Abstract

It was at the beginning of the 20th century that teaching foreign languages through scientific methods based on research and theories started in the West. There occurred radical changes in teaching foreign languages during and after the World War II. Some other changes followed them beginning from 70s and 80s up to now. We can see that the theories, practices and popular research fields in the realm of foreign language teaching in Turkey have changed over time in line with the developments in the world. Foreign Language Education became one of the fields of science to pursue an academic career at university when YÖK was established in 1981. Before that, it was the responsibility of institutes of education, a branch of MoNE (Ministry of National Education), to train the teachers of English. These institutes were not expected to conduct scientific research. It was not possible to make academic career and there were no academic titles. All the teaching staff working at the institutes had the ‘teacher’ title and there was no ranking except seniority. These teachers were not expected to produce any publication based on scientific research. They did not have to complete Master’s or Ph.D. degrees. Following the University Reform in 1981, the institutes of education were no longer part of the MoNE and they were transformed into Faculties of Education under YÖK as a result of radical changes. This presentation covers major developments in approaches to teaching foreign languages, beginning with the model adopted in the institutes of education which were popular in 1960s and 70s. In this context, the boundaries of English Language Teaching as a separate field will be discussed including subjects, courses and research topics that have become outstanding at different times in language teaching, teacher training and research conducted.

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