Analaysing the view of primary school teachers on their level foreign language proficiency

Reviewing the literature, it is seen that roots of primary education goes beyond the Ottoman Empire Period in Turkey. Activities for primary education were applied in the region during Seljuk period. Today, there is an immense primary education in Turkey and there are great expectations. Because of high level of expectations from primary education, primary school teachers are expected to perform with a high performance. One of the most important expectations is that people force teacher to develop themselves. It is something beneficial for a teacher to learn a foreign language in order to develop himself or herself. Aim of that study is examining foreign language competencies of primary school teachers in private schools and public schools. Sample of the study is primary school teachers working in 14 public schools and 4 private schools. Data gathered during the study is evaluated by SPSS 15.0. Chi-Square test is applied at the study. At the end of the study, it is concluded that, when the obtained results are evaluated, it is seen that the primary school teachers generally consider themselves as medium and above at the level of A1, A2, B1, B2 whereas they consider themselves insufficient at the level of C1 and C2. It is seen that there is generally no significance in term of gender and school type when we look at the responses in terms of all the items of the questionnaire. The results show that there is no difference in terms of foreign language proficiency level among public and private school teachers according to the gender. When the results are examined in terms of age and graduation variables, it is seen that the teachers aged younger than 30 consider themselves less efficient in language proficiency compared to the ones over 30 . According to the results gained in the tables of seniority variable, the results are sensible for the ones who has been working for 11 to 20 years. The group has considered themselves more qualified than the other groups in terms of language proficiency whereas the sensiblity is high for the group who didn't get university education in a foreign language compared to the group who did. Analyzing the results gathered as a result of this research, it is assumed that the primary school teachers are adequate to teach foreign language responding to the expectations in case of need. Key Words : Primary Education, Teacher, Primary School Teacher, Foreign Language, Language Competency