Country Report Norway R Steinar Nyble Norwegian National

Country Report Norway R. Steinar Nybøle Norwegian National Centre for English and other Foreign Languages in Education Budapest June 2018 www. fremmedspraksenteret. no

Current issues 1. Fagfornyelsen «subject renewal» , revision of the current school curriculum – Deep learning – Interdisciplinary approach Hearing until June 18. Final document in November 2019 Will come into power from school year 2020/21 There is still no direct link to the CEFR www. fremmedspraksenteret. no

The Lied committee • The Ministry of Education established in September 2017 a committee that is to look closer at the structure of the subjects in Upper Secondary School • A first report (status quo) has been delivered to the Ministry. • Rumours have it that English may be mandatory for all students in all classes in upper secondary school (until now only 1 st or 2 nd grade was mandatory) • But this extension of hours may lead to the fact, that the 2 nd foreign language will no longer be mandatory for those students who are in general study programs • Our centre has written a document with our view: www. fremmedspraksenteret. no https: //www. fremmedspraksenteret. no/neted/services/file/? hash=71 afd

Position of the Ministry • Wait until the final report of the committee is published (later this year) • There may be a new Strategic Plan or a Plan of action for languages – The Ministry is preparing a White paper on student exchange, and the present figures for this exchange are too low – If the UK leaves the EU without a treaty this may affect EU exchange programs. More students will have to exchange with countries like France, Germany and Spain instead of going to the UK. This may increase the need for enhancing the 2 nd foreign language – Our centre has put forward ideas to the Ministry on how to to improve the quality of languages in school and in order to increase the number of students going abroad www. fremmedspraksenteret. no

New resources • Writing: Together with the National centre for writing our centre has developed resources for teaching and learning writing (“Sirkelen for undervisning og læring”), https: //www. fremmedspraksenteret. no/nor/fremmedspraksenteret/larin gs---ressurser/skriving---sirkelmodell • A brochure on how to deal with writing literacy is being developed at the centre now • Our centre has also been part of a national project called Språkløyper in order to improve reading skills in English and other foreign languages, https: //sprakloyper. uis. no/ www. fremmedspraksenteret. no

New structure for the national centres in Norway • As from 2018 all national centres in Norway are technically and professionally under their host organization • Our centre is organised as a faculty in the University College of Østfold, and my position is close to that of a Dean. • I take part in a lot of meetings on Dean-level, and I have managed to make the centre much more visible in our organization, e. g. we are now mentioned in the revised Strategic Plan and there a lot of topics there concerning languages • Our staff will also take part in Teacher Education, what makes it necessary for us reemploy our staff as university professors (teaching and research) www. fremmedspraksenteret. no

A decentralized capacity building model • In 2017 the Ministry lanced a new model to attract more teachers to sign up for in-service training. • Only state universities and national centres are entitled to give this courses within this model • The schools pay a very little own share and this makes it a very attractive model • The challenge so far has been the fact that small school doesn’t have the knowledge of what they really need. • Our centre has dialogues with teachers/school n order to find out their needs www. fremmedspraksenteret. no

Involvement so far • Our centre is involved in a project with Oslo (lower secondary school) for teachers of French, German and Spanish (1, 5 years; 2. 5 mill NOK/250. 000 Euro) • We are now in contact with the county of Oppland for a smaller project, also for teachers of “Foreign languages” • • In addition we have a lot of smaller courses at schools ------- • This activity is very new to us, but gives us a lot of satisfaction https: //fremmedspraksenteret. no/neted/services/file/? hash=6 ef 24 fc 158 5 e 80 be 31315 ea 27 b 184451 www. fremmedspraksenteret. no

Our participation in Global Generation, an ERASMUS+ project • Scilt Scotland, Fremmedsprogcenteret Denmark and Fremmedspråksenteret Norway have got a three year funding for promoting foreign languages • Target group first year: Business and companies www. fremmedspraksenteret. no