TURKISH STATE ELEMENTARY ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ OPINIONS AND PERCEPTIONS OF THE CHANGES WITHIN 4+4+4 CURRICULUM INNOVATION IN THE LIGHT OF THEIR AWARENESS OF ‘ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA’

Melike Nazlı İnce
Instructor, Erzincan Binali Yıldırım University, Turkey, m_ni80@outlook.com

Abstract

The current study aims to investigate Turkish state elementary EFL teachers’ opinions and perceptions of the changes within 4+4+4 curriculum innovation in the context of their awareness of ‘English as a Lingua Franca’. With the intent of understanding whether new learning model for English has created the anticipated transformation in the field from English teachers’ eyes, mixed-methods methodology is followed in the current study. In that interviews were performed following questionnaires, a sequential explanatory design is adopted. The questionnaire was implemented to 167 participants among whom 14 EFL teachers were chosen for semi-structured interviews. Quantitative data obtained from questionnaire survey were analysed via SPSS v.15.0 while content analysis was preferred for semi-structured interviews questions. The findings obtained indicate that despite their familiarity with the fact of globalisation and its impact on English language teaching, Turkish EFL teachers regard ‘native speakers’ and the related elements as a target supposed to be reached. Having known the ultimate target of the new model is to provide with the use of English for communication, EFL teachers think that redesigned curriculum and coursebooks enable this in turn creating the expected impact compared to the previous periods. However, EFL teachers believe that new model and coursebooks do not serve for the purpose of ‘English as a Lingua Franca’ in terms of not including various Englishes, listening activities enabling the introduction of different English accents and language activities displaying different uses of English in various cultures.

Keywords: 4+4+4 curriculum innovation, English as a lingua franca, teachers, teaching English as an international language, awareness