Prof. Dr. Nuray Alagözlü danışmanlığındaki tezler
10 tez · Hacettepe University
Teaching collocations through data-driven learning: Comparison of two approaches
The present study aimed to investigate the effects of two data-driven collocation learning approaches (Corpus Consultancy and Practice on English-Turkish Parallel Texts) on participants' receptive and productive collocational knowledge of form, use and meaning. The study employed a quantitative research design; the data were collected through a vocabulary size test, a vocabulary knowledge scale, and a receptive and productive knowledge tests with a total number of 43 participants (N 14 in the Web-based group, N 16 in the Parallel Texts Group, and N 13 in the Control group). The Corpus Group received training on using a corpus to find and induce the meaning of the target collocations (10 adjective-noun and 10 verb-noun) through the COCA corpus. On the other hand, the Parallel Texts Group studied a small corpus consisting of English extracts containing target collocations taken from COCA corpus side by side with their L1 translations. The Control group, however, was expected to find the meanings of the collocations by resorting online dictionaries. The perceptions of the participants on both experimental approaches were also elicited via a structured survey consisting of open-ended questions. The results showed that The Corpus Group outperformed the Control Group both in both receptive and productive tests, while the Parallel Texts Group's scores remained to be in between in most cases. The participants in the Corpus Group and the Parallel Texts Group shared their perceived benefits and drawbacks of the approaches.
Technology utilization in teaching vocabulary at tertiary level
The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of a web-based corpus (WBC) teaching on learner autonomy, e-learning readiness level, use of vocabulary learning strategies, and vocabulary size development. This study was carried out at two state universities in the province of Ankara, Turkey during the spring term of the academic year 2017-2018. The study group consisted of one control and one experimental group, all of whom were ELT Department freshman students. Having a mixed method research design, both quantitative and qualitative data collection was carried out in the current research. As for the quantitative data, at the beginning and at the end of the study surveys of learner autonomy, e-learning readiness level, the use of vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary size tests were administered to both groups. As for the qualitative data collection, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 9 control group students (5 males and 4 females) and 8 experimental group students (4 males and 4 females) from each group. The quantitative analysis of the dataset was conducted through the use of Multivariate Analysis of Variance/Covariance (MANOVA & MANCOVA) and Mixed Between-Within Subjects Analysis of Variance, while for the qualitative data, content analysis technique was run. The quantitative analysis yielded that there was no statistically significant difference between the groups' scores. Lack of motivation, classroom teaching practices, time management issues were some of the points the interviewees highlighted in regard to their achievement. Keywords: web-based corpus, learner autonomy, e-learning readiness, vocabulary learning strategies, vocabulary size, language learning
Pre-service English teachers' perceived levels of and perceptions on intercultural communicative competence
Nowadays, intercultural communicative competence (ICC) gains importance in this globalized world, and ultimately in foreign language education. Teachers' perspectives on intercultural communicative competence are one of the research areas in the field. Hence, this study aimed to investigate pre-service English teachers' intercultural communicative competence level and their perspectives on ICC in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) setting. The participants were 130 preservice English teachers studying at a major state university in Turkey. Intercultural communicative competence questionnaire (ICCQ) and semi-structured interviews were applied to find out participants' level of ICC and their perspectives on ICC. The data analysis was carried out through statistical analysis and content analysis. The results showed that participants had high levels of ICC and there was not a statistically significant difference between freshman and senior students' perceived level of ICC. While there was a statistically significant difference in participants' ICC levels with regard to gender, there was not a strong correlation between their ICC levels and academic achievement. Pre-service English teachers' understanding of ICC was limited and they generally defined it based on attitudes. They were aware of the importance of ICC in foreign language education. They perceived the place of ICC in teacher education inadequate and highlighted the necessity of ICC in teacher education. They provided suggestions such as including courses integrating ICC and infusing student-exchange programs to promote ICC in teacher education. Implications were provided for pre-service teachers, teacher trainers, in-service teachers and material designers to develop foreign language learners' ICC. Keywords: intercultural communicative competence, pre-service English teachers' perspectives, foreign language teaching, culture, EFL setting
Pre-service and in-service English language teachers' self-efficacy beliefs and metacognitive awareness
This study aims to examine teacher self-efficacy and metacognitive awareness of preservice and in-service English language teachers and if there is any relationship between their self-efficacy beliefs and metacognition. The study also explores whether there are any similarities or differences between these groups in light of a number of demographic factors and other associated factors suggested in the existing research. Considering these purposes, data of the study which is in a mixed-method design were collected at one of the leading state universities in Turkey with participation of 96 senior students at English Language Teaching (ELT) department and 53 English lecturers working at the School of Foreign Languages of that university through valid and reliable scales on the variables and semi-structured interviews. Data analyses revealed that both groups had high levels of self-efficacy and metacognitive awareness, and there was a strong relationship between self-efficacy and metacognitive awareness. Furthermore, there was no statistically significant difference between these two groups in the related variables. As for demographic factors, it emerged that gender, years of experience or academic achievement were not effective in leading a difference among the groups. Additionally, qualitative data revealed factors affecting pre-service and inservice English language teachers' self-efficacy beliefs and metacognition either positively or negatively. To this end, while undergraduate education and teaching practice were reported to affect pre-service teachers' self-efficacy and metacognition, low level of student motivation was considered as the main factor for in-service teachers. Overall, this study proposes significant implications for language teacher education and teaching profession. Keywords: teacher self-efficacy, metacognitive awareness, ELT, teacher education
Factors affecting receptive and productive knowledge of collocations of tertiary level learners of English in Turkey
Being an essential component of vocabulary knowledge and contributing to native-like fluency, collocational knowledge deserves to be explored. This study explores the factors that affect receptive and productive collocational knowledge of tertiary level EFL learners in Turkey. For gathering data, two vocabulary knowledge tests (i.e., receptive and productive) and two collocational knowledge tests (i.e., receptive and productive) are employed. In addition, a questionnaire about language exposure and use activities is utilized. First, the correlations between single-word knowledge and collocational knowledge, at both receptive and productive levels are investigated. Second, the effects of five factors (congruency with Turkish, collocational frequency, node word frequency, type of collocation and mutual information scores) on collocational knowledge are examined. Third, the effects of participants' personal language exposure/use and their individual differences (age, gender and year of formal English instruction) on collocational knowledge are inspected. The findings show that vocabulary and collocational knowledge are correlated at both knowledge levels. The participants tend to have higher knowledge of both single-words and collocations at the first 1,000 level than the second and third 1,000 levels. Among the five factors that affect collocational knowledge, congruency with L1 is found to be the best predictor of collocational knowledge. The investigation of questionnaire results suggests that learners tend to have higher knowledge of collocations when they are exposed to more amounts of language input. Overall, the findings suggest that collocational knowledge is affected by and correlated with different factors and the awareness of these factors offers some implications and suggestions.
A case study on pre-service English teachers' formative assessment teacher cognition
This dissertation explores student teachers' construction of formative assessment teacher cognition with a sociocultural perspective in language teacher education context. The current study has three focal points to investigate: the factors influencing the construction of pre-service language teachers' formative assessment cognition, how the construction process of formative assessment teacher cognition progresses, and how sociocultural resources mediate the construction process of formative assessment teacher cognition. With these aims, a holistic single-case study was adopted as the research design. A total of eight senior student teachers of English constituted the participants of the present case study. The data were collected through multiple sources including reflective journals, documents (lesson plans), semi-structured interviews, classroom observation (field notes), and pre-observation and post-observation conferences. The collected data were analysed through a grounded content analysis and sociocultural discourse analysis. The analysis resulted in three major factors as the main sources of pre-service language teachers' formative assessment cognition: prior language learning experiences, teacher education, and contextual factors. The findings also indicated that the construction process of formative assessment cognition progressed through six main major shifts: dissonance, exploration of teaching-related beliefs, self-examination, re-examination of alternatives, approval, and integration. In this construction process, sociocultural means like mediation and cognitive/emotional dissonances were also detected and explained in relation with the findings. In the light of the results, pedagogical implications for L2 teacher education, teacher cognition, and formative assessment were provided.
The predictors of intercultural communicative competence in Turkish and Kazakh settings: Academic self-concept and L2 motivational self-system
The aim of the present study was to determine Kazakhstani and Turkish pre-service teachers' level of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC), academic self-concept and L2 motivational self-system and to investigate the nature of relationship among these constructs. To do so, the study followed the paradigm of sequential exploratory mixed methods research, in which the data were collected through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. ICC scale developed by the researcher, Academic Self-Concept Scale (Liu & Wang, 2005) and L2 Motivational Self-System Scale (Taguchi et al., 2009) were administered to pre-service ELT teachers in Kazakhstan and Turkey. Two groups of participants involved in the study: pre-service ELT teachers (N=314) from Turkey took part in the pilot study and pre-service ELT teachers from Kazakhstan (N=307) and Turkey (N=258) participated in the main study. To analyze the quantitative data descriptive statistics, correlation, regression analyses and content analysis were used. The results indicated that pre-service ELT teachers in Kazakhstani and Turkish educational contexts had high levels of ICC, academic confidence and academic effort, ideal L2 self, ought to L2 self and attitudes to learning English. Further results revealed that statistically significant differences existed between Kazakhstani and Turkish pre-service teachers in terms of their level of ICC, academic confidence and ought to L2 self-guide. Regression analyses revealed that while the best predictor of Kazakhstani pre-service ELT teachers ICC was academic confidence, Turkish pre-service ELT teachers ICC was best predicted by their ideal L2 self.
Discourse structure and discourse markers in the argumentative essays of English and Turkish language teaching students
The aim of this contrastive rhetoric study was to investigate the discourse structure of Turkish and English essays based on the seven linearity parameters and discourse markers. The data was collected from 52 participants chosen from the English Language Teaching Department (ELT) and Turkish Language Teaching Department (TLT) at the Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University. The ELT students were asked to write argumentative essays in English and Turkish, while the TLT students were supposed to write argumentative essays in Turkish. The linear structure of the essays was examined using seven parameters: (1) thematic unit, (2) thematic progression, (3) paragraph unity, (4) personal tone, (5) inter-paragraph cohesion, (6) concreteness and (7) sentence simplicity. The results of this analysis showed that the structures of the Turkish essays written by the ELT students were more linear. Furthermore, the discourse markers used in the English essays were analyzed and grouped into four categories: (1) additive, (2) adversative, (3) causal, and (4) temporal. The DMs used in the Turkish essays were examined based on thirty-seven categories. The study identified the frequency and classification of the DMs. As a result, in the English essays, 'and' was the most preferred DM which belongs to the additive DM category. In the Turkish essays, the most frequently used DMs by both ELT and TLT students is 've (and)'. Contrary to the claim, no relationship between the frequency of using discourse markers and the linear structure of the essays was found.
A discourse-analytic perspective into classroom interactional competence development of English as a foreign language instructors: A multiple-case study
The purpose of this study is three-fold; first, to explore novice EFL instructors' needs for further professional development pertaining to classroom interactional features, second, to enhance their classroom interactional competence (CIC) with specific reference to the classroom interactional features identified, namely teacher echo, teacher interruption, limited wait-time, turn completion and extended teacher turn through the use of self-evaluation of teacher talk framework (SETT) and third, to showcase if enhanced CIC awareness had any positive impact on the instructors' actual classroom interactional practices. To do this, a multiple-case study design was chosen, and data were collected from three novice EFL instructors whose teaching experiences were limited to 0-3 years at a tertiary context. For these aims, the data were collected through video-recordings, video-stimulated recalls (VSRs), SETT grid, dialogic reflection sessions, audio recordings and semi-structured interviews. The collected data were analyzed through SETT and Conversation Analysis (CA) as an instrument and thematic analysis. The instructors' needs for further professional development were found to be turn completion, teacher interruption, limited wait-time, teacher echo and extended teacher turn. The findings revealed that although the focal points were still observed in the instructors' data, all cases showed improvement in terms of identification of the focal points, critical self-evaluation and making conscious interactive decisions after the intervention. The evidence for increased awareness came from VSRs on video recordings and their CA analyses, and dialogic SETT reflections through which they described, reflected, and critically evaluated themselves. In the light of the findings, pedagogical implications for L2 teacher education, SETT and CIC were provided. Keywords: novice EFL instructors, classroom interactional competence (CIC), reflective practice, self-evaluation of teacher talk (SETT), multiple-case study.
Pre-service and in-service English language teachers' attitudes towards English dialects and dialect self-awareness
As the world globalized and the people on it became global citizens with cosmopolitan identities, it was realized that English that functions as a channel for communication, which is called 'lingua franca', is not expressed as a plural noun, it is not a single constitution, even though it's not expressed as a plural. It has a variety within itself in terms of its acoustical and lexical features which brought the terms 'accent' and 'dialect' into the literature. They comprise an important field to investigate with the contribution of the speakers and teachers of English. As they are the transmitter of the knowledge of language, the teachers have a great vitality on the issue because their attitudes and perspectives are transferred to the learners directly. For that reason, this study inspects the attitudes and awareness of the prospective and practitioner teachers as well as their positions on the integration of accents in ELT before they take stage of education. A semantic differential scale enriched with MGT was applied to 50 freshman students, 50 senior students from ELT and 20 in-service teachers from School of Foreign Languages at Hacettepe University, while interviews were conducted with 19 participants from the same groups. Finally, American English was found to be the most favored accent, while native accents were preferred to the non-native ones in general. Furthermore, exposure at school or via media was observed to be significant determiners of attitudes and awareness. That is probably the reason of the fact that both of them increases going from freshman students to in-service teachers.