Speaking education in the second phase of elementary schools according to the teachers' thoughts (a case study of Ankara province)

ABSTRACTIn this research, data have been collected from 244 teachers who work atschools with different socioeconomic levels in the districts of Ankara. The followingissues have been evaluated; the problems that Turkish teachers face during theeducation of speaking skills, whether they have been given any lectures abaut theeducation of speaking skills or not, if yes, they were useful or not, importance ofteacher-student interaction while the education of speaking skills, course equipmentsand materials they use, teachers? applying approaches and methods accurately,responsible people and institutions about the education of speaking skills andteachers? needs about Turkish curriculum and course hours for the education ofspeaking skills.Most of the teachers indicated that they had never taken the education ofteaching speaking skills and the ones who had taken these courses said that they werenot useful enough. The teachers stated that some factors such as crowded classrooms,excessive lesson hours, not being able to use extra materials and inadequate coursehours of Turkish lessons make the education of speaking skills diffucult for teachersand students.The teachers also stated that Turkish lesson curriculum, course books,approaches and techniques , assesment and evaluation, teacher-teacher, teacher-parents interaction problems affected the education of speaking skills negatively.68.9% of the teachers of Turkish who have participated to this research aregraduated from the other department, 68.4% of them have never taken courses aboutthe education of speaking skills, 83.2% of these teachers use the course book mostfrequently during the courses and 82.4% of them find present lesson hoursinadequate for Turkish lesson and speaking course. Furthermore, 86.5% of Turkishteachers find Turkish curriculum inadequate for speaking courses . 93.9 % of theteachers do not use scientific criteria of ? assesment and evaluation? which is veryimportant for language teaching.