New forms of education governance, referring to decentralisation school autonomy, accountability mechanisms such as national testing, as well as the shifts to competencies-based curricula and teaching in school education have spread rapidly throughout Europe under the influence of both European education policy agencies and global players such as the OECD (Grek, 2014; Alexiadou & Jones, 2019). In addition, there is an increase of a global testing culture manifested through the increasing number of countries willing to participate in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) (Lingard, Martino & Rezai-Rashti, 2013) as well as the growth of standardised testing systems certifying skills and competencies (i.e. language competency, computer skills) such as the International English Language Testing System (IELTS)

In the Greek context foreign languages in public schools have been following guidelines and recommendations of the European Union (EU) which plays a significant role in promoting language learning via funding programmes and various governing tools such as the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001). The strong interest in foreign language learning is clearly stated In the White Paper of the European Commission (1995) on ‘Teaching and learning. Towards the learning society’   which calls for proficiency of European citizens in three community languages with the aim to optimise occupational and personal opportunities within the border-free EU. In the same spirit, numerous recommendations have followed on the promotion of language teaching and learning (European Commission, 2017; 2018).

In accordance with the recommendations and guidelines provided by the agencies responsible for the European language education policies, Greece offers two foreign languages throughout compulsory education while recently English was introduced in the compulsory curricula of pre-primary education in public schools. Another innovative initiative is the introduction of a state-owned certificate launched in 2003, known as the Greek National Foreign Language Exam (hereafter KPG-i.e. the English acronym for its Greek title). Successive attempts have been made to officially link KPG with schools. In 2016 the Ministry of Education announced that students would be prepared at school to sit the KPG exams but this has not been implemented yet. Nevertheless, this connection is a longstanding request of FL teachers (Mitsikopoulou, Karavas & Papadopoulou, 2017) who see the introduction of KPG as a means of strengthening their hitherto low status in public schools as well as boosting students’ interest in FL offered in public schools. However, as we argue, attempts to link the KPG to school education signal the embodiment of certification procedures in public education realising the teaching and learning activities according to the logic of a standardized system of performance. As Beck and Young argue, in this consideration the “[educational] institution must comply with ‘standards’ specifying tightly defined ‘competencies’” (2005:193). Competency is a generic performance model of pedagogic codes (Bernstein, 2000) which is based on a new (short-term) concept of ‘work’ and ‘life’, emphasizing what the individuals ‘can do’, while it devalues the cognitive basis of learning and the specific pedagogic content (Jones and Moore, 1995). Through the policies and practices of certification of competencies, new institutions and actors (e.g., here KPG) emerge, reshaping the operation of public schools and the teachers’ roles. Key questions that arise are how European policies on the certification of English language competency through standardized testing become recontextualized at the level of the Greek national curriculum and local teaching practices and with what effects on public schools and teachers. 

To address our research questions in this paper, based on an on-going study, we first explore the extent to which the Greek educational policy responds to the European recommendations on language learning and teaching. Secondly, we explore changes in the boundaries between the external testing systems and agents and the public school. Finally, we illustrate the ways teachers’ identities and work have been affected by such transformations. The study is based on qualitative methods that combine analysis of policy texts (legislation, guidelines, national curriculum) in relation to English language teaching in public schools and data collected from semi-structured interviews. In particular, twelve semi-structured interviews have been conducted so far with professionals responsible for foreign language policy formation and implementation as well as with headteachers and teachers in secondary schools in Athens. Based on Bernstein’s theory of symbolic control (1990), we develop an analytical framework aiming to explore the principles through which the Europeanised discourse concerning the foreign language learning is recontextualised in the field of the Greek educational system. The theory focuses on the pedagogical processes and practices through which the principles of social and symbolic order are transmitted and acquired in the field of symbolic control, combining the macro-level of policy-making with the micro-level of educational practice. In particular, in order to trace and analyse the recontextualizing process we utilise Bernstein’s notion of the ‘pedagogic device’, which refers to the ensemble of rules for the selection and organization of knowledge, thereby shaping power relations in the action field (Bernstein & Solomon, 1999), here of Foreign/English Language teaching. In other words, through the language of description emanating from this theory we are able to identify reliable criteria to classify practices as well as identify the discourses that support them. This methodological approach connects in a consistent way the data analysis with the analytical language and the theoretical framework, while remaining ‘sensitive’ to the conditions of the field of professional action under study.

Our findings provide evidence of extended recontextualisation of European discourses concerning foreign language teaching and learning in Greek public secondary education. Also they highlight that the connection of the KPG with the public-school foreign language curricula is strongly supported by all the professionals participating in our study. This suggests a blurring of boundaries between the official recontextualising field of policy making and the pedagogic recontextualising field of its elaborations and enactments (Bernstein, 2000). This is evident in the fact that an official external testing body and its related agents are legitimized to audit the pedagogic practices and other aspects of teachers’ everyday work, ultimately shaping their identities in instrumental ways. The interviewees appear to welcome the introduction of the KPG, a certificate similar to the certificates provided after taking tests administered by foreign non-public organisations such as the British Council, the Goethe Institute etc -an extended practice in the case of Greece with its traditionally large shadow education and not only of foreign languages. At the same time, participants in this research tend to downplay the potential strengthening of external control upon schools and the washback effects of this. The significance of these findings relates to the argument that if the establishment of an external standardized test leading to a certificate of foreign language competency takes routes in the state schools, it could facilitate the smoother acceptance of national testing of other school subjects, that is, the institutionalisation of a testing regime. It should be noted here that such a testing regime has long been on the agenda of several Greek governments and has recently been introduced again despite previous debates and resistance from teachers’ unions, the political parties of the left, a part of the media as well as the criticism of many educational academics.

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