Exploring pre-service elt teachers' language awareness

This study aimed to explore the Teacher Language Awareness (hereafter TLA) of pre-service ELT teachers in their senior years at Çukurova University, Turkey. The TLA concept consists of three overlapping domains of 'user, analyst and teacher'. In this study, five pre-service teachers were recruited according to the purposive sampling method and they participated voluntarily to investigate the 'analyst' and 'teacher' domains of the TLA concept in depth. To this end, this study employed a sequential mixed-method research design employing quantitative and qualitative data collection tools. The quantitative data were collected through two language awareness tests. The qualitative data were collected through video-enhanced observations, feedback sessions with the supervisor, and semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data analysis was done through SPSS descriptive statistics, and content analysis was applied to analyse the qualitative data. The findings acquired from the descriptive statistics from test results showed that pre-service teachers had average teacher language awareness in both analyst and teacher domains. The findings obtained from qualitative data analysis indicated that PSTs had signs of developing their teacher language awareness. However, the findings demonstrated that their conceptualization of TLA in terms of teacher and analyst domain is limited and needs development, and PSTs could not justify their purpose of using the methods and approaches they use for the activities they chose, and they were not ready to face the challenges and sensitive enough to deal with language problems during their teaching. The evidence indicates that such an immature understanding of TLA was reflected in their classroom teaching practices as indecisiveness and difficulty in decision-making at key points. Therefore, these uncertain behaviours of PSTs directly affected their teaching and classroom atmosphere. The study revealed that PSTs should learn more about the TLA concept and its impact on a more aware teacher, as it plays an essential role in effective language teaching. This study emphasizes the importance of integrating TLA courses designed to maximize PSTs' conceptualizing TLA and how it works in teacher development; moreover, intentionally integrating the TLA concept into the core curriculum in higher education will resolve the problematic areas related to language awareness in teacher training programs in Türkiye. In addition, the study emphasizes that the widespread integration of TLA in teacher education would result in more confident pre-service ELT teachers and a higher quality of language education. Key Words: Teacher language awareness, ELT, pre-service teachers, analyst domain, teacher domain.