Nurdan Kavakli/ Elixir Soc. Sci. 81 (2015) 31414-31419 31414 Panorama to the Role of English as a Foreign Language in Turkey English as a foreign language is one of the subjects taught in almost all of the government- and privately-sponsored schools in Turkey. Beside its alternatives, mostly German and French, the majority of the students take English courses within the hours of exposure ranging from 2 to 10 per week under the cloak of recent amendments made upon the ongoing education system. Being aware of the fact that even a petty amount of English knowledge is necessary to get ahead in life, Turkey has been developing strategies to encourage the use of English as a foreign language with a much longer exposure beyond all classroom applications and methods in use. Since, for Graddol (2006) nearly a third of world population are all expected to be trying to learn English at the same time. In Turkey, thousands of English language teachers and millions of learners of English are stipulated to be the main components of the foreign language education. Correlatively, the uneven distribution of English among those learners and the lack of opportunities harassing the principle of equality of opportunities in education entail the commitment of governmental organizations (e.g. Ministry of National Education) to this issue in order to break down the barriers in foreign language education. However, the challenge in Turkey is urgent and huge albeit for the aforementioned commitment laced with professionalism by the government, and energy and effort laid out by the teachers of the field. Additionally, it is due to the fact that poor English skills among learners may yield to slowness in growth in the long term though the economic growth of the country is robust. To add more, Turkey’s noteworthy progress is supposed to suffer from falling behind the world standards as a result of problems arose by those with less concentration of English language skills though it is a relatively small section of the whole population. Seeing that Turkey pampers many of its citizens to participate fully in the burgeoning economy, English as a mega-language, language with a world status, mushrooms binary functions for the country within the scope of both education and economy. The spread of English, nourished by globalization, scientific inventions, technological innovations, economy, diplomacy and internet, has actually accelerated worldwide since World War II, thence it takes place in the curriculum of educational institutions all over the world (Doğançay-Aktuna, 1998; Oral, 2010). As a result, the language norms have come under question within the scope of world Englishes (Bamgbose, 2003; Jenkins, 2009; Kachru, 1986, 1992). In relation to this, Turkey belongs to the category of expanding circle countries in Kachru’s (1986, 1992) framework of the concentric circles of World Englishes with respect to the use and status of English. Claiming that circles are leaking, Canagarajah (1999) refers this circle as the ‘periphery’ one in which it houses a whole new way to view what native speaker actually is. By any means, English is taught as one of the foreign languages in the school curriculum unlike the ones in which English is accepted as the official or co-official language. Accepted as the foreign language that is to be taught in the school curriculum, English, as a foreign language, spreads all over the country by taking part in daily life via media, television, internet, tourism and trade, and other related areas. Despite the influence of global developments on the spread of English through the media, internet, trade and tourism, and the popularity of English in secondary and higher education, followed by the major educational reform in 1997, English language teaching in the curriculum of Turkish primary schools is a relatively recent phenomenon (Kirkgöz, 2007). That is why the changes after the initiation of the 1997 educational reform and the government’s provision of teacher training opportunities have played a significant role as a requirement for new foreign language learning and teaching materials, innovations for foreign language learning and teaching process together with the continuance and sustainability desired to be kept throughout this Materials Development and Design Policies in English Language Teaching by Turkish MONE, 1923-2015 Nurdan Kavakli Hacettepe University, Turkey. ABSTRACT The implementation of instructional materials for foreign language teaching forms the basis of language use providing linguistic input and explicit language practice for learners. In this sense, materials development and design is of paramount importance regarding the needs of the learners in order to keep up with innovations together with the requirements formalized by the rapidly changing needs of an information society. Herein, Turkey, as a developing country, is to redefine its national educational objectives and the curriculum to integrate instructional technologies into teaching. Within the scope of this article, the background information (aims, reasons, influences, institutional structuring) underlying the process of materials development and design within the scope of Ministry of National Education (henceforth MONE) in Turkey along with cross-over educational trends, policy directives and responses to technology has been probed into including the years from 1923 to 2015. Additionally, recent changes in Turkish education system have been scrutinized. © 2015 Elixir All rights reserved. ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received: 27 February 2015; Received in revised form: 15 March 2015; Accepted: 28 March 2015; Keywords Materials Development and Design Policies, Ministry of National Education, English language teaching. Elixir Soc. Sci. 81 (2015) 31414-31419 Social Sciences Available online at www.elixirpublishers.com (Elixir International Journal) Tele: E-mail addresses: nurdankavakli@gmail.com © 2015 Elixir All rights reserved