Linking theory and practice in an ELT program: An evaluation of materials, testing and practicum courses

Abstract

Changes and innovations to the English language teacher education undergraduate program in Turkey have taken place quite often over the last two decades, and related research has focused predominantly on the effectiveness of the program, along with the implemented changes. Yet, evaluation studies on the specific components of the program remained scarce. Within this perspective, this study aims to evaluate the testing and materials courses of an undergraduate English Language Teaching (ELT) program offered at a state university through the voices of pre-service teachers, teacher educators, mentor teachers, and graduates. Using the evaluation model for foreign language teacher education designed by Peacock (2009), and the checklist of parameters by Weir and Roberts (1994) as the framework for analysis, questionnaires, interviews and document analysis for data collection, this case study was designed to uncover the theory/practice link among Materials and Testing courses, and the practicum component. The findings indicate a lack of theory/practice link among the components; therefore, suggestions are offered to strengthen the link related to testing and materials and their applications in the pre-service teaching practicum contexts. © 2021 Karadeniz Technical University. All rights reserved