2.5.1 Importance of English in the Turkish Education System
The Turkish Republic founded in 1923 highlighted the importance of European languages, especially French and German, due to modernization processes, reforms and increasing relations with European countries. Yet it was not until 1950s that English became the most preferred or most promoted foreign language in Turkey. Turkey‘s membreship of NATO in 1952 enhanced economic, political, and commercial relationships with USA. As Doğançay-Aktuna (1998:25) states, after the second World War, English replaced French as ‗the language of international diplomacy to become the lingua franca for trade, banking, tourism, popular media, science, and technology‘. Attempts to promote the spread of English in Turkey were officially started by the Minister of Education in 1957.
After 1980s, Turkish governmental policy fostered close political, economic, and commercial relations with the West, especially with USA , thus the popularity of English increased. During this period, successful career in any field started to require the knowledge of English, and the developing managerial and technocratic class was expected to graduate from English-medium universities (Atay, 2005). This expectation made English the most widespread foreign language throughout the country. By 1987, besides 15 German-medium, 11 French- medium, and two Italian- medium schools, there were 193 English-medium schools in Turkey (Doğançay-Aktuna, 1998).
2.5.2 ELT in Turkey
Today, English is taught as a foreign language in Turkey starting from primary education. Followed by German and French respectively, English is the most widely spoken foreign language by Turkish people. It is of benefit to small middle classes and viewed as a prerequisite for access to the best educational opportunities (often abroad) and the most favoured professions, or top government positions in Turkey (Yıldırım& Okan, 2007). However, only a limited number of students have the opportunity to learn the language in an efficient way. In traditional government schools (primary and secondary), 4-12 year-students who have chosen English are exposed to about 1000
hours of that language totally throughout nine years of their education. (MEB, 2010).
Along with insufficiency of the time spared for language teaching, teachers feel demotivated by the methods used, which rely on memorization and grammar due to strict control and supervision by the government to check that the curriculum is followed step by step. Consequently, students do not learn English efficiently (ERG, 2013). Moreover, overcrowding of classrooms means that listening and speaking exercises are very difficult to carry out contributing to inefficient teaching/learning conditions.
Apart from these schools which constitute the majority, there are some private schools (some are government-sponsored) where the primary and secondary education (including high school) is carried out. At these schools where students are taught English intensively, the medium of instruction for most subjects is the target language. Besides that, there are a number of public and private universities some of which require getting very high scores at the university entrance exams (like METU, Boğaziçi, Koç, Sabancı, Bilkent) where the medium of instruction is English.
Karahan (2007) carried out research on 190 eighth grade students of a private primary school in Adana, Turkey. The results are interesting. Although the students are exposed to English in their school environment more frequently than others at public schools, they have only mildly positive attitudes toward the language and the related culture. They recognise the importance of the English language but do not show a high orientation towards learning it. Moreover, they are not tolerant to Turkish people speaking English among themselves. Besides that, in a survey conducted by Kılıçkaya (2006) attitudes of 100 instructors of non-language subjects at the universities in Ankara towards the use of English as a medium of instruction were examined. Results indicate that the instructors favour the idea of adopting Turkish as medium of instruction rather than English. Instruction in Turkish is believed to promote student learning better since students differ in their English proficiency levels due to diversity in target language backgrounds. Along with that, Doğançay-Aktuna (1998) states that in Turkish culture there are two conflicting motives: While there is a desire throughout the country to learn a foreign language for the instrumental gains it offers nationally, there is also an attempt to keep the national language pure from external influences.
Although some of the above mentioned research in Turkey reveal negative attitudes towards making English as a medium of instruction and some exhibited the resistance in learners to using it out of classroom within the daily life context, English provides prestige and job opportunities and is the most widely used foreign language in the country. Moreover, learning it is necessary in the as it is a lingua franca. Thus, qualified language teaching/learning conditions should be attained by better developed language education politics regarding the methods and materials to be used. Following recent techniques, and developing curriculum in accordance with the innovations should be encouraged to make the teaching of the target language as efficient as possible. It may be useful to remember that the main aim of language learning is communication, and communicative competence requires employing various strategies one of which may be using the target and the native language together when needed. Thus, in the present study, functions of code switching in a country where English is not used officially but taught as a compulsory subject in foreign language classes will be examined.