Hemen her akademik yıl öncesi kaldırılıp kaldırılmayacağı gündeme gelen ortak zorunlu İngilizce dersi üniversitelerde yıllardır okutulmaktadır. Ancak verimliliği konusunda hep soru işaretleri olan bu ders hem öğrenciler hem dersi veren öğretim elemanları hem de idareciler açısından tam olarak benimsenememiştir. Özellikle de üniversitenin il merkezi dışında bulunan birimlerine merkezden öğretim elemanı göndermek çoğu üniversitede sorun olagelmiştir. Var olan bu durumları dikkate alarak son birkaç yıldır Türkiye’deki üniversiteler adım adım bu dersi uzaktan eğitim yoluyla vermeye başlamışlardır. Bu durum özellikle devlet üniversitelerinde oldukça yaygın bir uygulama hâline dönüşmektedir. Ancak bazı üniversiteler uzaktan eğitim sisteminin yabancı dil öğretiminde yüz yüze eğitimle kıyaslandığında zayıf kalacağını düşünerek diğer ortak zorunlu dersler Türk Dili ve Atatürk İlkeleri ve İnkılap Tarihi derslerinde bu uygulamayı başlatmış olmalarına rağmen İngilizce dersi için yüz yüze eğitime devam etme kararı almıştır. Uzaktan eğitim son zamanların en gözde eğitim yöntemlerinden birisi olmakla beraber elde edilecek verimliliği özelde ortaya çıkan koşullar belirlemektedir. Dolayısıyla üniversitelerin bu dersi kendi veya anlaşma yaptıkları diğer üniversitelerin uzaktan eğitim merkezleri aracılığıyla vermeleri bazı artı ve eksi durumlar ortaya koymaktadır. Örneğin, söz konusu ders için uzaktan eğitim sistemine geçen bazı üniversiteler sadece asenkron ders anlatımlarını kullanırken bazı üniversiteler ise asenkron dersleri düzenli aralıklarla yapılan senkron derslerle desteklemektedir. Üniversitelerde bulunan öğrenci sayısı da sistemin sağlıklı bir şekilde işleyebilmesini etkileyen önemli etkenlerden biri olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Benzer şekilde, senkron veya asenkron İngilizce derslerini verecek olan öğretim elemanlarının sayısı, niteliği ve uzaktan eğitim konusundaki deneyimi de olumlu veya olumsuz durumlar ortaya çıkarabilmektedir. Bu çalışma son yıllarda ortaya çıkan bu eğilimi üniversitelerin mevcut koşulları ışığında hem öğrenciler hem de öğretim elemanları açısından avantajları ve dezavantajlarıyla ele almayı amaçlamaktadır.

Compulsory English course the abolition of which comes to the agenda before almost every academic year has been offered for many years at universities. However, this course, with various questions about its efficacy, has not been thoroughly embraced by students, academic staff, and administrators yet. Especially sending academic staff to teach English in the universities’ remote units, vocational schools in particular, has always been a problem. Considering these solid problems, universities in Turkey have gradually begun to offer this course through distance education in recent years. This has become a widespread trend especially at state universities. However, some universities, both state and foundation, have decided to maintain the face-to-face system for the delivery of compulsory English courses while they have shifted to distance education for the other common compulsory courses including Turkish Language, Principles of Ataturk and History of Revolution, and Basic Information Technologies. One of the most influential factors behind this decision is the strong conviction that foreign language education which is characterized by a skills-based nature cannot be carried out via distance education system effectively enough. Although distance education appears to be a popular means of education in a number of fields in recent years, the actual efficacy to be reaped is determined by the specific conditions at hand. Its current practice at Turkish universites, for example, does not possess a standard and well-programmed style. While some universites offer distant English classes only through asynchronous lessons, some others support these asynchronous lessons with regular synchronous sessions; and some others organize face-to-face student and teacher meetings at previously-designated office hours at regular intervals. The demographic conditions constitute another important aspect within this context. The number of 1st-grade students taking this course varies considerably among universities. Should this population be quite high, it becomes really hard to integrate synchronous sessions and face-to-face meetings into the distance education system. On the contrary, a reasonable population of freshman students can enable this kind of integration. Likewise, factors like the number, quality, teaching experience, technological competence, and distance-learning-related knowledge of the instructors to offer synchronous and ascynchronous English lessons are likely to bring about advantages and disadvantages for the implementation of distance education in the delivery of language classes. Therefore, it is evident that offering this course through a universitiy’s own distance education center or an outer contracted one brings some positive and negative effects. This study aims to cover this new trend with its advantages and disadvantages in terms of both students and teaching staff in the light of the available conditions. To this end, the profile of the universites in Turkey in relation to the implementation of distance education was found by accessing their official websites one by one. This query revealed that 27 of the state universities and 10 of the foundation universities in Turkey offer the common compulsory English course via distance education. Although these figures seem low considering that the total number of universities in Turkey is 184 (100 state and 84 foundation) , they are not actually. The widespread distance education implementations are quite new in Turkey and these figures are enough to make it sure that this new trend has been embraced by Turkish universities and seems likely to become more popular in the near future. Taking the issue in terms of English language instructors, it can be said that it is a must for them to have or develop a technical and technological infrastructure to be able to use the systems employed in the distance education process effectively. If they are not good at using technologica