One of the most difficult things about my assignment at this 4-year old institution is the literal infancy of development through which this place seems to be suffering. I mean this both in the physical development of the campus grounds as well as the “school” of thought (a pun!) that is running the education policies.
It is so frustrating that much of what we are doing as educators (NOT ONLY IN TURKEY) is viewed as the fulfillment of, oft times, seemingly- arbitrary laws. I know that as a teacher of foreign languages, something that is seen as a “should” but not “necessary,” I am fighting a special battle. As programs in the US are being cut to accommodate any sort of excessiveness, Turkey is trying to jump start a language program.
However, this new policy towards foreign language is, as it seems in many of the State-run education policies are, a disarray of paperwork, policy and bureaucracy. “They” have at least identified that there is a problem. Turks really only speak Turkish.
As an American, I hear so often that I am from a monolingual country. This couldn’t be any further from the truth and I love to list the languages I can speak as soon as the accusation of coming from a one-tongue nation is made! Having studied at the University of Illinois, I am well aware of the exciting developments in foreign language learning, something that has really become a well-researched and “important” field, especially since the Cold War era. However, it was only recently that teachers of foreign languages have understood the importance of teaching a language for function, not merely for the sake of “knowing” a language.
The difference is COMMUNICATION vs grammar translation. Even in our high school systems, something we are all looking at for an overhaul (Thanks for addressing it in the SOTU this past week Pres. Obama!), are better than the foreign language teaching in many of these State-run universities. It might seem frustrating, boring, maybe even busy-work-y for students to learn situations like: making a hotel reservation or booking a flight or ordering at a restaurant but all of these are productive and useful life scenarios where communication between two or more people must occur to accomplish a task.
What learners don’t realize, even though they should since we include grammar instruction alongside these scenarios, is that they are learning meaningful chunks of language that allows the learned material to “stick” with them – and it’s a good thing too, because this is meaningful language that can be used “right out of the box.”
What is happening in Turkey? Well, that’s a good question. I can speak for my university and can make a -somewhat safe assumption- that it is an accurate generalization that what is being taught here is purely to obtain a passing test score on the Turkish government mandated tests. There is no communication involved and there really is no point the courses. I asked a colleague, “What do you hope your students will achieve after this year of instruction?” His reply was in congruence with the YÖK (higher ed. council of Turkey) that students should have a better understanding of grammar, be able to use vocabulary in their respected fields and have a basic understanding of the language.
Ask any teach of a foreign language at a US-institution, “what do you hope your students will be able to do at the end of the year?” and you will probably just be given a syllabus to read for yourself. Our system teaches thematic scenarios that eases learners through grammar while grouping vocabulary. In Turkish State-run uni style, there is a book and each teacher is responsible for his or her class to get as far through the book as possible in the 60 or so hours of instruction throughout the year.
My colleagues do not communicate with each other, coordinate syllabi (nor do they create syllabi). There is not coordination in lesson plans, quizzes or tests. Each teacher writes a test for his or her own students that he or she feels will reflect the teaching in the classroom throughout the semester. This results in uneven levels and uneven learning. However, I am not sure what else they could do, given the system.
Each “English” class is actually a group of students who are in the same class depending on their majors. These students stay with each other throughout their 4 years at the university. It is like high school. They take all the same classes that are predetermined according to major. This is a highly inefficient system for teaching a foreign language as we are faced with students from varying levels depending on previous education in the high schools. Of course, this means you have very beginners with intermediate students… and you’re teaching from one book that starts at the beginning with “Hi, my name is Thomas. I am from London.” There is no productive learning going on in these classrooms as far as I can tell.
The students are highly unmotivated because they are either lost as beginners or bored as, what we call in the US “false beginners.” I would be interested to take a survey to question students about their opinions about their English courses.
This is very interesting to me and I have been trying to understand why this backwards situation exists. I have read several articles from foreign language teaching researchers from the mid 80s and it appears that the US was in a very similar position as far as teaching foreign languages was concerned. It might just be that Turkey is 30 years behind the US uni system. They haven’t been convinced of the importance of structuring the foreign language program and I am of the opinion that they really don’t care much about using foreign language as a means of communication.
My students, however, prove that there is a yearning in this country to be able to speak and understand other languages and cultures! These are people who are growing up in a secluded country, but a globalized world. Even Facebook has a pop-song dedicated to it in Turkish! The students are aware of the world outside Turkey, even if their governing education institution seems to ignore it. More and more students want to participate in Eramsus (a European program for exchange students) and must be competent in a foreign language, either of the host country or English, to be able to effectively participate in courses abroad.
When I presented German, French and Spanish along with English, I received a response that was, frankly shocking as I had before been told that the students have no desire to learn those languages. Not only was that a blatant misinformed statement, several of my students are taking multiple languages. I am not hearing the beginnings of Spanish or French or German conversations in the hallways of this tiny under-developed university and it makes me so happy to know that it is because of the hard work that I am putting in to this place.
I recently went on a quest to find materials to teach from as I had only been teaching Turkish style (talking at the students and writing on the whiteboard). At a book market, I was able to find copies of books and workbooks for all 3 GER FRE and SPAN. I was also able to buy 3 grammar books in the respected languages/Turkish so that I know how to explain complex grammar in their first language, something that we do with our American students as well in the first 2 semesters (but only hesitantly as we understand the importance of only using the 2nd language in a FL classroom). I bartered at the little book market and bought all those books from 91TL (roughly $60) of my own money! I will have a packet created and hopefully get the materials available to my students at under 10TL ~ $6.67.
I am so motivated to continue teach these alternative languages yet my school would rather see me editing papers for publication as it has been brought to my attention that this school has “one of the highest amount of published papers to professors ratio.” I almost burst in anger when I heard that this is what they wanted from me. Helping them publish papers that are worthless for the most part (as a colleague informed me) is NOT going to help the future of my students. I refused and informed that my classes will continue as I have planned. Since they have nothing better for me to do, how can they complain?
I wish I could be welcomed as someone valuable to the school for teaching 4 different languages and 6 different class twice a week for a total of 28 hours of instruction; that’s 8 more hours than required and for every hour of class, up to 3 hours of planning must go into it. I am overworking myself, but as long as students keep coming to my classes, I will continue to share my passion for language. Eventually, it has to catch on!
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