A Survey of methodology courses in MA TEFL programs in Turkish universities

Abstract

A previous study conducted on the methodology courses in undergraduate ELT (English Language Teaching) departments reveals that, Turkish ELT programs show variety in terms of their content, design and delivery at graduate levels (Dalkılıç, 1996). When the literature was reviewed, it was determined that there was no study regarding graduate methodology courses in MA TEFL programs in Turkey. Within this study, methodology courses offered at MA TEFL programs in 1 1 universities in Turkey were taken into consideration and analyzed in terms of then- design, delivery and content. The place of a methodology course within the whole MA TEFL program, the content of the course, the goals of the course and course requirements motivated the research questions that formed the basis of the research study. Data were collected through questionnaires, and in - person interviews. The subjects chosen for the study were the directors, methodology instructors and 5 students from each of the 1 1 MA TEFL programs in Turkey. The questionnaires were administered either by the researcher or by colleagues working in the universities that the researcher had chosen as research sites. The data collected were analyzed withthe application of different statistical calculations chosen according to the type of the questions used in questionnaires. The findings obtained supported the assumption that different universities and different academic programs have different designs for the methodology courses; but they do not differ broadly in content, design and delivery. The most important finding is that language teaching methodology is dealt with centrally or integratively in several courses which are not named as 'methodology'. Consequently, it has been rather difficult to determine the specific goals of the methodology course within MA TEFL programs. As a solution, all of the courses that focus on language teaching methodology, regardless of title, were taken into consideration. With one exception, all directors and methodology instructors have doctoral degrees. Methodology courses are offered for two semesters in all of the universities. An interesting finding about the topics covered in those courses is that, all of the programs give great emphasis to describing and comparing particular language teaching methods and almost all use somewhat the same text-book related to the teaching of different methods. Considering all of the findings which are explained in detail throughout the thesis, it is possible to make several implications. First, the objectives of the methodology related courses in MA level might be reconsidered by every university and their differences from the undergraduate level methodology course might be discussed. Second, more concern might be given to forming somewhat homogeneous student/ teacher groups in order to serve the needs of the master candidates with a better design and content of the methodology course.