An Overall Analysis of Teaching Compulsory Foreign Language at Turkish State Universities

Abstract

The aims of teaching compulsory foreign language are:  teaching students the basic rules of the language in question, improving their vocabulary in that foreign language, enabling students to express themselves and understand the text relevant to their field.  Theoretically, these objectives specified by Higher Education Council (YÖK) are quite rational in terms of foreign language teaching, but in practice to attain them adequately is unfortunately not always possible at Turkish state universities due to many factors which will be handled throughout this study.  Bearing this issue in mind, the aim of this article has been to present some alternative suggestions to those in charge after revealing the current situation.