About the Department

The Department of Foreign Language Education offers B.A, M.A. and Ph.D programs in English Language
Teaching; M.A. and Ph.D. programs in English Literature. Taking into consideration the latest
developments in the field, students are provided with a solid foundation in the English language, English
literature, methodology, educational sciences and linguistics in order to make them fully qualified
teachers of English in primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions.

The M.A. and Ph.D. programs in ELT introduce major theoretical and methodological issues in English
Language Teaching and provide students with a firm foundation in the theoretical and applied aspects of
the field. Both programs focus on current issues in teaching and learning languages and professional
development of language teachers.The M.A. and Ph.D. programs in ELIT aim at providing students with a
thorough knowledge of English literature from the Middle Ages to our day; outstanding writers and their
major works are studied, and the relationships between literature and intellectual trends and between
literature and social problems are investigated. Students are expected to develop a critical approach to
literature; they are taught the critical theories from Plato to Post structuralism. The program prepares
those who intend to teach English literature in high schools where the medium of instruction is English
and those who intend to become research assistants in the English Literature Departments of
universities.

Graduates from ELT can work as curriculum specialists, program administrators and testers in
educational institutions. Graduates from ELIT can work as English teachers in high schools, preparatory
schools of universities, and as research assistants in the English Departments of universities.

History of the Department

The Department of Foreign Language Education was created in the fall of 1982 as one of the original
departments of the newly-established Faculty of Education. The first academic staff of the department
was composed of former members of the former Department of Humanities of the Faculty of Arts and
Sciences. When that department was dissolved, the philosophy staff formed the nucleus of the
newly-created Philosophy Department, while the history staff formed the nucleus of the newly-created
History Department. Those staff members who had been primarily concerned with the teaching of
English and other foreign languages became the first members of the newly-created Department of
Modern Languages (of the School of Foreign Languages), while those staff members who held doctorate
degrees in English Literature or Linguistics formed the nucleus of the Department of Foreign Language
Education. Please see here for very insightful interviews (in Turkish) on the early years of the
department with some of the first academic staff members: Prof. Ayten Coşkunoğlu-Bear, the first chair
of the department, Prof. Joshua Bear, Prof. Meral Çileli, Prof. Hüsnü Enginarlar and Prof. Nursel İçöz.

As the Department had been created after the 1982 University Entrance Examination, there were no
incoming Freshmen students during the 1982-83 academic year. During that year, the Department
offered elective courses in literature and linguistics as electives to students in other departments.
Furthermore, the Department took over the M.A. Program in English Language Teaching (Turkey's first
such program), which had been opened by the Department of Humanities in the late 1970s.

During the 1982-83 academic year, the Department also worked on the design of an undergraduate
curriculum to be submiited to the Higher Education Council for approval and to be implemented during
the following academic year. However, the Higher Education Council designed its own curriculum and
distributed it to all Faculties of Education for implementation during the 1983-84 academic year. (In
1984, METU and Boğaziçi University were granted a limited degree of flexibility. The FLE Department at
METU, at that time added a number of literature courses to its curriculum, while Boğaziçi supplemented
the YOK curriculum with a number of linguistic courses).

Over the years, the department gradually improved its undergraduate curriculum, in keeping with
student needs and developments in the field. However, in 1998 The Higher Education Council once
again issued a new undergraduate curriculum to be implemented by all Faculties of Education. While
basically adhering to that curriculum, the Department has made certain modifications with the aim of
improving the curriculum.

Although the Higher Education Council determined a uniform objective for all Departments of Foreign
Language Education, the training of secondary school foreign language teachers, the FLE Department at
METU, from the very beginning had much broader objectives, primarily stemming from the fact that it
had a multi-disciplinary staff, hence a multi-disciplinary perspective. The Department has always
considered itself fortunate to have a staff consisting of specialists not only in the field of foreign
language education, but in literature and linguistics as well. Hence, literature and linguistics were not
relegated to a secondary position, but were seen as constituting an essential part of the professional
formation of language teachers.

Drawing upon the Department's staff resources in the field, in 1983, a Master's degree program was
established in English Literature. In the same year, the Department established a Ph.D. program in the
same field. Thus, the FLE Department at METU became the only such department in Turkey to offer
graduate programs in that field. Similarly, in addition to the M.A. program in ELT established in 1979, a
doctorate program was estabished in 1991.

Members of the staff are vigorously involved in research in the areas of language education, linguistics,
and literature. They regularly present papers at national and international conferences and publish their
research findings in Turkey and abroad. Furthermore, since 1993 the Department has held an English
Novelists' Conference, with local and foreign participation—the only such conference organized by a
technical university. The conference proceedings are published on a regular basis. The Department also
has a German section which offers a Minor Program and elective courses, as well as a French section
which offers elective courses. Furthermore, the members of the German section are actively involved in
research in bilingualism, and trilingualism.

The graduates of the Department of Foreign Language Education teach at all levels from primary
through tertiary. A considerable number of graduates teach at the intensive language programs
("preparatory schools") of state and private universities and occupy positions as administrators and
teacher trainers as well as working in materials preparation and testing. Furthermore, a good number of
graduates have gone on to do M.A. and Ph.D. degrees, some of them eventually joining the staff of the
department.

At present, the staff consists of 2 Professors, 10 Associate Professors, 8 Assistant Professors, 5

Instructors, and 23 Research Assistants. The Department participates in METU'S Program for the
Training of Academic Staff (ÖYP), through which it assumes the responsibility of educating future
academic staff members for developing universities.

Since 2004, the Department has been implementing a joint B.A. program with the New Paltz campus of
the State University of New York. Students enrolled in this program follow a different curriculum than
those enrolled in the regular undergraduate program and meet the requirement of both METU and
SUNY. Students spend three academic years in Turkey and one academic year plus two summer sessions
in the United States.