To do this they are given a reduced teaching load. Low-paid teachers are often not inclined to put in extra effort. Advisors are isolated from each other. Although Albania is a small country, poor roads and few telephones make communication difficult. In the English teaching field many qualified teachers have left the profession to take better-paying jobs.
Some districts now have a majority of teachers without a degree in English.
Because of time and cost restrictions, help for individual teachers is confined to Tirana and its immediate surroundings. During the initial training in the first year, seminars were devoted mainly to the development of the advisors' own teaching skills and to familiarising them with techniques and activities associated with the communicative approach. For the seminars on observation and remediation we had ample guidance from literature in the field, but when we approached the difficult but vital stage of consultation, we found a very limited receptivity. This was a flop. The answers we received were uninformative, suggesting that the lessons observed had all been successful, and indicating that there was little need for assistance from an advisor.