A Case Study on the Effectiveness of ELT Methodology Component of the METU-FLE Program in Preparing Pre-Service Teachers for Practicum

Author(s):

Sibel Korkmazgil(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2011

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 07 C, Research on Programmes and Pedagogical Approaches in Teacher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2011-09-14

16:45-18:15

Room:

JK 31/124,G, 30

Chair:

Martin Kunz

Contribution

Since the English language has achieved status as the world’s lingua franca through globalization, the demand for English language teachers in Turkey has grown rapidly in the last few decades. In this respect, English language teacher education in Turkey has undergone a series of reforms since 1982. One of the most significant reforms was implemented in 1998. The reform conducted by the World Bank and the Higher Education Council (HEC) aimed to bring uniformity and standardization to teacher education curricula followed by all the Faculties of Education in Turkey. Restructuring of the faculties of education has resulted in a number of changes such as “instituting new programs and courses, changing the composition of departments, and revising the content of courses” (Grossman, Onkol & Sands, 2007, p. 138). With this renewal the teacher competencies and standards were redefined and teacher qualification courses were redesigned to train qualified English language teachers in accordance with the European Union standards. With regard to the redesigned pre-service English language teacher education one major orientation was toward more emphasis on teaching methodology and teaching courses (Seferoglu, 2006). The HEC initiated another reform in 2006 which aimed to bring about a more practical and up-to-date curriculum. It was put into practice in 2006-2007 academic year throughout the country with some minor modifications in different universities.

This curriculum has also been used for pre-service English language teacher education in the Department of Foreign Language Education at Middle East Technical University (METU). However, a large scale evaluation study has not been conducted on the effectiveness of the program components so far. Therefore, this study aims to investigate to what extent the ELT methodology courses are effective in preparing pre-service teachers for the experience courses. In order to investigate the effectiveness of these courses, the study first aims to explore to what extent the pre-service teachers perceive themselves competent according to the HEC’s foreign language teacher competencies specific to language teaching and to what extent they find each ELT methodology course effective in serving them gain these competencies while attending the experience courses.

The researcher followed an eclectic approach in evaluating the effectiveness of the program component. Since the pre-service teachers in this case study have completed the ELT methodology courses under investigation, a summative product approach was addressed. Furthermore, as the ELT methodology component of the undergraduate program aims to serve student teachers to achieve foreign language teacher competencies specific to the language teaching, mastery on those competencies is a way of measuring the effectiveness of this component (Richards, 2001). However, mastery does not provide the full picture. Thus, this study also stands as a situation analysis which examines the ELT methodology component’s strengths and weakness and its potential effect in preparing the pre-service teachers for present ELT practice component of the undergraduate program. Moreover, this study is an external evaluation, since it was conducted by an outsider. However, for being an insider in the program for five years, the researcher has carried the advantages of an internal evaluator.

Method

This study is a case study which presents a unique, specific and bound system. The data was collected during the 2009-2010 Fall term. Two data collection procedures were employed in the study: questionnaire and interview. While 92 pre-service English language teachers in METU responded to the questionnaire adapted from Şallı-Çopur (2008), semi-structured interviews with 8 pre-service teachers and 5 instructors were conducted. The questionnaire is composed of three parts. In the first part, the participants were asked demographic questions about their age, gender and both the type and name of the school they are attending in the School Experience course. Second part includes 30 Likert-scale items based on HEC’s foreign language teacher competencies specific to language teaching methodology (YOK, 2005). This part focuses on pre-service teachers’ reflection of the foreign language teacher competencies they both have and lack regarding language teaching methodology. The third part concentrates on how effective they find the ELT methodology courses in serving them gain these competencies, thereby preparing them for experience courses in the undergraduate program. The quantitative Likert scale data was analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics through the SPSS program. The qualitative interview data was analyzed through cross-case analysis (Patton, 1990).

Expected Outcomes

Results showed that the competencies the pre-service teachers were strong at were found to focus on ELT knowledge regarding the theories, methods and techniques, material development and lesson planning, while lack of competence was reported in certain areas such as classroom management, putting theory into practice, teaching language sub-skills, and knowing the profession. Furthermore, although the ELT methodology component was reported to be highly effective in the development of professional competencies in the pre-service teachers, it was also stated that some courses under this component need revisions in terms of their content, methodology of instruction and assessment. In addition, this study revealed that such an internal evaluation could lead to an increase in communication among the teacher educators, which may consequently result in the coherence of the courses in the same program. Taking the results into consideration, the study revealed some implications and suggestions towards program improvement.

References

Grossman, G.M., Onkol, P.E., & Sands, M., (2007). Curriculum reform in Turkish teacher education: attitudes of teacher educators towards modernization in an EU candidate nation. International Journal of Educational Development 27, 138–150. Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. Newbury Park: Sage Publications. Richards, J.C. (2001). Curriculum development in language teaching. USA: Cambridge University Press. Seferoglu, G. (2006). Teacher candidates’ reflections on some components of a pre-service English teacher ducation programme in Turkey, Journal of Education for Teaching, 32(4), 369-378. Sallı-Copur, D. (2008). Teacher effectiveness in initial years of service: A case study on the graduates of METU foreign language education program Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Middle East Technical University, Ankara. YÖK. (2005). English language teaching: Introduction to language teaching. Retrieved November 20, 2010, from www.yok.gov.tr/egitim/ogretmen/kitaplar/eng/moduler/1MODULE.html

Author Information

Sibel Korkmazgil (presenting / submitting)

Middle East Teachnical University

Foreign Language Education

Ankara

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