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Language Education Policy in Greece

Within the framework of the “Language Rich Europe” (LRE) project, the Research Centre for Language Teaching, Testing and Assessment (RCeL) of the University of Athens, in collaboration with the Centre for the Greek Language, organized, on November 3, a Workshop in order to present the Survey Lang’s interim report’s findings for Greece and discuss the national foreign language education policy framework.

Attendance to the workshop was limited to 50 people (by invitation). The workshop, entitled “Language Education Policy in Greece: Research and Implications”, aimed at contributing to the process of decision-making for the promotion of multilingualism at national level.

Dimitris Spyropoulos 

SurveyLang

SurveyLang is an international consortium made up of eight organisations, each one a leader in its own area of expertise. SurveyLang exists to deliver the European Survey on Language Competences.

SurveyLang brings together knowledge and experience in the fields of language assessment, test development, translation processes, sampling and data collection, as well as in educational measurement, research design, psychometrics, and data analysis.

About the survey

The survey tested the two most widely taught European languages (from English, French, German, Italian and Spanish) in each country from a representative sample of pupils in their final year of lower secondary education.

The survey assessed students’ proficiency in listening, reading and writing. A sample of approximately 1,500 students per country was used.

Schools were sampled to ensure the test was representative of the student body in each country.

In addition, students were asked to fill in a questionnaire about their language learning and other background factors. This helped provide information on how demographic, social, economic and educational variables affect language proficiency across the member states.

Test results are related to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). Establishing links to the CEFR has been a key focus of recent work and research for the language testing members of SurveyLang.

Interim Report Greece

As Prof. Bessie Dendrinos states in the preface of the Interim Report, the economic crisis in Greece has brought about many changes in the public sector. State funded organizations have simply been dissolved or incorporated in other state, independent, private institutions or NGOs. 

Moreover, despite some major changes that have recently been introduced in Greece aiming at providing more and better opportunities for foreign language learning within state schools, the current economic situation has crippled the majority of the reforms that were scheduled to take place.

On the basis of the sampling procedure designed by SurveyLang for all participating countries, the Greek student sample consisted of 112 schools and approximately 3200 students.

More than half of the students, and specifically 1,594, sat for the test in English in 57 schools. The rest sat for exams in French (55 of schools).

In a nutshell, nearly half of the Greek students tested performed as independent users in the first foreign language (B1 or B2 level), namely English, in all three testable skills.

That is, half the tested student population is able to communicate in a range of contexts and cope with problems of everyday life easily and with a degree of accuracy.

The rest of the students, minus 15% , are at basic user level (A1 or A2) in all three skills. The picture is quite different when it comes to the second foreign language. The percentage of students who are independent users of French is very low. The majority were diagnosed at pre-A1 level in all three skills.

First Language

Reading Proficiency

The percentage of students diagnosed to have B2 level proficiency in reading comprehension (30.2%) is slightly higher than those at any other level of proficiency.

If the percentage of B1 (14.9%) level students is added to the B2 level, we find that nearly half the student population in Greece is at “independent user” level (45.1%).

However, the high percentage of students who scored at A1 level (27.2%) or below (15.2) –i.e., a total of 42.4%– should ring a bell for those responsible for designing and implementing foreign language education policy in Greece but also in other countries, where students performed below their Greek peers.

Percentage of students % at CEFR level
 
1st Foreign Language Pre- A1  A1  A2  B1 B2 
England FR  22.1  57.5  11.2  6.6  2.6 
France EN  28.3  49.0  9.6  7.0  6.1 
Poland EN  20.2  40.8  12.6  11.1  15.2 
Portugal ΕN 20.2  40.8 12.6 11.1 15.2
Belgium (Flemish) FR  12.2  45.4  17.9 
14.4 
 
 10.1 
Spain EN  18.0  40.7  11.8  11.8  17.6 
Bulgaria EN  23.1  32.2  11.1  10.2  23.4 
Belgium (French) EN  9.7  42.0  17.1  16.5  14.6 
Croatia EN  16.1  30.5  13.2  14.8  25.4 
Belgium (German) FR  9.6  34.2  18.0  18.1  20.1 
Greece ΕΝ  15.2  27.2  12.5  14.9  30.2 
Slovenia EN  11.6  29.3  12.5  15.4  31.3 
Estonia EN  7.1  23.5  9.1  13.5  46.8 
Netherlands EN  3.7  20.8  15.3  22.5  37.7 
Malta EN  3.9  10.2  7.1  15.7  63.1 
Sweden EN  1.4  9.6  8.3  15.1  65.6 

 

Listening Proficiency
 
The results in listening comprehension in the first target language are analogous to those in reading comprehension. Nearly half of the tested Greek students were diagnosed to have “autonomous user” level in listening comprehension (a total of 46.5%) and less than half to have A1 level or below (30.5%).

Percentage of students % at CEFR level
1st Foreign Language  PreA1  A1  A2  B1  B2 
England FR  30.5  46.6  15.2  6.7  1.0 
France EN  40.6  33.5  12.3  8.0  5.6 
Spain EN  31.9  31.5  12.6  11.9  12.0 
Belgium (Flemish) FR  17.3  41.0  21.4  15.2  5.2 
Poland ΕΝ 23.0  25.9  12.9  14.9  23.3 
Belgium (French) EN  18.2  36.4  18.9  15.4  11.2 
Portugal EN  23.0  25.9  12.9  14.9  23.3 
Bulgaria EN  23.0  25.4  12.1  14.9  23.3 
Belgium (German) EN  10.7  28.8  20.5  20.8  19.2 
Greece FR  18.5  22.0  13.0  17.9  28.6 
Croatia ΕΝ 11.5  17.9  14.3  21.7  34.6 
Estonia EN  9.7  17.0  9.9  15.7  47.6 
Slovenia EN  5.1  14.9  12.9  22.3  44.9 
Netherlands EN  2.5  10.5  10.0  17.7  59.3 
Malta EN  2.5  3.9  7.1  14.9  71.6 
Sweden EN  0.7  3.3  5.5  13.9  76.6 

 

Writing Proficiency
 
Greece is among the high performing jurisdictions, with half of the students diagnosed at autonomous-user level in writing –a total of 52.9%. However, what is strikingly different here is (a) that the percentage of students who are B level in writing is higher than in either reading or listening comprehension.

Percentage of students % at CEFR level
1st Foreign Language PreA1  A1  A2 B1 B2
England FR 
35.9 
 40.2 13.4 7.6  2.8 
France EN  23.7  37.6  23.2  12.9  2.7 
Belgium (Flemish) FR  19.5  36.7  22.2  15.7  5.9 
Poland EN  18.7  35.5  23.2  18.8  3.8 
Portugal ΕΝ 18.0  32.7  22.7  21.2  5.4 
Spain EN  15.4  32.6  25.1  18.9  8.1 
Bulgaria EN  15.3  27.7  24.5  24.7  7.8 
Belgium (French) EN  5.8  29.1  36.3  25.8  3.1 
Belgium (German) FR  7.6  25.3  25.8  23.7  17.6 
Croatia EN  5.5  21.8  27.7  34.9  10.1 
Slovenia ΕΝ 1.1  20.7  30.2  37.5  10.4 
Greece EN  6.6  18.2   22.4 33.1  19.8 
Estonia EN  3.4  18.5  18.4  30.8  28.9 
Netherlands EN  0.4  9.5  30.0  48.3  11.7 
Sweden EN  0.2  5.8  18.6  47.6  27.9 
Malta EN  0.5  5.4  11.4  36.2  46.5 

Second Foreign Language

The majority of Greek students tested for French were diagnosed to be “basic users” of French and specifically at A1 level in reading comprehension (44.6%). This finding is expected, given the hours devoted to the second foreign language in school and the contextual conditions.

It is indeed alarming that a high percentage of students –i.e. 35.3%– have pre-A1 level reading proficiency, and only a total of 20.2% have reading proficiency in the second language -A2 level and above- and only 10.3% have autonomous user proficiency in reading in the second language.

Reading Listening Writing
  Greece EU Average Greece EU Average Greece EU Average
Pre-A1  35.3 18.18 37.1 19.0 49 19.3
A1  44.6 38.22 39.5 34.2 24.4 34.0
A2  9.9 12.38 12.5 14.9 11.1 20.1
B1  6 11.17 7.8 12.4 8.5 15.6
B2 4.3 14.17 3 13.6  7 5.1
 
On the whole, the results for second foreign language proficiency are rather disappointing. The total percentage of students diagnosed at Pre-A1 level in all participating jurisdictions is high.
 
In only one jurisdiction (Flemish speaking Belgium) more than half of the student population (63.2%) who participated in the survey was diagnosed as B2 level in second language reading comprehension.
 
Diversity and order of foreign language offered
 
The number and variety of languages included in and/or excluded from the school curriculum, is highly political. Multilingualism is a stimulating concept which is often narrowly defined merely as “knowing at least two foreign languages in addition to one’s mother tongue” whereas multilingual studies –an exciting new academic field – has seen multilingual practices involving intercomprehension, translanguaging, interlingual mediation and much more.
 
In the context of the ESLC the target foreign languages are the five dominant European languages, which are indeed the most widely taught languages in schools –with English continuing its reign over the other powerful European languages. Therefore, when the issue of diversity is posed, it is mainly measured against these languages. 
 
However, in this context ancient languages come into the picture. For Greece, especially, the issue of ancient Greek is intriguing because it brings up the politically loaded question as to whether ancient Greek is a foreign language in the school curriculum.
 
For the nationalists it would be blaspheme to say that ancient Greek is a foreign language in Greece in school or anywhere else because this may be interpreted to mean that it is not the same language as Modern Greek.
 
Others would feel less sensitive about admitting that it is a language ‘foreign’ to the contemporary Greek speaker; in a similar sense – though not the same – as Latin is to the contemporary Italian speaker. 
 
However, it is true that time and again, with constant educational ‘reforms’, ancient Greek is included in the school curriculum as a compulsory subject for all students.
 
Therefore, the information presented in the SurveyLang report is that Greece is the only country that offers “ancient foreign languages” more frequently than any of the other participating jurisdiction.
 
As a matter of fact, as we see in Figure 6 below, the percentage of Greek students who have studied an ancient language is 80%.
 
Other Key Findings
 
Schools and Teaching Staff
 
• Most of the schools in Greece do not provide a multimedia lab.

• The Greek state offered teachers training opportunities for the development of ICT skills in the past and quite a lot of teachers have acquired basic certification in the use of new technologies. However, little training has been provided for the integration of ICT in teaching.
 
Also, limited availability of ICT facilities in schools discourages teachers from exploiting their ICT skills.

• Current trends in foreign language teaching put emphasis on communicative ability and multilingual comprehension and suggest a holistic approach to teaching.
 
The emphasis put by teachers on aspects such as development of language competences and awareness of the culture underlying each language indicates their teaching methodology.

• Teachers assign great importance to the skills of writing, speaking, listening and reading as well as to grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation. It appears that both teachers of English and teachers of French place little emphasis on culture and literature.
 
Pronunciation appears to be a neglected area for teachers of both languages. Actually, teachers of English tend to put less emphasis on pronunciation than teachers of French.

• Teachers of French receive more financial incentives for in-service training than their English language colleagues.

• Almost half of the teachers who participated in the research claim that they take part in in-service training voluntarily. A slightly higher percentage, though, reports that they are obligated to do so.

• French teachers seem to have participated in more in-service training than English teachers.

• The percentage of schools that have offered their teachers funding for exchange visits is low for both target languages. Nevertheless, French language schools seem to have offered such funding more frequently that English ones.

• Almost half of the teachers of English and a similar proportion of the teachers of French reported not having received training about the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). An analogous to that proportion claimed not using it at all or using it sometimes for organising their teaching.
 
Teachers of both languages reported having received training about the European Language Portfolio but a small proportion of them claimed using it.
 
Language Rich Europe
 
Language Rich Europe (henceforth LRE) aims to create an informed dialogue with leaders in government, educational institutions, public services, business and the media across Europe, highlighting the importance of multilingualism in achieving more prosperous and stable societies.
 
It aims to encourage and enable these leaders to take a more strategic approach and increase investment in language education and use of languages across society.
 
The RCeL is an official dissemination partner of Language Rich Europe. Its role as such is:
 
• to assist with the creation of the LRE in Greece,
 
• to be a key partner for the LRE index national launch event,
 
• to co-host the following 3 workshops:
 
o “Language Education Policy in Greece: Research and Implications”.
 
o “Multilingualism Practices in the Greek Mass Media: Findings and Suggestions”.
 
o Multilingualism and Entrepreneurship”.
 
• to contribute to the writing of a national action plan with other members of the national network (by January 2013),
 
• to participate in international events.
 
In essence, our contribution is to provide our academic expertise and our network of contacts interested in this field, particularly from the public and the educational sector.
 


 

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