Problems in Foreign Language Education in the Turkish Education System: Pre-Service Teachers’ Accounts

Abstract

Foreign language education is a highly controversial issue in the Turkish educational system. Despite innovative educational reforms done in the last three decades, achievement in foreign language education is far from yielding the expected results. It is of grave importance to seek for reasons underlying the underachievement in foreign language education in Turkey. Henceforth, the present study aimed at investigating pre-service English language teachers’ perceptions about possible problems factoring into the underachievement in foreign language education. Adopting a qualitative methodology, the present study also intended to formulate insider suggestions to possibly fix the perceived problems. The present study employed content analysis to analyze the data obtained through group interviews and a structured form. Results pointed to the role of learners, teachers, curriculum and social factors as the prominent reasons triggering the well-established underachievement of foreign language education in the Turkish context. The study offered various implications for refinement of foreign language education in Turkey.

Keywords

• Foreign language education
• problems
• underachievement
• learners
• teachers
• curriculum
• social factors

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