Promoting Intercultural Communication through English Language Teaching: Challenges in Turkish Publi

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Promoting Intercultural Communication through
English Language Teaching Challenges in Turkish
Public Primary Schools

• Ayse Kizildag , Ph D

• Guest post-doc fellow at University of Borås
• (sponsored by the Swedish Institute), SWEDEN
• Research Assistant at Aksaray University, TURKEY

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INTRODUCTION

• English is the world language.
• First language 309400 millionSecond language
  1991,400 million
• Overall 500 million1.8 billion
• Millions or billions need to learn the language.
  World-wide and local language schools.
• Most of the countries introduced English in to
  the curriculum early as a compulsory course.
  Turkey 4th grade China 3rd grade and Sweden
  4th grade.

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PROBLEM

• The result of learning/teaching English for 5
  years in an 8-year compulsory education is not
  satisfactory.
• WHY NOT?
• What are the challenges associated with teaching
  English in Turkish public primary schools that
  are experienced by English language teachers at
  these schools?

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METHOD

• Participants
• 20 English Language teachers working at different
  public primary school all around Turkey (mostly
  in low-income schools)
• All are Turkish, and English is a foreign
  language for them.
• Average age is 25. The range of experience is
  between 2 and 10 years.

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METHOD

• Data collection
• Interview face to face and emails.
• What are the challenges in teaching English at
  your school?

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FINDINGS

• 3 big categories of challanges were reported by
  the participants institutional, instructional
  and socio-economic
• 1. Institutional challanges
• Theme Category
  Descriptive Data
• 
  f
• Lack of 1.Providing the basic
  infrastructure 20 100
• Support 2.Unwilling to solve
  problems 16 80
• Lack of 1.Heavy Workload 20
  100
• Understanding 2.Crowded Classrooms
  12 60
• the Nature of 3.Extracurricular Activities
  15 75
• Language Teaching

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FINDINGS

• Example quote for the theme of lack of support
• I kept my students at school after classes for 3
  days. I was motivating them for using DynEd. I
  know that they dont have computers at home,
  swanted them to use the school computers. The
  first day, we waited, waited, and waited for the
  internet connection. I sent them home saying no
  way today! But tomorrow is gonna be OK! Neither
  the next day nor the day after next one could we
  manage to connect to the internet and use
  DynEd.The school management didnt solve the
  problem either. I was embarrassed and unhappy for
  my students. I question then how these students
  are gonna learn the real English. Quote A,
  Interview on January 27, 2009.

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FINDINGS

• 2. Instructional Challanges
• Theme Category
  Descriptive Data
• 
  f
• Busy 1.Unrealistic Learning
  Goals 20 100
• Curriculum 2.Lack of Flexibility
  7 35
• Inappropriate 1.Lack of Supplementary
  Materials 20 100
• Textbooks 2.Incompatibility with the
  Realities of 13 65
  
• English Learning and
  Teaching in Turkey
• Unsatisfactory 1.Grammatically-oriented
  20 100
• Placement Test 2.Mechanical
  20 100

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FINDINGS

• Example quote for the theme of unsatisfactory
  placement test
• This placement test kills my motivation. The new
  curriculum says I should be using communicative
  teaching methods but they test my students with a
  grammatical-oriented mechanical test. I have to
  teach them to be successful in the test because
  of the parents. There are some pictures in the
  questions. They dont print them in colour so my
  students cannot read the pictures. Sometimes,
  pictures are misleading. It is clear that the
  exam is still under evaluation. However, these
  students are judged by these undeveloped
  non-finalized versions of the SBS. I feel guilty
  when I spend a bit more time on speaking or
  listening because these are not tested in SBS.
  Doing something but knowing that you should be
  doing th opposite is worse. Quote J, Interview
  on 28 February, 2009

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FINDINGS

• 3. Socio-economic challanges
• All the participants described the
  socio-economic challenges as the lack of support
  from the families. Working with low
  socio-economic level students, teachers were
  challenged by the parental understanding of the
  importance of English classes. Lack of such
  support is also reflected in unreturned homework
  assignments, which, in turn, slows the pace of
  student learning.

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SUMMARY

• Institutional
• Instructional
  Socio-economic

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CONCLUSION

• 2 new emerging challanges due to recent changes
  into the new curriculum
• DYNeD
• SBS (the new placement exam)

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• Tack så mycket.