Moving beyond Technicism in English-Language Teacher Education

A Case Study from Turkey

Yasemin Tezgiden Cakcak

Drawing attention to the threats that an overreliance on teaching techniques poses for teacher creativity, student voice, and the well-being of democracy, Moving beyond Technicism in English-Language Teacher Education advocates a critical approach to education. Using the author’s own personal experiences, this book offers a critical analysis of the technicist English-language teacher education programs introduced by Turkey’s Council of Higher Education in the neoliberal period. Beginning with the implementation of critical education at the Village Institutes in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the book documents how teacher education practices in Turkey evolved from liberatory to mechanic with the influence of the Cold War. By demonstrating the author’s own critical teacher education practices, the book explores the impact of critical teacher education on pre-service and in-service teachers’ perceptions and practice. Highlighting the ethical responsibilities of educators, the book calls for a critical, democratic, and humanizing approach to teacher preparation.

Lexington Books

Pages: 282 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9

978-1-4985-9251-2 • Hardback • August 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-9252-9 • eBook • August 2019 • $99.50 • (£77.00)

Subjects: Education / Teaching Methods & Materials / Language Arts, Education / Curricula, Education / Multicultural Education, Education / Leadership / Multicultural

Moving beyond Technicism in English-Language Teacher Education

A Case Study from Turkey

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Drawing attention to the threats that an overreliance on teaching techniques poses for teacher creativity, student voice, and the well-being of democracy, Moving beyond Technicism in English-Language Teacher Education advocates a critical approach to education. Using the author’s own personal experiences, this book offers a critical analysis of the technicist English-language teacher education programs introduced by Turkey’s Council of Higher Education in the neoliberal period. Beginning with the implementation of critical education at the Village Institutes in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the book documents how teacher education practices in Turkey evolved from liberatory to mechanic with the influence of the Cold War. By demonstrating the author’s own critical teacher education practices, the book explores the impact of critical teacher education on pre-service and in-service teachers’ perceptions and practice. Highlighting the ethical responsibilities of educators, the book calls for a critical, democratic, and humanizing approach to teacher preparation.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 282 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9

978-1-4985-9251-2 • Hardback • August 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-9252-9 • eBook • August 2019 • $99.50 • (£77.00)

Subjects: Education / Teaching Methods & Materials / Language Arts, Education / Curricula, Education / Multicultural Education, Education / Leadership / Multicultural

Author

Yasemin Tezgiden-Cakcak is a scholar at the Foreign Language Education Department of Turkey’s Middle Eastern Technical University. She has worked as a translator, public school teacher, lecturer and teacher educator.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Technicism and Beyond

Chapter 3: Teaching: Servitude or Transformation?

Chapter 4: Educational History of Turkey

Chapter 5: English Language Teacher Education in Turkey Based on a PhD Dissertation

Chapter 6: Practising Critical English Language Teacher Education

Chapter 7: Counter-Hegemonic Acts of a Transformative Intellectual Teacher

Chapter 8: Conclusion

References

Index

About the Author

Reviews

I strongly recommend this book to teachers who teach English as a second language as well as other subject teachers interested in transformative teaching and anyone who wants to know about Turkish Educational system.
— Rıfat Okçabol, Boğaziçi University

In this thought-provocative work, Yasemin Tezgiden Cakcak skillfully destabilizes our inherent assumptions about the link between English language teaching and teacher education by resituating a complex myriad of issues in a broader sociopolitical context…A transformative intellectual experience for those who seek alternatives to blind practices propagated by neoliberal policies, and forge counter-hegemonic spaces and pathways towards a critical English language teaching and teacher education.
— Ali Fuad Selvi, Middle East Technical University, Northern Cyprus Campus