Lecturers' experiences with English-medium instruction in a state university in Turkey: Practices and challenges

Omer Ozer
Adana Alparslan Türkeş Science and Technology University, Turkey

The current paper is a phenomenological study of faculty members' perception of English-medium instruction (EMI) undergraduate programs. An open-ended questionnaire covering teaching practices, challenges encountered and training preferences was developed. Through a thematic analysis of the data collected from 102 lecturers, this study aims to shed light on the needs of content lecturers in EMI undergraduate programs in a state university in Turkey. The findings show that most of the participants aspired to see an EMI support system set up in the institution. The major themes which emerged from the inquiry are 'teaching practices among content lecturers', 'challenges and constraints which content lecturers face' and 'training courses for content lecturers'. Based on university-wide teaching practices and the views of EMI lecturers, it is concluded that lecturers are more in favour than against the university's EMI policy, but they also would like the university administration to be responsible for monitoring the language provision and providing training. Findings also indicate lecturers' endeavour to use English as much as possible, regardless of their agreement with the institutional language policy
[ PDF full text for this article ]

Author: Dr Omer Ozer is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Adana Alparslan Türkeş Science and Technology University, Adana, Turkey. He has published extensively in the areas of multilingual policies in higher education, curriculum and instruction, mobile-assisted language learning, technological addictions, and processes of teaching and learning a foreign language. He is currently conducting research on internationalisation of higher education and teaches courses within the Translation and Interpreting Program. Previously, he taught in foreign language preparatory year programs at different universities. Email: ozeromer.tr@gmail.com Please cite as: Ozer, O. (2020). Lecturers' experiences with English-medium instruction in a state university in Turkey: Practices and challenges. Issues in Educational Research, 30(2), 612-634. http://www.iier.org.au/iier30/ozer.pdf