REVIEWS  1047

resource for gaining insight, perspective, and guidance on CDST compatible

research methods. We believe that the publication of this book will be a signifi-

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cant contribution to the applied linguistics field. We highly recommend this vol-
ume to researchers, teachers, and graduate students in applied linguistics, and
those from other fields who are interested in transdisciplinary CDST research.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We highly appreciate the valuable comments and suggestions from Professor
Haixiao Wang, Elyse Weingarten and the Applied Linguistic book review editor
Dr. Zhuhua on earlier versions of this review.

FUNDING
This work was supported by a University of Science and Technology Beijing
grant (JG2018M41), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
(FRF-TP-19-028A2) and the China Scholarship Council (No. 201806465056).

Reviewed by 1,* BANBAN LI AND 2WEI REN

1
University of Science and Technology Beijing, China
2
Beihang University, China
E-mail: libanban@126.com
*

doi:10.1093/applin/amaa021
Advance Access published on 25 April 2020

REFERENCES
Collins, A., D. Joseph, and K. Bielaczyc. 2004.
‘Design research: Theoretical and methodolog-
ical issues,’ Journal of the Learning Sciences13:
15–42.
Dare, A., L. Dare, and E. Nowicki. 2017.
‘Concurrent enrollment: Comparing how
educators and students categorize students’
motivations,’ Social Psychology of Education20:
195–213.
Larsen-Freeman, D. 1997. ‘Chaos/complex-
ity science and second language acquisition,’
Applied Linguistics18: 141–65.
Larsen-Freeman, D., and L. Cameron. 2008.
Complex Systems and Applied Linguistics. Oxford
University Press.

Yasemin Tezgiden-Cakcak: MOVING BEYOND TECHNICISM IN

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION: A CASE STUDY FROM
TURKEY. Lexington Books, 2019.

In this book, the author revisits her PhD research, making the case that English-
language teacher education in Turkey suffers largely from technicism, which
is a belief that having teachers learn instructional methods and techniques
1048 REVIEWS

alone is enough to ‘fix all educational problems’ (p. 23). To overcome this issue,
Tezgiden-Cakcak prescribes critical pedagogy, calling for a more ‘critical, dem-

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ocratic, and humanizing approach to teacher preparation’ (p. 3). Throughout
the book, Tezgiden-Cakcak shares her personal and professional transforma-
tion as an English learner, teacher, researcher, and teacher trainer. We learn
many things about the author: that she ranked second in nationwide university
entrance exams, that she married her former English teacher, that she strug-
gled with her early career experiences, that she overcame those struggles and
is now an influential English teacher educator in Turkey. This openness and
honesty grounds the work in trustworthiness, giving the reader confidence that
she means what she says and that her agenda is based on personal experience
and a deep engagement with critical pedagogy scholarship. At the center of
the book is a case study which problematizes the issues at an undergraduate
English-language teacher education program in Turkey (Chapter 5). However,
to understand the context for these problems, it would be useful to summarize
the history of modern education in Turkey, which is addressed in Chapter 4.
With the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, established after the fall of
the Ottoman Empire, education was seen as a key tool for modernization. One
of the cornerstones of education came from the Village Institutes, established in
1940, which served as teacher training schools serving the local communities
with a focus on developing agricultural, technological, and liberal arts knowl-
edge. However, during the Cold War, the country ‘turned its back to the foun-
dation ideology of Turkey as an independent self-sufficient country centered
around Enlightenment values’ (p. 105). As Tezgiden-Cakcak writes, ‘some of
the secular schools of the founding years were replaced with religious schools’
and large amounts ‘of government funds were spent on building around 5,000
new mosques’ (p. 105). Coup d’états in 1960 and 1971 had an oppressive
effect on intellectuals, and religious education continued ‘a dramatic increase in
this period’ (p. 108). In 1980, another coup occurred with a pretext of opposing
communism and fascism and to shore up an economy on the verge of collapse.
From then on, ‘the policies of education were shaped under right-wing govern-
ments’ ideology of Turkish-Islam’ (p. 111). Concurrently, neoliberal economic
policy seeped into the education system, and rather than seeing educators as
public intellectuals, teachers ‘regressed to the role of obedient technicians’ (p.
111). The Council of Higher Education (CoHE) was established, which put the
universities under the control of the central government. Teacher education
programs became regulated with unified curricula, mandating 50 per cent of
coursework on subject matter, 30 per cent on teaching methodology, and 20 per
cent on general knowledge, such as the history of Turkey’s education system. As
for English, despite recent reforms, Tezgiden-Cakcak argues that the curriculum
has not been able ‘to move beyond the technicist orientation’ imposed by ‘the
CoHE 2007 curriculum’ (p. 136).
Hence, the case study (Chapter 5) documents the evidence and discusses these
shortcomings, outlining the political–economic, sociocultural, and institutional
 REVIEWS  1049

reasons why English-language teacher education is problematic. Politically,

education and teacher education serve to maintain the status quo, and under

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Turkey’s neoliberal economic policy, ‘the education system has been commer-
cialized and commodified’ (p. 161). Socioculturally, those in the teacher educa-
tion system, Tezgiden-Cakcak argues, tend to accept the status quo, with some
faculty members lacking an educational mission, thinking that it was not ‘their
responsibility to transform their students’ (p. 164). Institutionally, teacher edu-
cation is ‘detached from the reality of public schools’ (p. 166), preparing teachers
more for getting a degree than for being agents of change in their communities.
Following up on the case study, Tezgiden-Cakcak puts her vision into action,
documenting how she adopted critical pedagogy as an English-language teacher
educator (Chapter 6). Here she describes her coursework in the areas of advanced
reading and writing, oral expression and public speaking, translation, English
language teaching (ELT) methods, materials development, and the practicum.
Chapter 7, titled Counter-hegemonic acts of a transformative intellectual teacher,
presents another case study, this one introducing the reader to Aycan, a young
teacher and one of the author’s former students. Drawing much from the crit-
ical pedagogy scholarship outlined earlier in the book (Chapters 2 and 3), the
chapter shares Aycan’s efforts to instill change in a rural village school and to
overcome the ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (p. 233) which she encountered there.
One point of focus in her teaching was on women’s rights, and Aycan made
great efforts to get the mothers of her students to participate in school events.
There are some harrowing excerpts in this chapter, for instance, dealing with
issues of violence against women, rape, suicide, and child brides.
The book makes a good case that there are some serious issues within Turkish
society and education requiring attention. The main theme of the book is that
the technicism in teacher education leads to teachers who follow the status quo
and that the status quo is marginalizing many within the education system.
Tezgiden-Cakcak’s desire for teachers to be agents of change in Turkey is clear,
and the necessity of transforming Turkish education is well argued. However,
while reading the book, I could not assuage my doubts that instilling critical
pedagogy through foreign-language education would be the most appropriate
and efficacious way of addressing issues related to religious fundamentalism,
gender inequality, and class differences. First, having foreign-language edu-
cation as the medium of change is problematic in that it brings up issues of
linguistic imperialism and access to language education. Second, having for-
eign-language education as a medium of change would preclude many of the
people who would benefit from change from participating as agents of change.
If English education were to be a medium for addressing issues in Turkish soci-
ety, those without sufficient proficiency in English would not be able to partic-
ipate in changing society.
Also, granted that technicism is a major issue for teacher education, there
are other less radical and idealistic approaches than critical pedagogy which
can address this problem. For instance, two recent books have promoted
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student-centered and reflective approaches for developing language teachers

which also overcome technicism. First, Johnson and Golombek’s (2016) book

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draws on sociocultural theory to describe responsive mediation, which is a pro-
cess for ‘guiding and interacting with student teachers as they engage in and
reflect on practical experience that represents and builds their understanding
of the academic discourse of language teaching’ (Moodie 2017b: 174). Second,
Freeman’s (2016) book presents a design theory of language teacher education,
which does something similar. The key aspect of this theory is ‘that practical
opportunities are provided for trainees so that they can reconstruct their prac-
tices and articulate them in ways that are recognizable and meaningful to the
professional community’ (Moodie 2017a: 917). In essence, both of these books
present alternatives to technicism and do so without the radical implications
and potential controversy attached with foreign-language critical pedagogy.
Primarily, the book is targeted at local teacher educators and policy makers.
It is a book of activism, seeking to redress technicism in teacher education in
Turkey and at the same time transform Turkish society through critical peda-
gogy in English-language education. As with Johnson and Golombek’s (2016)
book, a welcome element comes from the openness and depth of the author
in sharing her experiences as a language teacher educator. Because of this, the
book may also be of interest to scholars interested in second-language teacher
education more generally.

Reviewed by Ian Moodie
Mokpo National University, Republic of Korea
E-mail: ianmoodie@gmail.com
https://doi.org/10.1093/applij/amaa016
Advance Access published on 6 March 2020

REFERENCES
Freeman, D. 2016. Educating Second Language
Teachers. Oxford University Press.
Johnson, K. E. and P. R. Golombek. 2016.
Mindful L2 Teacher Education: A Sociocultural
Perspective on Cultivating Teachers’ Professional
Development. Routledge.
Moodie, I. 2017a. 'Donald freeman: Educating
second language teachers,' Applied Linguistics
38/6: 915–18.
Moodie, I. 2017b. 'Mindful L2 teacher educa-
tion: A sociocultural perspective on culti-
vating teachers’ professional development,
Karen E. Johnson, Paula R. Golombek.
Routledge, New York, NY (2016)’,' System
65: 174–5.