IN MODERN MULTILINGUAL and multicultural societies the teaching of foreign languages is conducted within a communicative framework, thus, formally “registering” teaching as a communicative discipline (Tokatlidou, 2004: 108). Turkish teacher education system shaped by the Council of Higher Education under the impact of international organizations seems to prefer to educate technician teachers discouraging them from taking active leading roles in the system. The interpretation of findings from a critical perspective indicated that the technicist focus in the FLE program probably stems from the neoliberal economic policies adopted in Turkey. The interview data and observation findings, however, demonstrate that even though there are some reflective dimensions of the FLE program, it seems to prepare teachers for becoming technicians more than it encourages them to become reflective teachers. According to the document on program outcomes, the FLE program aims to educate a reflective practitioner. The findings of the study suggest that the foreign language teacher education program does not have a specific mission. Besides, this case study explores the daily reality of methodology and practice teaching courses. In addition to surveying teacher roles in program documents, this dissertation reports the perceptions of students, teacher-educators, emeritus professors and program administrators as to teacher roles fostered in the program. Designed as a qualitative case study, this study also seeks to unearth the political-economical, sociocultural and institutional reasons behind the adoption of certain teacher roles: teachers as passive technicians, teachers as reflective practitioners and teachers as transformative intellectuals. This dissertation study explores teacher roles a pre-service foreign language teacher education program at a public university in central Turkey prepares teacher candidates for using document reviews, in-depth interviews and classroom observations. Two demonstrations will also be conduced in an attempt to show the aforementioned.
What follows is an analysis on what is meant by “student oriented” authentic material, motivation, techniques and functions of teaching specific genres of academic writing and teacher’s experience and student’s reaction to academic writing. Students must thus be persuaded that the integration of academic writing into a university language teaching corpus will enable them to use their English language knowledge (which is often in a dormant state) productively and will also turn student’s learning skills from receptive into productive. The integration of academic writing seems to impede the situation as students want to “learn how to write appropriately” but they seem to want to do that with the least work possible. Therefore, the choice of the most appropriate material for a specific group of students may become one of the most challenging jobs an ESP/EAP language teacher has to carry through as this choice often predetermines, the interest and motivation of the ESP/ EAP students and a certain amount of independent learner awareness and initiative in the learning process. When using specific ESP/EAP material, whether it is commercially produced or locally by the teacher himself, one has to bear in mind that students must learn and must do in class what they will be asked to do in their work-field in future or what their professors will ask them to do or read in the foreign language during the course of their studies. This material is either commercially produced and thus easier to be found and used by the teacher or it may be produced by the teacher himself to meet the specific needs of his students. It may also be because of the fact that the material used is a tangible proof of what the department of the university expects to be taught to ESP/ EAP students. This may be due to the fact that students may not be of the same linguistic level and are thus unable to keep pace with the rest of the group.
IN TERTIARY EDUCATION ESP/EAP MATERIAL that seems motivating and prominent for one group of students may not be the same for another.
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