Searching for New Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching: Turkish EFL Students’ Suggestions

Abstract

The learning of foreign/second languages is part of all school curricula as well as social and business life. There are thousands of research articles, MA and PhD studies that have examined the impact of current approaches, methods and techniques in language teaching.  Despite these studies, this area is not without its problems. First, the famous linguists’ views of language learning are imposed on language learners. Second, there are limited – about fifteen – number of approaches and methods in the literature. The last problem is, among others, that the current and imposed communicative language teaching is considered the best method in the research context and in the literature. However, the study showed that not all students favoured the imposed approaches and methods. For these reasons, this study aimed to explore Turkish EFL students’ views on how the English language should be taught. To this end, these students were taught the approaches and methods mentioned in the literature during a course in two terms, each lasting 15 weeks. At the end of the second term, they were required to write down their suggestions for new approaches and methods of language teaching. To assess the training, the study used a qualitative research approach to explore these views and the case study method to limit the scope of the study with the views of tertiary EFL students. Although some of their propositions are consistent with the views in the literature, some of them differ. Therefore, the study suggests that approach and method views in the literature may not apply to all types of learners and any language teaching approach and method must not be regarded as best or out of date in advance unless the learners are consulted.