Perspectives of efl teachers on their role as mediators in efl classes

Teachers play crucial roles as guiders and supporters in empowering learners to take ownership of their educational journey. They focus on raising self-directed and independent learners at the end of learning process. Theory of mediation adopts outputting learners with such skills like critical thinking, metacognition or autonomous learning. Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) suggests 12 features of mediation aspects, which contain those skills for teachers to contribute their teaching practices and shape pedagogical their approach. This study aims to investigate Turkish EFL teachers' perspectives and practices on mediation and having a mediator role in the class. The study was conducted with the voluntary EFL teachers working at schools of Ministry of Education (MoNE). The mixed-method sequential explanatory design was employed, which refers to collecting quantitative data followed by qualitative data. The data were collected with through mediation questionnaire and semi structured interviews. 103 EFL teachers responded to the questionnaire and 10 EFL teachers were interviewed. As sampling, purposive sampling was employed throughout the study. The results were analysed with two programmes; for the qualitative part of the questionnaire, SPSS program was applied to reveal statistical data, whereas Microsoft 360 Transcriber was implemented to extract the qualitative data obtained through one part of the questionnaire and the interviews. The transcribed data were scrutinized with descriptive interpretive analysis. The results showed that there are no significant differences among EFL teachers' perspectives on mediation and having a mediator role according to their demographic characteristics such as gender, participation in in-service training and post graduate education as well as the school levels they have worked. The study also yielded that the EFL teachers have positive attitudes towards MLE and implement the MLE features to some extent in EFL classes. The study also suggested that EFL teachers play a role as mediator in their classes to foster student engagement and critical thinking. The findings may contribute to teacher training and pedagogical strategies to enhance learner autonomy in EFL classes. Moreover, mediation-oriented approaches could be fit into curricula to improve language education. Keywords: Mediation, Mediated Learning Experience, EFL Classes, Mediator Role of EFL Teachers