English

Abstract

The course titled “Community Service Practices” has been taught since 2006 to 2007 academic year in all of the faculties of education in Turkey. At Marmara University, future teachers of the French Language Teaching Section of the Department of Foreign Language Teaching at the Ataturk Faculty of Education take this course in the first semester of their 3rd year. This study was conducted on 47 future teachers enrolled in the French Language Teaching Section and that have visited various institutions. In this study, qualitative research method was used and an interview form composed of 2 open-ended questions prepared specifically for future teachers was administered. The research data were collected with the technique of interview form in 2012 to 2013 academic year and the data collected were evaluated with coding method. The aim of our study is to identify the problems that future teachers encounter in the institutions that they visit, to classify these problems and to offer solutions, while determining the benefits that this practical course provides to future teachers. One of the most significant problems encountered is that the institutions do not want to host future teachers due to various reasons. Another problem is that these institutions do not sufficiently or effectively derive benefits from the competence of the volunteering future teachers. On the other hand, one of the most important acquisitions at the end of this practical course is that awareness of future teachers towards social problems is raised and the professional experience they gained is another benefit. Key words: Community service practices, future teachers of French, problems encountered, suggestions.