Job Discussion Forums

[ImanH]

As some of you know, although I don�t teach English I do teach in English at a university in Istanbul. Last term I taught third and fourth students who, for the most part, were comparable to the students I taught in the UK (although the best student here was very good - considering English was not her first language - and the worst was very poor). However, this term I am teaching first-year students with a far wider range of academic and language abilities. In fact in some cases the English is pretty abysmal.
As an example, this is an e-mail I received from one student:

[Otterman Ollie]

The fact is that although many universities put themselves forward as English medium the reality is different . One idea is that if sufficent exposure is available then the language will be assimilated, however ,those of us who try to do our jobs in these establishments know that its not enough .
In one place I know they are concerned about this issue and the question of a student going for a degree without the ability to use English on even a basic level leaves one perplexed to say the least .There are solutions to this problem and we are ready to provide answers to overcome them ,but ,is anyone going to listen ?

[justme]

It's a good question, Iman. I've been wondering a lot of the same things.
From your student's email, aside from the language, I see another big problem, which is inability to use a keyboard-- I also have students who don't seem to know how to use the shift buttons, punctuation marks, or what that big bar at the bottom is for...

Most students who finish prep (if they finish the first time around) here at Fatih are around pre-intermediate level, with a few doing a little better than that. The ones who take summer school or who take prep a second time are usually at a much lower level, say, strong elementary. It comes down to a matter of money-- if they don't pass all the students who should fail, there won't be enough students entering into the departments.

One of my better students from last year came to office to tell me he can't understand anything in his engineering lessons. He said they just all go to the professors afterwards to have them explain everything in Turkish. I say he's a 'better student,' nonetheless, I don't kid myself into thinking he was in any way equipped to handle uni-level material.

Most students out of prep here take 'English 101' classes along with their department classes. In theory, these are sheltered English courses to go along with their other classes, but in practice, they're just a higher level general prep because we all know they aren't really 'prepared.'

Frankly, I wonder what the point of English medium university is. The students can't ask questions or handle their reading in English-- most of the reading they can find translated into Turkish somewhere, and they find ways to deal with their lectures in Turkish as much as possible. Also, there are many Turkish professors here whose English is as bad as the students' who have the gall to complain that we aren't preparing them well enough, but can barely form a comprehensible sentence themselves.

I, too, wonder how their English can be so bad after a year, or how they can fail to grasp things you've told them repeatedly, like the example you gave with the handouts. We started doing portfolios last year, and students were told many times throughout the year (in Turkish and English) that they would turn in Portfolios containing their year's work at the end of 2nd term, yet about half my class came to me at the end of last year saying they had thrown everything away. They have 5-7 hours of lessons a day, 5 days a week, but still I have a repeat student who, today, couldn't understand 'Do you know Mehmet Hoca?' It's incredibly discouraging (okay, that one's an extreme example), but I really don't know if it's the students going about it the wrong way, or if we are, or if it's just not realistic to expect even intermediate abilities after a year. At Interlang, about half of the students went from zero to strong Intermediate in 6 months, with a lot fewer contact hours.

I'm sure there's a lot more to be said on this, but I have to get back to checking these pathetic quizzes I've been handed...

[Mark Loyd]

Honeymoon period over at your school I see. Now you are beginning to see what was said all along about such places being crap and all the students passing.

[Golightly]

part of the problem is not so much a lack of English as very bad study skills. Put simply, some students just don't have a clue about how to do the most basic of academic things, such as organise a folder or portfolio, or look up a piece of information in an encyclopedia. Once they've acquired these abilities, they generally begin to perform much better. It's not really surprising when you consider the spoon-fed educational environment in most schools - you sit in class, you listen to teacher, you do what he/she says, you get pat on head. In short, these poor kids simply don't know how to be independent learners. Is it any wonder their English is bad?

[justme]

All really good points, Golightly. It's their lack of study skills that's causing them to have all the wrong approach. No matter what you tell them about trying to speak or ways to think about learning a language, very few of them actually get it. Most seem to approach it like you would math or maybe history, by trying to memorize everything. Most will try this for months before catching on that it's impossible to memorize everything, and by then they're discouraged and way behind.

I'm still suprised about what appears to be a lack of dedication to learning. After paying all this money, the least you could do is try. But a lot of them can't even be bothered to get basic materials like notebooks and erasers, let alone organize their notes and homework into folders. What's this coming to school with, instead of a book bag, a pretty shopping bag that your mommy packed for you in the morning? Or turning in assignments written on a piece of unlined paper torn from last year's day planner then torn in half? Are staples so hard to come by? While I understand that a lot of the scholarship students here have a hard time paying for food let alone materials, the others have no excuse. Then there's the learning itself-- their education system has trained to prepare for exams rather than to actually learn anything, and in the end that's all they really care about. The destination versus the journey. Most speaking excercises become a pointless waste of time because they all just want to be the first one to call out 'Finished!' rather that to actually practice anything.

Don't even get me started on the exams which, upon passing, the students are 'competent' users of English.

The scholarship kids present a whole different problem-- their scholarships pay for school, and maybe books, but nothing else-- families are expected to come up with the rest which for a lot of them, just isn't possible. Some of the kids here get by on a bowl of soup a day. The teachers have had to set up a fund out of our salaries to donate money for food, paper, pencils, etc. How is it no one thought of this when they made the scholarship program?

[ImanH]

Thanks for the response so far - at least the sensible ones.
Otterman Ollie - you say who will listen? ME. That's why I'm asking. I want to know what I can do. But I know what you're implying - that the university admin doesn't listen. Well then why not? Have you tried? What has been the general response?
Justme � good point about the keyboard skills. Not something I�d considered, but something relatively easy to fix. Also very interesting point about there being insufficient numbers of students to enter departments. You suggest this would be about money, but what about the state universities? But this point made me very curious

[justme]

[scot47]

Isn't it simply the case that not everyone has got what it takes to learn a foreign language to any decent level of competence ?

In my youth, many moons ago, it was the received wisdom that somewhere about 10 or 15 percent could learn a foreign language in an academic setting. Then the fashion came for everyone to learn a foreign language. Now, in the land of my birth, learning forewign languages has become an arcane skill, limited to a few gifted students.

Can everyone learn a FL ?

[justme]

You're spot on about that too, scot. It's a whole 'nother can of worms. But even if only 10-15% of the population can learn in an academic setting, it doesn't explain why so many prep students learn so little in the amount of time given... I mean, people are capable to varying degrees, but my problem is that a majority of students seem incapable of learning anything, for a variety of reasons.

[Baba Alex]

[Mark Loyd]

Hello

Many Turks already do speak a second language-it is Turkish.

[ImanH]

[ImanH]

When I read your response Scot47, it seemed bleeding obvious that of course some people just won't be 'gifted' with languages. And then I read your reply Baba and thought yeah that's true too! So what does the research say on this and why are the Scandinavians doing so well in this area?

[Baba Alex]