Research Information System
Çukurova International ELT Teachers Conference (CUELT 2017), Adana, Turkey, 20 - 21 April 2017, vol.1, no.1, pp.19, (Summary Text)
Teaching foreign languages to children is now an area of study in its own merit. As more and more countries and schools make English compulsory for learners who are now starting to learn English at an earlier age, research and practice of teaching English to young learners have gained ground all around the world. Apart from this practice, both in our country and all around the world, researchers have published a number of studies on children's learning of foreign languages by focusing on the psychological, social, educational, and cultural foundations of it. In addition to these rather theoretical research studies, a great number of studies have reported classroom tasks and procedures to make them available to researchers and teachers alike. Shin’s (2006) much cited study suggested ten items that should be employed by all teachers who teach English to young learners. The suggestions mentioned address issues such as the quality and quantity of in-class activities, methods and materials used, the relationship between the curriculum and classroom activities, relationships established among teachers, students and other members of the school and society. For the purposes of this particular study, these ten items were turned into an on-line questionnaire which included a free space for teachers to write their opinions or explanations to expand on the questions asked. The questionnaire was completed by 145 English language teachers among whom 16 of them left their written responses on a variety of issues related with the questionnaire questions. Results show that the participating English language teachers claim to perform some of the recommended behaviors frequently, while they refrain from performing some others. In addition, the written feedback obtained from them reveals that local/regional problems are primarily blamed for preventing them from performing such behaviors.