6th Teaching & Education Conference, Vienna

A FOCUS ON DOUBLE MAJOR PROGRAMS WITHIN GERMAN LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION: THE BENEFITS AND DIFFICULTIES

HAMDULLAH SAHIN

Abstract:

In Turkey, double major bachelor’s programs have been implemented since 1998. Such programs intend to encourage studying in an interdisciplinary manner as a necessity of today’s world. Double major bachelor’s programs are briefly defined as the programs enabling successful students to graduate with double diploma as far as they have the required qualifications; students take courses from two different undergraduate programs in the same BA degree simultaneously within the same faculty and graduate with two different programs with the same BA degree but with two diplomas for each major. It seems that it is not an easy task to decide to do a double major when the requirements or qualifications are considered. The current study is a part of a doctoral dissertation in which the necessity of double major bachelor’s programs at university undergraduate level is investigated within the context of German language teacher education. This part of the study aims to reveal the advantages and disadvantages of the program from the perspective of German Language Teaching undergraduate students who are doing double major or want to do it. A questionnaire was administered to German language teacher students and 82 participants responded. The results indicated 26 undergraduate students either wanted to do a double major or were already a part of that program. The rest of the sample (f=56) did not want to do it. Regarding advantages, the former group of participants stated that possibility to work in an interdisciplinary way, economic benefits, gaining extra disciplinary knowledge and more job opportunities were the main positive sides of the program. The disadvantages, however, were the difficulty in time management, stress, the fear of prolonging the studying period, too much work and a lot of exams. As for those who did not want to enroll in a double major program, they complained about the lack of time, the intensity of the courses, and the anxiety of graduating too late, which were the negative sides of the program. To remove the negative sides of the program and to motivate students to do a double major, it might be recommended that a new program in response to the needs of the students can be constructed. Such program may also be useful for students to be more successful in pursuing their future careers. So, foreign language educators should work cooperatively to design such program in order to provide their students with a better teacher training.

Keywords: double major, foreign language teacher education, German language teaching, teacher training, program evaluation

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