Examining the secondary school English preparatory curriculum according to the opinions of teachers and students

The aim of this research is to evaluate the secondary school English preparatory curriculum, which was piloted in the 2017-2018 academic year, according to the opinions of teachers and students. For this purpose, the opinions of 54 teachers working in the preparatory classes of the practice schools affiliated to the Directorate of National Education in the city center of Isparta, where the pilot application was made, and a total of 810 students who received preparatory education during the research process were taken. In the research, a data collection tool consisting of 20 questions about the content and general features of the program was used to get the opinions of the students about the foreign language preparatory curriculum. The opinions of the teachers about the effectiveness of the foreign language preparatory classes were determined by the "Scale of Evaluation of the 5 Class English Preparatory Class Intensive English Language Teaching Program According to the Opinions of English Teachers". Questionnaire forms created separately for students and teachers for data collection were applied through the Google data collection system. As statistical analysis, statistical differences between quantitative variables in the research were evaluated with the Independent t-test if the normal distribution assumptions were met, and with the Mann-Whitney U test if they were not. Chi-square test was used to examine the relationship between two categorical variables. In the study, the difference between the categories of the quantitative variable with three categories was determined with the One Way ANOVA test if the normal distribution assumptions were satisfied, and using the Kruskal Wallis H test if the normal distribution assumptions were not concluded. As a result, it can be concluded that according to the students' opinions, it is not sufficient to transform English teaching into an enjoyable one. When the opinions of the teachers participating in the study on the 5th grade intensive English teaching program were evaluated according to independent variables such as gender, the department they graduated from and the duration of professional experience, a significant difference was observed only in the General Characteristics sub-factor compared to the department graduated. In the evaluation made according to all three independent variables in the total scale score, it was concluded that the scores were close to each other and no significant difference was observed between the scores, and the teachers' views on the program were close to each other. According to the results of the research, it can be recommended to reduce the intensity of the acquisitions, increase language learning activities, and spare more time for practice.