An investigation into the perceptions of Turkish ELT pre-service teachers and lecturers on the learning and teaching of English speaking skills

Mastery in speaking English, the language learned as the most common second language in the world, is a crucial prerequisite for various processes, such as advancing in an academic career, facilitating personal development, and gaining professional promotion, thus widening the speakers' horizons in every phase of the modern world. Notwithstanding the nationwide popularity of English and due to the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) status of English in Turkey, proficiency in spoken English among Turkish nationals has been documented to be far from satisfactory by a large body of literature (e.g. TEPAV, 2013; Dinçer and Yeşilyurt, 2013; Zok, 2010). In all these studies, it has been clearly indicated that the attempts and legal arrangements that are aimed to ameliorate this situation have apparently proven unsuccessful, as far as an acceptable level of competence is concerned. As a result, in these studies, speaking English has been portrayed as a serious national challenge for Turkish speakers of English. The present study was conducted in two phases. The aim of the first phase, which formed the backbone of the study, was to investigate the perceptions of ELT lecturers and pre-service teachers working/studying in Turkish ELT departments regarding these problems and their suggested solutions, in attempts to provide a nationwide portrayal for the problem in question. To this end, the first phase included pre-service teachers and lecturers studying/working at seven ELT departments, with one department from each of the seven geographical regions in Turkey, who were surveyed via a questionnaire (34 lecturers and 361 pre-service teachers) and a semi-structured interview (38 lecturers and 48 pre-service teachers). The aim of the second phase, on the other hand, was to elicit the 'fresher' perceptions of first-year ELT students and a lecturer who had recently completed a one-year Oral Communication Skills course regarding the contributions of the course to students' improvement in English skills and the problems encountered in class regarding English speaking skills and their suggested solutions. Designed as a 'case study', the second phase consisted of a focus group interview conducted with a group of six first-year students and a semi-structured interview with one lecturer. The quantitative and qualitative data obtained in two phases were amalgamated using the triangulation method. The findings derived from the triangulated data revealed several important outcomes regarding the teaching and learning of English speaking skills in the Turkish ELT departments. First and foremost, it was revealed that both ELT students and lecturers attributed remarkable importance to English speaking skills and considered that speaking English was highly important not only for themselves but also for Turkish nationals aiming to become international. Secondly, it was understood that pronunciation instruction was also highly important for both pre-service teachers and lecturers who also contended that this instruction led to beneficial outcomes for the learners and could be more beneficial when delivered at a young age before the end of the critical age. Thirdly, it was made clear not only by the pre-service teachers and the lecturers but also by the first-year students that during the first several weeks of the ELT instruction, the ELT students (i.e. freshmen) underwent a formidable period in which they strived to adapt to the spoken English they were exposed to in class, due to the fact that these freshmen had rarely or never been exposed to spoken English before coming the ELT department. The final conclusion drawn from the data was that there were noticeable differences between the perceptions of lecturers and pre-service teachers, whereby lecturers were found to feel more competent, more confident, more experienced, more proud, and less afraid of making mistakes/errors when speaking English compared to pre-service teachers. In light of these conclusions, several implications were formulated for ELT students and lecturers and also for policymakers. Keywords: English, speaking, skill, lecturer, pre-service teacher