Standard language and nd-varieties in education. Curricular reform and teaching Hungarian as L1 in Romania

Edit Kádár

(Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

edith.kadar@gmail.com

Keywords: curriculum reform, competency-based education, situation/context, language variants

The Romanian education system has witnessed a transition towards a competency based curriculum starting in 2013 for primary education followed in 2017 for secondary education. If the curriculum prescribes the notion of competence as its organizing principle, then programmes of study must use situations and context, as competence necessarily develops in situation. Language varieties are context-sensitive, therefore this curricular reform could bring about a new perspective on and a new attitude towards nd-varieties of a language, cutting off the long tradition of a rigidly prescriptive and standard-centred education. Of course this is conditioned by a competency approach in teaching strategies, methods and learning materials, and it targets attitudes, values and skills as well. However, the delay in development of curriculum support materials (coursebooks, teachers’ guides) for supporting the curriculum interpretation and implementation, the lack of training workshops, articulating such dimensions as concepts, aspects of competency approach, issue of learning assessment and evaluation, hampers the intended curriculum to be the implemented curriculum. In my paper I present some aspects of this transition period with a special focus on the approach to nd-variants of Hungarian manifested in the new study programmes, the available manuals and teachers’ attitudes.