A critical look at the phenomenon of 'a mixed-up use of turkish and english' in english-medium instruction universities in turkey

Abstract

In recent years, many Turkish universities, particularly the foundation universities in the private sector, have adopted English either in part or in full, as the language of instruction. In practice, this has meant that English should be the only working language of instruction in all academic activities, ranging from lectures, seminars, presentations to thesis defenses. However, little attention has been paid to the fact that the ideals of policymakers are not always in tune with the actuals of the policy implementers (Jenkins, 2014; Karakaş, 2016a). In the Turkish higher education, there is evidence that lecturers and students often breach the English-only policy by using a mixed-version of Turkish and English, which is widely known as Tarzanca (Tarzanish in English) in Turkey (Collins, 2010; Karakaş, 2016b). This critical review seeks to explore the phenomenon of Tarzanish in general and its use in English-medium instruction (EMI) universities in particular. While doing so, it is also aimed to find answers to the following questions: (1) How is Tarzanish conceptualized and described in the dictionaries, literature, online sources (e. g. blogs, discussion forums, etc.) and by scholars? (2) What are its descriptive characteristics in terms of morphology, syntax, and lexis? (3) Why do EMI people (lecturers and students) resort to it? Moreover, (4) what can be done to resolve the issue of Tarzanish in EMI universities? Drawing on the answers to these questions, the paper suggests that the notion of Tarzanish means different things to different people, lay people and EMI people resort to it for different purposes, and its use by lay people and EMI people show divergences due to some variables such as the level of language proficiency and the domains of language use (e.g., tourism, business, and higher education). Finally, some suggestions have been offered for the solution of the issue of Tarzanish in EMI universities.

English medium instruction at tertiary level in turkey: a study of academics’ needs and perceptions

“…However, the statement "I teach in the native language when my students need it" had a mean of 2.96, and this needs to be studied carefully by the HEI. Karakaş (2019) also stressed the importance of the need to investigate why EMI content lecturers prefer a mixed-use of Turkish and English in the classroom. Although this was not a common practice at the selected university, a consensus among academics over the role of the medium of instruction should be achieved.…”

“…Most countries, including Turkey, have attached importance to teaching students through the medium of English. In Turkey, EMI programmes are expanding, especially in HEIs (Ekoç, 2018;Karakaş, 2019;Macaro & Akincioglu, 2018;Selvi, 2014). Turkish universities have been aspiring to internationalise (Efe & Ozer, 2015), and this could be one of the reasons for the spread of EMI programmes at the tertiary level in Turkey.…”

Measuring the effectiveness of English Medium Instruction Shipping courses

“…discussion forum, blogs, etc.) should be provided to strengthen learning effectiveness in EMI (Karakas, 2019). In Taiwan, similarly to many countries, most universities have modern educational technologies (e.g.…”

“…2.2.4 Teachers' teaching characteristics. Generally, teachers should have a thorough background in terms of teaching topic and English proficiency level (including listening, speaking, reading, writing) when conducting EMI courses (Costa and Coleman, 2013;Nguyen et al, 2016;Tseng et al, 2018;Karakas, 2019). It is arguably more important they have the necessary subject-level knowledge than the English (Pilcher and Richards, 2017) but both are essential, and both can be critical in how the teaching is perceived by students (Hendriks et al, 2018).…”

“…Also, if the teachers have related EMI experiences before, they will understand students' common learning barriers and needs in the teaching process (Tseng et al, 2018). Teachers' teaching skills are also believed important in the EMI implementation (Karakas, 2019). For example, English needs to be effectively adapted for communication with students in the classroom.…”