Reconceptualizing language teaching: an in-service teacher education course in uzbekistan

IN CLASS
1. The teacher distributes among students the following text (see be-
low) and asks them to read it carefully. While reading the text, students are 
required to interpret the meanings of photos that appear within the text to 
deliver a certain ideological meaning. All words that indicate the belonging 
of the country name in this text are hidden to keep neutrality (i.e., anonym-
ity) regarding the judgment given by the author of this text. The changed 
words are given in italics.
Country name: An educational system in crisis
Country name
has implemented reforms aimed at giving pupils an 
equal shot at a good education. But the introduction of centralized univer-
sity entrance exams has so far failed to end corruption in the school system. 

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RECONCEPTUALIZING LANGUAGE TEACHING
Country name
’s educational system in the post-Soviet era was largely 
rooted in patterns from the second half of the 20th century. Just a few sub-
jects were withdrawn from the curriculum at the beginning of the 1990s. 
Whether children got a good education depended heavily on their individ-
ual teachers and on how wealthy their families were. University education 
was mainly reserved for the offspring of urban, high-income families. Peo-
ple from that country
from rural areas had to get by with the equivalent of a 
high school diploma or vocational training.
In the middle of the 1990s, reforms were introduced, and many schools 
changed course. Specialized educational institutions sprang up. College 
degrees, which had lost some attractiveness due to the financial difficulties 
of the 1990s, regained their luster. But the university admissions process 
got more and more difficult. Citing corruption in the admissions commit-
tees, the government put an end in the early 2000s to the existing system 
of university entrance exams.