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CUELT Çukurova International ELT Teachers Conferences "Replacing Cliches: Teaching Subordinated to Learning", Adana, Turkey, 28 - 29 April 2016, pp.40, (Summary Text)
A Study of Historical Views of Political Parties on Foreign Language Teaching
Abstract
English as a medium of communication has been used all the over world. With the effect of developments across the borders, the countries have shaped their foreign language policies to enhance their citizens’ competency in English. The parties as the representatives of their public and active constituents in manipulating countries’ policies in all disciplines, made some arrangements in this sense. To that end, the present study aims to examine the value of Turkish political parties towards foreign language learning. To attain this goal, the 10-year election bulletins of three main parties and recent bulletins of ten parties were studied in this study. 30 election bulletins were collected through the completion of document analysis and these data were coded through inductive thematic analysis by two experts. The current situation of FLL were comparatively studied. The results show that there is an observable decrease in the value of foreign language teaching over the years. The findings also point out that while the need for learning a foreign language is constantly increasing, the parties bulletins doesn’t comprise the desired objectives about foreign language teaching. This study reveals lack of emphasis on FLL and suggests that political parties should redesign their foreign language policies in line with the developments in this area and place a particular priority on foreign language learning.
Keywords: English, foreign language teaching, foreign language policy