Abstract:

Abstract enJapanese lesson study model is not only an effective professional development model which bases teachers’ professional development on school based collaboration, enables lesson planning in a constructivist way, focuses on improving thinking and accelerating worldwide in the last decade with the need of reforms in both nations’ curriculum and educational systems but also an approach that constructs decentralization in education. Education is not just following a series of theoretical steps but it is a cultural phenomenon. Efforts to reform teaching can easily become swallowed up by the teaching culture and unless they deliberately address the underlying culture new ideas tend to be modified to fit within the pre-existing system. In this respect the aim of this study is to construct a base for lesson study with the recommendations of the participating teachers who joined a lesson study cycle to eliminate the problems that may be caused by the current teaching culture against lesson study and to determine the barriers related with the current education system.  The data of the research was gathered via semi structured interviews from thirteen volunteer English language teachers of four schools determined by stratified random sampling method. Schools where the children of families with low, middle and upper incomes were selected from central districts of Kayseri in 2013-2014 school term. The data for the research was gathered from semi structured interviews with the participating teachers and semi structured group discussions. While the interviews were recorded using a recorder, the group discussions were videotaped and after all the recordings and the videotaped data were converted into written texts they were analysed by the researcher with the help of the Nvivo10 package program. In conclusion, it was determined that participating teachers had some problems about the seminar period, the current curriculum, the functioning of the coterie, inspection system, the lesson plans downloaded readily from internet, the application of the internship, the misapproach of the Ministry of Education towards teachers. According to the perceptions of the participating teachers, after the infrastructure problems solved lesson study will be effective in Turkish education system. Keywords: lesson study, professional development, collaboration, coterie, inspection

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