Teacher preferences in content and language-focused courses in higher education: The case of Turkish EMI students

Abstract

Turkish universities have adopted English as a means of instruction in teaching for quite some time now. Against such a linguistic transformation at universities, little research has been done on students’ teacher preferences in EMI settings although researching students’ teacher preferences has accumulated a bulk of literature in ESL/EFL research. Therefore, this study explores students' preferences for native and non-native English speaking teachers in content and language-focused courses. The data, gathered through questionnaires, indicate that most students do not make a specific preference for a particular group of teachers. Among the students showing a particular preference, more students were found to be geared towards native teachers to teach them content courses. The interview data, however, showed that many students overwhelmingly opted for non-native English teachers in content courses for various reasons, but with a marked preference for native English teachers in language-focused courses. The findings throw some light on the factors influencing students’ preferences towards a particular group of teachers, offering some implications for teacher recruitment and the taken-for-granted assumptions about native and non-native English teachers.