Due to the acceptance of English in twentieth century as international language of science and medicine, a considerable body of medical research and literature has been produced in English. This dominance of English in medical accounts paves the way for emergence of a new ESP branch (English for Specific Purposes) as EMP (English for Medical Purposes). The basic insight into this trend is to offer course design, content and materials by being responsive to target language learners' own agenda. Therefore, it is necessary to find out first what is specifically appropriate, available and applicable for the target situation and target language learners in terms of their needs. In discovering their needs, needs analysis is regarded as an integral part of decision making processes in EMP. Without conducting a needs analysis process, using a medical English course book might not be enough for a medical student studying in an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) context like Turkey since most of the medical English course books in use are mostly addressing the needs of students in an ESL (English as a Second Language) context. Accordingly, as a part of a needs analysis process, this study aims to investigate academic English language needs of first year medical students who are attending advanced English course at the Faculty of Medicine at Karadeniz Technical University. The data was collected via a structured questionnaire with 47 items. It covers five different parts focusing on medical students' purposes of learning English, significance of learning English, their preference of learning environment, language learning needs of major language skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening), their preference of assessment type. The questionnaire was administered to 169 students at the Faculty of Medicine at Karadeniz Technical University. Descriptive statistics was employed in order to analyze the data.
Purpose: The current survey portrays English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ familiarity with the concept of reflective teaching and the extent that they carry out reflective teaching practices especially during their first experience with online teaching amid the Covid-19 Pandemic. Design/Methodology/Approach: In the current descriptive study, a varied sample of Turkish EFL teachers (N=117) filled out the online survey at the end of the first academic semester with an emergency online education period induced by the Covid-19 pandemic. Findings: The study indicated that nearly forty per cent of the participants were unfamiliar with the concept of reflective teaching. While metacognitive and affective practices were more commonly performed by the participants, the critical, practical and cognitive practices were rather less preferred. The participants hardly ever think of writing articles regarding their experiences, asking their colleagues to observe their teaching and also, relatively less contemplate on the socio-political sides of their teaching and their influences. Highlights: The notion of reflection and the reflective teaching strategies should be revisited, and accordingly, the scales or inventories should be reformulated by taking the premises of online education into consideration.
Purpose: The current survey portrays English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ familiarity with the concept of reflective teaching and the extentthat they carry out reflective teaching practices especially during their first experience with online teaching amid the Covid-19 Pandemic. Design/Methodology/Approach:In the current descriptive study, a varied sample of Turkish EFL teachers (N=117) filled out the online survey at the end of the first academic semester with an emergency online education period induced by the Covid-19 pandemic. Findings: The study indicated that nearly forty per cent of the participants were unfamiliar with the concept of reflective teaching. While metacognitive and affective practices were more commonly performed by the participants, the critical, practical and cognitive practices were rather less preferred. The participants hardly ever think of writing articles regarding their experiences, asking their colleagues to observe their teaching and also, relatively less contemplate on the socio-political sides of their teaching and their influences. Highlights: The notion of reflection and the reflective teaching strategies should be revisited, and accordingly, the scales or inventories should be reformulated by taking the premises of online education into consideration.
One of the basic language skills, reading is considered to be a key to improve critical thinking skills and to grasp different perspectives by experiencing changing nature of world. It is an inevitable fact that teachers, who are responsible for contributing to widen students' horizons and aid them to gain new insights, are still regarded as sources of knowledge even in such an environment surrounded by high technology facilities. Therefore, it is crucial to see whether, and/or how often, prospective English teachers are interested in online reading and what kind of perceptions, or feelings, they have towards reading online and making use of such online readings in their future profession. In this respect, the current study aims to find out prospective English teachers' online reading habits and perceptions. The data was collected via convenience sampling which is a type of non-probability sampling. Accordingly, the study was conducted at two different universities in northern Turkey and a total of 164 prospective teachers of English (37 male, 127 female) took the survey. The study suggests that the literacy focus has been turning from paper to online. Online reading is considered as a valuable source of knowledge, a tool for reaching educational goals, an integral part of English language learning and a crucial constituent of language teaching profession. It seems to contribute a lot to prospective English teachers who are developing their professional, procedural and personal knowledge base so as to be effective teachers of future.
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