Anna Kolláth: Teacher Training and Bilingual Public Education

This study presents the trends in bilingual education in Slovenia´s Prekmurje region in the last five years. It focuses on parallel bilingual teaching of reading and writing in minority Hungarian and majority Slovenian-language primary schools of the region (the method in Slovenian is referred to as HOP), and on the partial external differentiation of secondary schools – the latter concerns teaching of Hungarian as as a second language. These changes have a major impact on the education programmes of the Hungarian Language and Literature Department (Faculty of Arts) of the University of Maribor for being Slovenia´s only higher education institution with Hungarian as the language of instruction. As such, it must follow changes concerning Hungarian teacher training and adapt itself to new challenges. The study also points at anomalies manifested in the interactions of Hungarian (special purpose) language competencies of those participating in the teacher training process conducted in the Slovenian language, and that of pre-school teachers, teachers in primary and secondary schools with other than Hungarian-language specialization who participate in the region´s bilingual public education. Innovations, if consistently implemented, make bilingual education and contents of attitude toward the Hungarian language and culture more efficient and student-friendly, both for the minority and the majority.