The Context

Adaptation to the features of the new language programme might be difficult especially for those who have a tendency in their beliefs and practices towards traditional teaching methods. In her study, Kırkgöz (2008) revealed a gap between curriculum objectives and the teachers’ instructional practices, which is also similar to some other countries (See, Hui, 1997; Holliday, 1996; Karavas-Doukas, 1995; Penner, 1995). As stated by Borg and Burns (2008), teachers derive their personal theories from their own teaching experiences, their understandings of their own teaching contexts and their training courses, which result in serious discrepancies and contradictions among teachers’ beliefs and their in-class

implementations. For this reason, it is important to bear in mind contextual factors to have a better understanding of the relationship of these factors with research questions in mind and the interpretation of the results. Variation in the teachers’ in-class practices, methods, personal teaching styles regarding TEYLs and action-oriented, activity-based methodology to teach children showed itself strong at the beginning of the current research process. Description of teacher and students will make the picture clearer in this sense.

3.5.1. The participating teacher. The participants’ current English teacher (hereafter, participating teacher) has been teaching for 11 years. For 7 years, she taught at a high school and 4 years at a secondary school. However, this year, she taught 5^th graders for the first time.

She is not used to meet the needs of YLs in her teaching practices because of the tendency to use the methods addressing central examination system. However, as far as it is observed she has an effort to create a warm atmosphere by her positive attitudes towards the children. Upon classroom observation it is identified that she is using a combination of grammar-translation method and total physical response. Generally, she prefers to conduct her lessons with the support of smart board software. As a result of her regular teaching experiences so far, she generally puts emphasis on form-focused teaching including lecturing and practice exercises with repetitive explanations in L1 by focusing mainly on listening, speaking and less on

reading skills. The teaching of English is supported by worksheets including the practice of the rules of the language when it is needed. The language of instruction is mainly Turkish.

Although the participating teacher indicates that she wants to use the target language all the time in her lessons, she does not; because she states that the students have limited language knowledge and skills to understand the subject taught. She strongly emphasizes her aim at teaching as helping the students develop positive attitudes towards English language.

3.5.2. The students. Based on the field notes taken during the observation process, it can be said that children were mostly active and talkative in the classroom due to their characteristics, which required a huge effort to overcome during the research process. It is observed that they have a strong desire to communicate with their peers and teacher.

However, their limited L2 proficiency and classroom activities affect the way they

communicate as they hear English mostly at word level from their teacher and get necessary explanation about the rules of the language in L1. Therefore, they are not used to speak English as they are not exposed to the language at the discourse level, which is the result of direct form of instruction. During their regular instruction or practice times, they respond to their teachers often by using L1 or using one/two word utterances in L2 in order to meet the expectations of their teacher. Since they do not encounter vocabulary and structures in a contextualized way they have difficulty in developing a deeper understanding of meaning as a whole. For example, when the teacher gives them a worksheet in the form of pen and paper test it is difficult for them to make sense out of the situations despite the visuals located in the texts. They need constant assistance in making use of the structures and vocabulary to make necessary connections for a given situation within the worksheets or tests. Limited exposure to L2, form-focused instruction, and lack of effective ways and activities to support oral language seem to cause students less eager to produce L2. They have difficulty in generating utterances related to what they have learned previously as a result of the fact that they learn

slowly and forget easily as they have a short memory span (Gürsoy, 2010; Halliwel, 1992).

According to the participating teacher, being in an EFL context limits the students’ practice opportunities outside of the classroom. She puts the case in this way: “The students do not use the language in their everyday life. Since the pronunciation of words appears to them different and difficult, and they do not know the meaning of the words, they do not want to speak in English” (from the interview with the participating teacher prior to the intervention process).

The students’ speaking performances do not contain any interactional features; instead they take place in the form of responding to a question from the participating teacher at a word level. What becomes apparent after the observations is that they need multiple

opportunities to hear and use the language. It is important to give attention to what the teacher says about the classroom and the students’ very limited language knowledge. The

participating teacher noted:

The children generally love English, but at the beginning of the last term [she is talking about the first school term of the year] they came to the class with a bunch of negative thoughts and attitudes towards the English lesson due to their experiences with their previous language teachers. Children told me that when they mispronounced the words, their previous teachers, mostly with an angry manner, have them write these words for hundreds of time. So, they were doubtful about me as well and they tried to understand the way I communicate and approach to them. My first two or three weeks passed by my effort to break their negativity towards the lesson and English.

With time they felt themselves comfortable with me, they began to love the language as well. This was what I wanted to do most of the time (from the researchers’

interview with the teacher prior to the intervention process).

As reported by (Moon, 2000) children mostly like English If they like their teachers and teaching methods. Building a rapport with the students helps them develop positive attitudes towards the lesson. Thus, her general philosophy in her lessons was to create a positive atmosphere to develop positive attitudes.