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1997 is an important date for Turkey's Foreign Language Policy. The Turkish Ministry of National Education decided to make drastic changes in the nation's foreign language policy.

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The Turkish Ministry of National Education, in cooperation with the Turkish Higher Education Council, established a plan called 'The Ministry of National Education Development Project'. This project is a major curriculum innovation in FLT and its aim was to promote the teaching of English in the Turkish educational institutions.  The 1997 education reform adopted behaviorist approach to education changing the teaching programs of nearly all courses offered in the national education including the English teaching programs. Thus, English language, which was offered to secondary school students prior to the 1997 reform, started to be taught to students in the 4th grade in primary schools.

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Another major change that occurred after the 1997 educational reform was the initiation of Turkey’s ﬁrst distance learning teacher education programme. To meet the shortage of teachers, mainly created by the TEYLs, the MNE signed a protocol with the Open University Faculty of Anadolu University, to initiate the ‘English Language Teacher Education’ project in February 2000, a four-year teacher education programme.

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In 2002, the MNE decided that in Anatolian high schools science and mathematics, previously taught in English, would be taught in Turkish. This decision was taken due to two reasons: There were problems related to the lack of adequately trained teachers to teach mathematics and science in English, and also there were complaints that graduates of these schools had a disadvantage in the centralized university entrance examination, which is

administered in Turkish.

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As of the 2005 school year, the one-year English language preparation class offered in Anatolian, private and Super English Language High Schools was abolished in order to achieve standardization in ELT in all types of schools. As a result of this implementation, currently, the ﬁrst years at secondary school are taught ten lessons of English, and the second, third and fourth years four hours of weekly English, regardless of whether they are Anatolian schools or general state schools.

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During the teaching year 2005–2006, with the Ministry’s approval, a teacher training component was added to the English Access Micro Scholarship Program. The teachers’ component of the program includes in-service teacher-training sessions and workshops conducted by the American language specialists for approximately 270 secondary school teachers throughout the country.

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The 2013 ELTP brought structural changes not only in the whole education system, breaking it into three parts as primary, secondary, and high school education in duration of 4 years each, but also in the teaching of English lowering the age for learning English to 7 years from 2nd grade for 2 hours a week.

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-  Kirkgoz, Y. (2007). English Language Teaching in Turkey: Policy Changes and their Implementations. RELC Journal. 38(2), 216-228
-  Erarslan, A. (2018). Strengths and weaknesses of primary school English language teaching programs in Turkey: Issues regarding program components. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 4(2), 325-347.