Job Discussion Forums

[Luxe]

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-gets-f-grade-in-english.aspx?pageID=238&nID=9744&NewsCatID=344

[Englishteach]

Yeah.. the education system here is a joke. It is for the privileged and already wealthy and spoiled ones. Why should they care about learning a foreign language?

[_smaug]

EPI is a privately-owned education company . . .

Uh huh . . . a 'privately-owned education company' with a vested interest in providing clients the very latest curriculum, the best teachers, and the finest materials money can buy.

[billy orr]

[Englishteach]

My comment about the education system here being a joke is based on what I have seen and experienced during the years I have been involved in it.. here.
What I see, and have seen is evidence enough for me. What my Turkish colleagues talk about and tell me, is also good enough for me as far as evidence even though it might be hearsay.
The Turkish people who I work with and seem the most educated, were educated somewhere else.

[billy orr]

Touche, TE, yes, not a statistic based on empirical research, but it is based on 25 years of being in Turkey, teaching at a state university for 7 years in a faculty of education training future English teachers, delivering language training to a large number of bank staff over the course of several years and knowing a large number of Turkish people.

Also my own children have been through the state education system from year 1 to high school graduation, so I do know a thing or two about what happens in state schools, their strengths and weaknesses.

The private schools in Turkey certainly enjoy nothing like the success they do in UK in terms of securing university places for their students. It would be interesting to know the proportion of students from private schools at ODT� and Boğazi�i, but I would expect the number to be much less than the proportion of students at Oxford and Cambridge who had private education.

Please excuse me for challenging your derogatory comment about state education in Turkey, but I do think it is both unfair and inaccurate to dismiss it all as a joke. Teachers in university prep schools would do well to find out what schools their students attended, and in particular what schools the full scholarship students attended...

[Englishteach]

In my opinion:
A system that does not seem to give a chance to poor children, is a joke.
A system that is based on exams, exams, exams, is a joke.
A system that determines a student's future based on a score on yet..another exam, is a joke.
Yes, some poor students do get to go to a university, but only some if they are very smart, or really lucky..on yet,, another exam, is a joke.
A system that does not seem to give second chances to late bloomers or adults, is a joke.

I wonder why even the Prime Minister sends his children to another country for education. Maybe he thinks this system is a joke. Hmmm.. who knows.

Oh sorry, I lost track of the topic.. we are supposed to be talking about learning English. Let me just add, from what I have seen, the Prep English system is a real big joke. Prep English, the time after high school and before entering university curriculums. Why not just let most of those students just pay .. like 30,000liras and skip that and go right into university where they don't use much of the English anyway?

[_smaug]

I wonder if anyone reading this thread can name a single country whose �education experts� have NOT sounded the alarm, waking it�s citizenry to the deplorable state of their education system and to the urgent need for sweeping reforms; reforms coincidentally pre-packaged and ready for immediate implementation from the very research teams and �education experts� sounding the alarms.

I can�t.

�Reform� -- and the dire need for it -- is what keeps education experts, researchers and publishing houses in business.

[billy orr]

Gumi is absolutely right to note the importance of exams here and elsewhere.

As for other points, there are measures in place to support poor students. There is a student loan system, and universities offer financial support for the poorest students in the form of grants, books, cheap basic accommodation and part-time jobs in the libraries and other places. In the university entrance exam there is some affirmative action, such as extra points given to the student in the school who gets the highest marks.

The OP was about ELT. Although the university exam sends large numbers of bright, enthusiastic students to university (ELT is the most popular subject in education faculties, and one of the most popular in any university alongside medicine and law), the main weaknesses in the supply of English teachers are:
Teaching practice occurs only in the fourth year and consists of a few hours observation and a couple of taught lessons.
Mentor teachers in the schools receive very little training and are not paid for their services.
Students are not given opportunities for school experience before the fourth year as part of their course, although many do volunteer caring and teaching with charities, children�s homes etc. Others gain experience by working in language schools and dersanes.
Opportunities to study abroad are quite limited, although they have got much better in recent years. Erasmus has made a big difference, giving up to half of the students in a department some experience abroad during their course. Other students take themselves abroad through volunteer schemes or work and travel. All this means that more students than ever before are graduating with experience of using English abroad, hopefully this will start to have an effect in coming years.
To become a teacher in a state school English language proficiency plays only a minor role, and university grades have no importance at all. The KPSS exam selects state school teachers to a large extent on the basis of their knowledge of maths, Turkish, education law and a range of other topics not connected to ELT.

In my view these (plus traditional methodology) are the main things that need to be addressed in order to improve the teaching and learning of English. Becoming a good teacher of English is entirely possible within the system, but it depends on the motivation and enthusiasm of the individual, and is not really a requirement of the system. I suspect the same could be said of how teachers are trained in many parts of the world, including southern Europe, but that does not make low standards acceptable . At the end of the day, comparison with other countries is less important than looking at oneself and trying to work for improvement, which I think is happening.

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

Several inappropriate postings have been deleted.

If the insults and snide comments continue, those responsible will not.

Members observing such conduct are requested to advise the Mod Team by Report Post or PM as soon as possible.

[_smaug]

I believe � regardless of the actual quality of instruction, the quality of teachers, or the students� motivation � if there were no �crisis� in education, it would be necessary to invent one.

And that has been the case since Socrates roamed the Agora.

In the words of my pioneer forefathers, �Thar�s gold in them thar test scores!� Particularly if you can convince parents, whose only experience with education is that they slept through twelve-odd years of it, that half of Little Johnny�s brain is laying fallow for want of Reform.

[gloomyGumi]

I agree. Tests can be lambasted forever. But how else are we to evaluate students? Tıme ıs a factor. In the end, a test ıs the only realıstıc way of testıng someone, no pun nor redundancy ıntended.

[_smaug]

[billy orr]

I agree Smaug, it is very sad that when governments and institutions want to raise standards in education they look at the curriculum rather than the teaching. It is easier to change words on paper than people. And there are so many teachers to train, so much more expensive than paying a few experts to rewrite the documents. But of course it is the teaching that needs to be addressed, whatever the curriculum looks like.

On the other hand, exams are important for providing an even playing field. There are two million candidates every year competing for half a million university places. It is better to have students selected by an imperfect exam than by bribery or nepotism.

[Sashadroogie]

I have no issue with standard written exams being used as the basis for determining entry to university. But in Turkey, I was under the impression that bribery and nepotism still played a significant role in the selection process. Have I been under a mistaken assumption for all these years?