Moving from teaching older learners to young learners : cases of English language teachers in Turkey

This thesis explores the experiences of four English language teachers in Turkey who moved \nfrom teaching in either high schools or language schools to teaching English to young \nlearners. The study follows these teachers in their first year of teaching in primary school, \ndescribes the changes they went through in their approach to teaching English, and identifies \nthe influences on these changes. \nThe background to this research was an educational reform which introduced English \ninto the primary curriculum. After this reform, there was a shortage of English teachers at the \nprimary level. A common solution was to recruit English teachers from other levels of the \neducational system. Three of the participating teachers taught in high school before they \nmoved to teach English in the primary school. One of the participating teachers taught \nEnglish to adults in a language school before moving to the primary level. \nThe data for the study was generated through systematic interviews with the teachers, \nas well as regular observations of their classes, over the course of the school year. The \ninterpretation of the data was informed by the existing literature on teaching English to young \nlearners and the literature on teacher change. \nAt the end of the school year, all of the teachers said they would like to continue \nteaching English in the primary school. In adjusting to teaching children, the teachers mainly \nfocused on developing class management strategies. The teachers did not, however, focus on \nmaximising opportunities for learning the target language. The main influences on the \nteachers' change were in-service training, textbooks, as well as interaction with and support \nfrom colleagues. The research contributes to the debate of how to best facilitate the \nintroduction of English into primary schools, and calls for further research into teacher \ndevelopment in the context of such curricular reforms.