An investigation into the views of efl teachers and students on co-teaching at tertiary level

In this study, the views of the EFL instructors and students about co-teaching applied in English preparatory classes, the problems and benefits encountered, the attitudes and solution suggestions about the prevention and solution ways of the problems were investigated. This study, which employed a qualitative research design was carried out with eight English teachers who shared four preparatory classes at Fırat University School of Foreign Languages in the 2017-2018 Academic Year Spring Term, and 11 preparatory students studying in these classes. In this study, the data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, post-observation interviews and teacher logs. The collected qualitative data were analysed by content analysis method. Two of the teachers participating in the study kept a teacher log for 16 weeks on a weekly basis, containing their views on the partner teaching system, the problems they encountered or the benefits they provided. Semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and post-observation interviews were conducted with the other six participating teachers who shared class for six weeks and 11 students who were selected by purposeful sampling method who were studying in these shared classrooms. The results of this study revealed that both teachers and students have many perceived benefits and perceived challenges regarding teaching together. Continuous professional development, sharing responsibilities, and fostering workplace relationships are among the most remarkable perceived benefits mentioned by the participating teachers. On the other hand, they also have some perceived challenges such as unbalanced workload distribution, communication problems, and dissimilar teaching methods which result in decreasing motivation for teaching. In a similar manner, the participating students also have several perceived benefits of learning in shared classrooms like making use of different teaching styles, having more learning opportunities and its appealing to different learner types. Among the challenges that students perceive are co-teachers' different assessment styles, lack of communication and responsibility, and being unprepared for the courses. Within this context, both teachers and students have certain strategies for overcoming or preventing those challenges: Establishing an effective communication between teaching partners, co-planning the courses and extra activities, talking about classroom issues and students more often, and designing a more flexible curriculum are among the most frequently mentioned recommendations by participant teachers and students. Keywords: EFL teaching, co-teaching, co-teacher, teacher collaboration, teaching together.