Топики по английскому языку

ТЕМА № 10 NEW CHALLENGES IN EDUCATION.

EDUCATION REFORM IN THE UK  AND RUSSIA. 

    Life has changed. Political, national and economic considerations are closely interlaced with each other but they all influence the status of teaching English at this or that particular time. Economic considerations for teaching and learning English are more than considerations: they are imperatives. Globalization makes our planet a smaller place, integrating financial, information and trading systems, and the role of English in the process of modernization, science and technology is significant. Perestroika reached behind the secure barricade of the university walls, and brought new challenges. It reached all the institutions teaching English, and challenged the existing standards of language competence.  The effectiveness of student's performance (показатели знаний), which used to be viewed in terms of linguistic effectiveness (grammar, vocabulary, phonetics) acquired new dimensions of para-linguistic (body language, facial expressions - мимика, выражение лица) and extra-linguistic competence (cultural awareness). The bottom line (практический результат) of this competence is the effective usage of English for communication purposes in the future careers of students: thus performance objectives (цели обучения с точки зрения результатов) replaced purely educational objectives, or learning the language for its own sake. Tо provide the students with this competence teachers had to familiarize themselves with real-life situations and new relevant areas of knowledge which might require the knowledge of English on the part of our students. Innovative (новаторский, передовой) teachers had to acquire computer and business correspondence skills, to learn about negotiations and reports, and study the subject matter of customer service, business ethics and international business culture. Our audiences changed too: workers and engineers on the oil rigs (нефтевышки), accountants of representative offices of foreign companies, people who were going to work overseas, managers who planned to take MBA courses couldn't attend classes for years. The teachers had to make adaptations to an entirely new, demanding and extremely busy audience for whom English was not a subject, but an instrument for career advancement (карьерный рост). One more challenge is that there is no such thing as a homogeneous class in terms of personality and ability. But this challenge was easier to take than the fact that we did not know quite well what kind of English was to be taught. Owing to the variety of teaching situations we found ourselves, we could hardly expect to have books and ready-made materials for each of them. The teachers who survived the unrest and discouragement of the first years of perestroika got their reward in full - they have become highly competitive professionals.  

    Educational reform in Russia. Modernization of education in post-soviet Russia began with the 1992 Law on Education.  In 1997 the organizational economic reform in education started. Instead of paying small scholarships to all students without exclusion, it was proposed to pay big scholarships, but only to the needy or A-students (отличникам). Instead of financing the School by the budget estimate, that is, independently of the number of students, was proposed per capita financing: the more students - the more money. The authors of the project calculated that more than 50% of the money “turning over” in education does not go through the educational institutions' accounting departments (this is payment for additional classes or bribes), and drafted the ways of its “legalization”. The implementation of this and other ideas started after the August 1998 Crisis when Vladimir Filippov was appointed Minister of Education.

    One of the most important parts of reform in education concerns the quality, issues of school public governance, and the introduction of 12 year school education in the nearest future. One of the key projects - the first standard of general education, according to which Russian schools have been working in the past few years. In 2001 Russia launched the experiment of the Centralized State Examination (CSE) - an independent testing of the knowledge of school graduates and applicants to universities. Starting from 2008 the CSE results will be mandatory for applications to all Russian universities, and in 2009 the exam will be taken by all the graduates of 11th grades. At higher school a transition to the European “bachelor plus master” system of higher education, the introduction of new distribution models of the scholarship fund and the wage fund started not long ago.

    In September 2005 President Vladimir Putin declared the realization of four priority national projects - “Health”, “Accessible housing”, “Agriculture” and “Education”. According to Minister Andrei Fursenko, the “Education” national project is not the distribution of funds or even support of the best, this is a catalyst of educational reforms. The national project envisages (предусматривает) grants issued to teachers and educational institutions that use innovations in their daily work. In 2006 the Project selected 10 thousand innovative teachers, 3 thousand innovative schools and 17 innovative universities. In 2007 the national project was widened: it incorporated a competition of innovative technical colleges and vocational technical schools, as well as a competition of regions implementing comprehensive projects for the modernization of education. The gist of all these competitions is “money in exchange for liabilities” (обязательства): the winners take the obligation to introduce innovations approved by the federal center.

    One of the directions of the “Education” national project lies in the creation of federal super-universities in Rostov and Krasnoyarsk, under the roof of which the best regional universities are to be united, with special conditions set for their development. These universities will use in their work the experience of Russia's leading universities. Another direction of the national project - the creation of new business schools in Moscow and St. Petersburg. 

    Education reform in the UK started with the Education Reform Act of 1988.  Its aim was to raise both standards and expectation in pupil achievement by introducing a broad and balanced curriculum (учебный план) for all pupils. A key element in the introduction of the National Curriculum was the provision for a national assessment system which was designed not only to measure the performance of pupils at the end of four Key stages but to provide competition between schools to attract pupils. The national assessment system combined teacher assessment at the end of Key Stage 1 at age seven, Key Stage 2 at age eleven, Key Stage 3 at age fourteen, and Standard Assessment tests (SATs), that is external assessment. External assessment at the end of Key Stage 4 at age sixteen was to be in the form of the newly introduced GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) examinations. At the post-sixteen level it has been traditional for students to study two or three subjects in depth for GCE A-level. Success at these exams leads to a university place.  A new initiative in education reform was taken when the Labour Government came to power in May 1997. On 13 January 1998 a comprehensive revision of the National Curriculum  was announced. Only English, mathematics, science, information and communication technology, and religious education remain obligatory after September 1998. The school are free to decide the content and the amount of coverage in the other subjects.