For 9 years, I had thought advanced and beginner level English courses for 1st year students of Faculty of Science, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, School of Industrial Arts, Vocational School at a public university in Turkey.
The teaching experience at Vocational School was different than the other departments I taught. Firstly, students were different from the students at other departments in terms of their cultural backgrounds and economic situations. These students were coming from families who could be considered as low level economic status. Due to their economic hardship, their families were living in small villages and suburbs whose cultural and religious values were significantly different from those living in cities. Their use of Turkish language and the rules of interaction in their communities were also different. For example, it was very normal for these students use curse words in the class while talking to their teachers. As they were educated in vocational high schools, their teachers were all male who came from a similar cultural background. Therefore, their teachers were also used to the use of curse words in class.
However, I was also very different from these students and their teachers in terms of my social, cultural and economic background. The teachers were disciplining the students in a way that I was completely unfamiliar. For instance, teacher should be authority in the class and when the students did not obey the rules it was very normal to beat and humiliate them. It was the only classroom management strategy that worked for them. On the other hand, I was trying to apply more democratic ways to foster classroom interaction but students were interpreting it as my lack of controlling abilities. Therefore, it was really difficult to find a common ‘language’ in the class.
In terms of their English language education, for students, it was ridiculous to learn English as they were going to be carpenters and turners. They had difficulty in understanding why they were learning English. Since their educational background can be considered as ‘poor’ due to the high schools they were educated, they also had difficulty in understanding even the instructions in Turkish. When I talked to their other teachers such as math, they were also complaining about these students’ lack of understanding the very basic mathematics subjects.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to talk about variations of English in my teaching context as there were limited opportunities for students to speak or write in English. The students had to pass the tests that did include grammar, listening and reading comprehension questions. Therefore, my students required me to teach them how to be successful in those tests. To help my students to pass the tests, I was trying to raise their understanding of the structure of these tests and how they could study for these tests. As I was aware that studying for the tests cannot prepare them for their future needs, I was also trying to guide them what else they could do to meet the future requirements.
I believe that if the students in my teaching context in Turkey have to pass some common exams like TOEFL or the other exams administered by the Turkish Government, then we have to feel responsible to help them to pass these exams. We like it or not, it is definite that the majority of the students who graduate from university will apply for jobs that will require them to have high TOEFL scores. It might contradict what we understand from learning and teaching English but this is reality. If we fail to prepare them these exams, how can we address their needs appropriately? I need to emphasize here that I am not talking about native standards that the TOEFL examination forces but I try to say that we need to address students’ urgent needs as result of globalization.
In the current phase of globalization, we as educators need to better understand the specific conditions of our teaching context in our countries and address the problems to help our students to prepare better for the requirements of globalization. It should be schools that increase learners’ global cultural consciousnesses. Global cultural consciousness emphasizes an educational program that is sensitive the global changes and aims at raising awareness of contemporary cultural changes. As Kumaravadivelu warns us that it is definitely not limited to or relies extensively on the target culture as “ It leads them to believe, rather falsely, that their choice of L2 and their knowledge of C2 are enough to prepare them to face the challenges posed by economic and cultural globalization” (p. 173). Following Kumaravadivelu’s argument, I believe that I need to deepen my understanding of global changes with respect to World Englishes. With this aim, I think World Englishes course will help me to better understand my specific context and help me to generate ideas how I can address the specific problems of my context. For this, I believe the importance of research and approach the problems and needs of my context scientifically; therefore, I hope this course can guide and encourage me to conduct and publish a research that other educators in Turkish context can also benefit from.
Reference
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2008). Cultural Globalization and Language Education. CT: Yale University Press.
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