The problems encountered by students and teachers in Turkish EFL context

As the aim of the study, it was targeted to contribute to the English Teaching literature through analyzing secondary school English language teachers' and students' opinions about the problems of teaching and learning English with reference to the most common problems encountered in this field in Turkish context. The study also examines the demographic factors, which might affect teachers' and students' opinions. For this purpose, two different questionnaires were administered to randomly selected 170 students and 32 teachers who teach these students at Ağrı Naci Gökçe Anatolian High School and Ağrı Doğa College so as to measure the difficulties they face in English education and training. In order to the determine socio-demographic factors and their effects on the opinions of students and teachers about the concerned problems, descriptive and correlational statistics were computed. The results of the study primarily revealed that the challenges faced by students are mostly related to educational methods and students' attitudes towards English lessons; thus it is seen that in Turkey, education methods and students' attitudes towards English lesson are the most effective issues that lead students to face various problems in English education. In addition to these problems, materials used in the classroom and lack of possibilities to do in-class practices were also found to play an important role in students' related perceptions. However, when evaluated from the perspectives of teachers, it was concluded that they perceive students as the most important factor in the problems seen in English language teaching.