MASH is the Albanian acronym for The Ministry of Education and Science. Housed in a large Tirana building, they control the schools and what we teach in them. I visited them once to get information and it was the strangest experience: they buzzed me into the building without an appointment and left me to wander on my own until I found the contact I wanted to meet. There was a brief period as I wandered the halls which felt so Kafkaesque. Where am I going? Who exactly am I meeting? Does anyone know?
One of the biggest challenges is teaching large, multi-level classrooms. Students have wildly varying degrees of knowledge and interest when it comes to English, and the fact that there are often 35-45 students in a class makes it all the more difficult. Adding to this are student textbooks. Where do the books come from and who chooses them? I’m not sure because, like many things in Albania, I’ve heard varying answers to the question. Some teachers say MASH chooses the textbooks; others say it’s the regional officials who are courted by one of a few major foreign publishers; some insist it’s the teachers. I’m still not sure. What I do know is that 1st year students in high school have a book called Blockbuster 3.
There are two types of textbooks: ones that are Albanian-produced (and littered with English errors) and ones that are British-produced. Each has their advantages and disadvantages. The Albanian books look like they haven’t been edited. One series of books just has articles copied from Reader’s Digest. We affectionately call this book “The Angelina Jolie Reader,” because it has a few articles about her. In every copy of this book I’ve seen, someone has usually defaced her picture. The Albanian books are usually poorly designed, and another features a typesetting problem whichm ake sth eword sloo klik ethis. However, the major advantage with these books is the presence of Albanian. In a perfect world, language classes would be taught completely in the target language without any use of the native tongue. We don’t live in a perfect world. Having dictionaries and grammar structures explained in Albanian is incredibly helpful. It’s discouraging to students if they look on a page and cannot identify one English word. It’s too much to ask of most students to look everything up, even if it’s a great way to learn.
Then we have the British-produced books. Boy, they are sure glitzy. Glossy pages, colors, aesthetic design… But sometimes I wonder if they aren’t a bit too much of style over substance. Blockbuster 3, the book my students have, could fall into this category. This book, which someone picked for first year high school students, includes lessons about technology not relevant to everyday life; a lesson about environmental issues and a lesson about endangered animals. Because they are produced in England for the international market, they don’t have any Albanian in them. That makes a huge difference and it’s something that is difficult both for students and for teachers. Think about how you would feel as a beginner if someone gave you a book with the word “endangered” in it. Does that seem like a first year word to you? Again, this also has to do with the people picking the books just as much as the book itself.
Aside from English books, there are also cultural concepts that present a problem. The Ministry includes sex education into the biology curriculum in the 10th grade year. There is also a life skills class that 10th graders get which touches on AIDS and STDs. Life skills also encompasses basic first aid and lessons about drug and alcohol abuse. I think it’s an important subject for students, especially because their lives are relatively sheltered still at the high school level. I went through the textbook with a teacher who teaches this class, and asked her how she approaches the material. “I can’t teach it, I mean, look at these pictures,” she said. There diagrams of naked men and women. “The students will laugh.”
Teachers don’t want to do it because it falls under the category of “shame.” If I thought Americans were prudish and terrified, we’ve got nothing on Albanians.
The other piece of the textbook puzzle are the publishers and distributors. Publishers stand to make a lot of money if their books are chosen so they persuade teachers, directors and regional educational directors into choosing their books. They give swag like posters and other materials, support conferences and teacher trainings and in some cases, furnish classrooms with technology like DVDs/CDs players. It’s an enticing offer.
Most schools have a small library, or bookshop, where students purchase the books. A Blockbuster textbook purchased directly from the publisher’s store in Tirana costs 1300Lek. Outside of Tirana, stores charge 1500Lek ($15). Although it might not seem like much, the 200Lek price difference is significant: one person in any given town has a monopoly on selling books from a specific publisher. When all students must take English, they must also buy all the books from a certain publisher, meaning that that sales can total in the thousands of dollars not including surrounding villages that may also need the books. It’s a lucrative industry even in a country where lack of copyright law enforcement causes many students to copy their books.
No comments:
Post a Comment