeof LiberalArts andSciences, 309Regent Street, London, EnglandW1B2HW. Email: a.bezborodova@my.westminster.ac.uk Abstract In Central Asia, English is not only considered a language of intercultural communication, but it is also by far the most studied foreign language at schools and universities. The globalization and internationalization of education resulted in English becoming a medium of instruction in all levels of schooling. English functions as the language of research and academia. This article focuses on comparative research conducted on the role(s) of English in higher education institutions (HEIs) in three Central Asian republics – the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The main objective of this study was to explore the role(s) of English at HEIs to have a better evidence-based understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of English medium instruction (EMI) in these countries.
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It is foreign languages that allow one to carry out one’s professional duties at the international level, in particular in the academic field. Besides, they are recognized as a key to the development of human culture, which opens new opportunities for international integration and deepens cultural, intellectual and communicative functions of languages. Considering its historical post-totalitarian specifics and social roles, the development of foreign language education in higher education institutions (HEIs) in Eastern Europe, in particular Ukraine, includes materialist and pragmatic and partly postmodernist trends, which need to be studied and analyzed in the context of a modern, postcolonial society. The research aims to systematize theoretical issues and generalize the experience of developing foreign language education for future humanities teachers in pedagogical universities in Ukraine (the mid 20th century - the early 21st century), as well identify some proper ways to implem...
English Language Teaching Methods in Azerbaijan
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Due to globalization, the integration of countries and people is going faster than ever. In such a situation, the teaching of foreign languages, especially English, which has become an international language, has become important in all countries. Every state in the world focuses on English language teaching in their educational institutions. It is the same for Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan, a former Soviet country, is trying to move away from the educational ideologies of the Soviet era and choose a new education model and path. Simply, it isn’t an easy task to replace the outdated approaches with the new and progressive ones because people always react changes and innovations. It is one of the most challenging tasks to alternate the acquired teaching habits with new ones. For that reason, a few traditional approaches are still dominant such as Grammar-translation method which is still used commonly by some teachers both at schools and universities, however, new methods and approaches are also included in the repertoire of teachers due to competitive environment. The main question arising here is “Which new methods?” as we know a number of new methodologies appear every passing day. In this case, what is the choice of teachers about new methodologies? In our article, we tried to find out advanced and innovative teaching methodologies that are preferred by the Azerbaijani teachers and the extent of their application based on the online survey we designed and conducted among 50 university and school teachers from different regions of Azerbaijan and the review of the articles published in the three main journals of Azerbaijan between 2020–2022. We have compared the findings which are quite interesting because the survey and article review results contradicted each other to a great extent. According to the article review results, research interest in modern and innovative approaches is pretty low compared with the practically application of them in teaching process. Key words: English, innovative methodologies, grammar-translation method, survey, primary method, teachers.
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The dissemination of English and the role it plays in Russian higher education are connected with its internationalization-a process that has been gaining momentum over recent decades spurred by a number of top-down and bottom-up initiatives. The role of English in university teaching and research is illustrated by the analysis of open access data on two leading Russian universities and the findings of a survey of teaching staff's perceptions of English in academia. The views of some other stakeholders have been collected from the existing publications on the topic. The term Englishization is inappropriate to describe the Russian context because the use of English in Russian academia is not as far-reaching as the term implies.
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The relevance of the research is justified by the global educational perspectives and transformation of the language instruction. English is predominantly changing its status and is more frequently used for delivering science and arts content. Tertiary teachers and researchers in non-English-speaking countries face the challenge of publishing their research findings in internationally circulated journals, participating in the global conferences and moreover delivering their courses in English. Total "Englishization" which is currently underway leads to the increased requirements to the tertiary institutions in terms of academia language proficiency as well as to their significant efforts to be recognized in the global education arena. Besides, the global spread of English has led to a linguistic phenomenon of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), when most if its users are non-natives. Thus, English has become very flexible and English medium instruction (EMI) settings are pri...
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The present paper draws together the existing, but largely scattered, research findings on the policy of English language teaching (ELT) in post-Revolutionary Iran. It begins with a brief history of ELT in Iran, then it deals with the major policies adopted and their consequences. It is followed by how ELT policies came under reform in 2013, inspired by the communicative language teaching (CLT) approach. The rest of the paper examines the underlying reasons why the reform failed to work as expected. To this end, a critical analysis of the missing infrastructures prerequisite to the reform is presented. These include the low budget allotted at the planning and implementation levels; teachers’ unpreparedness to teach and assess based on the new approach, due to lack of educational, and economic empowerment; inefficiency of the newly-designed textbooks; the regime of school accountability; heterogeneous classes; inadequate time; extreme class sizes; and students’ demotivation to use En...
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN AZERBAIJAN
German International Journal of Modern Science, 2023
The article deals with the history of learning foreign languages in Azerbaijan and covers the periods starting from the 8 th century till the modern time. It touches on historical developments related to teaching foreign languages, and what is more, strategies utilized in different periods. Additionally, the article also shows how historical, social, and religious situations impacted and shaped the approach to foreign language learning in Azerbaijan because the occupations Azerbaijan underwent determined the official language in the country, and forced people to learn those languages. The colonizers' languages and culture of teaching language played an important role in this process.