Theses supervised by Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Sevgi Şahin
12 theses · Çağ University, Başkent University
Çin'in ABD'yi dengeleme girişimi: Yeni İpek Yolu projesi
1980'lerden günümüze kadar olan süreç içerisinde Çin, ekonomik ve siyasi olarak büyümekte ve modernleşmektedir. Böylelikle, küreselleşen dünyada giderek etkisini arttırmaktadır. Uluslararası sistem içerisinde zayıf bir ekonomik yapıya sahipken sürekli yükselen bir üretim gücüne dönüşmüştür. Ayrıca siyasi ilişkilerinde de fikirlerine değer verilen bir güç olarak ortaya çıkmıştır. 2013 yılında Çin Halk Cumhuriyeti (ÇHC) Devlet Başkanı Xi Jinping, katıldığı bir konferansta Bir Kuşak Bir Yol girişimi olarak bahsedilen projeyi açıklamıştır. Bu projenin açıklanması ile birlikte uluslararası sistem içerisinde Çin'in Amerika Birleşik Devletleri (ABD)'ni geçip süper güç olabileceğine dair öngörülerde bulunulmuştur. Günümüzde Uluslararası ilişkilerde devleti ana aktör olarak kabul eden realist teori; uluslararası anarşik sistemde gerçekleşen sorunları, devletlerin güce sahip olma arzusu olarak nitelendirmektedir. Uluslararası sistemin yapısı realist teoriye göre, anarşik bir yapıda olduğu için sistem güvensizlik ve rekabet ortamına oldukça açık olmaktadır. Bu yaşanan güvensizlik ve rekabet ortamı, devletlerin güçlerini arttırıp hegemon olmak için verilen güç mücadelesinden kaynaklanmaktadır. Bir Kuşak Bir Yol projesi bu rekabet ortamına bağlı olarak son zamanlarda gittikçe önem kazanmaktadır. Projenin bitim tarihi 2049 yılı olarak gösterilmektedir. Bu çalışma, projenin kapsamını ve niteliğini göz önünde bulundurarak ilerleyen süre zarfında Çin'in ABD'yi dengeleyebileceği ve süper güç olup sisteme yön verebileceği varsayımında bulunmaktadır. ABD-Çin arasındaki rekabet ve süper güç olma arzusu realist perspektifin yaklaşımlarına uygun olarak değerlendirilmiştir. Çin'in yükselişini, Bir Kuşak Bir Yol projesini ve ABD-Çin ilişkilerinin tarihsel gelişimini süreç izleme yöntemi ile inceleyen bu çalışma, Çin'in Bir Kuşak Bir Yol projesini ABD'yi dengelemek ve süper güç olabilmek için bir araç olarak kullandığını ileri sürmüştür.
An evaluation of the pragmatic competence of pre-service English language teachers: Politeness strategies used in making requests in the academic context
The current study aimed to examine, from an interlanguage pragmatics perspective, how Turkish pre-service EFL teachers fulfill the speech act of request in terms of politeness strategies, levels of directness, internal and external modifiers, perspectives, and address terms in the academic context. To collect data, a discourse completion test (DCT), including ten scenarios, was developed, and 89 pre-service EFL teachers studying in a private university in Turkey were asked to write what they would say in response to the situations described in the DCT. The data-the request tokens- were first analyzed qualitatively using an adapted model of the CCSARP framework developed by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989). Then, the results of the request strategies were quantized, and the data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and chi-square. The study's findings demonstrated that the tendency to use conventionally indirect request strategies was high in situations where the degrees of impositions were both high and low in academic contexts. This indicated that the choice of request strategies was parallel for both degrees of imposition. Additionally, it was found that the use of external modifiers was high, mostly occurring as 'grounders' to mitigate the requests. As for internal modifiers, pre-service EFL teachers preferred 'please' as politeness markers to soften the force of the requests on the hearers. Moreover, the tendency to address instructors remained low, highlighting the need for being more formal and polite when making requests in the academic context. Hence, it was observed that the participants mostly made speaker and hearer-oriented requests in the academic context; however, speaker- oriented requests were made more. This suggested that the participants mostly tended to impose benefits on the hearers, where social power and distance are high among the interlocutors. The study's findings indicated that pre-service EFL teachers perform the speech act of request politely to some extent; nevertheless, they need to gain pragmatic competence to make authentic ways of making requests by integrating appropriate mitigating strategies in the academic context. In conclusion, integrating the pragmatic aspects of language into English Language Teaching programs is significant to improve the pragmatic awareness and competence of prospective language teachers regarding the fulfillment of requests in academic contexts in particular and other speech acts in various contexts of conversations in general. Keywords: Pragmatics, Interlanguage Pragmatics, Pragmatic Competence, Requests, Politeness
Different stakeholders' localized conceptualization of technology-enhanced language assessment literacy in higher educational context in Türkiye
This quantitative study investigates the localized conceptualization of Technology-Enhanced Language Assessment Literacy (TELAL) within the higher education context in Türkiye. Focused on a foundational university, the research explores TELAL perspectives across four crucial stakeholder groups: EFL language instructors, administrators, testing unit members, and EFL teacher trainers. Utilizing purposeful sampling and an adapted questionnaire, the study engages 139 participants. Methodologically, using SPSS, the research employs descriptive and inferential analyses, including Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and radar graphics. The findings emphasize a general belief in the effectiveness of technology in language testing, accompanied by varying degrees of integration of online resources. It is noteworthy that the study reveals that participants' roles within the language assessment process do not significantly impact their proficiency across all dimensions of TELAL. The study reveals a significant need for training in web-based technologies for language assessment. Key Words: Technology-Enhanced Language Assessment Literacy (TELAL), Language Assessment, Educational Technology, English as a Foreign Language
An evaluation of an EFL coursebook in terms of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy and critical thinking skills
This study aims to analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of an EFL coursebook used in an English preparatory school at a foundation university in Ankara, Türkiye, in promoting EFL learners' critical thinking skills. As a coursebook evaluation study, the study adopts a mixed-methods research design since it utilizes Bloom's Revised Taxonomy and a 4-point Critical Thinking Likert scale adopted from Selvihan Demir (2008) to analyze the units to reveal the extent to which activities address critical thinking skills. For the first phase of the study, all unit activities were analyzed following the cognitive steps of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. For the study's second phase, 30 EFL instructors using the coursebook evaluated the coursebook's effectiveness in fostering critical thinking skills using the Likert scale. This particular study is unique from prior research in the field because the participant instructors performed as evaluators after receiving the necessary training. Using coding techniques from Bloom's Taxonomy for systematic content analysis, the study reveals how well the coursebook aligns with the higher-order thinking needed for critical thinking objectives. The data collected via the scale were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings highlight areas for improvement in the book's design, emphasizing the importance of integrating higher-order thinking skills even though the book includes a specific part called "Critical Thinking". This research provides valuable insights into the field of English Language Teaching regarding the effectiveness of coursebooks in promoting critical and higher-order thinking skills. It is believed that it will serve as a resource for educators, curriculum developers, materials developers, and other stakeholders seeking to enhance critical thinking skills in Turkish educational contexts.
Task-based language teaching revisited: Examining EFL instructors' perceptions, awareness and preferences
Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) is a prominent approach to teaching foreign languages and is effective in encouraging real-world and authentic language use. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the awareness, preferences, and perspectives of EFL instructors about TBLT and its implementation in Turkey. To this end, the researcher constructed a Likert-scale survey and gathered information from 201 EFL teachers employed by different preparatory schools in Ankara, Turkey. Data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics and the findings show that greater familiarity and favorable perceptions were connected with TBLT training. Besides, the study highlighted the teachers' favorable opinions of TBLT as a student-centered methodology that fosters collaborative learning and real-world communication. Conversely, negative views included big class sizes, students who weren't familiar with TBLT or group work, and a lack of resources for TBLT implementation in the classroom. In line with their preference, speaking lessons were found to be the most desirable skill to apply for TBLT, particularly among teachers who had received formal TBLT training. All things considered, the study provides valuable insights into the views, experiences, and preferences of EFL instructors in Turkey about TBLT. The design of language education curricula and professional development programs may benefit from the use of this data.
Mapping the interface between pragmatics and EFL teaching in Türkiye: A review study of current research trends and gaps
This systematic review study aims to depict the status-quo of research on pragmatics in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Türkiye in an effort to reveal trends and gaps in the literature. To this end, it examines relevant master's theses (M.A.) and doctoral dissertations (Ph.D.) conducted in Türkiye over the last 10 years, thoroughly investigating their scope, research design, participants, and data collection instruments through systematic content analysis. The findings revealed that 84 theses on pragmatics in the context of EFL teaching were conducted in Türkiye within the past decade. Results also demonstrated that the studies primarily focused on cross-cultural pragmatics and speech acts, showing a great interest in various communicative aspects of language and how language operates in various cultures. Considering methodology, most studies adopted a mixed-methods research design, displaying a preference for relying on both qualitative and quantitative data. A variety of data collection tools were found to be used in the studies, predominantly surveys and discourse completion tasks. Moreover, cross-cultural pragmatics and speech acts (i.e., apologies, refusals, and requests) were explored more than other topics of pragmatics (i.e., pragmatic failure, politeness, and implicatures). It can be concluded that the studies conducted over the past decade in Türkiye tend to be more conventional, while recent global research trends in pragmatics in the EFL context have deflected the focus into topics such as digital communication, intercultural communicative competence, and assessment of pragmatic competence. This study is believed to yield valuable insight for researchers in applied linguistics by identifying gaps in the relevant literature and offering recommendations for further research in deficient areas of study.
Depicting EFL instructors' language assessment literacy in assessing productive language skills and their perceptions and practices on formative assessment of productive language skills
The purpose of this study was to depict EFL instructors' language assessment literacy in assessing productive language skills and their perceptions on formative assessment of productive language skills in preparatory schools in Turkey. In this mixed-method research, the data were collected through semi-structured interview and language assessment knowledge questionnaire (LAKQ). For the quantitative part of the study, a questionnaire was adapted from Ölmezer-Öztürk (2018)'s "Language Assessment and Knowledge Scale" and 60 EFL instructors working in preparatory schools in different universities in Ankara completed the questionnaire. For the qualitative part of the study, a semi-structured interview was utilized to investigate the EFL instructors' perceptions on assessing productive language skills through formative assessment and 11 volunteer EFL instructors participated in the interview. The data obtained from the questionnaire were analysed using SPSS through descriptive statistics and the qualitative data were analysed using Creswell's (2014) systematic content analysis framework. The results revealed an average level of language assessment literacy (LAL) of the EFL instructors in assessing productive language skills. However, with respect to certain skills in LAL, this level was found below average in "Assessment Tools" parts of both Items for Assessing Writing and Speaking parts. The result also revealed that the instructors implemented formative assessment, mostly observation and in-class activities, in their classrooms to assess their learners' productive language skills. Moreover, the problems they encounter in the classrooms were mostly learner-based however, the solutions they offered were mostly instructor-based. The study also provided some pedagogical implications and suggestions for further studies.
Self-assessment of writing skills: A comparative study on teacher assessment and self-assessment of prospective efl teachers' writing skills and their perceptions of self-assessment
This study aims to investigate the prospective EFL teachers' perceptions on self-assessment; accordingly, their conceptualization of self-assessment, attitudes towards and perceived benefits of practicing self-assessment of their writing skills. In addition, the study also aims to find out the level of consistency of the prospective EFL teachers' self-assessment of their writing skills with the teacher assessment in general and regarding different components of writing skills. The study was designed as convergent parallel mixed method research including a group of freshman students enrolled in a Writing Skills 2 course in an ELT program. The participants were administered a self-assessment questionnaire both before and after including self-assessment practices to their essay writing tasks to elicit their views and experiences considering the use of self-assessment, and a self-assessment rubric to determine whether there is a significant difference between prospective EFL teachers' self-assessment and the teacher assessment scores. While the qualitative data obtained from the self-assessment questionnaire were analyzed via multiple-phased systematic content analysis, the quantitative including prospective EFL teachers' self-and the teacher- assessments were analyzed using SPSS. The results show that freshman prospective EFL teachers who participated in the study had limited level "self-assessment literacy" and lacked the awareness of and experience in using self-assessment to improve their English writing skills. The data analyses also reveal that the freshmen prospective EFL teachers' conceptualization of self-assessment as a skill that can be developed through guided applications on a regular basis and have positive attitudes towards practicing self-assessment in their writing classes and using self-assessment in their future assessment practices. Besides, practicing self-assessment is shown not only to improve prospective EFL teachers' writing skills but also their language assessment literacy skills. For this reason, prospective EFL teachers suggested teacher educators to incorporate self-assessment practices into their curriculum to promote their students' understanding of the concept of formative assessment and writing assessment. Moreover, while the results show that there is no statistically significant difference between prospective EFL teachers' self-assessment scores and the instructor's scores in assessing their writing skills considering final scores, there is a significant difference between the self- and instructor assessment scores regarding different components of writing skills.
EFL instructors' perceptions of student engagement and their use of student engagement strategies in blended learning
This study aimed to understand EFL instructors' perceptions of student engagement and their use of student engagement strategies in blended learning in a preparatory school in Turkey. Moreover, the study also aimed to find out the problems they encountered for student engagement and the solutions recommended to the mentioned problems. In this narrative case study, 10 EFL instructors were interviewed to collect the data. The data obtained from the interviews were analyzed using Creswell's (2013) systematic content analysis framework. The findings revealed that the EFL instructors' definition of student engagement referred to students' observable behaviors: behavioral engagement, which implies that the instructors have a narrow understanding of the multidimensional construct. It was found that emotional and cognitive engagement indicators might escape the instructors' attention, which mistakenly results in misinterpreting the level of student engagement for some individual learners. This might be a call for expanding instructors' conceptualization of the student engagement to have a good grasp of the dimensions of engagement for better teaching supported by in-service trainings. Despite their narrow understanding of the construct, EFL instructors implemented a wide range of strategies in face-to-face and online teaching to engage students behaviorally, cognitively and emotionally. Moreover, the findings also revealed that the problems they encountered for student engagement were learner-based and institutional-based; however, the solutions they recommended were institutional-based. Taking the results of the study into consideration, several implications and suggestions were made for foreign language instructors, curriculum designers, teacher trainers and language program administrators as well as further studies.
Evaluation of a local EFL coursebook in terms of intercultural communicative competence components
The purpose of the current study is to evaluate a local EFL coursebook "Relearn" used for 9th graders in public high schools in Turkey in terms of the intercultural communicative competence components. The book was constructed within the standards of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and was developed in conformity with the national ELT curriculum by Turkish Ministry of National Education. The coursebook was content analyzed via a checklist created on the basis of Byram's Intercultural Communicative Competence Model (1997). The findings revealed that the majority of the coursebook's content was culture-free, and there were limited number of intercultural activities. The activities mostly belong to "knowledge" dimension of Byram's framework. This study is believed to shed light on the significance of developing intercultural communicative competence and provide useful insights for EFL teachers, EFL teacher educators, coursebook writers and curriculum developers. Keywords: English Language Teaching, Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC), Materials Evaluation, Culture and Language Teaching
EFL instructors' and learners' perceptions on and preferences for oral corrective feedback: Do they overlap?
The purpose of this study was to investigate the EFL teachers' and students' perceptions on and preferences for Oral Corrective Feedback (OCF) with a comparative view as well as EFL instructors' conceptualization and practices of OCF. In this mixed method research, For the quantitative phase of the study, 30 EFL instructors working in the preparatory school of a private university in Ankara completed the teacher version the OCF questionnaire, and 247 preparatory school students with different proficiency levels filled out the student version of the OCF questionnaire. For the qualitative phase of the study, a semi-structured interview was conducted with EFL instructors purposefully selected among those who also filled out the questionnaire. The data obtained from the questionnaire were analyzed using SPSS through descriptive statistics and Chi-square analysis, and the qualitative data were analyzed by using Creswell's (2014) systematic content analysis framework. The results indicated that recast, hinting, elicitation, and repetition were expressed as the most used OCF techniques in the classroom by the EFL instructors. While hinting was identified as the most beneficial OCF techniques, explicit correction, clarification request, and recast are the least effective OCF techniques. The perceptions of EFL students on OCF showed that they preferred to be corrected by their instructors for grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation errors, and pragmatic failures. Another key finding of the study revealed there is a statistically significant difference between the OCF preferences of EFL instructors and students for grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation errors. On the other hand, their preferences for pragmatic failures showed more similarities. Both groups perceived that OCF should be provided for the spoken errors. The results of this study are believed to contribute to a deeper understanding of the OCF through the lenses of EFL instructors and students as well as to more effective and personalized and localized applications of OCF according to the educational culture and needs of the learners.
Investigating pre-service EFL teachers' perceptions and conceptualizations of pragmatic competence and integration of pragmatics in EFL teaching process
A review of related literature revealed that less attention was given to the importance of pragmatic competence in EFL contexts. Therefore, the present study seeks to contribute to the existing literature on pragmatic competence by investigating Turkish pre-service EFL teachers' conceptualizations and perceptions of pragmatic competence. It also aims to explore their perceptions regarding integrating pragmatic knowledge into language teaching in order to develop students' pragmatic competence. The present study was designed as a convergent parallel design as one of the mixed method research designs. The quantitative data of the study were collected via a five points Likert scale, and qualitative data through an open-ended questionnaire to better understand pre-service EFL teachers' perceptions and conceptualizations on pragmatic competence, and their opinions and attitudes towards integrating pragmatic features in language teaching process. The quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS while the qualitative data were analyzed following Creswell's (2009) content-analysis framework. Major findings of the study revealed that pre-service EFL teachers had a low level of pragmatic competence. The findings further revealed that pre-service EFL teachers, however, exhibited a positive attitude towards integrating pragmatic knowledge in language teaching and learning as a crucial factor that ensures pragmatic competence development, therefore, appropriate language use. The results of the study suggested that pre-service EFL teachers' perceptions of pragmatic competence needed to be promoted. Moreover, English Language Teacher Education Programs can be encouraged to incorporate more courses related to the pre-service EFL teachers' development of pragmatic competence.