Akdeniz Language Studies Conference 2012

Abstract

The study aims to investigate the conceptions held by English language teaching instructors in a public university in Turkey and to specify the level of research engagement of teachers by either reading or conducting research. The data were collected form 52 English instructors through questionnaires and a subgroup of teachers were invited to interviews in order to shed light to the responses given in the questionnaire. The results showed that teachers evaluated the instances that are compatible with scientific research paradigm as research and the level of engagement in research was low.

Figures (11)

Table 1. Respondents by years of ELT experience Data were collected from 52 public university English instructors and all questionnaires were handed to the teachers by the researcher. The following tables illustrate the experiences of the participants in ELT and qualifications they held regarding ELT. As Table | suggests, majority of the respondents (38%) had between 10 to 14 years of experience in teaching English. In this data, none of the respondents had experience higher than 25 years. Table 2 shows that the highest number of respondents were holding bachelor’s degree in ELT while the percentage of teachers graduates of other fields was quite high (23%). As all the respondents were working at the same university and the same school of languages, the students they were teaching were in the 13-19 years of age range.

Table 3. Teachers’ assessment of scenarios.

Table 5. Reasons for not reading research

Teachers who reported doing research often or sometimes (n= 20) were asked to indicate their reasons for doing research from the items provided and they were also asked to report other reasons that were no on the list, if any. The most popular reasons for doing research were “to find better ways of teaching’ n=12), “because it is good for my professional development” (12), and “as a part of a course I am studying” (12). As it can be seen from the results, teachers are engaged in research mostly for persona and professional development and for academic reasons. As Borg (2009) suggests, academic courses aken can be a good motive for teachers to be occupied with research. As the participants in this study were instructors at a state university, no mentions were found for administrative expectations and promotion motives. 5)

Figure 1. Reasons for doing research Figure 2. Reported levels of doing research by years of experience

Teachers were asked to identify the reasons behind their not doing research among the possible reasons from the list and they were asked to add more reasons if they had any. The most popular reasor for not doing research was lack of time (18 mentions). The next most common reason was the lack o: knowledge for doing research followed by lack of interest in doing research and that the colleagues were not doing research. It was clear that although teachers were not engaged in doing research they did not think that doing research is not a part of their job. Only 2 mentions were present in the data regarding the belief that teaching and doing research are separate professions. The data suggests that teachers are open to research and to the latest findings but they do not conduct any research because of their teaching loac or because they lack necessary knowledge and interest in doing research. 5. Discussion

Tick ONE box for each statement below to give your opinion about the general attitude to research in your school. SECTION 4: READING RESEARCH

1. How frequently do you read published language teaching research? (Tick ONE If you choose Rarely or Never go straight to Question 4 in this section.

2. You said you do research often or sometimes. Below are a number of possible reasons for doing research. Tick those which are true for you. If you choose Rarely or Never go straight to Question 3 in this section. i. How frequently do you do research yourself? (Tick ONE)