EFL in higher education: Designing a flexible content-based curriculum at university-level

Abstract

The current trend of globalization and the developments in information technology have boosted the role of English, which has become a universal language of knowledge and communication. In this demanding and challenging information era in which we live, EFL instruction at higher education institutions needs to offer the students more than general proficiency in English. They need to make the connection between English and students' future careers. However, it is not an easy task to design a curriculum at university level to address these issues. This article describes a content-based language program developed for teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) at a Turkish university. It aims to illustrate the rationale and the process of designing a flexible content-based curriculum for university students. After a brief introduction to the place of English at Turkish universities, it discusses the limitations and inadequacies of the previous foreign language curriculum as well as the principles that the new program is based on at Uludag University. The curriculum presented in the article is intended to be a model for teaching EFL or other foreign languages at higher education institutions.