Discrepancies between CLT Principles and the Romanian Language and Literature for Hungarian Minority Curriculum and Its Implementation

Abstract

The study of the Romanian language and literature is a compulsory subject for students of Hungarian minority in Romania. However, the most effective language learning methods and paradigms take into account and exploit students’ language awareness and linguistic repertoire. Such a didactic approach builds on students’ language skills and teaches children to use their language resources through teaching situations embedded in everyday school life that focus on observing and comparing different languages. In recent years, there have been several attempts to bring about a paradigm shift in the teaching of the Romanian language and allow Hungarian students to learn Romanian as a foreign language. However, a significant shift can be observed between the levels and contents of the 4th-and 5th-grade textbooks, causing serious difficulties for 5th graders. Our study presents the initial stage of a textbook analysis. We examine the extent to which the available textbooks for the 5th grade follow the methodological changes in communicative and post-communicative language teaching and the extent to which they take advantage of the language opportunities provided by students’ linguistic repertoire.