Abstract

Last two decades have seen a significant change in the way how foreign language education has been seen in the European Union. Particular works carried out by the European Council has led the member countries to gain a new point of view on the foreign language policies by means of promoting the Common European Framework for Languages and the Language Portfolio and having the year 2001 as “The Year for Languages”. Such activities, which aim to encourage individuals to learn more than one foreign language, emphasize the importance of plurilingualism and pluriculturalism on the Continent. In order to implement the language policies and regulations on language education, these two source of refererences (The CEF and the Portfolio) schould also be promoted in our country and adapted to our context. Altough some preliminary works have already been carried out, such changes need to be looked at from different perspectives. This study investigates to what extend the European and Turkish foreign language education institutions give importance to and willing to include such changes in their programmes, and particularly focuses on discussions on the process of reviewing and redesigning the programmes in the German language teacher education.