Bilingual Schools the Bulgarian Experience

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Bilingual Schools - the Bulgarian Experience

• A short history of the Language Schools in
  Bulgaria
• The situation now
• Issues and solutions

2
A short history of the Language Schools in
Bulgaria

• Types of schools
• Location
• Subject teachers
• Languages taught

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Types of schools

• Special schools where
• It was prestigious to study
• Students were admitted after passing exams in
  Bulgarian language and literature and Mathematics
• The exams were taken after finishing grade 7
• The choice was restricted to one Russian or one
  foreign language school in the region
• The most commonly taught language was Russian
• A language was taught intensively the first year
  (preparatory class)
• At least 3 subjects are taught in the respective
  language for the following 2 years
• There was no special syllabus for the subjects
  taught in the foreign language
• The textbooks used were a direct translation from
  their equivalents in Bulgarian

4
Location

• In every regional center there was a Russian and
  another language school
• In Sofia there was a German, an English, a
  French, a Spanish, and several Russian Schools

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Subject teachers

• Fully-qualified specialists in the subject
• Graduates of a language school
•  

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Languages taught

• English
• German
• French
• Russian
• Spanish

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The situation now

• Schools
• Languages taught
• Subject teachers

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Schools

• 125 schools all over the country
• 48 on the territory of the capital
• English, German, Spanish, French, Italian,
  Russian, Greek (rare) taught
• Students are admitted after the same exams,
  similar in format
• It is allowed to apply to an unlimited number of
  schools anywhere in the country
• The foreign language is taught intensively during
  the first year
• At least 3 subjects are taught in the foreign
  language during the next 2 years
• There are no National Educational Standards for
  the subjects taught in a foreign language
• Most of the Bulgarian textbooks in the respective
  subject have no equivalent in a foreign language

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Languages taught

•   English
•         German
•         Greek (rare)
•         French
•         Italian
•         Russian
•         Spanish

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Subject teachers

• Fully-qualified specialist in the subject
• Varied linguistic competence

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Issues and solutions

• Issues
• Solutions

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Issues

• A great number of schools offering bilingual
  education
• Lack of subject specialists fluent in a foreign
  language
• Lack of suitable study materials
• Linguistic competence of subject teachers
• Methods and approaches applied in the CLIL
  classroom

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Solutions

•         Specialised courses in teaching a subject
  in a foreign language for student-teachers
  (South-West University of Blagoevgrad, Plovdiv
  University, Veliko Tarnovo University)
•         Specialised in-service training courses
  (Department on Information and In-service
  Training of Teachers, Sofia University)
•         Specialised summer schools
•         Participation in international projects
  (SAW)
•         Encouragement to participate in
  specilised forums, conferences, discussion groups
  (FACT)
•         Specialised publications (FACT)
•         A separate version of the National
  Educational standards for teaching subjects in a
  foreign language
•         Textbooks and educational materials in
  accord with the recent developments in the field
  of bilingual education/CLIL
• Greater cooperation between language and subject
  teachers

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Useful sites

• www.fact.bg.hit.bg
• www.factworld.info.com
• www.factworld.yahoo.com