EFL Teachers’ Individually-guided Activities to Keep Their English Alive?

Çağrı Özköse-Bıyık, Ph.D.Yaşar University, Turkey

Öner Uslu, Ph.D.National Education Directorate in

Kemalpaşa County, Izmir

Marie Curie Career Integration Grant

•Scholars coming to Europe and the Associate Countries from other countries

•Scholars moving within European countries

•Within the first year of their career

•Applications twice a year: September and March

Name of the Project:

•Revitilizing EFL Teachers’ Professional Development in Europe through Innovative Programs

An interdisciplinary approach…

SLA Research

Professional development (reflective

practice)

Instructional technology

& design

Project Objectives

•Objective 1: Investigating foreign language teachers’ professional development activities in Turkey in order to identify any needs for new professional development programs

• individually guided activities•transcendence

Project Objectives

•Objective 2: Analyzing the current professional development practices in two European countries: Sweden and Italy in order to benefit from best practices and learn from weaknesses

Why Italy and Sweden?

•2013 Education and Culture Management Plan prepared by the European Commission:

• 80% of Swedish students are stated to be competent in their first foreign language (as opposed to 15% in France or England).

Why Italy and Sweden?

Country 2013/60 countries 2012/54 countries 2011/44 countries

Turkey 41st, score: 49.52, 32nd, score: 51.19 43rd, score: 37.66

low proficiency low proficiency very low proficiency

Italy 32nd, score: 50.97 24th, score: 54.01 23rd, score: 49.05

low proficiency moderate proficiency low proficiency

Sweden 1st , score: 68.69 1st, score: 68.91 4th, score: 66.26

very high proficiency very high proficiency very high proficiency

1st Norway, 69.09

Project Objectives

•Objective 3 and 4: Resource and program development in light of state-of-the-art technologies (videos, website, webinars) and dissemination of these

Today’s focus: Objective 1•«EFL teachers’ individually guided

activities (professional development)

1st • individual interviews

2nd• developing

the questionnaire

Selection Criteria

•A) twelve statistical regions determined by the Turkish Statistical Institute (2009)

•B) the location of the teachers (city or rural areas), and

•C) the type of institution they work at (state school, private school or university).

Cities we collected data

Participants

14 teachers:

•3 instructors at universities,

•3 MNE teachers, village or small town

•6 MNE teachers, in city centers

•2, in private schools

Interview Protocol

•structured interviews •questions developed by the authors •reviewed by two field experts •pilot-tested with a teacher before it was

used

Interviews

•four interviews conducted face-to-face; all others via Skype

•recorded•all of the participants read and signed an

informed consent form. •the duration of the interviews changed

between 45 minutes to 2,5 hours.

Data analysis

•all interviews were transcribed verbatim•constant comparison technique using

Nvivo 8

Results (Use of English to obtain info)

•Teachers used English when they needed to reach more reliable and comprehensive information on something and

•Turkish when they needed local information.

•One teacher said that “I can search things in English because it is more comprehensive.”

Results (Following news)• In terms of following the news in English, 9

teachers reported that they check the news websites; however the frequency differed

• they read international papers particularly when there is a serious political event regarding Turkey

•4 teachers said that they read news in English three or four times a week.

Results (Using interactive tools)

•Teachers use forums more often than blogs and wikis.

•Passive users of forums, wikis; one way

•2 follow blogs in English

•7 uses wikipedia

•“I skim through forums to obtain lesson plans and materials”

Results (Emails, social media, Apps)

•8 teachers get e-mails in English but do not pay attention.

•6 teachers use social media for interactions with English speaking people.

•As for mobile applications, instructors and younger teachers tend to use applications such as TED talks. A few teachers utilized only dictionaries as mobile applications.

Results (Reading printed materials)• 4 teachers

• Teachers who get their master’s degrees read academic publications

• 3 teachers prefer reading novels in their original language

• Teachers who live in rural areas can hardly find magazines and books in local bookstores; however they are able to obtain them via online shopping.

Results (Interactions)

•6 teachers have friends to communicate in English on social media.

•teachers who work in rural areas have very little opportunity to communicate with foreigners in English.

Some observations & discussion

• Teachers who work in private schools and at universities are more versatile in terms of individually-guided activities and tend to get involved in these more often.

• Teachers who raise small children hardly have any opportunities for individually-guided activities outside the school.

• Teachers who work at state schools do not have much motivation for professional development since the conditions do not let them transfer these newly-gained experiences to the learning environment.

What do we suggest?• Virtual platforms that can provide them the

opportunity for professional development such as webinars.

• Awareness towards the importance of individually-guided activities needs to be raised.

• Teachers also need to get familiarized with technological tools available out there for forums, blogs, wikis, etc. This can be obtained through a website designed specifically for the needs of EFL teachers.

Thank you for listening.

•Contact Information

Dr. Cagri Ozkose-BiyikYasar UniversitySchool of Arts and SciencesDepartment of Science Culture•cagriozkose@yahoo.com

EF’s methodology• The EF English Proficiency Index calculates a country’s average adult

English skill level using data from three different EF English tests completed by hundreds of thousands of adults every year. Two tests are open to any internet user for free. The third is an online placement test used by EF during the enrollment process before students start an English course. All three include grammar, vocabulary, reading, and listening sections. The online placement test is a 30-question adaptive exam, so each student’s questions are adjusted in difficulty according to his previous correct and incorrect answers. The two non-adaptive tests are 60 and 70 questions in length. All scores have been validated against EF’s course levels. The test administration is identical for all three tests with students completing the exam on their own computers at home. There is no incentive for students to artificially inflate their scores on these low-stakes tests by cheating or cramming as the results do not lead to certification or admission to a program.