The influence of Albanian history, politics and economy on English language teaching

Abstract

Learning a foreign language in Albania has been determined by many historical, political and economical factors. However, there is little written material about this important feature of foreign language learning in Albania. This paper aims at informing the reader about the main phases Albanian education in general has gone through and that have led to the present state of the Albanian schools. The history of Albanian education has not been an easy one. Albania has suffered many invasions from other countries as well as the worst of dictatorships after independence and these historical features have had a very regressive impact on the development of Albanian education. Being part of the Albanian struggling for improvement of schools and education in general, English language teaching has reflected the consequences of this historical and political background. I argue that, although Albanians worshiped knowledge and education, it was often impossible for them to obtain proper education and sometimes it was unreachable for them, as dictatorship aimed at keeping people in the dark by preventing them from reading, watching, listening to any foreign material that had not been politically controlled before. Nevertheless, Albanian democratic governments have acknowledged the importance of foreign languages, especially English, and have been making continuous efforts to improve the situation of foreign language teaching in Albania in order to modernize and bring it on the same level with other Western foreign language teaching.