* Bu makale Özlem Canaran'ın İsmail Hakkı Mirici danışmanlığında yürüttüğü "İngilizce öğretmenleri için bir sürekli mesleki gelişim modeli olarak takım öğretimine yeni bir bakış açısı" başlıklı doktora tezinden üretilmiştir.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how sustainable development (SD) is conceptualized by pre-service English language teachers in Turkey and design a specialized course syllabus on SD in English language teaching (ELT) in the light of the research findings.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a mixed-methods sequential explanatory study design and investigated the case of a state university in Turkey with the involvement of 133 pre-service English language teachers.
Findings
The findings indicated that most pre-service English language teachers received no training or a course on SD in their whole education life and tended to associate SD mostly with the economic growth of a country, followed by education, social and ecological concepts. It was also found that the majority of the participants had a unidimensional view of SD. No direct links with ELT have been detected from participants’ responses. The findings also pointed to the eagerness of the participants to receive an ELT-specific course on SD providing that the course involves interactive teaching and learning activities with reference to contemporary sources focusing on global and local issues, as well as studying the methods facilitating the incorporation of such issues into teaching practice.
Research limitations/implications
This research is based on the experience of one Turkish university with limited quantitative and qualitative data.
Practical implications
Based on the participants’ knowledge, views and suggestions, this paper contributes to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence obtained from a local context and suggests a practical framework for a field-specific course syllabus aiming to enhance teacher candidates’ knowledge, skills and values related to SD and its incorporation into ELT.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study seeking to explore pre-service ELT teachers’ conceptualization of SD in Turkish higher education, and drawing on the research findings, the authors attempted to design a course syllabus targeted at pre-service teachers in ELT departments.
This mixed-methods study aims to evaluate the English Preparatory Program (EPP) offered at the Department of Foreign Languages (DFL) at an English-medium foundation university in Turkey during 2017-18 academic year to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the program. Participants of the study were 241 students and 26 teachers. The data were collected from the "Program Evaluation Survey" designed by the researchers and focus group meetings with students and teachers. The results revealed that the strengths of the EPP included homework assignments, exams and the program while the extracurricular activities and online programs were found to be the main weaknesses of the EPP. It was also found that student and teacher perceptions of the EPP showed statistically significant difference. Finally, students and teachers suggested some improvements in terms of the pacing of the program, course books and supplementary booklets, number of the portfolio assignments and the picture description part in the Speaking Exam. It is hoped that the findings of the study will contribute to the improvement of the existing program and lead to better learning opportunities for students in the coming years
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