Values Education in the Secondary School English

Language Syllabus; The Gaining of the Secondary School

Students in Terms of Values from the EFL Course Books in
Turkey.

Yavuz Karadağ

Dumlupınar University, Kütahya, Turkey

1. Introduction

No contemporary scholar of the educational sciences would discuss or describe education

at any level without certain universal and local values that are critical for the individuals and
societies (Ministry of National Education Curriculum, 2019). The origin of values and
character education probably goes back to the beginning of the civilizations and they shape
individuals at first and then the society in terms of gathering around the common ground of
being civilization. Character educations begins in the family of a child, parents are the role
models for children to shape their personality during the early years of their life. The way how
the parents regard the values and the community guidelines in their life, underlie the value
education of a child.
Schools are the second step of values education process for human being. Common values
can be gained at school via course books or teachers’ behaviours or manners. Some values are
integrated in secondary school syllabus in Turkey so, the teachers are expected to teach these
values and morals implicitly or explicitly during the lessons or at break times at school or
outside by implementing them in their daily life.
Society and the awareness of community guidelines in Turkey is the initial civic duty and
every single person have to obey the rules at home or outside, written or not, as long as they
live in the society.

Keywords: Common values; community guidelines; values; syllabus;

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1.1 Literature Review

Values act an important role in determining the standards of individual's life and in their
efforts to keep up with norms existing in society (Gül, 2017). To be able to live in the society
as a responsible individual, one has to know that society’s common values, customs and
traditions as well as the written rules and law. Value is defined as any kind of feelings,
thoughts, behaviours, rules, or assets accepted in a society, in a belief, in an ideology or
accepted, adopted and kept alive by people (Çelikkaya, 1996; Erdem, 2003, cited from Gül,
2013). Value is a choice that affecting decisions, determines our point of life view, reflecting
our beliefs and constitutes our principles (Aktepe & Yel, 2009, cited from Bolat, 2011).

1.2 Research questions

The aim of this study is to explore which of the values are integrated in the secondary
school English language syllabus in Turkey and to what extent the students profit from theses
values in EFL course books.

2. Method
Document analysis method is used in this study. It is a form of qualitative research
which aims to interpret document. Document analysis method contains information about
written and visual materials on cases which targeted for research (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2013).

2.1 Materials

The data was collected through EFL course books (5-8 grades) and National Education
Curriculum analysis. In secondary school level in Turkey, two different course books are
used at schools. One of them was written by the teachers assigned by the Ministry of National
Education and the other book was written by the writers of private publishers.

2.2 Data collection

The course books and the curriculum were analysed in detail, regarding the activities,
reading passages and images throughout the books, to see whether the values are given
implicitly or explicitly.

2.3 Data Analysis

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 The key values that should be transferred to the learners in line with the learning
outcomes are: friendship, justice, honesty, self-control, patience, respect, love, responsibility,
patriotism and altruism (Ministry of National Education Curriculum, 2019). The data
collected from the books were noted under these headings regarding the frequency of their
usage. They were also classified according to the units and parts they take place.

3. Findings
4. Discussion
5. Conclusion
6. References