Supervision vsevaluation in EFL in Turkish universities

Abstract

This study is about supervision and evaluation. Both of these terms need to be defined and explained in order to gain a better understanding of what supervision and evaluation are for EFL teachers in Turkey. In Turkey only primary and secondary school teachers are inspected by inspectors (müfettişler) from the Ministry of Education. Their procedures are both supervisory and evaluative and hence are not in accord with certain distinctions and definitions which appear in the American professional literature reviewed for this study. Futhermore teachers in universities, including EFL teachers are not supervised by the inspectors of the Ministry of Education because universities are not affiliated with the Ministry of Education. Universities are affiliated with Yüksek Öğrenim Kurumu. Yet, a premise of this thesis is that supervision in Turkey should not be conducted only in primary and secondary schools, but also in universities. EFL teachers like all other teachers in Turkey should also be given a chance to be supervised in order to improve their instructional performance. It may be assumed that many teachers are not familiar with supervision as it is defined in the professional literature and since evaluation is conducted in place of supervision in Turkey, thus ways need to be introduced in order to conduct a sufficient amount of supervision for it to be beneficial, efficient, and constructive. There is always a way, a technique for doing something. If people do not know these techniques then they may end up less successful than if they followed sytematic techniques. Inspectors must know the techniques of supervision in order to improve their performance and to provide constructive feedback for teachers. If inspectors learn the techniques and if they are objective when observing the teachers, teachers will not be afraid of being supervised.