Examination of the problems encountered by English teachers in foreign language teaching

In this study, the opinions of English teachers about the problems they encounter in language teaching were determined. The study was carried out with 64 English teachers working in public and private secondary schools in Burdur city center in the 2021-2022 academic year. The opinions of the teachers who participated in the study on a voluntary basis were taken with a 5-point Likert-type questionnaire consisting of 31 items developed by the researcher with the support of the literature and experts. The questionnaire form was divided into sub-dimensions as "textbooks", "physical conditions of the school", "administration", "teacher", "student", "program" and "family" based problems. The internal consistency coefficient of the data obtained as a result of the application of the questionnaire was determined as 0.86. Kruskal Wallis H and Mann Whitney U tests, which are non-parametric tests, were used to compare the descriptive statistics of the obtained data. As a result of the comparison of the data, it was determined that there was no significant difference between the levels of problems encountered in the foreign language teaching process in terms of teachers' gender, the program they graduated from, and the institutions they worked at, while a difference was found in the age factor. On the other hand, the main problem faced by English teachers in the foreign language teaching process was the item "Students not having the opportunity to practice in and out of school". This problem is followed by the cost of auxiliary resources, insufficient English laboratories, prejudice against English, textbooks not meeting the learning needs of students, and lack of interest and motivation towards language learning.