The Turkish educational system has recently undergone significant changes. This
paper does not address these changes but focuses on the educational background of
the participants in the study that they had experienced prior to entering university.
These participants began learning English in the fourth grade of primary education
at state schools when the students were 11 years old. The frequency of English classes
depended on the level of education. At primary level, students had three lessons
per week in the fourth and fifth years. The number of lessons increased to four hours
a week in the sixth, seventh and eighth years. At secondary level, students who studied
in the foreign-language division had 12 hour-long classes per week. Access to
universities is examination driven and students graduating from language divisions
take two examinations: the Student Selection Examination (ÖSS) and the Foreign
Language Examination (YDS). While the ÖSS deals with students’ proficiencies in
different disciplines such as Turkish, social science, and mathematics, the YDS is
concerned with the level of students’ English proficiencies. The YDS contains 80
multiple-choice-type questions covering only the test-taker’s reading, vocabulary
and grammar skills. The profiles of people who have succeeded in national English
tests in Turkey show that they are very proficient in structural or lexical aspects of
English but are not proficient in spoken English.