The year 2012 can be marked as a year when English language became the main foreign language in the country – 73% of high school graduates registered for university entrance exams chose English as their foreign language exam. Just two years earlier this indicator was only 43%, while another 45% preferred to pass Russian language exam. [1]
Over the years Georgia has implemented multiple efforts to achieve this result. One of the main reasons for this dynamic shift is considered to be the program “Teach and Learn for Georgia” – since 2010 native speakers of English from various countries (USA, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, etc.) teaching English in Georgian public schools, as well as helping local teachers with improving the language skills.[2] Another program “English Language Summer School in Georgia” offering language camps in Georgia and in Great Britain.[3]
In 2011 the National Curriculum put teaching English as a first foreign language obligatory from the 1st grade, whereas the second foreign language is taught only from 5-th grade. Preceding that, the government had invested in increasing the capacity of English teaching – according to the state budget, the English language teaching strengthening program was assigned GEL 6.6 million GEL in the period of 2009-2011.[4]
Despite this significant shift and visible improvement in English language level among the Georgia’s students, in our interviews and focus groups with parents and teachers on secondary education issues, those related to teaching English language rarely comes up. Therefore, we tried to inquire, what parents think about how English is taught at public school.
The general feeling among parents seems to be the low expectation towards the level of English taught at public schools in Georgia.
“From the very beginning we are used to the fact that this is the direction we need to provide extra help with, we don’t have expectation that the school will teach them the proper level of English,” – says a parent of 15-year-old from Tbilisi. “The expectation is low, so we demand less. I expect that [the child] will learn physics, chemistry or math, but I have not thought even for a second that she would be able to learn English to the level that it is required in this world today. So even before entering school, I got her a private tutor.”
Therefore, it also seems to be given and accepted that the families will need to pay for private tutoring on top of free public school lessons, provide personal tutoring or help to their siblings or children, and/or rely on English-language online entertainment as a basis for improved modern English.
“[My child] knows English much better than they teach him there [at school]. He watches everything in English and even at home he speaks in English with his father. Both his father and I talk to him in English at home. If not this, he would have barely known anything,” – says a parent of a 9-year-old from Tbilisi.
“YouTube channels and everything else that don’t exist in Georgian language help my child greatly. When he started to study with a private tutor in September, he barely knew a few words, Hello, Goodbye and Thank You. After six months, as he has to listen to English all the time, he caught up really quickly and even surpassed the other students.” – Says a parent of an 8-year old from Tbilisi.
“It is impossible to pass the university entrance exam solely based on the knowledge gotten from the [public] school.” – says a parent from Kutaisi.
General factors such as large class sizes in urban areas (For instance, in Tbilisi potentially reaching over 30)[5] and varying degree of qualification of teachers affect the level of teaching and learning.
Large class sizes make it difficult to employ individual approach to students who need varying degrees and types of help with their material. The level of qualification is at least partially related to remuneration – high level teachers prefer to provide private tutorship as it is a lot more financially viable.
“Those who are really good and knowledgeable [teachers], don’t go [to work] at public schools. Private tutoring is more comfortable and secure in terms of income.” – Says a parent of two middle schoolers from Tbilisi.
Another reason (related to large class sizes) for why it is not possible to teach/learn high level English at school is that they don’t divide classes according to the students’ level of English.
“The public schools don’t differentiate the groups by level [of language knowledge] and this is another problem. Everyone studies with the same book. Someone lags behind, the others are very advanced, and it’s difficult to catch up.”
Small schools, especially those in remote areas would find this kind of division non-feasible both financially and in terms of available staff, but precisely due to small class size they have the ability and opportunity to provide more individual approach and time per student. Larger schools are the ones who have the need and capacity to create classes based on the level of current knowledge.
Since the studies are less intense in public schools, textbooks are also not very dense. Parents prefer the textbooks used by the private tutors. The one complaint repeated among respondents regarding the textbooks was the lack of context and applicability of the book content. The accepted common practice seems to be learning vocabulary and dialogues by heart without paying attention to its content or discussion of the mentioned events which would normally be a part of the learning process.
“The approach is rigid. There is no explaining of the content to the children’s understanding. For instance, when they were studying pronouns and so on, they had dialogues to study by heart and just by accident I found out that the kid did not understand the context – it was a monologue, not a dialogue, and the kid did not get why it was in the form of a monologue.” – says a senior sister of a 10-year-old from Batumi
Another general issue with the textbooks seems to be the sexist content.
„The complaint of my brother [school student] was that [in the textbook] there is often segregation between girls and boys and that he knows it should not be like that.” – says a senior sister of a of a 10-year-old from Batumi
This issue regarding various subject textbooks has been raised in the media and by other researchers and we will cover it in more detail in the next blog.
[1] Edu.aris.ge (2012), English becomes the Main Foreign Language. https://edu.aris.ge/news/mtavari-ucxo-ena-inglisuri-gaxda.html (Reviewed March 9, 2022)
[2] Edu.aris.ge (2012), English becomes the Main Foreign Language. https://edu.aris.ge/news/mtavari-ucxo-ena-inglisuri-gaxda.html (Reviewed March 9, 2022); TPDC (2018), Programs: Teach and Learn With Georgia. http://www.tpdc.ge/eng/teach-and-learn-with-georgia/345 (Reviewed March 11, 2022)
[3] Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, Summer School of English Language – subprogram. https://mes.gov.ge/content.php?id=5888&lang=geo (Reviewed March 9, 2022)
[4] Ministry of Finance of Georgia, State Budget. https://mof.ge/shesrulebis_angarishi (Reviewed March 9, 2022)
[5] GeoWel Research (2021), Teacher recruitment and career development: Policy Paper. https://geowel.org/en/policy-paper-teacher-recruitment-and-career-development/ (Reviewed March 11, 2022); GeoWel Research (2020), Educating Georgia: an overview of Georgia’s General Education system and a consideration of opportunities and challenges. https://geowel.org/en/educating-georgia-key-findings/ (Reviewed March 11, 2022)
