The History of TEFL in Hungary

Why is it important to know the history of TEFL?
•	Not to repeat former mistakes in language teaching
•	It is important to know people’s beliefs and misbeliefs in connection with learning language  these must be taken into consideration
•	In Hungary people’s attitude was negative toward Russian  their attitude remained negative toward other foreign languages & language teaching in general

The situation of the knowledge of any language in Hungary:
•	Nowadays the percentage of the knowledge of any language quite low (and Russian is mainly excluded); only 15-20% of Hungarians speak at least 1 foreign language

Universities for Hungarians in the neighbouring countries:
•	There is a dilemma whether these should be only Hungarian
•	Bilingualism should be developed, but university directors are reluctant to achieve this
•	Before 1959 Hungarian universities in Transylvania were merged with Romanian universities and after 1959 Hungarian as the language of teaching ceased to exist
•	Only in 2002 did they got back the possibility to tech in Hungarian
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it is essential to change the educational programme 

Educational Reforms:
•	Definition: it is a fundamental change in education in order to improve the quality of learning
•	An educational reform has many years to be carried out  there are few years of preparation, then approximately 10 years in practice and after it 1-2 years of evaluation

Real changes in language teaching:
•	Six or seven years ago the learning of language became a single major  before, another language must have been studied
•	During the Socialist era public education provided the possibility of learning 2 languages, but with the introduction of the NAT this ceased to exist
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this was an educational policy change
As a result: -    the knowledge of English has increased but not in a desirable quality and  
	             quantity
-	people know a little English but it is not enough
-	at the beginning of the 1990s there were bad teachers  number of English lessons increased, but the quality has not
Changes of the 1980s:
•	in 1980 there was a conference about whether American or British English should be taught  they agreed on both
•	in 1982 there was another conference where it was agreed that only British English should be taught because it is closer to Hungary geographically
•	10 years later American English became more popular

History of language teaching in Hungary:
•	until the 1920s English teaching wasn’t present in Hungarian education  French and German were taught
•	between the two World Wars English was taught in Debrecen, but the English department of Debrecen was closed in 1949
•	after World War II only Russian was taught
•	after 1957 some people were able to complete their English studies, because Országh László re-established the English department in Debrecen
•	in 1965 the department of English was founded in Szeged
•	but there were not too many students of English all around the country ( approximately 60-70 students)

Teaching EFL in Socialism
•	1974: IATEFEL ( British based teacher association) had a conference in Bp.
•	English learning changed and became popular, before English was very unpopular

IEA
•	Comparative in all kinds of topics all over the world
•	In the 1970s participated in IEA among the communist countries
•	IEA showed that the most efficient public education took place in Hungary and Japan  
•	BUT IEA made tests on English  -highschool students were efficient in speaking 
      but they “didn’t understand” the language
					   - listening & speaking skills weren’t on the 
					     same level
•	The reason: - educational history 
  - in the USSR there was a drive for teaching practical things
  - that time the Soviets introduced the 5+1 system = 5 days of learning
    and 1 day in the factory
  - the aim was to boost speaking & to de-emphasise listening
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this became the requirement in the entire educational system
This is on reason why we should know the history of TEFEL
One must place equal emphasis on both skills

CETT
•	From 1990 there were not very well trained English teachers
•	CETT changed programmes in English departments  they introduced practical lessons that helped teachers how to teach grammar, pronunciation, etc.
•	There are CETTs in Bp., Debrecen & Szeged
•	In CETTs students are required to teach 60 hours (30 in primary and 30 in high schools)
•	CETT is the mutual program of the Hungarian government & the British Council
•	BUT in the late 1990s the programme of the CETT was stopped