Is Hazırlık BROKEN?

Hazırlık I am, of course, talking about the university-level ELL or ELT 'prep programmes' we offer here in canım Türkiyem…so go to another blog, if you are not that interested in this kinda stuff… Or not, if you work in the same ‘sector’ in another part of the world (and, there are lots of you – I know)! 8 Now, don’t get me wrong…I am not asking the question in the title of this post to start another round of ‘finger-pointing’ or to pour petrol onto what is already the raging bonfire of …

…a ‘revolutionary act’ whose time has come! Besides, our marathon conference season is wrapping up soon…I have finished me book (plug, plug, plug) and I needed to get back to me blogging! 8 When we go to a lot of conferences, we do a lot of feel-good ‘sharing’…we network…we pick up a few ‘classroom McNuggets’…and occasionally we stumble across an idea or three that really makes us ‘thunk’ (and we hear a lot of back-door self-promotion…did you know the book is available on Amazon, too - and a lot of very lame jokes we have probably heard before – but that’s for another post). Great stuff (except those last two)! But, we do not often hear people…

…enough!...the REAL truth, that is! 8 This is what I challenged myself to do in the last couple of sessions I have done at conferences. I wasn’t quite sure what type of response I would get… In both events, I shared this image…

…but I’m getting off the point!8 If we take the time to look (really 'look') at the challenges our hazırlık schools face (the ones that are more in our 'circle of influence'), there are many things that need more than a bit of attention. Take, for instance, the ‘feelings’ that many teachers have about the way they have to ‘do business’ in many of our schools (even the so-called ‘top schools’)…