An Analysis of ELT Teachers’ Perceptions of Some Problems Concerning the Implementation of English Language Teaching Curricula in Elementary

Abstract

It can be said that foreign language teaching/learning has been failure in Turkey for many years although nearly everyone believes that speaking at least one foreign language is essential today. Considering Turkey as a developing country in many aspects; such as industry, trade, technology, tourism, the importance of foreign language teaching will increase. Children in elementary schools are open to ideas of global understanding. In other words elementary school education period can be said to be the right time to expand the students’ intercultural views and enhancement of cognitive skills (Curtain, 1990). As it is mentioned above using a foreign language effectively has numerous benefits and it also helps a child to become a well-educated person while he/she is growing up. In order to make them successful, we should provide the children in our country with a well-organized language teaching. To do this, many researches should be done and many new ideas are required.

So, this study aims to investigate the problems faced by teachers and students, concerning the implementation of English Language curricula in terms of the components of curricula such as objectives, selection and organization of content, implementation of method and methodologies, the use of technology and evaluation.

The research sampling of the study consists of 261 teachers of English who are teaching 4^th and 5^th year students in elementary schools which were chosen randomly. The teachers of English were administered a questionnaire, data were analysed, the results were discussed, and in the light of findings recommendations were made to cause betterment in English language teaching in elementary schools.