Developing the reading skill objectives in accordance with Common European Framework

This study was conducted considering The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR) which was published by Council of Europe in order to enable the language education to run in the standardized conditions. CEFR was adopted by the member countries of the European Union as a leading source through which the language programs set their curriculum studies, course objectives, and criteria for testing and evaluation. In the study, it was aimed that the course instructors could evaluate the current objectives of Reading course at English Preparatory Program in The School of Foreign Languages at Zirve University in accordance with the illustrative descriptor scales of CEFR in two different steps, the data obtained from two implementations could be reanalyzed within the focus group discussions and the recommendations of the focus group could be reported in the end. The course objectives play a significant role for education programs in planning the course, how it is run, which methods are used and determining the needs of learning. The students at Zirve University English Preparatory Program are supposed to complete four levels of proficiency which are listed from elementary level to upper-intermediate level: A, B, C, and D. In the first stage, the Reading course instructors were interviewed about the course objectives through the questions prepared before. In the second stage, four different checklists were used by the same group of instructors so that they could compare the course objectives with the illustrative descriptor scales of CEFR. In this stage, the instructors marked four different columns of the checklist showing the according rate of the two lists. The data obtained from the first and second implementations were examined in consideration of qualitative research principles. Those findings were explained by applying the method of content analysis, which provides categorizing mostly stressed parts by the course instructors. In the last stage of the study, the categorized data obtained from the two implementations were discussed by the focus group. The group?s recommendations over developing the course objectives were presented in the end. As to the recommendations, the list of the objectives should be updated with clearer descriptions, which give details on practical uses. Also, they should address the usages of every-day-life with authentic variations. Finally, the list needs to contain more communicative action verbs, which define both academic and social confrontations.