With the changing paradigms in mainstream educational sciences identifying teacher education as a relatively independent area, approaches and policies in second language teacher education have undergone significant reforms throughout the world in the last two decades. Turkey, as a country in the midst of both social and cultural changes due to stream of events around it, has also attempted for such reforms in its English Language Teacher Education (ELTE) policies since the foundation of Higher Education Council leading to a unified model of preservice teacher education. Teacher education, however, has always been one of the highly debated and criticized issues in the country by all the stakeholders. This paper scrutinizes the current ELTE policies in both pre-service and in-service levels in Turkey. The pre-service ELTE programs and how teachers are trained after graduation are presented focusing on the weaknesses and the drawbacks of the programs addressing to the relevant literature. Finally, the necessary policy reforms at all levels of teacher education are suggested by referring to the implementations of countries with high-quality teacher education systems.

Education in 21st century is dominated by the generation of digital natives who are greatly exposed to and participate in technology in their social and educational lives. There is no doubt that anything experienced in social life directly affects learners' educational experiences. Highly popular social networks are being used in almost every educational area. In the process of teaching English as a foreign language social networking sites enhance active participation of learners for real purposes. This helps them gain motivation and real life experience through gaining different roles, such as authors and readers. One of the most widely used social networking sites is Twitter, a microblogging platform. This study focuses on use of twitter as a microblogging platform by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) at Anadolu University School of Foreign Languages. The study aims to gain insights about learners' perceptions of the use of Twitter in language learning process and how participants feel about their tweeting as an extra -curricular activity throughout 4 weeks, each consisting of three different hot topics either determined by the class teachers or by students themselves. The study based on voluntary participation, and the content had no relation with the curriculum. The participants answered a questionnaire and evaluated Twitter along with language learning process. The results reveal that Turkish learners had mostly positive opinions on using Twitter and stated that twitting messages facilitated their language learning experience. Including extracurricular activities, such as Twitter, into language teaching is suggested as a result of this study.

<p>In this study we aim to conduct a complete evaluation of the e-portfolio application in the distance teaching practice course that is part of the Distance English Language Teacher (DELT) program at Anadolu University from the perspective of three groups: university supervisors, preservice teachers, and cooperating teachers. Using a survey on the needs of preservice teachers and how well these were met according to the three groups’ perspectives, we gathered qualitative and quantitative data on the feasibility of the e-portfolio application. Our analysis of the findings revealed that all three groups agreed about the needs of preservice teachers. And despite some minor variance in the perspectives of each group, we determined that e-portfolio applications can meet the majority of the planning, teaching, and reflection needs in the teaching process. We offer suggestions to improve e-portfolio applications so they will better meet preservice teachers’ needs.</p><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /><input id="jsProxy" onclick="if(typeof(jsCall)=='function'){jsCall();}else{setTimeout('jsCall()',500);}" type="hidden" /><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /><input id="jsProxy" onclick="if(typeof(jsCall)=='function'){jsCall();}else{setTimeout('jsCall()',500);}" type="hidden" /><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /><input id="jsProxy" onclick="if(typeof(jsCall)=='function'){jsCall();}else{setTimeout('jsCall()',500);}" type="hidden" /><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /><input id="jsProxy" onclick="if(typeof(jsCall)=='function'){jsCall();}else{setTimeout('jsCall()',500);}" type="hidden" />

The purpose of this study is to provide an overall picture regarding general and skill-based Language Assessment Knowledge (LAK) level of English teachers working in Turkish higher education context by using Language Assessment Knowledge Scale (LAKS) developed by Ölmezer-Öztürk and Aydın (2018). The scale including 60 items with four constructs was completed by 542 EFL teachers working at schools of foreign languages. The statistical findings revealed that in terms of LAK level of the teachers, the participants got, on average, 25 out of 60. The results of one sample t-test revealed that the score the teachers got from the scale was significantly lower than half of the total score. It was also found that the teachers were the most knowledgeable in assessing reading whereas they had the lowest score in assessing listening. Besides, except for being a testing office member, no significant impact of demographic features was found on LAK level of the participants. Finally, the present study offers several suggestions both for future studies and for policy makers to improve EFL teachers' language assessment literacy on assessing each skill.ÖZET: Bu çalışma İngilizce öğretmenlerinin dilde ölçme değerlendirme bilgisi seviyelerini ortaya koymayı amaçlamaktadır. Veriler 60 maddeli ve 4 boyutlu dilde ölçme değerlendirme bilgisi ölçeği ile toplanmış ve bu ölçek yükseköğretimde çalışan 542 öğretmen tarafından cevaplanmıştır. Öğretmenlerin dilde ölçme değerlendirme bilgi seviyeleri ile alakalı bulgular, katılımcıların ölçeğin genelinden 60 üzerinden 25 aldığını ve bu ortalamanın toplam puanın yarısından anlamlı derecede düşük olduğunu ortaya koymuştur. Bunun yanı sıra, öğretmenlerin dilde ölçme değerlendirme bilgi düzeylerinin okuma becerisini ölçmede en yüksek, dinleme becerisini ölçmede ise en düşük olduğu belirlenmiştir. Ölçme değerlendirme ofisi çalışanı olup olmama haricinde hiçbir demografik değişkenin öğretmenlerin dilde ölçme değerlendirme bilgisi üzerinde etkisinin olmadığı da çalışmanın istatistikî bulguları arasındadır. Çalışmanın sonuç bölümünde ise öğretmenlerin dilde ölçme değerlendirme okuryazarlıklarının geliştirilmesi için hem araştırma hem planlama açısından bazı önerilerde bulunulmuştur. Anahtar Sözcükler: Dilde ölçme değerlendirme bilgisi, İngilizce öğretmenleri, dilde ölçme değerlendirme okuryazarlığı  This study is a condensed summary of the doctoral dissertation "Developing and validating language assessment knowledge scale (LAKS) and exploring the assessment knowledge of EFL teachers" written by Elçin ÖLMEZER-ÖZTÜRK.

Employing a qualitative research design, this study aims to investigate the opinions of EFL teachers regarding their language assessment knowledge and identify their general and skillbased needs in this domain. The participants included 11 EFL teachers who were determined through purposeful sampling and working at different universities in Turkish higher education setting. The data collection process included the participants' responses to seven open-ended questions that focused on their evaluations regarding the findings of a larger study investigating the language assessment knowledge of EFL teachers in Turkey and asked their needs in language testing and assessment. The data were analysed based on the qualitative content analysis by codelabelling and identifying the emerging themes. The findings indicated the insufficiency of trainings in both pre-service and in-service teacher education as the major reason of the low level in language assessment knowledge of EFL teachers. The teachers preferred hands-on trainings given by testing practitioners, and designed to improve them in assessing each skill separately. In the light of these findings, the study offers several suggestions for pre-service and in-service teacher education programs on language testing and assessment.