Ukrainian language teaching for Hungarians in Transcarpathia

register their kids into majority schools because they perceive a low level of effectiveness of Ukrainian language teaching in minority schools (Csernicskó, 2011). Parents also refer to Ukrainian as the key element of further studies and prospective career opportunities. This tendency is the obvious outcome of the latent ideology of governing bodies, i.e. parents choose majority school not only under ‘external influence’, but are also personally convinced that mother tongue education is a barrier of mobility, whereas education in the state language is a

‘payback investment’ (Bartha, 2003, pp. 64-65). Thus, Ukrainian education has gradually undermined the prestige of minority education (Molnár, 2009).

As far as foreign language education is concerned, it has the same structure for both minority and majority learners in state-owned schools and actually has many similarities with the foreign language education of neighboring countries. Similarly to learners in Serbia, Romania and Slovakia, foreign language is taught throughout the secondary school years and remains to be compulsory throughout the university years, as well (Dégi, 2011). Another similarity is that English is the most dominant foreign language in the four countries. Besides, only a few classes per week are allocated for English learning, and therefore school learners cannot really benefit from knowing the language in either countries (Dégi, 2011; Tarnopolsky, 1996).

Table 4. The Rising Number of Pupils Enrolled in Schools with Ukrainian Language Instruction (Melnyik &

Csernicskó, 2010, p. 610).

The organizational process in every educational establishment centers around the recommended curriculum approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (www.mon.gov.ua). Despite the presence of thirteen ethnic minority groups, no differentiation can be observed in terms of the chosen approach used for state language versus minority language teaching at schools (Beregszászi & Csernicskó, 2007; Melnyik & Csernicskó, 2010).

However, a differential approach would be needed in minority schools at least from three points of view.

First, there is a need to develop a language learning program that looks at Ukrainian as a second language, or the language of the environment, instead of applying only the mainstream perspective, i.e. Ukrainian as a native language (Beregszászi & Csernicskó, 2004; Beregszászi, et al., 2001; Csernicskó, 1998; Póhán, 2003). Beregszászi and Csernicskó (2004) argued that state language should be rather taught with foreign language learning methods, “as the majority of the native Hungarian-speaking children do not speak Ukrainian at all” (p. 100). But practically, as Csernicskó (1998) added even methodological principles of Ukrainian teaching have not been worked out yet.

Second, simultaneously to the growing number of minority learners entering the first class in majority schools, the question of their integration in a Ukrainian-dominant language environment has also appeared. Orosz, et al. (2010) supported this claim by relying on the data gained from an interview session with a majority school headmaster of a Hungarian-dominant town. The headmaster reported that in 2009 it caused serious problems for the school that the majority of learners entering the first class did not understand the language of the educational

Academic year 1989/90 1995/96 1998/99 2000/2001 2003/2004 2005/2006 2008/2009

Percentage of pupils 48 58 65 70 75 78 71

process, i.e. Ukrainian. This finding might suggest that majority schools are not equipped with pre-existing principles and plans concerning the integration of minority kids.

Third, since the academic year of 2009/2010 minority learners are obliged to take their school-leaving exams in the state language only. Since then, the united package of university entrance exam questions is accessible only in Ukrainian (Csernicskó, 2009d). There were two transition years though in 2008 and 2009 when exam tasks (apart from Ukrainian language and literature) were translated into the language of some minority groups but it ceased from the following academic year. Exam requirements are the same for minority and majority learners of Ukrainian. Besides, regardless of their specialization, learners are required to obtain an obligatory minimum (Csernicskó, 2011). The result of this decision was that in 2008 29.58%

whereas in 2009 44% of Hungarian learners did not reach this level and therefore failed their dominant entrance exam (Ferenc, 2010). It can be seen that despite the claims and complaints on the side of minorities, there has been lack of attempts to provide equal opportunities for minority learners entering higher educational establishments in the land where they were born.

On the contrary, the Minister of Education since 2009 applied various techniques to ukrainianize the tertiary level. He delivered speeches, wrote official letters to colleges, universities, issued a decree that all aimed at minimizing the use of minority languages and promoting the use of Ukrainian, at lectures, seminars, and academic studies and to reinforce the use of its technical terminology (Csernicskó, 2011). In one of his speeches the Minister of Education directly stated that “one of the most emphasized task of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine is to introduce education solely in the state language in higher educational establishments” (quoted in Csernicskó, 2009d, p. 63).

The above-discussed examples for the lack of differentiation between Hungarian minority and Ukrainian majority learners let us conclude that politicians, and educational specialists are not aware of the fact that state language teaching has different aims in minority and in majority

schools (Beregszászi & Csernicskó, 2004). Naturally, for majority members studying Ukrainian equals to learning their mother tongue, whereas for minority learners, studying Ukrainian primarily corresponds to learning the language of the state where they live. Thus, very often the main aim for them is to learn the language of the environment for communicative purposes.

However, it is communicative ability of minority learners that is very often mentioned among the problematic points of state language teaching. Póhán (2003) especially emphasized that much more attention should be paid to improve learners’ speaking skills. Interestingly, though Huszti, et al. (2009) in their research among 3^rd graders of a Hungarian secondary school found that learners showed a higher level of proficiency of Ukrainian than of English despite the fact that they claimed the course book used in the teaching process is rather grammar-based.

Course book problems regarding Ukrainian is another frequent issue mentioned among researchers (Beregszászi & Csernicskó, 2004; Csernicskó, 1998; Csernicskó, 2009c; Hulpa, 2000; Huszti, et al., 2009). The most frequent claim is that the same course book used in majority and minority schools, and there are no specific course books developed for minority members (Csernicskó, 1998). However, the situation has changed a little since Csernicskó’s (1998) study has been published and some course books introducing Ukrainian as the language of the environment have been published, especially for primary classes. The lack of appropriate need-based course books is another frequent claim, since the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian language textbooks contain much focus on grammar, illustrating grammar rules with quotes taken from literature, while less attention is paid to communicative exercises (writing and speaking tasks). The above-cited researchers agree that these problems can enormously contribute to the low level of effectiveness of Ukrainian language teaching classes.

Not only course book-related issues were identified by Csernicskó (1998) when introducing the state of Ukrainian language teaching in Ukraine. He also referred to the lack of Ukrainian-Hungarian, Hungarian-Ukrainian dictionaries and other supplementary studying

materials that can enhance learners’ motivation to learn the language (Csernicskó, 2009c). Since 1998 some dictionaries have been published for Hungarian learners of Ukrainian, but the need for supplementary learning and teaching materials has remained.

Since Ukrainian language was introduced as a compulsory subject, there appeared to be an obvious lack of bilingual teachers, or even specialists and methodologists dealing with state language teaching (Beregszászi, et al., 2001; Csernicskó, 1998; Melnyik & Csernicskó, 2010;

Póhán, 2003). As Table 5 demonstrates it, the number of Ukrainian teachers having a degree of Ukrainian language and literature definitely showed an ascending tendency from the 1997/1998 to the 2008/2009 academic year, but still almost half of Ukrainian teachers in the region do not have an appropriate qualification to teach the state language.

Table 5. Profile of Teachers of Ukrainian in the Transcarpathian Region. (Beregszászi, et al., 2001, p. 57;

Motylchak, 2009, pp. 36-44).

Academic year

1997/1998 2008/2009 Proportion of Ukrainian language teachers with a degree of Ukrainian language and

literature

21% 60%

Proportion of Ukrainian teachers with a degree other than Ukrainian language and literature

68% 40%

Proportion of Ukrainian without a degree 11% 0%

In the first years of teaching Ukrainian, teachers were partly Russian philologists who were further trained to become able to teach the state language, or teachers who had a reliable knowledge of the language, regardless of their specialization (Lizanec, 2000). Altogether sixteen years after Ukrainian has been introduced at schools, 40% of the teachers still do not have a degree certifying knowledge of language and language pedagogy, as well. Besides, we have not mentioned the low number of bilingual (e.g. Ukrainian-Hungarian) teachers of the state language in the region as another deficiency of the state language teaching design (Csernicskó, 1998, 2009d).

After examining the above mentioned deficiencies of state language teaching in minority

put into practice outside the language classes. Beregszászi and Csernicskó (2004) arrived at a similar conclusion on the basis of the findings of a study that measured the perceived proficiency level of Hungarians. The low level of state language proficiency of Transcarpathian Hungarians was also confirmed by the Kárpát Panel project that was carried out in 2007 and involved representative samples of Hungarians living in five countries neighboring Hungary (Papp &

Veres, 2007). Besides, Márku (2011) also reported on two projects that had a perceived language competence element. In what follows the findings of these projects will be described in terms of levels of language competence.

Beregszászi and Csernicskó (2004) introduced the findings of a study that was carried out in 1996 and included 144 adults and found that 67% of the respondents used scale descriptors ranging from ‘not very good’ to ‘very good’ knowledge of Ukrainian, whereas 32.6% chose the

‘only a few words’ category to describe their language competence. Surprisingly, 14% of the adults could not read or write in Ukrainian.

Márku (2011) reported on two studies carried out in 2003 and in 2009. Both projects involved representative samples, and examined minority members’ perceived knowledge of their mother tongue, of the state language and that of Russian. Both studies used a 7 point scale for measuring perceived language competence. The project named Rétegeződés [Stratification] 2003 involved 516 respondents, whereas altogether 387 participants were involved in the Rétegzett [Stratified] project.

Table 6. Hungarian, Ukrainian, and Russian Language Knowledge of the Transcarpathian Hungarian Community (Márku, 2011, p. 66).

Hungarian Ukrainian Russian

Rétegeződés, 2003 6,9 4,1 4,5

Rétegzett, 2009 6,7 3,3 3,3

As it is demonstrated in Table 6, Ukrainian language knowledge ranges between 3.3 and 4.1, while Russian is between 3.3 and 4.5 on the 7 point scale. Interestingly, perceived

language proficiency was higher in the 2003 sample, and in both cases they remained at the ‘just a few words’ and the ‘not very good’ level of Ukrainian until 2009.

The above-cited findings confirm that learners of Ukrainian do not have a reliable knowledge of Ukrainian. In fact, their perceived proficiency remains at a rather low level even after finishing school and entering the university. This is one of the outcomes of the low level of Ukrainian language teaching at minority schools which consequence can easily be derived from the examined deficiencies present in the educational process.

Ferenc (2009) referred to this situation as one of the factors that hinders the practical implementation of the multilingual community model. The other two factors she finds relevant to be noted are lack of the uniform and dynamic conceptualization of the language teaching process and the lack of bilingual specialists in the field of language education.

To sum it can be stated that the current model of Ukrainian language teaching incorporates characteristic features of both the segregation and that of the transitive model described by Skutnabb-Kangas (1997a, 1997b). One of the aims of the segregation educational model is to keep state language knowledge of minority learners at a low level with the aim of segregating the minority group. Whereas one of the aims of the transitive educational model is to gradually introduce the state language and after a given period of time, limit the language of instruction to the use of the state language mainly and only.

Another important conclusion that can be drawn from the above described overview is that there are many vital deficiencies present in Ukrainian language teaching for ethnic minorities. First, learners of the state language do not have appropriate communication-oriented course books and access to bilingual dictionaries. Second, the number of qualified bilingual teachers and educational specialists is extremely low compared with the twenty-year experience of compulsory Ukrainian language teaching in Hungarian educational establishments. Third, the lack of equal opportunities for minority and majority state language learners at the secondary and

at the tertiary level in terms of requirements seriously discriminates against ethnic minority youngsters in Transcarpathia.