Research Information System
GlobELT 2017: An International Conference on Teaching and Learning as an Additional Language, İzmir, Turkey, 18 - 21 May 2017, vol.1, no.1, pp.90
Teaching is widely considered as a procedural activity including both cognitive as well as emotional processes that cannot
be easily separated. This unified nature of teaching makes understanding teachers’ side of the story rather complex. Apart
from teachers’ own articulations of their own teaching, developing effective English language teaching contexts for learners
in primary schools necessitates understanding what actually happens while teachers aim to teach and students try to learn.
Hence, various researchers have been trying to collect and understand teachers’ and students’ opinions on many aspects of
English language instruction ranging from their knowledge, opinions, beliefs, feelings, and practices that affect their language
learning and instruction. Owing to the fact that coursebooks remain as the single most important text used in English language
classrooms in Turkey, the purpose of this study was to identify teachers’ experiential knowledge of the activities given in the
coursebooks in terms of their practical value as instructional materials. Data were collected through a structured interview
checklist with the page and (or) activity numbers that make up the coursebook they are using along with a space for noting
down to what extent each of these pages or activities worked in their classrooms. Data from 16 English language teachers,
all graduates of faculties of education, revealed the most and least beneficial activities from the perspectives of the teachers.
Results showed that teachers shared similar beliefs in regards to the nature of the beneficial activities offered in coursebooks
and used in their English classrooms.