The evaluation of foreign language teaching in Turkey: English language teachers' point of view

The purpose of this study is to investigate the teachers? views about foreign language teaching in Turkey; it identifies the possible reasons for failure and factors affecting success in teaching English as a foreign language. It also tries to investigate the teachers? views on ways to improve language teaching. The data were collected through questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The participants of this study were EFL teachers from different levels of education. The study was conducted in different primary and high schools, and at the university in Antakya. Data were collected through a questionnaire to reveal teachers? views on the factors that affect language teaching. In addition, a semi-structured interview was held with these teachers to support the results of the questionnaires. Questionnaires were analyzed by using SPSS 15.0 statistical program. Interviews were analyzed with the content analysis technique. The results show that most of the participating teachers believe that foreign language is not successfully taught in Turkey. They are aware of the factors for this failure but as a result of some reasons they do not use their theoretical knowledge in practice.