El tiempo circular contra el tiempo moderno

The countries of central and eastern Europe reorganised their education systems in the mid-1940s, often introducing a single structure for the primary and secondary levels. They focused on teaching Western languages: French and German in Poland, German in Hungary. English, which was seldom taught in central Europe during the first half of the century, also started to become popular at that time. However, this situation lasted only a few years. Around 1950, the general introduction of Russian rad- ically changed the panorama of foreign language teaching: Russian became the first foreign language taught throughout eastern Europe (except in Slovenia) (8_{) and maintained that position for}

40 years. Interest in western languages has nonetheless always existed among the population, although teaching these languages was not among the main objectives of education systems. In certain coun- tries such as Poland, private teaching catered for this demand, filling the gap.

In 1989, there was a new upheaval. In the space of a few years, western languages regained the posi- tion they had lost to Russian. However, they were not the only languages to appear on the educational scene. In certain countries – the new Länder of reunified Germany, and also Hungary, Romania and, to

(8_{) In Slovenia, Russian was kept in the basic school curriculum as an optional subject until the mid-1960s, though it was sel-}

a lesser extent, former Czech and Slovak Federal Republic – the strategy adopted to reinforce the

Gymnasium (9_{) (and new forms of this type of education) kindled a revival of Latin.}

On the other hand, the predominance of Russian in education systems did not prevent the development of parallel systems of schools specialising in foreign languages. Many countries such as Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, the former Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, Estonia (10_{), Latvia (}11_{), and Lithuania (}12_{) have}

had their own systems of parallel bilingual schools for the best language learners. Such systems have never ceased to be in operation since the 1960s. Moreover, in some pre-accession countries the (new) types of Gymnasium introduced at lower secondary level include sections offering specialised foreign language teaching. In Hungary, 27% of pupils are currently enrolled in Gimnázium schools. In the for- mer Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, some schools at both lower and upper secondary levels pro- vide specialised foreign language teaching at a level that enables use of the foreign language as the language of instruction. This system was maintained, and the offer of specialised teaching of foreign languages has increased since the new type of Gymnázium was introduced.

In Poland, five major cities have had their bilingual schools since 1965, for three languages: English, French and German. This initiative expanded considerably following the reforms of 1990.

In Romania, it has been possible to set up ‘strengthened foreign language classes’, also known as ‘spe- cial classes’, since 1968 (Russian ceased to be compulsory in 1965). Such classes, providing advanced teaching of French, German, English, Spanish and Italian, were mainly set up in schools in the large cities, both at primary and secondary level. However, the Education Act of 1978 cut back this type of language teaching to the first two stages of the secondary level. Special classes were completely with- drawn from all schools in the 1980s. Only during the 1990s were they brought back into both primary and secondary schools. The 1990s also witnessed the introduction of bilingual secondary level schools. In all these cases, secondary school pupils have always taken two compulsory foreign languages since the 1950s.

Many factors explain the popularity of foreign languages among Slovenians: the commercial interests of the country, its size, the current national multilingualism (with Hungarian- and Italian-speaking minorities) and its historical linguistic links (Slovenia belonged to the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy and had a ‘Yugoslav period’ during which Serbo-Croatian was compulsory alongside Slovenian). Foreign languages were first introduced as compulsory subjects in primary and secondary school curricula in 1951. English, German, French and Russian are offered as a first foreign language. Italian, French, German and English are on offer as second foreign languages. During the 1960s, the choice of the first foreign language was in practice reduced to English and German.

It is mainly at the upper secondary level that a major expansion of foreign language teaching took place. The reforms of 1981 introduced four-year curricula strongly focused on languages and offering a wide range of languages. The Gimnazija were reintroduced in 1989, with two or three compulsory foreign languages. In 1995, the status of languages in secondary education was strengthened when a foreign language became a compulsory subject in the new school leaving examination (Matura).

(9_{) The German term is used here: the Hungarian, Czech and Slovak words are Gimnázium, Gymnázium and Gymnasium}

respectively.

(10_{) In 1962, Estonia gave 12 schools the right to introduce bilingual types of education. This number may appear rather lim-}

ited. However, when compared with the number of inhabitants (1,500,000 in 1978), the project takes on a completely new dimension.

(11_{) Bilingual schools since the 1940s.}