A comparative case study on the teaching of English as a foreign language and English teaching curriculum in Turkey, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Iran and Japan

In an ever-increasing global world, foreign language teaching has been on the agenda of many countries. Despite the efforts spent and improvements made, foreign language learning is still an issue for many countries including Turkey. The purpose of this study is to compare the English language teaching in Turkey, Germany (Berlin), Sweden, Spain (Madrid), Iran and Japan and the English language teaching curriculum in these countries based on a set of criteria which are the language family that the mother tongue of the country belongs to and the country's achievement level in English on an international level. The comparison is significant as it covers all elements of curriculum, which include the goals and policies, the overall structure, main philosophy, objectives, the topics included, foreign language teaching approaches as well as assessment and evaluation approaches in foreign language teaching in the countries involved. Such comprehensive studies could be guiding all stakeholders of curriculum development process while making revisions. This qualitative research is designed as a multiple (collective) case study. Maximum variation (heterogeneity) sampling, a purposeful sampling strategy, is used to compare the foreign language teaching curriculum in the countries involved, aiming at capturing and describing common patterns across a variety of cases. In this scope, the English language teaching curriculum at compulsory education in Germany (Berlin), Sweden, Spain (Madrid), Iran and Japan are compared with the curriculum in Turkey based on the set criteria. The findings show that, with the latest revisions in Turkey's curriculum, the curriculum in Germany (Berlin), Sweden, Spain (Madrid), Japan and Turkey are similar to one another in terms of structure, main philosophy, content, assessment and evaluation approach as well as the language teaching approach. Iran has also made significant updates in their curriculum but there are still differences under main philosophy and structure in Iran. These findings show that in all participating countries, there is a tendency towards implementing modern approaches in foreign language teaching instead of traditional ones. On the other hand, based on the set criteria, it is found that Germany and Sweden, where German and Swedish languages both belonging to the same language family (Indo-European), same branch (Europe) and same group (German-Scandinavian) are spoken, are ranked in "high proficiency" band in English Proficiency Index (EPI) 2020. However, Spain, where Spanish belonging to the same language family (Indo-European), same branch (Europe) and different group (Roman-Latin) is spoken, is ranked in "moderate" profiency band. Also, Iran, where Farsi belonging to the Indo-European language family, India branch and Iran group is spoken, and Japan and Turkey, which belong to completely different langauge families, are ranked in "low" proficiency band. Based on these findings, it is concluded that structural differences arising from the language family a language belongs to and therefore, differences arising from the distance/similarities between mother tongue and target language could be one reason behind the difficulties of learning English as a foreign language. Therefore, similar studies using the same criteria could be done with different countries and languages. According to findings from such studies, different strategies could be offered for problems in language teaching arising from the difference in language family a language belongs to.