Theses supervised by Prof. Dr. Hatice Sofu
20 theses · Çukurova University, Çağ University
A study on the passivisation errors of Turkish learners of english as a foreign language
The aim of this study is to find out what kind of errors Turkish learners ofEFL make in passivising the verbs. We focus on the sources of errors in passivisationand find out whether Turkish learners of EFL make more errors in passivising certainverbs. We analyzed the grammatical and semantic characteristics of the verbs whichare passivised incorrectly.The participants of the study are selected from pre-intermediate level studentsat YADİM in Çukurova University.In Chapter One, the statement of the problem, background to the study,research questions, hypotheses, operational definition, assumptions and limitationsare presented. Related literature on passivisation in English and Turkish is reviewedin Chapter Two. Chapter Three provides the research design, subjects, materials andtasks, data collection and data analysis. Chapter Four contains grammatical andsemantic analyses of the errors on passivization. Conclusion is drawn in ChapterFive.Key Words: transitive, intransitive, passive, unergatives, unaccusatives
Acquisition of English collocations by adult Turkish L2 learners
The main aim of this study is to pinpoint common mistakes Turkish adult advanced EFL learners commit in academic writing. The study was conducted to display these common errors with a focus on verb-noun collocations in order to determine the influence of L1 Turkish on these errors if any, and to identify possible problems involving either the verbal or nominal component of collocations. The study was conducted on ICLE-TRCU and all 177 essays were scanned and the errors identified were recorded into an error database. The data was then classified according to various criteria, and the resultant data was analysed normatively for felicity and grammatical accuracy. In the light of the observed patterns we have observed that learners have problems with semi-restricted collocations, occurrence, existence/relationship and aspectual verbs and their collocations, and as a result of semantic and discourse transfer they tend to have creative constructions, and redundant and sometimes infelicitous passives. Also, we have observed that L1 has significant effect on the construction of deviant collocations and that deviance occurs with the verbs rather than nominals.Key Words: Collocations, Second Language Acquisition, Error Analysis, L1 Influence, Collocational Errors
An investigation of verb islands in Turkish and English language coursebooks used at primary school level
Learning verbs, as one of the hardest parts of language learning, has been the concern of many studies so far. In these studies, the islands of the verbs have been determined in line with their uses (Tomasello, 1991). Taking the roots from the previous research, the current study aims to investigate the verb islands in Turkish and English language coursebooks used at primary school level. As for the research, electronic formats of Turkish language coursebooks (1st grade to 5th grade) and English language coursebooks (4th and 5th grade) have been used in electronic format, and the coursebook corpora have been created. Via the coursebook corpora, the islands of the verbs have been searched and identified. The basic idea of the study is that if an island is not presented in Turkish or English coursebooks, it may seem difficult for language learner to learn that island. According to the results of the present study, there is not a one to one match between the verbs used in Turkish and English coursebooks. It has been found out that only two English verbs are not presented in Turkish coursebooks. Furthermore, there are more Turkish verbs, which is an expected outcome, since Turkish is the mother tongue. When the islands of the verbs have been taken into consideration, it has been found out that most of the verbs have islands with NP. This study sheds light onto the curriculum planners in terms of choosing the verbs together with their islands. Keywords: Verb Islands, Corpus Linguistics, Coursebooks
Lexical verbs in academic writings of Turkish learners of English as a second language: A corpus based study
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interlanguage features of Turkish EFL learners in academic written discourse. Acquisition and usage of lexical verbs of Academic Keyword List (AKL) (Paqout, 2010) by Turkish EFL learner will be analysed. AKL covers the non-domain specific words which entitle the characteristics of academic texts and outline the basic academic sketch of the texts. It is assumed that the level of acquisition of these words that are defined under four basic lexical categories (nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives) will reveal the students' lexical repertoires of academic vocabularies as well as interpreting lexico-grammatical attributes specific to writers. Detailed analysis of lexical verbs may help researchers to define interlanguage features of Turkish EFL learners. The scope of this study includes conducting a corpus based analysis of verbs of AKL. For the purpose of this corpus based study, at the first level, comparison of TICLE (Turkish sub-corpus of International Corpus of Learner English) and the LOCNESS (The Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays) corpus was utilised to define general lexical profile of the learners by preparing frequency based list according to usage levels of the verbs in two corpora. At the second level, a detailed analysis of 10 verbs with the highest frequency was conducted within the frame of Pattern Grammar approach. Results indicate the overuse of some specific words by non-native students while some others are underused in comparison to native speakers of English. This investigation revealed the levels of students' implicit knowledge of these particular lexical items, their awareness of register of academic verbs and to what extent they are able to put in use these items within the frame of functional lexico-grammatical usage.
Comparison of English language teacher education programs in some selected european countries (Finland, Sweden, and Spain) with those of Turkey
In a global higher education context of growing competition of student admission, student mobility, credit transfer flexibility, quality assurance policies, and learning outcomes have become part of international trends in institutional curricula. Since 1999, there has been a transformation process in higher education system all over the world, the result of which is Bologna Process. In this study, English language teacher education programs in Finland, Sweden, Spain, and Turkey were compared. The studies carried out, either worldwide or within our country, on English Language level of our students have aroused a great concern among the practitioners in the area in Turkey. In the wake of our ultimate membership in EU, we need to align our education system with those of European countries and English language teacher education programs within the system on the basis of the required standardization and accreditation by European Commission in line with Bologna Process. Drawing from conclusion from the studies, this study aims to discover our weaknesses and strengths in training English language teacher candidates to achieve the training quality in order to ensure competent teachers for the educational system. The study was designed as a comparative survey. The data gathered through documentation were compared using descriptive analysis. The results revealed that all the countries in question have been undergoing the same process; However; while in Spain and Turkey higher education institutions have to implement the decisions made by the policy makers, in Finland and Sweden, they are not obliged to do so. So the institutions in Finland (Helsinki University) and in Sweden (Stockholm University) have implemented the standardization and accreditation by European Commission in line with Bologna Process with some reservations. Turkey is the one which applied the process the latest of all. As to the first queries, the similarities and differences between the acceptance criteria, ECTS grading scales, required ECTS for graduation, and the requirements for English language teaching credentials in Pre-service English language teacher education in the countries in question show some varieties. Within these queries, there are several significant implementations that make the programs distinct. The second query of the study was the similarities and differences between the uses of learning outcomes. The data of this query were analysed on the basis of the European Qualification Framework (EQF) and implementations in both the countries and the universities in question were compared. The third query was the similarities and the differences between the number of the courses and ECTS allocations to the courses. To analyze the data, departments were put in two different groups: joint degree and after degree programs and the data illustrated in in bar charts were analyzed through intergroup comparison. Finland requires the highest number of ECTS with the highest number of the courses with its three phased program. The last query was the similarities and differences between the organizations of the field experience courses in the related universities. The data showed that there are significant differences between the implementations of these courses. Based on the data, concrete recommendations to policy makers were put forward. The result of the data signify that English language teacher education programs in Turkey need revision especially in terms of field experience practice and admission criteria to the programs. Key Words: Comparative education, in-service English language teacher education, learning outcomes, ECTS allocations
Pragmatic development of Turkish EFL learners in terms of speech acts: Refusals, requests, and suggestions
This study, which was designed as a descriptive one, was conducted to explore interlanguage pragmatic development of a group of EFL learners. In order to follow pragmatic development of the participants, scenarios about three speech acts, namely requests, refusals, and suggestions, were prepared and these scenarios were modified around two social variables proposed in Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory, namely Power and Ranking of imposition. In this research, the participants' interlanguage pragmatic development was followed on a regular basis around a timeline covering one academic year and two different data collection instruments, namely Discourse Completion Tests and act-outs, were employed with definite intervals during this process. At the initial phase of the study, the participants were additionally asked to complete the given scenarios in Turkish, so that it would be possible to investigate the possible influence of pragmatic transfer on their L2 productions. At the final data collection period, also semi-structured interviews were applied in order to investigate the participants' own evaluations of their production processes. This study was completed thanks to the regular participation of 16 Turkish EFL learners. The participants' strategy use along with internal and external modification productions throughout the study were analyzed statistically. Overall, the results did not indicate significant changes in the participants' productions in English in terms of pragmatic development. It was seen that the participants' strategy and modification tool preferences remained stable for specific types for each speech act throughout the study. Keywords: Interlanguage, pragmatics, speech acts, politeness
Acquisition of word formation in Turkish: Compounding and derivation with agentive suffix
The current study was carried out in order to find out the word formation devices that Turkish speaking children and adults prefer in constructing novel agent nouns in Turkish, and to describe the developmental path that children follow taking the syntactic features of verbs into consideration. 84 children aged between 2;6 and 5;11 with 6 months intervals (12 in each group) were grouped according to gender and presence of siblings. 12 adult university students (age range 20-22) also participated in the study so as to collect data about the options in the language and set a native speaker norm and compare them with children's responses. A structured elicitation task with picture cards was designed for production and comprehension. The verbs in the tasks were selected from Turkish CDI (TIGE) which were categorized according to their syntactic features as transitive and intransitive which was also subcategorized as unergative and unaccusative according to the study by Nakipoğlu (1998). Results showed that in comprehension, all children including the youngest age group could identify the base verbs in increasing percentages by age. In production, Turkish speaking children preferred to use derivations from age 3;0 on, and compounding from age 3;6 on, performing an adult-like pattern from 4;6 on. Results also showed that the syntactic class of input verbs did not have a major effect on children's production. The findings also provided information about the effect of gender and presence of siblings at younger ages. Overall, results were interpreted considering the principles of acquisition proposed by Clark and her colleagues (1981, 1982, 1991, 1993; Clark & Hecht, 1982; Clark & Berman, 1984; Clark, Hecht & Mulford, 1986).
Data-driven language learning: The use of concordance lines in vocabulary learning
The use of corpora for pedagogical purposes has drawn the interest recently especially with the introduction of Data Driven Learning, and the possible impact of the approach has started to be investigated. This corpus-based study aims explore the effectiveness of corpus use and concordance enriched instruction in the learning of vocabulary. The main purpose of the study was to explore the learning of target words of experimental group, who used hands-on concordancing and control group, who received traditional coursebook-based instruction. The productive use of vocabulary was also explored with writing tasks. Additionally, students' attitudes were also examined in the scope of this study. 58 students from Fırat University aged between 18-22 participated in the study. The study employed a mixed- method research design with which both the quantitative and qualitative data were gathered through vocabulary tests, writing tasks, student questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The statistical analysis of vocabulary tests results revealed that the students who received Data-Driven instruction outperformed the students who received traditional instruction in both post-tests and delayed post-tests. The findings also indicated that the students in both group showed similar performances in the productive use of the vocabulary items. It was also found that the students held positive attitudes towards using concordancing to expand their vocabulary as well as develop other language skills. Keywords: Corpus-based instruction, data-driven learning (DDL), concordance lines, vocabulary learning, student attitudes
Resolution of structural ambiguities during real-time l2 sentence processing: Evidence from online and offline measures
The investigation of the ways second language (L2) learners process the L2 input has provided valuable insights into the understanding of human cognition and developing instructional interventions that would bring about better L2 learning. In this respect, the exploration of the mechanisms L2 learners employ to process linguistic data has allowed researchers to examine the aspects of L2 acquisition that still remain unresolved. Over the past few decades, researchers have addressed the investigation of L2 processing mechanism by referring to the way L2 learners resolve structural ambiguities real time. This dissertation also aims to draw a clear picture of the L2 sentence processing mechanism by comparing native English speakers and Turkish learners of L2 English at different proficiency levels in terms of their use of varios information sources and effects of transfer during the processing of two different structural ambiguities, namely, the processing of relative clause (RC) attachment ambiguities and prepositional phrase (PP) attachment ambiguities, through a series of offline and online experiments. For each type of ambiguity, the offline experiments tested the attachment preferences of L2 English learners and native English speakers via the use of pencil-and-paper comprehension questionnaires, whereas the online experiments investigated real-time processing of the target syntactic structures through the use of eye-tracking methodology. The offline experiment on the resolution of RC attachment ambiguities revealed that Turkish and English RC attachment preferences differed in that native English speakers preferred to attach the RC to the local noun phrase (low attachment preference), whereas the Turkish participants preferred the nonlocal NP to attach the RC (high attachment preference). Even though the same offline task fell short of detecting an attachment bias for the Turkish participants in the target language, English, the findings from a more sensitive online measure, the eye tracking task, indicated that the Turkish learners of L2 English tended to transfer the Turkish high attachment preference when processing English RC attachment ambiguities. As for the PP attachment ambiguities, the rationale was to investigate L2 learners' attachment preferences in situations when direct transfer effects from the learners' L1 are not probable as the equivalents of the PP attachment test items used in the offline task are not ambiguous in learners' L1, Turkish. This would render the opportunity to exclude the confounding factor of L1 transfer, which indeed substantially influenced L2 learners' processing decisions in RC ambiguity resolution. The results from both offline and online tasks indicated a clear low attachment bias for the native speakers and L2 learners groups, which suggests that L1 and L2 processing are both guided by structure-based processing strategies/biases in the computation of abstract relationships among syntactic constituents and that processing decisions can be made basing on the hierarchically deep structural information. The findings in general were interpreted to offer insights into several issues including how L2 grammatical processing could take place, whether and to what extent the transfer of L1 processing routines could influence real-time L2 sentence comprehension, whether it is possible for L2 learners to achieve native-like processing in the L2 and whether L2 processing mechanism is subject to a change with the increasing proficiency.
Syntactic, lexical and content analysis of children's private speech
This dissertation aimed at investigating private speech of 3, 4 and 5 years olds Turkish preschoolers. The first aim was to explore linguistic properties of private speech, namely its lexical, morphosyntactic and syntactic features which are expected to present features that are different from previous studies in other languages. This study also aimed to reveal content properties of Turkish children's private speech. Another purpose of this dissertation was to study the social origins of private speech by comparing linguistic and content features of private speech with social speech that children produced when they were completing the same task with their mothers. Data for the present study was collected in two stages; firstly, private speech data from children were gathered, secondly data from mother-child interactions were collected. In the first stage, private speech data was collected from 28 children aged between 3;1 and 5;7. There were 8 children in three year olds' group and 10 children in each of the 4 and 5 year olds' groups. In the data collection process, children were video recorded in a separate room in the kindergarten while they were playing with a wooden toy house which has removable household items and toy family figures. In the second stage, 5 of the same children from each group were video recorded while completing the same task with their mothers. Results revealed that self-regulation, planning and problem solving functions of private speech were represented by specific usages in children's language. It is also found out that Turkish private speech is not predicated and syntactically abbreviated in the same way as Vygotsky proposed. Internalization of Turkish private speech was only traced with the increase in the partially internalized utterances with age. Comparisons of private speech and mother-child interactions revealed similarities that demonstrate evidence for the social origins of private speech.
The correlation of metalinguistic awareness of bilingual students with learning English as a foreign language
It has been aimed to investigate the correlation of metalinguistic awareness of heritage bilingual students who have different linguistic backgrounds with learning English as a foreign language. There have been several numbers of studies which have emphasized the role of metalinguistic awareness in some research areas such as comprehension, creative thinking, and some linguistic skills; stating that metalinguistic awareness and skills have been found as developing in early childhood ages. Especially, first language acquisition and learning more than two languages have been lately investigated in certain studies (Bialystok, 2001; Cenoz &Valencia 1994; Lasagabaster, 1998). As one of the distinctive studies, Cenoz (2003) have claimed that metalinguistic awareness has been noted as having the role of mediating factor while learning additional languages. Furthermore, Cummins (1976) has explained the Threshold Level Hypothesis as having linguistic awareness and skills can be accepted as a threshold which is needed to be gained while learning additional languages. In this present study, the difference between heritage bilingual students and monolingual students in terms of metalinguistic awareness in both Turkish and English and learning English as a foreign language have been evaluated. It has been found that there has been a statistically significant difference between the results of both groups and a high correlation of metalinguistic awareness with learning a foreign language. Finally, the opinions of heritage bilingual students on the extreme have been discussed in terms of linguistic knowledge and awareness with semi-structured interviews. According to analyses higher metalinguistic awareness has been found related to higher results and scores in tests.
An investigation into the acquisition of modal verbs by monolingual and bilingual learners of English
Language acquisition is defined as the process by which human beings acquire the capacity to perceive and understand language as well as to produce and use words and sentences. Modals constitute one of the most important grammatical areas in the English language. This master's thesis aims to examine the process of acquiring the English modal units of monolingual and bilingual individuals. The universe of the research consists of 9th grade students studying in Anatolian high schools in Batman. The research method has quantitative characteristics. The sample of the study consists of 80 students who are selected equally. Half of the selected participants are monolingual and the rest are bilingual. In this study, a test was used to measure the students' recognition and use of modal units. The test consists of two versions, which include the participants' recognition and production items that reveal the modal units. Each test consists of twenty-four items. Both tests were administered to participants who took the English course according to the curriculum of the Ministry of National Education for five years. SPSS 17 was used for data analysis. Data analysis was performed with crosstables, one way Anova, The Mann Whitney U test and Mean tests based on the responses of the participants with the mean of SPSS 17. This study is expected to show whether monolingual and bilingual students differ in learning modal units, which modal units are more challenging for individuals. Moreover, this study is expected to shed light on the role of the first language transfer on the acquisition of English modal units.
Operation of power in classroom interaction in the EFL context
There is a great number of studies on classroom interaction adding to the naturalistic portrayal of classrooms as social places. Although these studies have clarified a wide range of aspects of classroom interaction in English as a Second Language (SLA) and English as Foreign Language (EFL) settings, there are numerous aspects that have not been searched enough in these settings. One of these aspects is the power mechanism in the classroom. Power, as a structure embedded in the fibre and fabric of everyday life, is inescapable in the classrooms as well, for these sites are social places in which complex relationships (including power relationships), meanings and practices are co-constructed dynamically. Inspired by the scarcity of research on power in the classroom in Turkey, this study aims to explore power at an English preparatory school at a Turkish university. The study has been designed to analyse teachers' and students' discursive strategies in terms of power construction within the classroom interaction. Therefore, it aims to arrive at meanings about power based on the frequency distribution of student and teacher-initiated exchanges, the discourse patterns in these exchanges, the forms and functions of discourse acts that are found in students' and teachers' initiation moves as well as teachers' turn allocation strategies. The data for the study were collected through audiotaped and video-recorded teacher-student interaction in five classrooms at total. The data were analysed by adopting Discourse Analysis approach through descriptive statistics and by analysing the excerpts from data on a turn-by-turn basis. The findings of the study revealed that in the classrooms under investigation in English lessons there was the abundance of teacher-initiated exchanges and related to discourse patterns, it was also found that Initiation by teachers, Response by students and Follow-up by teachers (IRF) was the prevalent structure. On the other hand, when discourse acts and their functions were taken into consideration, the abundance of elicitations and directives in teacher initiations uncovered the fact that teachers are dominant in classroom discourse. Yet, when looking at the discourse acts and their functions in student- initiations, it was seen that students had a say in the classroom. Furthermore, when looking at the excerpt analyses it was seen that student used power mechanisms such as providing initiations, follow-ups, interruptions and corrections for other participants' remarks. While overall results indicated that teachers dominate the classroom discourse, it was seen that classroom power was dynamic and negotiated by students and teachers.
Exploring pragmatic competence of preschool children with a specific reference to the speech act of apology in Turkish
Apologies are regarded as one of the most important speech acts since they have the function of redressing damaged relationship and restoring social harmony between the interactants following a violation of a social norm. Existing research in the relevant literature points at the existence of variations as well as universals across languages in the conceptualization and realization of this act. Thanks to these studies, conducted mostly in the field of interlanguage or cross-cultural pragmatics, adult-usage has grown into a well-defined area in various languages including Turkish. However, the same does not hold true for children's perceptions and productions of apologies with a relatively narrow range of studies in a small number of languages. Hence, the aim of this descriptive study was to explore Turkish preschool children's pragmatic competence with regard to their apology realization patterns. Firstly, children's meta-pragmatic knowledge of apologies was tested and then two different age groups (4;0-4;11 and 5;0-6;0) were compared to trace possible developmental trends with increasing age in terms of complexity of patterns, variety and types of strategies. Additionally, all the participant children were grouped according to such sociolinguistic variables as gender, parent's level of educationi, and preschool experience in order to detect the potential effect of such factors on children's apologizing behaviors. Finally, the range of children's socio-pragmatic skills was tested, which was evidenced by sensitivity to a number of contextual variables regarded by scholars (e.g. Fraser, 1981; Brown & Levinson, 1987) as influential on speakers' manner of apologizing. These parameters were severity and type of the offence and the social status relationship between the interactants. In order to fulfill these aims, eight offence scenarios were designed by manipulating the abovementioned contextual parameters and implemented in the form of Oral Discourse Completion Task (ODCT). Thus, the data obtained for the study consisted of 100 preschool children's (aged between 4;0 and 6;0) responses to these scenarios presented to them orally. The responses were then transcribed, classified into categories relying on the taxonomy chosen for the study, and analyzed statistically. Results pointed at children's meta-pragmatic knowledge of apologies traced in their provision of appropriate responses in terms of the need to use apologies when an offence was involved distinguishing among other speech acts. Regarding the developmental patterns, younger children were observed to have a marked tendency to rely on single strategies with a significantly higher usage rate. In parallel, children's productions were found to become more elaborate with increasing age. When it comes to sociolinguistic variables, no significant gender effect was observed in terms of the complexity of patterns. There were only slight differences in female and male choices of strategies and strategy-combination categories. Similarly, parents' level of education and preschool experience did not emerge as decisive factors on the complexity of patterns although the results pointed at significant differences in certain strategy preferences. However, the children were found to display socio-pragmatic skills to a certain extent as they could distinguish between minor and serious offences and adjusted their patterns accordingly. The same was the case for the effect of interlocutor's social status as they were found to utilize more complex patterns for the offences committed against friends rather than their teacher. Finally, the results indicated children's sensitivity to the type of offence as well, which was reflected in their employment of more complex patterns and diverse strategies for right violations. All in all, the findings of the study have some important implications for foreign language teaching in addition to the first language acquisition in many respects.
Bilingualism and attitudes towards foreign language learning
The aim of this study is to find out the significant differences between the attitudes of the monolingual and bilingual students who are learning English as a Foreign Language. For this reason, the Language Attitude Questionnaire which was developed by Cook and composed of six clusters of social, psychological and personal monolingualism and social, psychological and personal bilingualism was applied to them.The participants of the study were selected from the Preparatory School of Çağ University students who are studying English. Only eighty students were selected for the study and forty of those eighty students are bilinguals and the other forty of them are monolinguals.In Chapter One, the statement of the problem, background to the study, research questions, hypotheses, operational definitions and limitations are presented. The related literature on monolingualism, bilingualism, multilingualism and attitudes towards foreign language learning is reviewed in Chapter Two. In Chapter Three, the research design, participants, data collection and data analysis are provided. The data analysis and further comments on the collected and analysed data are included in Chapter Four. Conclusion takes place in Chapter Five.
Second language word associations of Turkish adult learners of english
This study investigates L2 word associations of Turkish adult learners in terms of lexical relations and word class selections. Namely, the research is based on the forms and meanings of word associations of L2 learners. To this effect, Jung's Word Association Test (WAT) was conducted with careful consideration of prompt words to 26 ELT students who are studying at the 4th class at Çağ University. The results of WAT were classified into 4 categories in terms of lexical relations and divided into 3 categories in terms of word classes. The results indicated that nouns were dominant in L2 learners? mental lexicon and for verbs syntagmatic and for nouns paradigmatic associations had the highest rate. In view of these results, further suggestions for making use of word associations in and out of classroom setting are made in the hope that vocabulary learning and teaching can be improved.
Effect of bilingualism on foreign language skills: A comparison of bilinguals and monolinguals
Bilingualism, having control of two languages or using two languages in daily life of a person, might be a result of globalization and immigration of people It has become very common phenomenon among the scholars. The question arises in this study whether being bilingual has an overall advantage on a person's life or vice versa. Bialystok (2001) expresses that bilingualism enhances the development of a general cognitive function concerned with attention and inhibition, and that facilitating effects of bilingualism are found on tasks and processes in which this function is most required. Moreover, Baker & Jones (1998) emphasize some social aspects of being bilingual as follows; a bilingual child may speak in one language with his/her parents and in another language with his/her friends and this may enable the child to establish a more intimate and strong way of relationship with parents, Another social advantage may be that the child may have strong family ties with relatives who live in different cities and speak in a different language if the child is bilingual. However if not, the relationship with relatives may be to some extent lost gradually. The authors further add that the same broader relationship occurs in the community as well in that the child may be able communicate in a school having multinational students. Bilingual children may have more language sensitivity for which they always think very carefully to choose the best words or utterances in a social situation. Finally as for cultural richness, bilinguals may have richer cultural knowledge and understanding towards cultures as they learn the culture of the language they use as well. The objective of this study is to compare reading and writing skills of Enlish as a foreign language for two bilingual groups, Turkish-Kurdish and Turkish-Arabic and one Turkish monolingual group. The groups were determined according to a specific exam result, SBS ( high school entrance exam for secondary school children). Each of the groups had a four month training to practice basic English tenses-Present Simple, Present Continuous, Past Simple, Past Continuous, Future Simple and Be going to- withing reading context and supplementary exercises. To pretests and posttests were used to evaluate the students' improvement between two exam periods. The bilingual groups use both languages Turkish-Kurdish or Turkish-Arabic actively in their daily lives. Two writing tasks covering the usage of related tense structures were given to students in the pretests and posttests and both reading and writing scores were assessed by means of SPSS program. The bilingual groups were born and brought up in Siirt, a southeastern town in the Republic of Turkey which has a three language speaking population. Monolinguals of Turkish are mainly from Western regions where the dominant language is Turkish. They have come to Siirt mostly because of their parents' occupational duties. All of the students were provided initially a background questionnaire to determine which group they belonged to in the study and how many grades they got from SBS exam. ( 17 English questions in the exam.) 135 students were chosen among 272 students according to their mean scores from the SBS exam and 45 were chosen for each group. The students were given KET (Key English Test) by Cambridge University for pretest and posttest implementation. After four months of training, the same exams were applied and the difference between pretests and posttests was calculated and evaluated according to some statistical tests. According to posttest results, Turkish-Kurdish bilinguals outnumbered their counterparts in terms of reading skill in English. Moreover, TAB group also outnumbered TM group in reading. The writing scores in the pretests seemed to be very low initially but in the posttest writing scores were higher than those of pretests. It was concluded that all of the groups showed some improvement in their writing abilities. However, when the groups' performances in writing were compared, they appeared to get almost the same grades from the writing tasks. To sum up, a meaningful difference in terms of reading scores was seen among the groups but there was not such a meaningful difference among the groups in writing tasks. As writing seems to be a more productive and difficult skill by the students, this results may not be such surprising but the main focus was on reading during the whole training period and the results revealed that there was a significant advantage of bilinguals as for their reading skills in English over their monolingual counterparts.
Teachers' code switching in English foreign language classrooms
This thesis aimed to investigate code switching (CS hereafter) in interactive changes of ELT teachers from English to Turkish in detail. The study took place in Çukurova University at preparatory classes of Foreign Language Schools in the city of Adana. In accordance with this aim, three level 1 and three level 3 classrooms were observed and recorded for six class hours about 294 minutes via mobile phone camera. The recordings were transcribed and examined to see whether CS practices happened in these classes or not, if they did, how often they took place, for what purposes teachers applied them, what types and functions are used frequently by the teachers, how the frequency of CS usage changes according to lesson which are Reading and Grammar, how it changes according to level of students, and lastly how these CS practices contribute to language learning process. Besides observation of classes and video recording, semi-structured interviews were held with six teachers and these interviews were analyzed through content analysis. The following results have been obtained from the data: 1) All the teachers used CS in their classes; 2) They apply CS for a variety of reasons such as translation, reiteration, checking comprehension, explaining new information, checking exercise, correcting mistake, grammar review, the most 3) The most frequently used type of CS is inter sentential 4) Instructors usually prefer CS in Grammar and at low level classrooms more although it was observed some exceptions by the teachers during the lessons. 5) Finally, teachers find CS useful in ESL classrooms, but they emphasize that it should be cautiously and L1 should not precede L2 in language classrooms.
Tailoring blended instruction to underachieving language learners in order to enhance their productive language skills
Some recent studies pertaining to blended instruction in language learning have demonstrated that blending face-to-face class instruction with online instruction may improve language outcomes as well as learner satisfaction in acquiring a new language. At the same time, some researchers (Neumeier, 2005; Banados, 2006;Picciano, 2009; Goertler, 2012) have claimed that it is essential to define teaching methodologies and the elements of blended instruction according to learner needs. Motivated by these scholars' work, the current dissertation aims to determine whether the implementation of blended instruction in beginner-level English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes comprised of students repeating this level (also known as "underachievers") would increase their development of productive language skills. This study also considers these learners' self-reflections on their experience with blended instruction in order to recommend some blended instruction parameters that are most supportive of these students' success. In order to assess impact of blended instruction on language-learner improvement, a repeat A1 class (defined according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) in a preparatory EFL program in a public university in Turkey was selected as the sample setting. The sample included twelve prospective engineering students whose enrolment in their programs of study during the following academic year was based on their scores on a midterm and final exam within the preparatory program. Based on the findings of semi-structured surveys and interviews conducted among the participants, the nine- year EFL teaching experience of the researcher, and existing scholarship on blended instruction, a course curriculum was prepared and implemented during a twelve-week period in the 2017-18 Academic Year. To measure the improvement of the participants in terms of their writing and speaking skills, their preparatory school achievement exams were evaluated in terms of language complexity. Their scores were subsequently analysed via SPSS as well as non-parametric Freidman tests and Wilcoxon signed-tests. The results indicated that learners' writing grades, language accuracy, and some sub-components of speaking skills such as task achievement, vocabulary and fluency had increased. In order to collect information regarding students' reflections on their blended instruction experience, weekly forms, semi-structured interviews and classroom discussion all were administered and subsequently analysed via content analysis. The results were organized by theme under the categories of perceived weaknesses and strengths of the blended instruction components.
Developing syntactic complexity in writing through one-to-one feedback
Writing is, as one of the most important productive skills in language learning, considered challenging and demanding fort both learners and teachers, particularly in English as foreign language (EFL) contexts. Besides, most students might feel reluctant for writing due to the several reasons such as having low-grades or lack of self-confidence. However, there might be some ways to overcome these difficulties. One of these ways is to give feedback their writings. Therefore, the present study aimed at investigating the syntactical development of the English Language Teaching (ELT) students through one-to-one feedback. The number of the participants in this study were 18 students majoring in ELT Department in one of the university in Turkey. Nine of the participants received regular feedback and the rest did not receive feedback. The participants wrote reflection on some topics and received one-to-one feedbacks in six-week period. Note-taking technique was used to explore participants' development, one-to-one interviews and students' reflections about one-to-one feedback were used to gather data. Results revealed that one-to-one feedback improve students' syntactic ability in writing process.