RESHAPING THE EFL CURRICULUM IN ALBANIA – MAIN FACTORS COMING FROM THE HIGH SCHOOLS OF ELBASAN

European Scientific Journal February 2015 /SPECIAL/ edition vol.2 ISSN: 1857 - 7881 (Print) e RESHAPING THE EFL CURRICULUM IN ALBANIA - MAIN FACTORS COMING FROM THE HIGH SCHOOLS OF ELBASAN Josilda Papajani 0 PhDc 0 0 University of Tirana , Albania The process of changes in the Albanian Education System has touched even the English Language Curriculum. There are a number of factors which seem to be main ones in reshaping the curriculum, by giving a great emphasis to the way things are perceived from different points of view at the same situation. Teachers, institutions, learners can influence the EFL reshaped curriculum adaptation in the High Schools of Elbasan. This paper highlights the complex process of the implementation of ELT curriculum innovations, in Albania, by taking examles as well as even from other countries undergoing the same process. It also confirms that teachers are not simply implementers of policies that are handed down to them, but they interpret, modify, alter, and implement these policies according to their beliefs and the context where these policies are being implemented. In addition, this paper, illustrates a number of factors which influence how teachers implement and make sense of ELT curriculum innovations. It will be provided significant implications and useful messages for curriculum developers, teachers' education programs, and educational policy makers. EFL curriculum innovation; curriculum implementation; ELT; factors - Introduction In the recent years many countries, included Albania, introduced ELT curriculum innovations to their educational systems on the hope to improve the status of English language teaching and learning in these countries. However, during the implementation process, these innovations often fail to achieve the intentions of those who initiated and planned these ELT curriculum innovations. For example, in Greece, Karavas-Doukas, (1995) used one structured classroom observation and semi structured interviews with 14 teachers to examine their implementation of an EFL curriculum innovation which advocates a communicative learner-centered approach. She reported that classrooms were generally teacher-centered and form-focused. Lessons primarily consisted of activities which provided practice on discrete language items while activities that encouraged spontaneous genuine communication were almost nonexistent. Most of the pair work activities were carried out between the teacher and the students rather than, as intended by the curriculum between pairs of students. Another study of relevance here is that by Gorsuch (2000:137), who conducted a questionnaire survey of teachers perceptions (876 teachers who teach English at high schools in Japan) towards the impact of English educational policy on their classroom practices. Findings revealed that while the educational policy emphasizes the development of students communicative skills and calls for the equal treatment of the language skills, Japanese teachers current orientation toward foreign language learning seems to be that strong teacher control is desirable and that students need to memorize, use written mode, and be very accurate. This apparent mismatch between curricular principles and teachers classroom practices is further reflected in a study in Taiwan where there was an attempt to improve the status of English language teaching. The Taiwanese government introduced new textbooks featuring activities for communicative language teaching into its junior and high schools. In this study, Wang (2002:137) interviewed six teacher educators to investigate their perceptions of this curricular innovation. These educators reported that: Most high school teaching is grammar oriented. Grammar-translation method prevails, which makes learning every day English impossible. Instruction resembles parrot learning wherein students make sounds without knowing why. The trend apparent in this set of ELT studies recurs in Nunan (2003) who conducted a multiple case study of the effects of English as a global language on the policies and practices in a number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region: Mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam. Data were collected through a variety of methods, including document analysis (e.g. recent books, articles, government reports, syllabuses and curriculum documents) and interviews with 68 informants from these countries. Nunan concluded that: English language policies and practices have been implemented, often at significant cost to other aspects of the curriculum, without a clearly articulated rationale and without detailed consideration of the costs and benefits of such practices and policies on the countries in questions. Furthermore there is a widely articulated belief in that, in public schools at least, these policies and practices are failing. (Nunan, 2003:609) Another study which focuses on the implementation of curriculum innovation comes from the Albanian High Schools of Elbasan. It was used an eclectic approach (interviews, semi-structured and unstructured observations, lesson observation, assessment of learners work and an examination of documents), to examine 145 English language teachers implementation of learner -centered approaches within the Albanian context. Findings revealed that while most teachers claimed to be implementing learner -centered approaches in their classrooms, lesson observations did not match teachers implementation claims. Thus, although one of the curriculum aims is for the students to communicate effectively and fluently with each other and to make talking in English a regular activity classrooms were generally teacher centered and the Albanian language was the dominant language during classroom interaction. Teachers also spent considerable time correcting students grammatical and pronunciation mistakes. During the reading lessons, teachers spent substantial time reading word by word and sentence by sentence, explaining vocabulary, translating into Albanian, and reading aloud. Little attention was given to activities included in the curriculum such as working out the meaning of the words from the context, scanning the reading text for specific information, matching activities, and the after reading activities. The above ELT studies clearly emphasizes the need to examine the factors and reasons which led to this gap between the ELT curriculum intensions and what actually happens inside the classrooms. In this paper, it is shed light on these factors and in doing so, we might facilitate the implementation process of ELT curriculum innovations. However, before proceeding to examine the factors which might affect how teachers implement ELT curriculum innovations, it is made clear the rationale for studying teachers implementation of ELT curriculum innovations. I. Factors influencing teachers implementation A number of researchers have attempted to identify factors, which have an impact on the ado (...truncated)