Abstract:

The aim of this study is to investigate the opinions of prospective teachers enrolled at the Department of English Language Teaching (ELT) concerning the implementation process and the outcomes of Community Service Practices (CSP) course. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in different phases of this descriptive study. To collect data, researchers made use of a questionnaire and interview questions. As for data analysis, the data obtained from the quantitative part of the questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statistics. For the qualitative part of the research, content analysis was applied to analyze the views of prospective teachers about the ways of increasing the efficiency of CSP course in ELT. The results revealed that most of the prospective teachers performed the projects within the scope of CSP by experiencing/doing themselves. They believe that volunteering is essential; however, they faced some problems while carrying out the projects. They emphasized that this course would provide them the opportunity to apply the experiences they obtained in their future English teaching profession. Moreover, they also pointed out the CSP course drove them to be more sensitive to social problems. Bearing these findings in mind, some implications were drawn at the end of the study about the ways of increasing the efficiency of the CSP course. A final suggestion was that the faculty administration should support the works of the prospective teachers, solve the problems they faced, and meet their needs.

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