Theses supervised by Prof. Dr. İlknur Keçik
20 theses · Anadolu University
The effects of arcs motivational model on student motivation to learn English
The present study was designed to examine the effects of ARCS motivational model (Keller, 2010) on students' motivation and to identify the perspectives of the students related to activities and the teacher behavior that motivates them. For this purpose, ARCS motivational model strategies were inserted to the instructional design via detailed lesson plans and these plans were applied throughout ten weeks. To find out the effects of ARSC model data were collected using two scales. These scales were Course Interest Survey (CIS) and Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (IMMS) by John Keller, and they were administered to a sampling of 30 preparatory school students at Namik Kemal University before and after the application of lesson plans. To examine the effects of ARCS motivational model on students' motivation CIS and IMMS results were evaluated using Paired Samples t-test. The results of Course Interest Survey indicated a significant increase since students showed higher course motivation based on the overall CIS results at the end of the study. The Course Interest Survey items were evaluated in terms of each ARCS category and a significant difference was observed in all scales. The results showed that the ARCS model inserted language instruction had positive influence on students' course motivation in all categories. To examine the effects of ARCS strategies on increasing students' motivation in terms of instructional materials the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey results were evaluated. A paired samples t-test yielded a significant difference in students' instructional motivation scores. For a deeper understanding, two subscales of IMMS were assessed separately to identify the difference in mean scores and whether the instructional materials based on ARCS strategies were implemented into the classroom instruction successfully. The results revealed significant differences in both subscales. Students' instructional materials motivation increased. Students' comments that were collected through weekly comments sheet also supported statistical data obtained through both CIS and IMMS. The second purpose of the study was to identify course design features that motivated students most. For this reason, students were asked to write weekly comments sheet and to comment on the effectiveness of the instruction and the type of instructional materials and activities motivated them during the class hour. These were collected by the instructor at the last lesson of each week. Students reported that extra materials such as info-gap, problem solving, picture description, picture and sentence matching etc. activities increased their motivation. Especially vocabulary teaching activities supported with games, listening practices such as songs and videos were suggested as highly motivating. Activities that required learner participation such as pair works, group activities, competitions and games were considerably effective in increasing student motivation. Moreover, activities that allowed students use their creativity and their own ideas were other motivating course design features. Besides class materials, instructor behavior was indicated as relatively motivating. Polite, energetic, enthusiastic, caring instructor behaviors were reported as effective in increasing students' motivation to the lesson. Furthermore, providing constructive feedback, giving verbal praise and providing rewards for accomplishing a difficult task or showing effort were other motivating instructor behaviors. In addition, students reported that frequent student-instructor communication helped them focus their lesson and increased their motivation. KEY WORDS: ARCS Motivational Model, CIS, IMMS, Motivation
A comparative analysis in written discourse: A corpus-based study on frame marker use in native and non-native students' argumentative essays
Savlama temelli metin yazımı, belirli dil ifadelerinin kullanımı ile düşüncelerin, savların ve karşıt fikilerin okuyucuya belirli bir düzen içerisinde aktarılmasını, söylemin düzenlenmesini ve okuyucu ile başarılı iletişim kurmayı gerektirdiğinden öğrenciler için zorluk oluşturmaktadır. Bu dil ifadelerinden biri olan çerçeve belirleyicileri, yazılı söylemin önemli bir öğesidir ve söylemin açıkça düzenlenmesinde ve savların, karşıt fikirlerin, ve metnin bölümlerinin belirli bir düzen içerisinde sunulmasında önemli rol oynamaktadır. Söylemin içeriğinin ve yapısının en iyi biçimde düzenlenmesi en başta çerçeve belirleyicileri ile sağlanmaktadır (Hempel ve Degand, 2006) ve sıralama (ilk olarak, ikinci olarak), yazarın amacını açıkça ifade etme (amacım...niyetim...), metin aşamalarına gönderimde bulunma (sonuç olarak, kısaca), ve konular arası geçişi işaretleme (açısından, şimdi) olmak üzere dört işlevi bulunmaktadır (Hyland, 2005a). Ancak, yazılı metinlerde okuyucuyu yönlendiren ve metnin anlaşılmasını sağlayan çerçeve belirleyicileri kullanımı yabancı dil öğretiminde, yazma derslerinde çok önemsenmemektedir ve İngilizce'yi yabancı dil olarak öğrenen öğrenciler çerçeve belirleyicilerini etkili biçimde kullanmakta zorlanmaktadır ve çeşit olarak az sayıda çerçeve belirleyicisini sık olarak kullanmaktadır. Bu bağlamda, İngilizce'yi yabancı dil olarak öğrenen Türk öğrencilerin yazılı metinlerinde üstsöylem düzeyinde çerçeve belirleyici kullanımlarını inceleyen çalışma oldukça azdır. Bu nedenle, Türk öğrencilerin yazılı metinlerini düzenlerken hangi çerçeve belirleyicisini hangi amaçla kullandıklarının incelenmesi sonucunda farklı söylem topluluklarında metnin düzenlenmesinde çerçeve belirleyicilerinin kullanımına ilişkin ortaya konacak bulguların konuya açıklık getirmesi hedeflenmektedir. Ayrıca, anadili İngilizce olan öğrencilerin 'önsezisi'ne güvenmekten ziyade (Nesselhauf, 2004: 125) yazılı metinlerinde tipik çerçeve belirleyicileri kullanımlarının belirlenmesi, Türk öğrencilerin çerçeve belirleyicilerini kullanımları ile karşılaştırılması ve anadili İngilizce olan ve olmayan öğrencilerin kullanım farklılıklarının ortaya çıkarılması hedeflenmektedir. Bu doğrultuda, bu çalışma, İngilizce Öğretmenliği Programı'nda okuyan 1. sınıf Türk üniversite öğrencileri ile Amerikalı üniversite öğrencilerinin İngilizce savlama temelli metinlerinde çerçeve belirleyicilerini kullanımlarını, kullanım sıklığı ve işlevleri bakımından incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Çalışmanın amaçları doğrultusunda, Louvain Amerikalı ve İngiliz Öğrencilerin İngilizce Derlemi (LOCNESS)'nden basit rastgele örnekleme yöntemi ile alınan 100 savlama temelli metin ile Türk üniversite öğrencilerinin savlama temelli metinlerinden oluşturulan derlemden aynı yöntem ile alınan 100 savlama temelli metindeki çerçeve belirleyicileri ve sıklığı AntConc 3.2.4. yazılımı aracılığıyla saptanmış ve Hyland (2005a)'in çerçeve belirleyicileri işlev modeli kullanılarak çalışmanın yapıldığı kurumda çalışan ikinci bir araştırmacı ile manuel olarak incelenmiştir. Buna göre, çerçeve belirleyicileri sıralama, metin aşamalarına gönderimde bulunma, amacı açıkça ifade etme ve konular arası geçişi işaretleme işlevleri bakımından incelenmiştir. Daha sonra, sıklık analizi için çerçeve belirleyicilerinin sayı ve yüzdeliklerinin hesaplanmasının yanısıra iki derlemde her 10,000 kelimedeki kullanım sıklıkları hesaplanmış ve iki grubun çerçeve belirleyicileri kullanımı arasında anlamlı fark olup olmadığını belirlemek amacıyla Log-Likelihood istatistik testi yapılmıştır. Çalışma bulguları, her bir derlemde ve iki derlem arasında çerçeve belirleyicilerinin işlevlerine göre kullanım sıklıkları ve çeşitliliğinde farklılık olduğunu göstermiştir. Her iki grupta da sıralama ifadelerinin diğer tüm çerçeve belirleyicilerinden daha fazla sıklıkta ve çeşitte kullanıldığı ve konular arası geçişi işaretleme işlevini gören ifadelerin oldukça az kullanıldığı belirlenmiştir. Ayrıca, Türk öğrencilerin çerçeve belirleyicilerini Amerikalı öğrencilere kıyasla oldukça sık ve fazla çeşitte kullandığı saptanmıştır. Bu araştırma sonucunda, İngilizce'yi yabancı dil olarak öğrenen öğrencilerin çerçeve belirleyicileri kullanarak üstsöylem boyutunda savlarını daha düzenli ve açık bir şekilde okuyucuya iletebilmeleri, daha etkili metinler yazabilmeleri için akademik yazma dersleri düzenlenmesinin ve çerçeve belirleyicilerin kullanılması için çeşitli eğitim amaçlı uygulamaların yapılmasının yararlı olacağı düşünülmektedir. Key words: Anadili İngilizce olan ve olmayan öğrenciler, çerçeve belirleyicileri, derlem temelli çalışma, savlama temelli metin, üstsöylem
Employment of stance adverbials as hedges and boosters in argumentative essays of native american and nonnative Turkish university students
The growth of discourse analysis as a key tool in understanding language use, has led to the idea of the importance of interaction in writing. Thus, the concept of metadiscourse has emerged as a way of representing the writer's awareness of the unfolding text as discourse. Metadiscourse is based on a view of writing as social engagement and especially considered to be essential element of persuasive and argumentative writing (Crismore & Farnsworth 1990; Hyland, 2004). Among the metadiscourse markers, hedges and boosters are two crucial devices helping writers to express their authorial stance in their products. Writing argumentative texts is a challenge for the students not only in their mother tongue but also in their foreign language(s). They seem to experience difficulties in producing texts, which clearly interact with the reader(s), guide the reader in the process of reception and interpretation of the text and convince the potential reader of the text. Research on students' argumentative writing is relatively little compared to descriptive, narrative, and expository writing (e.g. Stephens, 2003). For example, two of the related studies have focused on comparison of native speakers with advanced Spanish university writers (ICLE corpus) (Neff, Ballesteros, Dafouz, Martínez & Rica, 2004) and the Greek advanced learners of English (Hatzitheodorou & Mattheoudakis, 2007). More texts need to be analyzed to gain a deeper understanding about how and effective authorial stance is presented. In the Turkish context, the students are not offered an explicit instruction in authorial stance taking and employing stance devices, instead, they are provided with very general writing guidelines and there is a scarcity of study examining comparatively native American and Turkish non-native EFL learners' employment of stance devices as hedges and boosters in their English argumentative writings. Therefore, a detailed and comparative analysis needs to be conducted in order to gain a deeper understanding about how stance-taking is presented by non- native and native students. So this study aims to identify the stance adverbials used as hedges and boosters employed by native American and Turkish non-native students. This study specifically based on the stance adverbials as they expose the author's comment or attitude much clearer. The data of this study consist of the argumentative essays of the native American students (from the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays - LOCNESS corpus) and of the Turkish non-native students from the corpus of argumentative essays written by Turkish students, majoring in the first year of English Language Teaching Department at Anadolu University. Simple random sampling is used in order to choose 200 argumentative essays (100 from each student group) and native corpus consists of 84,851 words whereas non-native corpus consists of 86,554 words. The data are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively, percentages, mean frequencies per 10,000 words and Log-likelihood results for each item are calculated and interpreted. The stance adverbials as hedges and boosters are identified with the help of a concordance program, Ant. Conc. 3.3.4. and analyzed in their own contexts manually using Hyland's (2005) interpersonal model of metadiscourse, checked twice and the results are inter-rated by another researcher by using peer debriefing system. The functional use of stance adverbials as hedges and boosters are analyzed in their own contexts and explained in detail. The results of the study show that argumentative essays of students are characterized by extensive use of boosters, and less limited use of hedges and it is found out that Turkish non-native students use more diverse hedges and boosters than native American students use in their argumentative essays. Functional uses of each adverbial are explained, examples from the essays are also presented. The results of this study are believed to create an awareness among both the teachers and the students both in theoretical and linguistic aspects. Keywords: argumentative writing, corpus, hedges and boosters, stance adverbials
The impact of the explicit instruction of lexical bundles on academic writing skills of turkish EFL learners
The aim of the current study is to investigate the impact of the explicit instruction of lexical bundles through noticing, retrieval and generative activities on academic writing of Turkish EFL students and to reveal participants' opinions on this treatment.The participants of the study were 30 Turkish EFL learners enrolled in School of Foreign Languages at Osmaniye Korkut Ata University. Both quantitative and qualitative instruments were used in the study.The study includes a within group time series design in which participants were involved in one treatment group. The quantitative data were collected through pre-test, immediate post-test and delayed post-test scores of multiple choice test (for measuring receptive knowledge), c-test (for measuring controlled productive knowledge) and argumentative paragraphs (for measuring uncontrolled productive knowledge). The qualitative data were collected through questionnaire including two sections; fifteen closed-ended and three open-ended questions.The results of the study found out that explicit instruction of lexical bundles through noticing, retrieval and generative activities had a significant effect both on achievement and retention of receptive lexical bundle knowledge, and on achievement and retention of productive lexical bundle incontrolled and uncontrolled situations. However, the comparison of immediate post-test and delayed post-test scores of the productive knowledge of lexical bundles in uncontrolled situation showed that there was a significantly decrease in the retention of the participants. The results of the qualitative part of the study showed that participants highly benefited from this treatment, which helped them improve their academic writing quality by using the target lexical bundles. Moreover, after the treatment, they were more willing to use the target bundles in their writing. Keywords: Lexical bundles, Academic writing, Explicit instruction, Noticing,Retrieval and generative activities.
A study on reflective reciprocal peer coaching: An application in pre-service English language teaching context
The aim of this study is to implement reflective reciprocal peer coaching (RRPC) practice into an ELT pre-service teacher education context, and to find out how this practice affects pre-service teachers? reflectivity levels as well as to explore their perceptions about it. For the purposes of the study, a total of 12 pre-service teachers enrolled in an ELT teacher education program at Anadolu University, Turkey participated in the study. For a systematic and effective implementation of the RRPC practice a training component is organized and different tools such as the observation forms, coaching cycle checklists and intervention session checklists are developed and used. The participants received training on various aspects of reflective reciprocal peer coaching (RRPC) for twelve weeks and they were involved in RRPC practice for eight weeks.Both quantitative and qualitative research instruments were used. As for the quantitative part, The Profile of Reflective Thinking Attributes was administered to the participants for three times in order to identify whether there were differences in the reflectivity levels of the participants before and after they received training, and before and after they were engaged in RRPC practice. As for the qualitative part, the pre-service teachers in the study wrote reflective diaries upon the completion of the training process, and throughout the RRPC practice both on their weekly teaching performances and on the weekly peer coaching cycles. The sample post-conference sessions of the participants were also analyzed for qualitative support and all participants were interviewed at the end of the study.The results of the study put forward that all pre-service teachers benefited highly from the RRPC experience. The reflectivity levels of the participants advanced after the received training and it continued to progress after they were involved in RRPC practice. Furthermore, pre-service teachers had positive perceptions about receiving training and experiencing RRPC practice. It was revealed that this experience helped them not only improve their teaching but also their social and affective sides. The pre-service teachers in the study made connections between the ideas of peer coaching and their future careers, and the results yielded enthusiasm about applying ideas of peer coaching for future development.
İngilizce ruh-durum eylemlerinin İngilizceyi yabancı dil olarak öğrenen Türk üniversite öğrencileri tarafından edinimi
The major purpose of this study was to examine Turkish L2 learners' acquisition of psych(ological) verbs. The earlier studies indicated that learners had little difficulty with SE psych verbs (e.g., like, hate, admire), whereas OE psych verbs (e.g., frighten, please, anger) caused challenges for learners. This study aimed to test whether the same tendency would be observed among Turkish learners of English. It firstly examined the L2 acquisition of psych verbs in comprehension and production level by Turkish-speaking undergraduates learning English as a foreign language in terms of different variables such as verb type, animacy and language level. Secondly, it investigated the preferences of Turkish-speaking EFL learners in production of English psych-verbs. For these purposes, four different instruments were used that were: Quick Placement Test, Written Production Task, Acceptability Judgement Task and Picture Identification Task. The data collected in comprehension and production level were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively through a set of descriptive statistics and parametric tests (t-test, ANOVA, MANOVA). The results indicated that three variables (i.e., verb type, animacy and language level) of the current study had a relative effect on the acquisition process of English psych verbs, and those effects emerged differently in comprehension and production level as well as in different task types. The related discussions and suggestions had been proposed under the light of the results of the study.
İngilizce öğretmen adaylarının okul deneyimi öncesi ve sonrasındaki öğretmen hazırbulunuşlukları
With a mixed methods explanatory sequential research design, the present study aims to uncover the teacher readiness of pre-service foreign language teachers during the practicum in light of four components of readiness as teaching self-efficacy, attitudes towards teaching, teaching motivations, and personality traits. In order to explore changes in pre-service foreign language teachers' perceived teaching self-efficacies, attitudes towards teaching, and teaching motivations, two sets of quantitative data from 80 last year ELT students enrolled in a teaching practice class in a Turkish state university were collected through three different scales before and after the practicum period, which was intervened by the COVID-19 pandemic during the process of the present study. Additionally, pre-service foreign language teachers' views on practicum experiences and their teacher readiness were explored through semi-structured telephone interviews which were carried out with 11 of the participants after the practicum. The findings revealed that there were significant increases in the participants' teaching self-efficacies and attitudes towards teaching at the end of the practicum. Moreover, teaching motivations of the participants appeared to have changed towards more altruistic and intrinsic orientations while the findings also indicated that they had become more aware of the realities of teaching profession at the end of the practicum. Furthermore, significant correlations were computed among attitudes towards teaching, teaching self-efficacies, and some motivational factors influencing teaching choice. Finally, the participants' views on practicum were centered around the importance of and the need for sufficient practice opportunities, the gap between theory and practice, the effect of COVID-19 intervention, and the need for further professional development.
Yabancı dil olarak İngilizce öğretiminde öğrenme desteğini gözlemlemek için kontrol listesi geliştirilmesi: Bir Delphi çalışması
In this study, the purpose is to provide a guide for the pre-service teachers in supporting their students in EFL classes. The aim, therefore, is to develop a checklist to be used in the classroom environment by pre-service teachers and in-service teachers to observe scaffolding strategies. The methodological approach to the study is the Delphi Method which is conducted in three rounds. Fifty-five (55) experts, participated in the first round and responded to an open-ended questionnaire in which they had to itemize what they do or what teachers should do in their classes to support their students learning of English. The data was analyzed and categorized into themes by the researcher and a peer-debriefer. In the second round, two experts in the field of English language teaching analyzed the themes and stated their opinions on the themes identified. Furthermore, the themes were re-categorized and converted into observable actions. In this way a checklist was formed and was given to another expert to comment on. As a result, checklist with three sections was formed. In the third round, the checklist was sent to English teachers in different institutions via online and were asked to state whether the items of the checklist were observable and acceptable. According to the feedback from the teachers the checklist was revised once more and the checklist was finalized. The final version of the checklist consisted of two sections and five sub-titles with 52 items indicating observable behaviors.
Bir Türk üniversitesi ortamında uzaktan eğitimde öğretmen adaylarının ders planlarına verilen uygulama öğretim elemanı geri bildirimlerinde üst söylem belirleyicileri
The study aims to investigate the use of metadiscourse markers in written feedback from supervisors for lesson plans and the opinions of pre-service teachers on the feedback they received in an asynchronous distance teacher education context. The participants were pre-service teachers who wrote lesson plans before the teaching practice sessions in the schools they were assigned. To investigate the metadiscourse markers, a corpus including these written authentic feedback samples was created. Qualitative data was collected from the interviews with pre-service teachers. According to the results, interactional metadiscourse markers (%75.08) are used more frequently than interactive metadiscourse markers (%24.92). Engagement markers (%62.13) are the most frequent while evidentials (%0.20) are the least. High frequent use of you, and your and mentioning the names of pre-service teachers in feedback displays the dialogic characteristics of written feedback for lesson plans and suggests that the supervisors mainly aimed to engage the pre-service teachers in the message conveyed in the feedback. Some metadiscourse markers mark + feedback while some metadiscourse markers mark pseudo-feedback. Pre-service teachers expressed both satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the feedback. Pre-service teachers reported that they tried to meet or talk on the phone with their supervisors since some feedback was not comprehensible. While pre-service teachers who met or talked on the phone to their supervisors do not find feedback including just imperatives or criticizing questions in feedback demotivating, pre-service teacher who can not meet a-or talk with their supervisors find demotivating.
Öğrencilerin konuşma sorunlarını ele alma açısından İngilizce öğretmenlerinin bilişi
This research was conducted at Foreign Languages Department of Eskişehir Osmangazi University with the aim of exploring English language teachers' perceptions, actions, correspondence between the two and the impact of schooling, professional coursework, context and classroom practice on teaching speaking. In line with this aim, case study was carried out and data collection was implemented through open-ended questionnaires, observations, reflection reports and interviews. After gathering overall perceptions of 28 teachers, in-depth data were obtained from 5 teachers from the same group of participants. According to the findings of the research, most of the teachers perceived speaking as an important skill and made suggestions on improving this skill; however, three teachers' actions were observed to be teacher-centered and student oral production was observed to reduce. Considering the impact of the background factors, schooling, context and classroom practice were found to affect the three teachers more than professional coursework. In contrast, the two teachers who were involved in professional development did more learner-centered activities and mentioned contextual constraints less than the other three teachers. Keywords: Teaching speaking, Teacher cognition, Teachers' perceptions, Teachers' actions, Background factors
Kavramsal eğretileme kuramı ışığında öğretilen öbek eylemlerin içselleştirilerek kazanımı: Üniversite hazırlık sınıfı öğrencileri örneği
The major concern of this study is to describe the attempt to explicitly teach phrasal verb constructions in the light of conceptual metaphor theory, focusing on the metaphorical orientations of particles as well as to investigate the relationship between such an explicit phrasal verb instruction and implicit phrasal verb knowledge gains. It is a within group pretest/posttest design experimental research carried out with 60 Turkish EFL learners enrolled in the School of Foreign Languages in Kütahya Dumlupınar University in Kütahya, Turkey. The analysis was conducted in terms of three dimensions; which are achievement and retention of receptive and productive PV knowledge, subconscious lexical recognition and processing and semantic lexical processing. For the analysis of first dimension, a multiple-choice test to evaluate receptive PV knowledge as well as a c-test to measure controlled productive PV knowledge were administered as pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest. To investigate the subconscious lexical recognition and processing, a masked repetition priming lexical decision task and to examine semantic lexical processing a self-paced task were applied to the participants. The results of the study found out that explicitly presented PV knowledge in the light of conceptual metaphors significantly influences not only the achievement and retention of receptive and productive PV knowledge, but also the subconscious lexical recognition and processing as well as semantic priming of PV knowledge, validating a strong interface position in terms of lexical aspect of language learning.
Eylem yanulamlaması üzerine kesitsel bir araştırma: İngilizceyi yabancı dil olarak öğrenen öğrencilerin olgu dışı biliş eylemlerini kullanım durumları
The main purpose of this study was to examine EFL learners' use of non-factive cognitive verb (think, believe, assume, suppose) complementation patterns and their related verb senses, and to shed light on learners' competence at receptive level and performance at productive level. To investigate the achievement level of learners at recognition and production levels, quantitative data analyses were conducted. In order to examine the preferences of the learners regarding verb complementation patterns and their related verb senses, qualitative data analyses were conducted. In line with the objectives of the current study, four types of tasks (Sentence Production, Sentence Completion, Fill-in the Blanks, Grammaticality Judgment Tasks), which were developed by using Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), were used as data collection instruments. Semantic and syntactic properties of verbs were analyzed through examining learner responses to the tasks. Valency Dictionary of English (Herbst et.al, 2004) was used in deciding on and identifying the syntactic and semantic properties of the cognitive verbs. Based on the results of the study, learners were found to choose a number of patterns and verb meanings over the others. Differences across participants from different word levels and years of study in terms of their scores were identified in all tasks. Considering learners' responses to sentence completion and Sentence Production Tasks, it was possible to say that common unacceptable and problematic occurrences were erroneous complementation patterns, the wrong choice of [Prep N] complementation pattern, inappropriate use of indirect questions after the verbs, pattern-meaning mismatch, and possible literal translation from their L1.
İngilizce öğretmenliği programı'nda okuyan öğrencilerin kullandıkları olgusal biliş eylemlerinin yanulamlama görünümlerinin incelenmesi
The current research aimed to explore Turkish L2 learners' receptive and productive knowledge of factive cognitive verb complementation in terms of complementation patterns and senses. For the purposes of the research, embedded mixed-methods research design was adopted by using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Participants of the study consisted of 269 Turkish learners of English majoring in ELT program. Data were collected through four types of tests developed based on Valency Dictionary of English (Herbst, Heath, Roe, and Götz, 2004) to measure L2 learners' state of knowledge through Grammaticality Judgment Test and Fill-in-the Blank Test and to reveal choices of patterns and senses through Sentence Completion Test and Free-Production Test based on extracts from Corpus of Contemporary American English. Data were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively through the identification of patterns and senses, calculation of raw and mean scores and statistical tests. The results of the study yielded the significant effect of word-level on L2 learners' recognition and production of verb complementation. The correct choices of L2 learners yielded the use of the verbs in very restricted sense with limited types of patterns (i.e. predominantly noun phrases). The incorrect choices included the wrong choices of various patterns especially prepositional phrases (for/about/of/from Noun Phrases/V-ing) with regret. Besides, various problems were observed such as the mismatch between the complementation pattern and verb sense, incorrect verb sense use and the problematic use of wh-CL complementation pattern. This study is hoped to provide valuable insights into L2 learners' interlanguage development through their correct, incorrect and problematic uses of verb complementation.
Deneyimli ve az deneyimli İngilizce öğretmenlerinin sözel düzeltici dönüt ile ilgili inançlarının ve sınıf içi uygulamalarının karşılaştırmalı çalışması
The current study was undertaken to reveal the experienced and less experienced EFL teachers' stated beliefs about oral feedback types and their in-class practices and compare them to find out whether there were an inconsistences between the two. To reach its aims, a mixed-method was employed by means of classroom audio recordings, a belief questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The participants of the study were two experienced and two less experienced teachers teaching at preparatory school in a state university in Turkey. The classroom data showed that the most frequent feedback was Recast for both groups in Listening and Speaking classes. Also, they all used the six main types of oral feedback at varying degrees. On the other hand, the questionnaire and semi-structured interview results revealed that the experienced and less experienced teachers had both contrasting and similar ideas about the concepts such as priority of oral feedback, focus of correction, feedback types used for correction and peer-correction. The comparison of in-class practices and stated beliefs showed that there were a number of inconsistencies between the two in both groups.
Turkish speaking first year and third year elt students' syntactic errors in their argumentative essays
The purpose of this study is to explore the syntactic error types made by ELT students in their English essays, to find out whether the errors show any difference according to the year level and the error type, and to describe the frequent errors emerged in the data. This research is believed to contribute to our ELT practices like the design of teaching activities in the fields of both FL teaching and language teacher training. The study is a part of a larger project which was funded by TÜBİTAK SOBAG group (project number 108K153).The corpus used for analysis was reached by computerizing 8794-word handwritten texts composed of the argumentative essays of 17 first year students and 17 third year students of Anadolu University Education Faculty ELT Department BA Program. Syntactic errors in the texts were identified and corrected by a British native speaker. The errors were assigned error tags used by the UCLEE program and the error frequencies were obtained using the concordance program AntConc. Statistical analyses were obtained via SPSS 15 program. Determining whether each error was an omission, addition or misinformation error, as proposed in the ?surface structure taxonomy? (Dulay, Burt & Krashen, 1982), and stating the errors? syntactic, semantic and discourse level features formed the descriptions of the frequent errors.According to the findings, there were nine general types of errors in the texts. Four of them, namely article, verb, noun and pronoun use in frequency order, accounted for 86% of all the errors found. The non-parametric tests showed no significant difference between the two year levels on the basis of the error frequencies, but they confirmed a significant difference between the errors of both article use and verb use and all other types of errors.In the light of the results, the most frequent errors, namely the errors of article use, were focused on and described in terms of specificity, genericity, uniqueness and discourse features. The widespread addition of ?the? was found with noun phases having [?specific], [+generic, +plural], and [?unique] nouns and the noun phrases which were newly introduced in the discourse. In the light of available literature, these results might indicate that the present ELT students? acquisition of article use has not been completed yet.
The views of EFL students towards literature in English language teaching department
This study was designed to investigate the views of EFL students towards literature and the possible factors that influence these views at English Language Teaching Department of Anadolu University, Turkey. 220 participants from 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade students took part in this study. Two groups out of each grade were randomly selected. In the selection procedure of the participants, Stratified Random Sampling was used. The data for the study was collected through four different instruments: a literature views questionnaire, a reading motivation test, the grammar and reading sections of the TOEFL test, and semi structured interviews. The statistical analysis of the data revealed that the majority of the ELT students at Anadolu University employ positive views towards literature. In terms of the possible conditions that influence the students? views towards literature classes the results of the present study depicted that there is a correlation between views about literature in Turkish and views about literature in English. Additionally, the study revealed that there is a correlation between students? perceived proficiency levels, personal taste in reading, upbringing and habits, reading proficiency levels and reading motivations and views about literature classes in English and there is a correlation between personal taste in reading, upbringing and habits and reading motivation and views about literature in Turkish. Another finding of the present study is that the ELT students at Anadolu University generally prefer the whole class discussion activities in their literature learning and teaching procedures, and this technique is among the factors effecting students? views about literature in English. The present study revealed that students? reading additional books in English has an effect on views about English literature. Furthermore, the present study figured out that there is a correlation between number of books read in L1 and the views about literature both in English and Turkish, and there is a correlation between number of books read in L2 and views about literature in English. The findings of this study may yield to further insights for implementing literature teaching techniques in the curriculum of institutes where literature and language education are combined. Furthermore, findings of this study may yield to further insights for reviewing the curriculum of the literature classes in EFL context especially at Anadolu University.
A study on blended learning model for teaching practice course in pre-service English language teacher training program
The aim of the present study is to develop a model based on blended learning for pre-service teaching practice course in English Language Teacher Training Program at Anadolu University. It is supposed that providing a blended learning environment for teaching practice course would improve the practice and contribute to the professional growth of pre-service teachers. Since it will increase the contact hours among students and university supervisors and facilitate peer feedback among pre-service teachers, which in turn, create a productive learning environment for them.Within the framework of `pedagogical action research? design, 18 fourth year students participated in the present study. Various data gathering techniques including a survey on participants? attitudes towards the Web (computer) based instruction and a survey on the participants? satisfaction with the blended teaching practice course were used. Additionally, in order to perform an in-depth analysis of the findings, standardized open-ended interviews were conducted with participants.The analysis of the data revealed that participants had positive attitudes towards the Web component of blended teaching practice course and all of the participants were satisfied with the blended teaching practice course since they reported that it met their expectations. It was also found that there was not a relationship between the participants? participation to the asynchronous discussions and their overall satisfaction levels of blended teaching practice course. The findings indicated that the pre service teachers thought that participating in a course level blended teaching practice course increased their teaching skills, primarily their skills on preparing lesson plans and the skills on performing their teaching practices.Although results of the present study indicated that blended learning environment was perceived positively by students, there is a need for further research to determine if the similar results could be obtained at other courses in different settings.
Novice EFL teachers' perceived challenges and support needs in their journey to become effective teachers
The present study aimed to describe the challenges as perceived by novice EFL teachers teaching in public primary and secondary schools and to identify their needs in relation to foreign language pedagogy and forms of professional assistance and guidance.Both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies were used in the present study.For a rich, vivid and elaborate description of the research issues under investigation, a variety of research instruments were employed in a triangulative manner. The data sources of the present study included semi-structured interviews, diary entries written by teachers throughout a school term, video-recorded classroom observations and stimulated recall interviews, and questionnaires used to gather a larger group of novice EFL teachers? perspectives. The participants of the present study were 104 novice EFL teachers who had a maximum of 4 years of teaching experience. The case study; on the other hand, were seven first year EFL teachers.It was a demanding task to analyse the voluminous qualitative data coming from a variety of sources. In order to sort these data into more manageable and meaningful units, constant comparison method (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) was used, which was a blend of inductive category coding involving a simultaneous comparison of all events observed and coded in the data. Data from the questionnaire were described and presented in the form of percentages.The present study yielded important information as to the novice EFL teachers? challenges and support needs in their initial years of teaching. As the results seemed to suggest, the novice EFL teachers started out their pedagogical journey in the midst of a myriad of competing and interacting difficulties in relation to classroom management, foreign language teaching and learning, and forms of professional support that were available to them. The results were discussed in relation to pre-service and in-service teacher education.
The effects of receptive and productive tasks on vocabulary retention
This study was designed to investigate the effects of receptive and/or productive tasks on vocabulary gains. The study included two successive word sets to confirm the results. Four groups of students at the same proficiency level, lower-intermediate, were randomly assigned to different task groups: one group for receptive, one group for productive, one group for mixed (receptive+productive), and one control group, which did not receive any of the tasks. 127 students were present in the application of word set I, and 117 students were present in the application word set II.8 target words were explicitly taught in each word set. Then, students read a text in which they could see the target words. Following that, they received tasks, except the control group. All students were tested on both same receptive and productive tests just before, immediately after and four weeks after the application of each word set. Finally, a total retention test for 16 target words dealt with in word set was administered six weeks after the applications.The results revealed that all groups showed a statistically significant increase in their scores both in receptive and productive parts from pre test to post tests. With regard to receptive tests, no significant decrease was observed in task groups from immediate to delayed post test; however, the control group could not maintain its gains and decreased its scores significantly over time. In the productive tests, on the other hand, although receptive group was able to retain its gains from immediate to delayed post test, there was a significant decrease in the other groups over time.When the scores were investigated between groups, no significant effect of different tasks on students? vocabulary gains was found in receptive and productive tests applied at different intervals. However, receiving any of the tasks had a significant positive effect on receptive and productive gains of the students because task groups were significantly better than the control group, which always received the lowest scores.The results of the total retention test which included 16 target words together and which was applied 6 weeks after the applications of the word sets revealed that there was no significant difference in receptive and productive tests between the task groups. However, all groups receiving tasks were significantly different from the control group as they had significantly better scores than the control group.The findings of this study may confirm the importance of tasks as it proved just presenting target words was not enough to retain vocabulary over time. The type of task (receptive and/or productive) was not found to have divergent effects on vocabulary retention, though.
Processing instruction through structured input activities and output practice activities : A study on causative insruction
This study was conducted to compare the short term and long term gains ofTurkish students who received structured input activities (experimental group A) acombination of structured input activities and output practice activities (experimentalgroup B) and the activities in their textbook Focus on Grammar, High IntermediateLevel (control group) to learn English causatives. For this study, 3 classes of 54students at the School of Foreign Languages at Anadolu University participated.Three different instructional packets and a pre test, post-test and delayed tests wereadministrated. The test consisted of three parts: controlled production part,recognition part and free production part. Two days after the pre-test, the students ineach group studied the English causatives for three 45-minute class periods. Then,they were administrated the post test immediately after the treatments and a delayedtest 5 weeks later. The pre-test post-test and delayed test scores of students werecompared between groups through one-way ANOVA.As a result of this study, the following results were obtained:a. In terms of short-term effects, structured input activities are significantlymore effective than the activities in the textbook, Focus on Grammar indeveloping recognition skill. There is no significant difference between them inthe development of production skill in both short and long term. In addition, thedifference observed in the recognition skill in the short term disappeared in thelong term. However, the results of the group who received structured inputactivities was a little higher.b. In terms of both short term and long term effects, structured input activities+ output practice activities is more effective than the activities in the textbook,Focus on Grammar, in the development of production and recognition skills.c. In terms of the development of production skill, receiving structured inputactivities +output practice activities is more effective than receiving onlystructured input activities in the short term but this difference between themdisappears in time. Delayed test scores show that there is not a significantdifference between these two treatments in terms of the development ofproduction, recognition and free production skills. However, the group whoreceived structured input activities +output practice activities scored slightlyhigher than the group who received structured input activities only.d. In terms of free production, the advantage that structured input activities andstructured input activities + output practice activities provide is that thestudents who learned the causative structure through these treatments used avariety of causative verbs (make, have, get, let, help) in their paragraphs,instead of using the verb given in the instruction.