"The most evident and striking pattern that emerges from the research is that
there is no unified agreement among the schools about the modalities for
teaching Griko, rather, every school acts on its own. The headmasters decide, on
the basis of the resources available, whether, how and in which grades Griko
courses are held. Normally, Griko should be taught from the nursery up to the
middle school, but for some years now, schools are not able to ensure such a
continuity of teaching. Griko courses consist of a small amount of hours
(typically less than twenty) carried out one hour per week and not even for the
whole scholastic year. The shortness of Griko courses is due firstly to the lack
of economic resources (financial backing for the teaching of Griko is
completely dependent on the provisions of Law No 482 of 15 December 1999),
and to a lesser extent to the lack of available hours in the schedule.Although Griko is a compulsory subject at school it is taught by external
experts employed specifically to give these courses. None of these experts have
Griko as their native language, but most of them have learnt it as a child. The
selection of the experts is carried out autonomously by the headmasters, i.e. not
by some standardized procedure based on examinations or qualifications. At the
time of research (2010-2011), ten years since Law 482 had come into force,
only two courses had been organized for the training of Griko teachers.
Griko lessons typically revolve around folklore: the pupils learn songs,
poems, dances and the traditions related to Griko. Very few lessons are
dedicated to the language’s structural features and to actual language practice.
Consequently, even after several years of Griko, the students’ knowledge of the
language is restricted to very basic vocabulary and some poems and songs. The
lack of a modern, scientifically grounded, method for the teaching of Griko
represents a severe obstacle to the learning of the language at school." (188-89)