Status of English speaking skills in Turkish ELT departments: A

Available online at www.ejal.info

http://dx.doi.org/10.32601/ejal.911454

Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1) (2021) 359–382

EJAL

Eurasian Journal of

Applied Linguistics

Status of English speaking skills in Turkish ELT

departments: A nationwide survey

Emrullah Dağtan

* , Neşe Cabaroğlu

Dicle University, School of Foreign Languages, Diyarbakir, 21280, Turkey

Çukurova University, ELT Department, Adana, 01330, Turkey

Received 26 February 2021

Received in revised form 23 March 2021

Accepted 3 April 2021

APA Citation: Dağtan, E., & Cabaroğlu, N. (2021). Status of English speaking skills in Turkish ELT departments:

A nationwide survey. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1), 359–382.

Doi: 10.32601/ejal.911454

Abstract

The situation of spoken English in both formal and informal settings in Turkey seems to be far from

satisfactory. Additionally, the legal arrangements devoted to ameliorate this predicament have proven

unsuccessful as far as an acceptable level of competence is concerned. The present study aimed to

investigate the situation of English speaking skills at the English Language Teaching (ELT) departments

in Turkey, in attempts to attain a descriptive outline for the problems, perceptions, needs, and solutions

proposed by lecturers and pre-service teachers. To achieve this, a questionnaire and semi-structured

interview were administered to the lecturers and pre-service teachers at seven ELT departments across

Turkey, with one department from each of the seven geographical regions. The results indicated that

although they had been studying English for more than 6 years, a great majority of the participants could

not speak English as proficiently as they were supposed to do. It was also revealed that the participants

had difficulty achieving fluency and maintaining confidence when speaking English mainly because they

had no appropriate contexts that would allow them to master English speaking skills. On the other hand,

an extensive policy change in foreign language education was the most commonly proposed solution.

article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY-NC-ND)

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Keywords: English; speaking skill; Turkey; ELT

1. Introduction

Proficiency in speaking a foreign language is an important prerequisite for numerous

processes, such as advancing in an academic career, facilitating personal development,

gaining professional promotion, attaining prestige and so on (Richards, 2008, p. 19).

More importantly, proficiency in speaking English, the language learned as the most

common second language in the world (Brown, 2001; Cook, 2003; Crystal, 2003),

provides numerous opportunities for its speakers, thus widening their horizon in every

phase of the modern world. Accordingly, speakers of English, regardless of their

nativeness, are granted with a global power to disseminate their feelings and thereby

Corresponding author. Tel.: +90-322-338-6084 (ext. 2793)

E-mail address: [email protected]

http://dx.doi.org/10.32601/ejal.911454

Dağtan & Cabaroğlu/ Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1) (2021) 359–382 360

materialize their innate need of communication by using English within social

discourses―something that would be otherwise challenging particularly for the native

speakers of other languages (Wierzbicka, 2006). Additionally, mastery in

communicating in English is likely to have positive contributions to a country’s

economic development by significantly augmenting its capacity (Phillipson, 2012;

TEPAV, 2013). This, in turn, renders English as a potent instrument by which its

speakers―along with their nations―can go beyond communication and get involved in

multifaceted transactions to attain cross-border achievements in their professional

activities.

1.1. Status of Spoken English in Turkey

In Turkey, English became the most common second language in the 1950s, mostly

due to the increasing impact of the economic and military power exerted by the USA.

Eventually, English became more prevalent and crucially essential beginning from the

1980s owing to Turkey’s growing need for establishing international affairs to keep up

with the globalisation processes as well as technological advancements in the world.

Nevertheless, rather than becoming a second language (i.e. English as a second

language [ESL]), English has since remained as a foreign language (i.e. English as a

foreign language [EFL]), in the sense that it has never been adopted as an official

language or the primary medium of instruction at a national scale (Doğançay-Aktuna,

1998; Acar, 2004).

As for the importance of English―particularly spoken English―in the teaching and

learning contexts, English has become a major medium of instruction at tertiary level

in Turkey, particularly in private universities, and has gradually become prominent in

line with the policy changes aligned with the globalization efforts of Turkey (Alptekin

and Tatar, 2011; Arık and Arık, 2018; Köksal and Ulum, 2020). In the remaining

Turkish-medium universities and tertiary programs, English is delivered as a required

course or as a one-year preparatory class program. In lower levels (i.e. primary and

secondary education), however, English instruction is commenced in early primary

school grades and is decisively continued through the end of the secondary education

(i.e. high school), and in a similar way to tertiary education, English is designated as

the medium of instruction particularly in private schools both in primary and secondary

levels (Doğançay-Aktuna and Kızıltepe, 2005). However, the specific emphasis placed

on spoken English within the primary and secondary education systems in Turkey (i.e.

K-12) embraces both short- and long-term goals. The immediate goals are to raise

learners’ awareness and motivation towards learning English and also to help them

develop positive attitudes towards English while long-term goals are to help learners

to develop appropriate strategies for achieving effective speaking in English (Kırkgöz,

2007).

1.2. Competence in spoken English in Turkey

Proficiency in spoken English, despite the nationwide popularity of this language

among Turkish nationals, has been reported to be far from satisfactory by an extensive

body of literature (see TEPAV, 2013; Solak and Bayar, 2015; Kara, Demir-Ayaz, and

Dağtan & Cabaroğlu/ Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1) (2021) 359–382 361

Dündar, 2017). In all these studies, it has been emphasised that the governmental

attempts aimed to improve the competence of Turkish learners in spoken English have

provided unsuccessful outcomes, as far as an appropriate level of competence is

concerned. This low accomplishment, according to some scholars (e.g. Doğançay-Aktuna

and Kızıltepe, 2005; Kırkgöz, 2007; Zok, 2010), is believed to result from the

confinement of the learning of English to formal education settings rather than to the

social environments where English is naturally acquired, i.e. in ESL context. What is

also noted in these studies is that English is provided as a required course in most

educational levels in Turkey, hence rendered as a course to be achieved to meet the

graduation criteria rather than a target language to be learned (Demir-Ayaz, Özkardaş,

and Özturan, 2019). As a corollary, the Turkish education system fails to encourage

learners to improve their English speaking skills due to several factors such as

insufficient public funding and lack of quality textbooks to be used in English courses

(Koru and Akesson, 2011). This failure, in turn, decreases students’ progress in English

speaking skills over the short term and depletes their self-confidence and willingness

to participate in discussions or lengthy conversations in the long term (TEPAV, 2015).

In the same vein, the learning of English speaking skills in Turkish English Language

Teaching (ELT) departments has also been shown to be defective as far as the curricular

targets of ELT education are concerned (Kırkgöz, 2009; Akdoğan, 2010).

Additionally, this nationwide problem has been addressed in some previous studies

as well. TEPAV (2013), for instance, administered a nationwide survey to examine the

status quo of the teaching and learning of English within the K-12 grades in Turkey, in

attempts to elicit an insight into the competence of the students in spoken English and

their attitudes towards English speaking skills. The study surveyed a total of 19,380

students at grades 5-12 from 13 cities and a total of 1,394 parents from 12 cities across

Turkey. The survey did not only probe participants’ attitudes towards the teaching and

learning of English but also their socioeconomic status and students’ perceived

competence levels in English. The study concluded that the situation is far worse than

what is actually being perceived as rather optimistic and that there is an urgent need

for radical amendments in foreign language teaching policies. Some other studies

elicited similar outcomes though they examined the subject matter at a single

institution and/or region (e.g. Kondal, 2009; Gökdemir, 2010; Yal, 2011). Kondal (2009)

sought to find out why foreign language speaking skills are less developed when

compared to other skills and proposed that this phenomenon could be attributed to

several factors including the use of inappropriate coursebooks, lack of emphasis on

communication, incapacity of the teachers in motivating the students by creating an

inviting classroom environment, and lack of positive feedback. Additionally, Yal (2011)

argued that despite the huge number of hours and classes and the large investments

dedicated to English within the scope of the Turkish education system, proficiency in

spoken English remains a serious challenge for Turkish nationals, particularly among

the professionals recruited in academic and technology-related sectors. Another study

by Gökdemir (2010) evaluated the preparatory class education provided in Turkish

universities and contended that the curriculum implemented in these classes was

Dağtan & Cabaroğlu/ Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1) (2021) 359–382 362

heavily dependent on theory (e.g. grammatical knowledge) and thus ignored practical

or oral development of the students and that the education process was overwhelmingly

teacher-centred and thus the students had little or no chance of performing speaking

throughout the lessons. On the other hand, drawing upon the low achievement of

Turkey on EF EPI, Demirpolat (2015) contended that there are several problems to

consider regarding the teaching of English speaking skills in Turkey including

inadequate training provided to pre-service English teachers, unbalanced employment

of English teachers, physical and technical inadequacies related to the

teaching/learning environment, use of non-authentic class materials such as textbooks,

and lack of in-service training for English teachers. As made clear by all these studies,

speaking English, in a general sense, is a prevailing problem in Turkey that is closely

associated with the drawbacks induced by the foreign language education policy

embedded in the wider education system implemented in Turkey.

In a related manner, the learning of English speaking skills in Turkish English

Language Teaching (ELT) departments has also been shown to be imperfect as far as

the curricular targets of ELT education are considered. Nergis (2011) proposed that the

ELT departments in Turkey “do not seem to depend on a well-thought and well-formed

philosophical basis” both at pre-service and in-service levels (p. 184). In a similar vein,

another study focused on the causes of speaking problems among the students at a

single ELT department and contended that the causes of speaking problems are

associated with insufficient language proficiency, content knowledge, and materials

and methods used for teaching English (Güney, 2010). Some other studies (Kırkgöz,

2009; Akdoğan, 2010) also surveyed both students and teachers at ELT departments

and indicated that both students and teachers believed that ELT training had major

drawbacks that needed to be ameliorated through scientific measures. Furthermore,

Arslan (2013) evaluated the learning and teaching of English speaking skills at various

ELT departments and concluded that speaking English remains a challenging activity

for pre-service teachers and that the participants feel incompetent in speaking English

although they have different motivational orientations to improve their competence.

This finding is consistent with the findings of Savaşçı (2014), who investigated the

reasons as to why the students are reluctant to use L2 in ELT speaking classes and

elicited several factors that were found to hinder the communicative competence of the

students, including anxiety, fear of being despised, teacher strategy, and culture. Based

on the findings of the previous studies exemplified thus far, the present study aimed to

shed light on the underlying causes of these problems by eliciting the perceptions of

ELT lecturers and pre-service teachers in seven state universities in Turkey and their

suggested solutions, in attempts to provide a nationwide portrayal for the problems in

question.

1.3. Purpose and research questions

In accordance with the notions above, the present study was designed to investigate

the perceptions of pre-service teachers and lecturers studying/working at Turkish ELT

departments on the learning/teaching processes of English speaking skills at these

departments, in attempts to provide an exhaustive account of the problems,

Dağtan & Cabaroğlu/ Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1) (2021) 359–382 363

perceptions, needs, and participants’ solutions regarding English speaking skills. To

this end, the following research questions were addressed:

1. What are the perceptions of pre-service teachers regarding;

a) English speaking skills?

b) the problems they encounter (if any) when speaking English?

c) their suggested solutions to the problems?

2. What are the perceptions of lecturers regarding;

a) English speaking skills?

b) the problems they encounter (if any) when speaking English?

c) their suggested solutions to the problems?

2. Method

2.1. Research design and participants

The present study was designed as a mixed-methods study, in which quantitative

data were collected via a questionnaire and qualitative data were collected via semi-

structured interview developed by the researchers. Immediately after the questionnaire

sessions, the interviews were conducted with volunteering participants. Table 1

presents the data collection tools used in the study and their linkage with research

questions as well as the total numbers of participants for each tool:

Table 1. Data collection instruments and their linkage to research questions

Procedures & Instruments

Research questions addressed

Number of participants

Questionnaire

1 (a & b)

2 (a & b)

361 pre-service teachers

34 lecturers

Semi-structured interview

1 (a, b, & c)

2 (a, b, & c)

48 pre-service teachers

38 lecturers

Criterion sampling was used for both the research site (i.e. layer 1) and the

participants (i.e. layer 2), respectively (Bryman, 2012). Sampling of the ELT

departments was based on a key criterion: ‘selecting the most well-established ELT

department in each of the seven geographical regions in Turkey’. To fulfil this criterion,

the most well-established ELT department in each of the seven geographical regions in

Turkey was determined on the basis of minimum university entrance exam (i.e. ÖSYS)

scores of the students enrolled in the ELT departments in the preceding year. Of the 42

ELT departments denoted by the guideline, seven ELT departments with the highest

minimum scores were sampled, with one department sampled for each of the seven

geographical regions in Turkey. Table 2 presents the universities to which the sampled

ELT departments were affiliated and their corresponding geographical regions:

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Table 2. Universities of the ELT departments sampled

University

Geographical region

Boğaziçi University

Marmara

Dokuz Eylül University

Aegean

Çukurova University

Mediterranean

Ondokuz Mayıs University

Black Sea Region

Middle East Technical University

Central Anatolia

Ataturk University

Eastern Anatolia

Gaziantep University

South-eastern Anatolia

Similarly, the participants were also selected via criterion sampling, whereby the

criterion was ‘selecting the lecturers and the final-year ELT students (i.e. pre-service

teachers) in the universities sampled’. Accordingly, all the lecturers and pre-service

teachers in all seven ELT departments constituted the universe of the study. Of these,

the lecturers and pre-service teachers that volunteered to participate in the

questionnaire and/or interview sessions were included in the study.

2.2. Data collection

The questionnaire used in the study was adapted from a nationwide survey that was

constructed and administered in Finland in 2007, titled “National Survey on the

English Language in Finland: Uses, Meanings and Attitudes (2011)” (Leppänen et al.,

2010). The survey originally consisted of 50 items, which were respectively reduced to

27 and 24 items for the lecturers’ and pre-service teachers’ versions following piloting.

Table 3 presents the characteristics of the participants that undertook the

questionnaire:

Table 3. Demographic characteristics of questionnaire participants

Variable

Categories

Mentioned by

Ls (n=38)

PTs (n=48)

No problems in class

94.7

31.3

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Switching to L1

73.7

33.3

Vocabulary choice

33.3

52.1

Pronunciation

57.9

10.4

Notes. L = Lecturer, PT = Pre-service teacher

A great majority of lecturers (94.7%) indicated that they had no serious problems

when speaking English in class and diverted the attention to the notion that the

speaking-problems encountered in class were on the students’ side, rather than their

own side. The lecturers also emphasised that the students had noticeable problems both

when speaking and listening in English in class and also noted that these problems

were most salient in the first year of the ELT programme and gradually became less

noticeable as the students’ level and experience increased, as depicted in the following

excerpt:

R: Do you encounter any problems when speaking English in class?

L-05: Well, personally, as it is our field of study, I do not feel any problems, but when

eliciting answers from the students, they have remarkable difficulty, particularly at the

first and second grades, they try to switch to Turkish, of course we do not allow them to

do. However, over time, they learn to express themselves in line with the increase in their

knowledge base.

(R: Researcher, L: Lecturer)

As a second problem, a great majority of the lecturers (73.7%) and one-third of pre-

service teachers (33.3%) indicated that the students, particularly first-year students,

converted to Turkish and tried to express their thoughts/feelings or to provide a

response to a question probed by the lecturer and/or classmate. Some lecturers

contended that they tried to prevent students from converting to L1 to promote the

usage of English in class.

About the third problem, one-third of lecturers (33.3%) and more than half of pre-

service teachers (52.1%) stated that the students had difficulty finding the correct

word/phrase mostly when trying to verbalise their thoughts/emotions in English as

comfortably as they would do in Turkish. Both groups also indicated that these

problems sometimes led to a breakdown in students’ fluency and emphasised that these

words/expressions were both technical words/expressions that were rarely used in

everyday conversations and even sometimes were simple words/expressions that were

used relatively more frequently in daily life.

For the final problem, more than half of lecturers (57.9%) and a small number of pre-

service teachers (10.4%) mentioned that the students had pronunciation-related

problems when performing speaking in class. The pre-service teachers contended that

although they knew the meaning and structures of words/phrases, they had difficulty

in articulating their correct pronunciation.

Both lecturers and pre-service teachers, when presenting their perceptions regarding

the speaking-related problems encountered in class, also referred to the causes of those

problems even before being asked to do so, mostly to support their propositions.

Dağtan & Cabaroğlu/ Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1) (2021) 359–382 372

Accordingly, all the causes of speaking-related problems encountered in class that were

elicited from the transcripts were clustered into three categories (Table 10):

Table 11. Frequencies of categories derived from the theme ‘causes of the problems encountered in class’

Categories

Mentioned by

Ls (n=38)

PTs (n=48)

Education/testing system

84.2

62.5

Lack of authentic contexts

68.4

33.3

Affective filter

65.8

68.8

Notes. L = Lecturer, PT = Pre-service teacher

As seen in Table 11, the majority of the lecturers (84.2%) and more than half of pre-

service teachers (62.5%) mentioned that the prior education (i.e., the education received

by the students prior to the ELT training) and the foreign language testing system in

Turkey were a cause of speaking-related problems encountered in class, particularly of

the problems encountered by the ELT students, mainly because both the education and

testing system were overwhelmingly dependent on the learning and teaching of

grammar, vocabulary, and reading skills and overlooked other skills, particularly

including speaking and listening, as shown in the following excerpt:

R: What are the causes of these problems?

PT-17: . . . I noticed that I couldn’t even read the coursebooks when I was in the first

grade because their level was so high. The lecturers were speaking in English and I was

looking at them in the eye, thinking “What are they talking about?”, although we were

so-called students who studied the foreign language department at high school.

(R: Researcher, PT: Pre-service teacher)

As a second factor, more than two-thirds of the lecturers (68.4%) and one-third of pre-

service teachers (33.3%) mentioned that there was a lack of authentic contexts in the

ELT department/school, which was an obstruction for the improvement of ELT

students’ English speaking skills. However, while the lecturers specifically attributed

this lack of authentic contexts to the insufficiency of speaking courses in terms of

weekly duration, the pre-service teachers ascribed it to the absence of native speakers

in the department/school.

Finally, almost two-thirds of both lecturers and pre-service teachers (65.8% and

68.8%, respectively) claimed that the speaking problems faced by ELT students were

related to students’ personal factors, particularly, affective filter (i.e. a learner's

attitudes that affect the relative success of second language acquisition, e.g. lack of

motivation and self-confidence) was a barrier for their improvement in spoken English

[Gass and Selinker, 2008]). As an explanation to this claim, both groups contended that

Dağtan & Cabaroğlu/ Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1) (2021) 359–382 373

the ELT students, due to their affective filter, felt considerably shy when asked to

produce a response in English, which could also indicate their lack of self-confidence.

3.2.3. Problems related to speaking English outside class

The speaking-related problems encountered by lecturers and pre-service teachers

outside class (i.e. in daily life settings) were clustered into two categories (Table 12):

Table 12. Frequencies of categories derived from the theme ‘speaking-related problems encountered outside

class’

Categories

Mentioned by

Ls (n=38)

PTs (n=48)

No problems outside class

26.3

60.4

Vocabulary choice

39.5

18.8

Notes. L = Lecturer, PT = Pre-service teacher

Almost one-quarter of lecturers (26.3%) and more than half of pre-service teachers

(60.4%) indicated that they had no problems when speaking English in their daily life

settings. These rates, when compared to those indicated for speaking-related problems

in class, implicate that lecturers felt more competent when speaking English in

academic settings compared to non-academic settings, while pre-service teachers felt

more competent when speaking English in non-academic settings compared to

academic settings.

On the other hand, more than one-third of lecturers (39.5%) and almost one-fifth of

pre-service teachers (18.8%) claimed that they had difficulty in choosing correct

word/phrase when speaking English in daily life settings, particularly in casual

conversations. Of note, both lecturers and pre-service teachers stated that these words

were mostly technical words that required the knowledge of specialist fields such as

Maths, Medicine, and so on.

The lecturers and pre-service teachers also explained the causes of the problems they

encountered when speaking English in daily life settings. These causes were clustered

into two categories (Table 13):

Table 13. Frequencies of the categories derived from the theme ‘causes of the problems encountered in

daily life settings’

Categories

Mentioned by

Ls (n=38)

PTs (n=48)

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Lack of authentic contexts

92.1

83.3

Affective filter

31.3

Notes. L = Lecturer, PT = Pre-service teacher

The lack of authentic contexts was revealed as the major cause of speaking problems

encountered by lecturers (92.1%) and pre-service teachers (83.3%) when speaking

English outside class. Both groups also contended that this scarcity led to limited

exposure to spoken English for both lecturers and pre-service teachers and ultimately

led to lack of practice in English speaking skills, mainly because most of the people they

interacted with in their daily life settings were Turkish-speaking people.

As a second cause, in a similar way to the causes mentioned regarding the problems

encountered in class, only pre-service teachers (31.3%) stated that affective filter was a

barrier for their improvement in spoken English.

3.2.4. Suggested solutions

During the interviews, both the lecturers and pre-service teachers proposed several

solutions regarding the speaking problems encountered in both in and outside class.

These solution proposals were clustered into three categories (Table 14):

Table 14. Frequencies of categories derived from the theme ‘solutions suggested for speaking problems’

Categories

Mentioned by

Ls (n=38)

PTs (n=48)

Education/testing system

92.1

95.8

Authentic contexts

52.6

54.2

Continuous practice

31.6

31.3

Notes. L = Lecturer, PT = Pre-service teacher

Almost all the lecturers (92.1%) and pre-service teachers (95.8%) proposed that the

education/testing system (i.e., pre-ELT education/testing) should undergo a bottom-up

amendment, in such a way to support the teaching and learning of English speaking

skills. For this amendment, both groups specifically emphasised that the

education/testing system should integrate all four skills (i.e., speaking, listening,

reading, writing) and the two subskills (i.e., vocabulary and grammar) so as to dispense

them equally into all the teaching and learning processes.

More than half of lecturers and pre-service teachers (52.6% and 54.2%, respectively)

proposed that there was an ample need for authentic contexts in which the ELT

students as well as lecturers could feel in a natural environment, which then would

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contribute to the improvement of their English speaking skills. These authentic

contexts, as proposed by both groups, could be established in Turkey, for example, by

importing native English teachers or promoting attendance to academic organizations

such as conferences, symposia, or outside Turkey, for example, by promoting students

and lecturers to stay abroad for a certain period of time, particularly in an English as

a native language (ENL) country such as UK or USA.

Finally, almost one-third of both lecturers and pre-service teachers (31.6% and

31.3%, respectively) proposed that the ELT students themselves needed to take some

actions to eliminate the problems they encountered when speaking English―actions

that would specifically focus on the improvement of their attitudes towards enhancing

their English speaking skills. In clearer terms, both groups proposed that the ELT

students should try harder and practise more and more to achieve automaticity in

speaking English even when they faced challenges such as lack of authentic contexts.

4. Discussion

4.1. Perceptions of pre-service teachers and lecturers regarding English speaking skills

The foremost perception queried in the semi-structured interview was the

importance adhered to English, particularly to spoken English, by the lecturers and

pre-service teachers and it was revealed that both groups attributed remarkable

importance to speaking and also considered that speaking English is a crucial asset

both for themselves and for Turkish young people, people of working age, elderly people,

and people travelling abroad. In a similar fashion, Dinçer and Yeşilyurt (2013)

investigated pre-service English teachers’ perceptions on the importance they

attributed to English speaking skills and found that the participants regarded speaking

as the most important skill among all four language skills. Additionally, Baturlar

(2020) evaluated EFL lecturers’ views and also suggested that the participants

perceived the speaking skill as the most important language skill that needed to be

improved by the learners. Taken together, these perceptions seem highly plausible due

to the fact that English has become a global language that has been well integrated into

numerous realms in the world such as culture, lifestyle, economy, technology, social

media, and so on (Garcia, 2010, p. 409; Nunan, 2013, pp. 152-154).

Another finding drawn from the quantitative and qualitative findings was that both

pre-service teachers and lecturers spoke English predominantly in academic settings

(e.g. at school, conferences), while pre-service teachers spoke English in daily life

situations (i.e. with friends and themselves and when expressing negative feelings) less

frequently than lecturers did. This divergence of preferences could be ascribed to the

notion of ‘speech styles’ devised by Labov (1970, as cited in Ellis, 2009, p. 98), who

contended that the speech styles of a language speaker may vary depending on the

degree of attention paid by the speaker to his/her speech. Based on this attention,

according to Labov, the speech style of the speaker can vary on a continuum of two ends

Dağtan & Cabaroğlu/ Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1) (2021) 359–382 376

including vernacular style (i.e. informal language) and careful style (formal language)

(ibid). Accordingly, it appears that the speech style of pre-service teachers is more

inclined towards the careful style (i.e. the language spoken in classroom) rather than

the vernacular style (i.e. the language spoken in daily life settings).

4.2. Perceptions of pre-service teachers and lecturers regarding the problems encountered

when speaking English

Almost three-quarter of lecturers and one-third of pre-service teachers declared that

the students switched to L1 (i.e. Turkish) when trying to verbalise their

thoughts/emotions in English. Both groups also noted that the students were

challenged in terms of maintaining intelligible pronunciation and fluency. These

findings were consistent with those of a study conducted in Omani context by Hosni

(2014), who, in a similar way to our study, evaluated the difficulties experienced by EFL

students when speaking English and found that the most common problems were

students’ switching to L1 and failure to maintain fluency. Along similar lines,

Thornbury (2005) maintained that despite undergoing the same linguistic processes

with L1 while speaking in L2 (e.g. conceptualizing, formulating, and finally

articulating), speakers feel less comfortable and are relatively less fluent in L2

compared to L1, which at times can lead to frustration or embarrassment on the

speakers’ side since the speakers are burdened with the process of formulating the

utterance initially in L1 and then interpreting it into L2 (p. 27).

As an additional problem, both quantitative and qualitative analyses also indicated

that pre-service teachers were afraid of making mistakes when speaking English in

class. In a similar way, Savaşçı (2014) evaluated the cause of reluctance among first-

year ELT students in speaking English in oral communication classes and found that

fear of being despised was a significant factor contributing to students’ reluctance. In a

confirmatory manner, Vural (2017) found that the affective filter, as a personality trait,

is closely tied to the anxiety and self-efficacy of learners, which at times may cause

learners to remain silent in situations where they would be supposed to perform

speaking in a foreign language. Meaningfully, this sense of fear could be a corollary of

pre-service teachers’ affective filter. Accordingly, literature indicates that if the

affective filter of a learner, particularly of an L2 learner, is excessively high, then the

speaker is challenged to digest the linguistic input provided to him/her; therefore,

affective filter should be appropriately low for the input to be received by the learner

(Gass and Selinker, 2008; Krashen, 2009). To overcome such problems, Dewi, Kultsum,

and Armadi (2016) proposed the use of communicative games in EFL classes and the

authors found that the use of these games had a positive effect on the both the teaching

and learning processes and also improved the learners’ participation, confidence, and

fluency.

Dağtan & Cabaroğlu/ Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1) (2021) 359–382 377

4.3. Perceptions of pre-service teachers and lecturers regarding their suggested solutions

to speaking-related problems

Almost all the lecturers and pre-service teachers claimed that the education system

(i.e., pre-ELT education) should undergo a comprehensive revision that would involve

the integration of all four skills (i.e., speaking, listening, reading, writing) and the two

subskills (i.e., vocabulary and grammar) into all the teaching/learning processes. If

achieved, this integration would form a sound basis for the teaching/learning of these

skills and subskills in real-life settings for establishing authentic and fluent

communications. In a similar way, Kara et al. (2017) and Gan (2012) also concluded

that the curriculum should be revised to include all language skills in tandem. On this

notion, Brown (2001) proposed that the integration of all skills is high essential for the

teaching of communicative skills since the productive and receptive skills are ‘two sides

of the same coin’ and thus cannot be split and that the skills integrated to each other

in a given context do not hamper the progress of one another, rather they reinforce the

learnability of one another since each skill has a unique richness (p. 234). Drawing upon

this essential notion, Mart (2020) investigated the perceptions of a group of EFL

learners regarding the integration of language skills and concluded that the integration

of listening and speaking skills led to an improvement in the learners’ listening skills,

which in turn resulted in a significant contribution to their speaking skills.

Besides the education system, both lecturers and pre-service teachers suggested that

the testing system (i.e. nationwide English proficiency tests such as YDS, YDT) should

also be revised to cover all language skills and subskills rather than focusing

exclusively on the assessment of reading, vocabulary, and grammar. This

disequilibrium has also been documented by a large body of literature (e.g. Külekçi,

2016; Akın, 2016; Hatipoğlu, 2016; Kılıçkaya, 2016). As a concept, language testing is

a crucial part of language teaching and this importance lies at the heart of the impact

of a language test on the teaching/learning processes pertaining to that test, an effect

which is termed ‘washback’. Washback, also known as backwash, is simply defined as

the effect of testing―particularly language testing―on learning and teaching (Hughes,

2011; Bachman and Palmer, 1996; Fulcher and Davidson, 2007; Luoma, 2009).

Additionally, washback can be both positive and negative depending on its outcome. In

simple terms, positive washback occurs when the learning and teaching activities

correspond well with the scopes of the test and negative washback occurs when these

activities fail to match with the scopes of the test at a reasonably acceptable level

(Bachman and Palmer, 1996; Hughes, 2011).

Both lecturers and pre-service teachers also contended that there was need for

authentic contexts both in and outside class where learners (i.e. ELT students) could

practise their knowledge and skills and in this way could maximise their competence

in spoken English. These contexts, according to lecturers and pre-service teachers,

could be both in Turkey (e.g. recruiting native teachers in Turkey) or abroad (e.g. travel-

abroad opportunities). In a similar study conducted in Saudi Arabia, Ali et al. (2019)

reported that the lack of authentic environment along with the lack of interest and

Dağtan & Cabaroğlu/ Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1) (2021) 359–382 378

motivation were the most common problems stated by the EFL learners included in the

study regarding the teaching and learning of English speaking skills. Considering that

Turkey is classified as an EFL country where English is spoken as a foreign language

rather than as a second or native language, it seems fair to assert that there are few or

no regular authentic contexts across Turkey where L2 learners can perform continuous

interaction with native speakers of English. This scarcity has also been documented in

several previous studies. In a systematic review, Kırkgöz (2005), maintained that

although there have been radical changes in the foreign language education policy in

Turkey over the last decade, there is still need for enhancing opportunities for L2

learners of English in Turkey to eliminate the discrepancies between what learners

learn in classroom and the English spoken in the real world (p. 167). In a similar way,

Tokoz-Göktepe (2014) evaluated the speaking problems encountered by ninth-grade

high school Turkish EFL learners and reported that the students had little or no contact

with authentic English contexts outside classroom. To solve such problems, according

to Koru and Akesson (2011), Turkey can import native teachers of English from ENL

countries and recruit them in Turkish schools to create communication opportunities

for Turkish learners of English.

As a last solution, speaking-oriented activities that could be performed by the

learners in outside-class settings such as watching films, documentaries or listening to

radio programmes in English were declared as essential activities, particularly for ELT

students. A similar solution was proposed in the study by Nozad (2017), who evaluated

the perceptions of Turkish EFL learners and reported that watching films and reading

books in English language were the most common proposals declared by the

participants regarding the improvement of EFL learners’ English speaking skills.

Likewise, Hamad, Metwally, and Alfaruque (2019) found that the use of You Tubes and

Audio Tracks Imitation (YATI) had a significant contribution to EFL learners’ speaking

skills. Regarding the utility of technology, another study (Abugohar, Yunus, and Ab

Rashid, 2019) evaluated the effectiveness of smartphone applications in the

improvement of EFL learners’ oral skills and found that these applications did not only

improve the learners’ speaking skills but also provided them inspiring positive

perceptions regarding these skills. In the same vein, Harmer (2007) proposed some

other activities that could help L2 students to sustain their oral development outside

class, including doing extensive research on the internet about a given subject, talking

to oneself in English (i.e. performing monologues), replaying or designing conversations

in one’s head, getting hold of songs that appeal to the individual’s interests, and

watching English-language videos on YouTube or other online video portals (p. 105).

5. Conclusions

As a foremost conclusion of the study, it was revealed that both ELT students and

lecturers attributed remarkable importance to English speaking skills and considered

that speaking English is highly important not only for themselves but also for Turkish

nationals aiming to become international. Secondly, it was revealed that pronunciation

instruction was also highly important for both pre-service teachers and lecturers and

Dağtan & Cabaroğlu/ Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1) (2021) 359–382 379

they also maintained that this instruction resulted in beneficial outcomes for the

learners, could be delivered to lower levels as well, and could be more beneficial when

delivered at a young age before the end of the critical age. As a third conclusion, both

pre-service teachers and lecturers indicated that during the first several weeks of the

ELT instruction, the ELT students (i.e. freshmen) underwent a formidable period in

which they strived to adapt to the spoken English they were exposed to in class, due to

the fact that these freshmen had rarely or never been exposed to spoken English before

coming the ELT department. Finally, it was revealed that there were noticeable

differences between the lecturers and pre-service teachers with regard to their

attitudes, perceptions, and suggested solutions, which could be related to the plausible

difference between the ages, experiences, and competence levels of the lecturers and

the pre-service teachers. Expectedly, it was clearly understood that the lecturers felt

more competent, more confident, more experienced, more proud, and less afraid of

making mistakes/errors and spoke English more in school/class and had fewer/less

frequent problems when speaking English compared to pre-service teachers.

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on the unpublished dissertation submitted to Çukurova

University, Turkey, by the first author in 2020.

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 3

Çukurova International

ELT Teachers Conferences: “Reshaping Teaching and Learning English for the 21

Century” (April 20-21, 2017, Adana Turkey).

The Research and Publication Ethics Statement

The Ethics Committee approval for this study was obtained from Çukurova

University Graduate School of Social Sciences Ethics Committee on 06/13/2016

(Approval No. 596-2016). No ethical considerations were violated in this study.

The Conflict of Interest Statement

In line with the statement of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), we hereby

declare that we had no conflicting interests regarding any parties of this study. This

research study was funded by Çukurova University Scientific Projects Coordination

Unit (Project No: SDK-2016-5461) without any occurrence of conflicting interest in the

manner of author(s).

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