Old Wine in a New Bottle: Implementation of Intensive Language Program in the 5th Grade in Turkey

Abstract

In search of ways to better the foreign language proficiency levels of their citizens, governmentsfrequently announce macro foreign language policies. In Turkey, the latest education reform in 2013lowered the onset of foreign language learning to the second grade. The piloting of the latest foreignlanguage policy is in progress to transform the fifth grade to an English Language Preparation Program(ELPP). In line with the current changes, this study collects the secondary school English languageteachers’ opinions at the initial stage of the implementation. This qualitative case study questions theadvantages, disadvantages, success and possible challenges of the implementation, and the necessarysupport mechanisms. The secondary school English language teachers reflect on their past experiences ofintensive language programs and hold an overall positive approach to the new ELLP implementation. Allin all, to achieve success, the findings highlight the need for teacher training on teaching English toyoung learners, for a sound integration of communicative language teaching with authentic materials.© 2018 EJAL & the Authors. Published by Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics (EJAL). This is an open-accessarticle distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY-NC-ND)(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).