The competency of primary school english teachers in the usage of methods-techniques and materials (technology).

This study is conducted in order to determine 4 th and 5 th grade primary school English language teachers? perceptions of competence in terms of their use of methods, techniques and instructional technology and to determine whether there is a difference between the teachers who graduated from English language teaching departments and the teachers who graduated from other departments; and also to determine whether their teaching experience and inservice training affects their perceptions of competences. The population of the study is the English teachers who work in the 4 th and 5 th grades state primary schools in Çanakkale. The sample is the teachers who have been selected randomly from among those schools in Çanakkale. The data of the study are collected from 95 teachers in 76 primary schools. In this study, survey method is used and descriptive statistical methods are used to analyse and to interpret the data. In order to collect the data, a questionaire of 35 items which was developed in accordance with the expert view and literature review was used. The questionaire consists of 3 parts, personal information and the skills of usage of methods-techniques and instructional technology. In order to analyse the results of the questionaire, frequency, percentage,arithmetical mean, standard deviation, t-test and variation calculations are used. According to the results of the study, teachers report themselves as competent in the usage of methods and techniques but teachers report themselves less competent in the usage of instructional technology than they do in different areas of competence. Apart from these, when all the areas of competencies are considered, there is not a meaningful difference between the teachers who were graduated from English language teaching departments and the teachers who were graduated from other departments. According to the findings of the study, in our country in primary schools, our teachers need guiding and education in order to develop their foreign language teaching skills.Within this context, it is essential that the Ministry of Education should conduct seminaars and in-service training courses; should supply the equipment for instructional technologies used in foreign language teaching and give guidance to the teachers about the usage of them. Key Words: Foreign language teaching, Primary school, English teacher, teacher competence, method, technology, instructional technology