Kübra Nur Küçükbesleme is an undergraduate student in the ELT Department at Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University, Türkiye. She is convinced that the critical examination of current problems in English language teaching in Turkey is crucial to improve instructional practices. Email: kubrakubranur4@gmail.com

Ökkeş Aygün Öztürk has worked for eleven years as a German teacher at Turkish high schools. He additionally received a BA in English language teaching in February 2024. His insider view of the reality of foreign language teaching in Türkiye helped him to contribute to this paper. Email: okkesaygunozturk@gmail.com

 

Introduction

Language is the most essential human communication tool to convey information, engage in analytical inquiry, reflect and express emotions (Fromkin et al., 2011). The importance of language education starting from preschool up to secondary education and beyond as a lifelong endeavour is therefore undisputable.

Foreign languages are windows to the world as they help us look beyond our own culture and see the richness of the world. As the world becomes more global, people try to find their place in the globalised to engage in trade, technology, science and education. This is valid for Türkiye, too. In Türkiye, besides formal instruction, some exchange programs are in progress like Erasmus+ and Mevlana. With these programs, Türkiye aims to send students abroad to have them interact with foreigners and to enable them to learn English more easily in its natural flow, but despite all these efforts, the subject of learning English here has remained disappointing and Türkiye has serious problems in English Education (Kasap, 2019). These problems have worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic (Sezen-Gültekin & Algın, 2021). In international rankings, Turkish speakers of English perform low (“EF English proficiency index”, 2022), and reports on the unsatisfying situation of the teaching and learning of English in Türkiye cannot be neglected (Çolak, 2023).

We, the authors of this paper, are professionals who have personally witnessed these problems. The first author, a student of English language teaching at a Turkish state university, has already insights in the area of English language teaching in Türkiye. The second author is a language teacher who has ten years of experience and performs selflessly despite all the difficulties. We engage in a reflective dialogue about current problems by examining interacting fields that need solutions: The lack of speaking practice, the absence of English in high-stake exams, insufficient teacher training and development, unsuitable classroom conditions, diminished opportunities of exposing learners to English, and inappropriate learning materials are the topics we examine, and our reflections intend to serve as starting points to develop solutions to the problems we identify. 

 

The washback effect of exams: Lack of speaking practise

Educational programs are the skeleton of the education system. If there is a problem in the education system, learners have difficulties in learning. Although there are communicative teaching methods shown as to be followed in English teaching programs used in Türkiye, these methods are not always implied because of the testing system in the country. Teachers must try to teach English by using communicative methods, whereas, they have to prepare the students for the common written exams at the same time. Since it is not possible both to prepare students for written exams and to facilitate students’ communicative skills such as listening and speaking at the same time, teachers have to focus on grammar topics and reading activities that will come out in exams. As a result of that, learners feel the deficiency of their communicative skills, especially in speaking. According to Dağtan and Cabaroğlu (2021), “speaking English, in a general sense, is a prevailing problem in Türkiye that is closely associated with the drawbacks induced by the foreign language education policy embedded in the wider education system implemented in Turkey” (p. 362). In a nutshell, although the development of communicative skills in the annual plans of English lessons is recognised as demanded, tests within high school and university assessment thwart this aim. This situation puts teachers in a dilemma. In fact, although the goal is well-intentioned, this systematic contradiction situation prevents the realization of the aims of speaking English. Actually, grammar is really important to learn a language, but it is just one of the parts, not everything. Students generally complain that teachers are only interested in how much grammar their learners know and the speaking activities are ignored in English education (Solak & Bayar, 2015). As a result, they know grammar rules at some level. When it comes to practising speaking communicative activities, they fail. In addition to this, focusing too much on grammatical rules prevents students from using the language in a comfortable and natural way because they are constantly trying to find the right grammatical form. Spoken language is natural and develops instantly through engagement in communicative activities that resemble authentic situations.

An outcome is that students are afraid of making mistakes and being derided by other people (Dağtan & Cabaroğlu, 2021). They think that they are not competent enough to speak English and hesitate to speak English as they believe they do not speak with a native accent. However, it should not be the aim of learning and speaking a foreign language to become a native speaker. The schools are not the only places where there are such problems. Even in English language teaching departments at universities in Türkiye pre-service teachers are nervous about speaking in courses (Dağtan, Cabaroğlu, 2021).

Instead of just memorizing, practical education should have an important place in teaching. For these reasons, learners should learn the grammar inductively and then apply them in communicative activities. So, grammar should be learned by having learners speak, so that they can internalise structures. However, teachers should start with short and easy practices and then they should make the level harder gradually. Otherwise, students can fail to do them and it may demotivate them. This would affect the flow of the lesson negatively. Furthermore, listening practices should be often done in lessons according to the student's level. These can be helpful to acquire the language through practice, to learn to pronounce words intelligibly and understand spoken language. At the same time, these skills should be included in exams.

Another solution, the fifth or ninth classes, at least at selected schools, should be preparatory classes and only English education should be given densely in these classes. Ideally, students should focus on English without having to worry about other classes and marks. The fifth class is particularly suitable for communicative English teaching in terms of the critical age period. Lastly, students should be encouraged to speak more even if they make mistakes. They should be advised to watch movies, documentaries and series in English. These alternative solutions can be beneficial to solve low speaking abilities.

 

Absence of English in high-stake exams

Another problem is that the nationwide exams students have to take in order to enter universities or to get scholarships include English as an option, not a compulsory component. There is no logical reason to justify this situation. Unfortunately, it makes students think that English is not necessary or important, and they can skip or postpone learning English. Shortly, students do not pay attention to English (Kaplan, 2017). Necessary arrangements should be made. For example, English should be included in exams that are of great importance for students, just like other lessons, because English is a subject that students take almost constantly during their studies like science and mathematics, so it would make sense to include it in these exams. Maybe in this way, the prejudice that English is unimportant can be broken to some extent.

 

Teacher education and development

Language teachers are the most crucial part of language learning because they are guides for students, so they should improve themselves professionally and personally. Students do not easily forget teachers who leave an impact on them, whether a good or a bad one. One of the reasons for this is undoubtedly that the attitudes of teachers affect their students' desire to learn, shape their perspectives on the lesson positively or negatively, and even become a turning point in their lives. In this way, teachers play a significant role in helping students learn English effectively. Actually, there are self-developed teachers in Türkiye, but these teachers are people who try to improve themselves about their professions and have provided the necessary dedication for their job, but there are many teachers who do not have these qualifications.

One of the related problems is that teachers who have graduated from other departments such as English literature, translation and interpreting can become English teachers with only a short pedagogical training in Türkiye (Kasap, 2019). Actually, English teachers should be graduates from the education faculty and the system of taking later teaching knowledge courses to get a certificate should be abolished because the courses given at faculties of education provide a holistic and deep education. However, courses to get a teaching certificate are given in a short time, and the essence of teaching knowledge cannot be grasped. In addition to this, some students in the English teaching program in some universities can graduate without having reached English language proficiency necessary to teach the language. This naturally leads to a decrease in the quality of English education in schools.

Also, English teachers' self-development should not be limited to only university education. In Türkiye, there are teaching seminars for teachers to achieve this goal. However, teachers do not go to teacher education seminars voluntarily. Moreover, they mostly look for ways not to join the compulsory training. For this reason, it is a must to find a solution to attract teachers to join teacher training programs voluntarily. These programs might be prepared more attractively for the teachers. For example, the in-service training programs which are conducted by an organization called as “Öğretmen Akademisi Vakfı” are attractive and inspiring (Gürbüz, 2018). Teachers get training on modern and enjoyable teaching methods and techniques in these programs. Besides, small-scale sanctions can be applied to teachers who do not attend seminars that may be especially useful in professional terms, although this way is not preferred much.

 

Teachers' nightmare: crowded classrooms

A remarkable problem in Türkiye are crowded classrooms (Demir-Ayaz et al., 2019). There are more than forty or fifty students in each class in many schools because of insufficient facilities. This affects education negatively in many ways. First of all, teachers cannot control the class easily, because it is difficult to silence all students and create a convenient environment to teach in the classrooms because many students speaking at the same time create an annoying noise in the classroom; this makes it difficult to deliver English lessons effectively. This noise disturbs both teachers and students. Thus, when teachers speak, students cannot hear each other and this will block the flow of the lessons, and students lose interest in the lesson.

Another problem that is caused by overcrowded classrooms is that each student is not given enough opportunity to speak and teachers cannot include them all in the lesson because there is not enough time to get all the students to talk. What is more, having too many students in the classroom means a dirtier, stuffier and more cramped classroom environment. Both these conditions can cause hygiene and health problems and it prevents the students in the back from seeing the board, which disconnects them from the lesson (Çınar, 2004).

There can be some solutions for crowded classrooms. Firstly, classrooms should not have more than 15-20 students. In this way, English teachers can recognize their students better and notice the deficiencies they have. Thanks to this, employing different techniques addressing individual differences will be easier, but this solution requires the building of new schools and new teacher recruitment. In other words, the Turkish government should allocate more money for the country’s education. Also, seminars can be held on how teachers can cope with the negativities caused by crowded classroom environments. Furthermore, the number of school counsellors should be increased. In this way, both the lack of motivation and stress caused by the crowded classroom environment can be reduced by providing psychological support, and useful advice can be given to students to increase their success in their lessons addressing these drawbacks.

 

Little exposure to English

Little exposure to English and foreigners is clearly one of the main reasons why English education in Türkiye has not been a success story. The reason for this is that the learners do not usually have the opportunity to speak with foreign people in Türkiye. As it is known, the language is best learned in a country where the language is spoken and one of the most effective ways of improving a foreign language is to interact with foreign people. According to Yaman (2018), “contacting the language for a long time to the extent that it affects the subconscious will bring the acquisition process” (p.165). However, students do not have many chances to have contact to native or non-native speakers of English in Türkiye. After one lesson, learners are not exposed to English until the next lesson, thus they move away from English again before the content they have learned is embedded in their memories, which makes it difficult for them to experience permanent language learning.

Most of the students complain they do not have the opportunity to go to countries where English is spoken, such as the United Kingdom and the USA, and they only stay with what they have learned in the courses in Türkiye, so they do not have the opportunity to practise speaking English (Solak & Bayar, 2015). In fact, as it was mentioned earlier, there are some exchange programs such as Erasmus+ and Mevlana to send students to foreign countries to provide English acquisition by interacting with foreign people, but the numbers of these programs are not adequate compared to the population of Türkiye. People also cannot go abroad easily to interact with foreign people because it is expensive for Turkish people to go abroad in today’s economic conditions. For this reason, exchange projects and programs should be increased. Similarly, foreign students should come to Türkiye and roommate friendships ought to be developed. Students who are from different countries can stay in Turkish families and interact with Turkish learners over an extended period of time. 

 

Quality problems in local English coursebooks

Coursebooks are one of the main components to learn English (Rathert & Cabaroğlu, 2022). They help and guide learners and teachers to learn English. Learners can improve their skills, but coursebooks of English in Türkiye are often perceived insufficient. Özmat and Senemoğlu (2021) report that 48 out of 52 high school teachers think that the contents of the English local coursebooks provided by the ministry of education are insufficient to meet the needs of the students, and they do not contribute to skills learning as they mostly focus on grammar topics. Therefore, they are insufficient for students to acquire skills, especially listening and speaking. This may cause some teachers to look for additional sourcebooks or to adhere to the state's book and adopt a grammar-based education approach. When teachers prefer to use additional materials, the expensiveness of English books in Türkiye is a serious problem because students whose financial situations are not good may experience financial difficulties or feel embarrassed towards their friends and teachers when they cannot buy them. However, if teachers do not use additional materials and continue only from the coursebook, it is so unlikely that the students become successful, especially in terms of improving their communicative skills. Therefore, additional materials informed by materials produced by international publishers with a wealth of activities and practices to improve students' four language skills should be prepared by local publishers. While doing this, the opinions of English learners, teachers and academicians should be considered and content should be created accordingly to produce better materials. In this way, sufficient and quality textbooks can help carry English education to better levels.

 

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