Research in foreign language education in Hungary (2006–2012)

Abstract

In the past quarter century, Hungary has offered fertile ground for innovative developments in foreign language (FL) education. The appropriate, albeit disparaging, label applied to Hungary in the mid-1970s – ‘a land of foreign language illiterates’ (Köllő 1978: 6) – no longer applies. In the wake of the dramatic changes of 1989, the number of FL speakers rose quite rapidly. As a beneficial side-effect, applied linguistic and language education research, areas which used to be relegated to the lowest rung of the academic ladder, began to be recognised as legitimate fields of scientific inquiry, offering young researchers the opportunity to embark on an academic career. As a result, Hungarian authors are now regular contributors to distinguished journals, and researchers from Hungary are welcome speakers at international conferences.However, Hungarian authors often choose to publish their research studies in local journals and volumes which are not easily accessible to the international research community, especially if written in Hungarian. The aim of this review, therefore, is to give an overview of such studies to demonstrate the breadth and depth of recent research conducted in Hungary.