Turkish EFL Instructors’ Current Perspectives on “ELF”: A Comparative Study in Turkey


TOMAK B., KOCABAŞ GEDİK P.

3rd ULEAD CONGRESS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON APPLIED LINGUISTICS "CURRENT ISSUES IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS". International Association of Educational Researchers (ULEAD) and the International Association of Research in Foreign Language Education and Applied Linguistics (UDEAD), Çanakkale, Turkey, 08 May 2015, vol.1, no.1, pp.1

  • Publication Type: Conference Paper / Summary Text
  • Volume: 1
  • City: Çanakkale
  • Country: Turkey
  • Page Numbers: pp.1
  • Yıldız Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

English is one of the widely-used languages in the world as Konig (1990) confirms this by stating that roughly 700 million people speak it. In some countries, it is used as a mother tongue whereas in other countries it is used as a second language, which means they use it as an official language even though they have their own native tongue. In Turkey, English is considered as a foreign language and it is taught/learnt for international communication with other nations. Thus, this study was conducted with 94 students enrolled in two different prestigious state universities located in Istanbul so as to determine their awareness of the recent trends in ELT by taking “ELF” into account. The participants of this study are all first year students who are attending ELT department as freshmen. The aim of this study is whether they are aware of this “ELF” issue and to find out what they expect from their department curriculums to meet their needs. Questionnaires were given in two different state universities in Istanbul to two different groups showing similar characteristics. Results of this study emphasize the importance of awareness-raising lectures to these first-year-students of ELT and the educational implications will be discussed by giving some advice on the ELT curriculums of these universities.