A swot analysis of English course in technical vocational colleges

The study aimed to determine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of English courses (English 1 and English 2) in Selcuk University Technical Vocational College according to opinions of students and academicians (vocational college principals and English lecturers). In the study, convergent parallel design, one of the mixed-methods designs, was used. The quantitative data were collected from 313 second grade students who completed English 1 and English 2 in the college and who were selected through convenience sampling. The qualitative data were collected from three vocational college principals and four lecturers selected through criterion sampling. The quantitative data collected with the questionnaire developed by researches were analyzed by descriptive statistics (i.e. frequency and percentage). The qualitative data collected via semi-structured interviews were analyzed by content analysis. The findings indicated English lecturers' knowledge and skills were frequently stated as strengths but teaching-learning process, classroom conditions, four language skills, access to foreign sources, demotivated student profile were stated as weaknesses. The necessity of learning English was frequently stated as opportunities and the fact that two-year colleges do not have opportunities like Erasmus was stated as threats. In addition, the findings indicated solutions for improving weaknesses and removing threats were stated with related to Higher Council of Education, University, College's management and teaching-learning process. It is believed the findings of the study might enlighten researches about protecting strengths, varying opportunities, preventing possible threats by improving weaknesses of English course and curriculum development process in technical vocational colleges in acoordance with stakeholders' opinions and needs.