WANTED: University Level Pre-Service ELT Educators in Turkey- where are you?

Turkey has a very active ELT community and a good representation in the world of ELT or, at least, this is what it seems to be from where I stand. There are numerous ELT conferences in which invaluable ideas and classroom practices are shared. A good number of presenters are invited to speak in international conferences from Turkey. The number of Turkish delegates at IATEFL which is one of the two biggest ELT teacher associations in the world increase each year. Again, IATEFL Glasgow Online was visited most by Turkish teachers. Obviously, there is great motivation, demand and need for quality teaching in TEFL, and luckily there is a good community of ELT practitioners who are willing to share what they know and what have experienced, and there are conference delegates who spare their weekends for professional development and go to these conferences.

I feel that the presence of university level lecturers who work with pre-service teachers in both national and international ELT conferences needs to be more than what it is now. I strongly believe that their presence as speakers and participants in these conferences will give them insights about what really is happening or not happening in English language classrooms.

I hardly ever see an ELT departmental lecturer in conferences as such, so I am asking; where are you? To what conferences do you go instead? Turkish ELT teachers-to-be are initially educated by you, and they desperately need input on what really happens in the EFL classroom and practical information that would be applicable in their classes. We really need you at national and international IATEFL, TESOL and local ELT conferences.

Please come join us to enrich us and get enriched by the experience.

Thank you for your attention.

5 thoughts on “WANTED: University Level Pre-Service ELT Educators in Turkey- where are you?

  1. Couldnt agree more! Never seen any of my lecturers way back at university. They occasionally joined the ones in Ankara when i eas studying but fir the last 5 years I have never seen their names in thise conferences. Besides, the people who I saw as heroes back then do not seem so big now, in terms of experience they shared with us, which is really unfortunate.
    P.S: this was written by a graduate of one od the best universities in terms of education.

  2. Hi Görkem,
    Thank you for your comment. I have been receiving comments from facebook on thi stopic. One lecturer actually said that their talks are not attended as ELT conference fans find theirs a bit on the boring side since the focus more on academic research. That may be true, on reflection. Some conference participants would like to be entertained rather than learn, I don’t know if you were there but last year at ISTEK, JAck Richards gave a talk and most people found it too academic and boring, but there are osome of us who really enjoy listening to different perspectives.
    Also, as you say the famous ELT educators of Turkey are not seen anywhere. How about via websites? They may have online/social media presence sharing their knowledge and experience, At IATEFL we see famous authors who are also university lecturers and the audience love to listen what they have to say.
    I want to see ours sharing more. Why? When you do an MA or PHd at Turkish universities, they become incredibly picky and know-it all. They give you the hardest time as opposed to their counterparts in very famous UK Universities. I had the previlige of having Jane Wills as my tutor while doing my masters and she was the most approachable and supportive as well as to the point tutor ever. In short,

  3. Hi Burcu,
    I have taught EFL in a university in Turkey for 4 years. The thing is that the heads themselves are found lacking in interest in sending their teachers to these mostly educative conferences. They don’t have funds kept aside for ELT. ELT is not given a fair treatment in terms of development of teachers or even the development of students.

    Having said that, many conferences are just a promotion of publishers’ own interests.Also, the kind of teaching ideas floated around by the specialists are mostly not viable for the smaller colleges or state universities because of lack of funds. Other issues why these ideas are not viable are the number of students in each class, low interest levels and lack of or absence of equipment to carry on what is discussed in these conferences.

    http://masalaeltandchai.wordpress.com/

  4. Pingback: An opinion on Burcu’s article on her blog. « Masala ELT and Chai

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