Curriculum reform of foreign language teaching for adults

Abstract

The Curriculum Board in charge of drafting the changes in the existent educational programmes of foreign language - English, French, Italian and German - acguisition for adults has carried out a survey among foreign language teachers. The Board wanted to establish the views of the teachers concerning the admission reguirements and the target groups, knowledge standards, contents, criteria of knowledge evaluation and testing, implementation of programmes in various institutions, duration of programmes, conditions for implementation, etc. The results of the survey show that the existent programmes are judged as rather good by the teachers. However, this positive evaluation mainly refers to the conrent, duration and admission requirements; the teachers also pointed out some negative aspects of the programmes, namely inadequately defined knowledge standards and related eva luation criteria. On the basis of the survey it can be concluded that the certificates issued by different institutions, where programmes are carried out, do not reflect the same level of knowledge. Unfortunately, it can also be concluded that (too) many teachers are not familiar with the education programmes they are supposed to carry out.