A Comparative Study Of The Attitudes, Self-Efficacy, And Readiness Of American Versus Turkish Language Teachers

Abstract

Contrasting studies of foreign language teacher education have become a growing interest among educationists and researchers in different countries (Yoder, 1992; McKay & Montgomery, 1995; Baker & Giacchino-Baker, 2000; Stachowski & Sparks, 2007; Firmin, M. W., Firmin, R & MacKay, F. M., 2008; LaFond & Dogancay-Aktuna, 2009; Ozek, 2009). Such studies emphasize the importance of comparing and understanding different education programs and enables student teachers to think more globally with respect to their language career. These contrasting studies investigate different aspects of foreign language (FL) teaching programs. The present study reports a comparison of the student teachers of an American and Turkish university regarding their satisfaction and readiness in language teaching, and their attitudes towards language teaching theories and teacher education program. The study aims to discover the teacher trainees’ perceptions with an in-depth understanding and compare the differences among them. Therefore, the researcher employed an interconnection of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Data were collected through self-report questionnaires and interviews. The results indicated that there were some significant differences between the subjects in two groups regarding their readiness, their attitudes towards their education programs and their self-perceptions as teacher candidates.