Assessment of the Pre-service English Language Teachers Competencies in Turkey

ABSTRACT

This study mainly aims at analysing the degree of compatibility between the content of “Teacher Field Knowledge test” and the descriptors about teacher competencies, defined by Ministry of National Education, by exhibiting the process of pre-service English language teachers education.

Implementation of the policies related to the pre-service teacher education, which has undergone the several changes and transformation, is evident in the curriculum of teacher training institutions. In Turkey pre-service teacher education was affiliated to the Ministry of National Education (MONE) until it was subsumed under the Higher Education Council (HEC) in accordance with the Higher Education Law in 1982. The curricula of teacher education which was put into effect in 2006, revised in the context of restructuring process and Qualifications of Teachers’ was proclaimed within the scope of National Qualifications Framework for Higher Education (NQFHE) in Turkey and imposed by HEC in 2011.

Therefore education faculties, affiliated to the HEC, are to design their predominantly academic syllabuses according to qualifıcations which comprise knowledge, skills and competencies described in (NQFHE).

Recruitment of teacher candidates is bound up with certain conditions. The selection process to be appointed as a permanent teacher is determined by some regulations established and issued by MONE in Turkey.

First of these is that candidates must be the graduates from four year programs of education faculties or from faculties of arts/sciences providing that they are certificated by the programs of education faculties attesting that they completed the required number of pedagogy courses.

Secondly the Public Personnel Selection Examination held by the Student Selection and Placement Center that is governed by the HEC is required of all teacher candidates on ‘Teacher Field Knowledge’ test (ÖABT).

In this context, the question of whether the knowledge, skills and competencies of pre-service English teachers defined in ‘Qualifications of Teachers’ are assessed by ÖABT is a matter of debate in this study.

Yet another debate that is at issue is to what extent the content of ÖABT is compatible with the descriptors about teacher knowledge.