Theses supervised by Prof. Dr. Zuhal Okan
20 theses · Çukurova University, Çağ University
Investigating the influence of contextual factors on English language teachers? beliefs
This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between contextual factors and English language beliefs. In this sense, the contextual factor which is mostly related with English language teachers? beliefs and practices was analyzed and the existence of a meaningful difference between public and private school English teachers in terms of perceived impact of contextual factors was examined. A scale was searched in relevant literature for this purpose and the questionnaire, which was developed by Lumpe, Haney and Czerniak (1999) for the purpose of investigating the effect of contextual factors on science teachers? beliefs, was used by changing its content completely. The questionnaire items were constituted by having pre-interviews with English teachers and reviewing relevant literature. The new scale developed was piloted with 82 public and private school English teachers working in different parts of Turkey and the collected data were subject to reliability analysis with SPSS. The actual study was conducted with the participation of 210 public and private school English teachers working in different parts of Turkey. Most of the data were collected online using social networking sites and English teaching forums. As a result of the reliability analysis, the scale appeared to be highly reliable and six contextual factors were obtained, namely policy, classroom, inspection, student, management, teacher oriented contextual factors. In order to analyse the reliability of the questionnaire data, interviews were conducted with 14 participants lasting roughly half an hour and the collected data were compared with the questionnaire data. As a result of the regression analysis conducted with SPSS, a significant relationship was observed between contextual factors and English language teachers? beliefs and practices. With regard to correlation analysis, it was found out that student oriented contextual factors have the greatest impact on English language teachers. On the basis of independent samples t-test results, except teacher and management oriented contextual factors, meaningful difference was observed between public school and private school English teachers in terms of policy, classroom, inspection, and student oriented contextual factors.
Cross cultural differences in language learning strategy preferences: A comparative study of German and Turkish university EFL students
The purpose of this study is to contribute to literature on language learning strategies of EFL learners who are representing two different selected groups. The focus of the study is to investigate the language learning preferences of Turkish and German EFL learners, and identify possible impact of culture in adopting these learning strategies. For the study, a total of 184 German (N=80) and Turkish (N= 84) EFL learners studying in English Language Department were given SILL (Version 7.0) in their local learning settings. Developed by Oxford (1990), SILL consists of six subsets in which different learning skills are investigated. These subsets are categorized as `Memory strategies?, `Cognitive strategies?, `Compensation strategies,? `Metacognitive strategies,? `Affective strategies,? and `Social strategies.? The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, frequencies) and independent two-tailed test. In order to obtain more insights into the study a semi-structured interview was conducted with learners. The results have shown that there exist significant learning differences and cultural factors between groups in terms of choosing learning strategies. Keywords: Learning Styles, Learning Strategies, Individual Differences, Culture, EFL, ESL.
The impact of in-service teacher education (INSET) programme on professional development of efl teachers through the critical friends group (CFG)
Language teachers, similar to teachers in all fields, are often encouraged to consider the importance of lifelong and ongoing professional learning. In-service training is believed to be a key factor in influencing the professional development of teachers and contributing to the improvement of their knowledge, skills and motivation. This study will investigate the impact of an in-service teacher education programme (INSET) on teachers who will be working in Critical Friends Group (CFG). In this study, the researcher aims at stimulating the professional development of teachers who have been working at the School of Foreign Languages, Mersin University. To this end, a development-based INSET course will be programmed for the instructors. In the first phase of the study, the attitudes and expectations of the teachers towards an INSET course will be inquired. The teachers will be asked to specify the areas they think they need to improve in their teaching. The data will be gathered by the means of questionnaires and interviews. Then the teachers will be encouraged to join in the Critical Friends Group (CFG), which is a method where 'critical friends', who are colleagues from the same educational institution (Andreu et. al. 2003, Vo and Nguyen, 2009) work to help each other. The teachers who are willing to participate in CFG will be determined after small group discussions. Three types of CFG protocols, which involve group discussion, peer observation, and problem solving will be used during 2009-2010 Spring Term. In three month period, critical friend groups will perform one protocol in a month. Each protocol cycles will be organised by the researcher and the groups will be informed about the procedure thoroughly. Group discussions and problem solving sessions will be videotaped; classroom observation forms will be filled during peer observation and will be discussed within the groups in post-observation sessions. The purpose of initiating the critical friends group before the INSET course is to create the atmosphere of collaborative professional learning, and to be able to observe the impact of the INSET course on participants' professional development by evaluating the process teachers go through before and after the INSET. The second phase of the study will be the organization and the implementation of the INSET course. The content of the programme will be determined by scholars who will be invited to lecture in the INSET programme. The needs assessment questionnaire and interviews held with the teachers about their professional development in the first phase of the study will be taken into consideration while determining the content. The INSET course will take place in June, 2010. The last phase of the study will be the follow-up and the evaluation. During this phase, the researcher aims to observe the CFGs again, and to evaluate the impact of the INSET programme on their professional development. Each protocol cycles will be rearranged and conducted within the same groups during the Fall Term of 2010-2011 academic year. Multiple data will come from observations of the protocols and interviews with the participants within their groups. The attitudes and expectations of the teachers after the INSET programme will also be evaluated.
Genre-based approach to writing instruction for students at English Language and Literature department
Being aware of their students' needs is very crucial for teachers because students need to accomplish tasks within their respective disciplines and subject areas. The aim of the genre-based pedagogy is to focus on students' academic needs and enable them to read and write successfully (Martin, 1993, 2009). Therefore, it is imperative for teachers to understand the range of written genres and other writing skills that students need to use in their academic studies. In order to achieve this aim genre-based writing instruction suggests a systematic and explicit way of teaching writing. Genre-based pedagogy together with the analysis of students' needs might function as a basis for curriculum design to have effective and positive results from writing education. An analysis of student needs is generally considered crucial in developing appropriate course design and content; such an analysis using genre-based writing instruction in ESP based course design should also be regarded as a building block of teaching writing. Learning and teaching in ESP genre-oriented writing pedagogy can provide a lot of advantages and convenience to both students and teachers in many ways. For instance, critical awareness of writing practices, suitable discipline-specific texts for students and how writers organize texts can be listed to employ and manipulate this type of writing instruction and "to meet the anticipated goal and purpose" (Kay & Dudley-Evans, 1998). The present study attempts to investigate the process of building metacognitive genre-awareness within genre-based academic writing instruction and show how it influences English Language and Literature students' ability to interpret and compose academic texts. Moreover, by applying a genre-based writing syllabus for literature students, the researcher aims to focus on the effects of this approach on students' interpersonal relationship with the teacher, their attitudes and motivation towards writing and achievement in academic writing. The present study is designed as a case study and both qualitative and quantitative approaches to data collection and analysis have been adopted. For this reason, multiple tools of data collection have been employed in this study (Silverman, 2000): classroom observation, students' written texts (portfolios), interview with the students, teacher's journal, students' diaries, questionnaires and students' writing exam scores. Research has been conducted with 110 undergraduate students who have attended the first year of English Language and Literature Department at Gaziantep University during 2014 – 2015 academic year. It aims to reveal whether genre-based academic writing instruction contributes raising metacognitive genre awareness in English Language and Literature students, how this metacognitive genre awareness affects the students' analysis of academic and literary texts and how it affects their writing performance. Keywords: Genre-based academic writing instruction, metacognitive genre awareness, analysis of academic and literary texts, and motivation and attitudes towards writing
Discourse markers in efl classrooms : A corpus-driven research
This study is comprised of two phases in nature. In the first phase, we aim at exploring Turkish teachers' opinions about the use of discourse markers in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms. In the second phase, we aim at determining discourse markers used by Turkish teachers and native teachers in EFL classrooms and comparing these items in terms of variety and frequency. To reach the objectives of the present study, we conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with two Turkish EFL teachers. Also, we compiled two separate corpora based on the transcriptions of audio-recordings collected from two Turkish and two native EFL teachers' lectures. We analyzed semi-structured interviews through content analysis and we analyzed corpus data through AntConc (2014), a specific concordance program designed for text analysis. Content analysis results revealed Turkish teachers' opinions about the use of discourse markers in foreign language classrooms under four main themes: necessity of discourse markers in language teaching materials, the use of discourse markers in EFL classrooms, teaching of discourse markers and pragmatic value of discourse markers. Corpus-driven research results indicated that Turkish teachers used 29 different discourse markers and native teachers used 37 different discourse markers in their classroom discourse. It was also seen that Turkish teachers underused most of the discourse markers when compared to native teachers in EFL classrooms. In the light of these findings, we suggested notable implications for English language teaching.
The use of tests as social practice: The intentions, effects and consequences of English language teacher recruitment examination in the Turkish context
This current study aims to shed light on the use of the KPSS as social practice especially for English language teacher recruitment in the Turkish context. Based on a multiphase mixed methods research design, the study scrutinizes the use of the KPSS- its intentions, effects and consequences- with specific reference to its power over student teachers of English and the origin of this power in the Turkish context. The significance of the study lies in combining three phases which are documentary study, scale development and implementation and a case study based on Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA). The data for this study were collected through various instruments and methods appropriate for each research question sequentially. In the first phase, the documents on the KPSS were analysed. In the second phase, the scale The Power of the KPSS over Student Teachers of ELT in the Turkish Context was specifically developed for this study and implemented. In the third phase which is an IQA case study, IQA focus group sessions and IQA interviews were conducted in order to identify the factors comprising the participants' shared perception of the origin of the power of the KPSS, its effects, consequences and the relationships among these elements in their shared perceptual systems. The findings indicate that driven by power involved in the discourse of the testing, the KPSS has led to a set of unintended effects and consequences. The officially declared intention of the KPSS is to select the ones who get assigned as civil servants and teachers. In fact, the KPSS might not fail in achieving its main purpose, but in practice it has served some undeclared and unintended functions. Overall, considering the fact that in the 21st century, the quality of testing practices is determined not only through their psychometric features but also their social uses, the debates conducted in this dissertation conclude with implication to enhance the quality of the KPSS as a social practice and develop assessment and testing literacy of individuals.
A study on perceived needs of vocational school students learning English
The aim of this study is to investigate English language needs of students who are studying in vocational schools of health services and learning English as a foreign language. This study is conducted to reveal the perspectives of currently enrolled students, teachers and administrators of the schools in terms of English language education offered in these institutions. The schools that are analyzed in this research are part of Çukurova University, Adana located in the southern part of Turkey. Data are collected via questionnaires and semi structured interviews with the participants. Semi structured interviews are carried out with the teachers and administrators in order to understand their perceptions towards students' language needs. Convenient sampling is used and data are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. In the light of the results, it is found out that English language needs of the students are not met sufficiently and even if the instructors who teach the courses try to address the needs of the learners, the program is not applied by analyzing needs and in terms of English for specific purposes. To conclude, there needs to be a curriculum addressing the learners' needs. Keywords: Needs analysis, English for general purposes (EGP), English for specific purposes (ESP).
An analysis of lexical richness in written production of Turkish efl students
This study primarily aims at analysing L2 lexical richness and word frequency levels in free essays written by students studying at foreign language departments of high schools and attending to two private language teaching institutions located in Hatay, Turkey. It also targets to find out whether there is a correlation between the average score of students' pilot LYS- 5 foreign language exam and lexical richness in their essays. The analysis of lexical richness and identification of word frequency levels were carried out by using two measuring software programs called RANGE and FRE-QUENCY. Developed by Heatley, Nation, and Coxhead (2002), RANGE gives information about the distribution of words or other lexical units across a set of two or more texts. Included in the same package with RANGE, frequency list of all the words in a single text can be found by FREQUENCY. As a second researching area, 4 teachers of English who are educating 50 participants partaking in the current study were interviewed in order to find out their general opinions on L2 lexical richness and what they do in order to enhance their student's lexical knowledge. The result of the analysis showed that students free written essays contained higher percentages of words belonging to the word list one than it is supposed to be. By word list one, it is meant the most frequently used words in English. When examined individually, students with higher average pilot test scores are found to use lexically richer words compared to the students with lower average pilot test scores in general terms. Then the students were grouped in three according to their average pilot test scores. Group 1 consisted of students with the highest average test score. Group 2 were formed with the students having a medium average test score and lastly, Group 3 included students with the lowest average test score. When the lexical analysis of essay of these three groups was made, it was found that essays written by the participants may not reflect their academic success in English test scores or the average test scores that the participants have may not always guarantee the usage of words that belong to the academic word list. As for the result of the interviews, teachers fundamentally highlighted that increasing lexical richness is students' own responsibility. Additionally, all the interviewees agreed that rich vocabulary help students produce better quality essays because students having a wide range of rich vocabulary can express their ideas effectively. Keywords: Lexical richness, lexical frequency profile, RANGE, essay writing
Liselerin yabancı dil sınıflarında işbirlikçi yazma
Even though the curriculum of the Ministry of National Education includes learning outcomes related to basic language skills, these are often overlooked, especially writing skills are ignored. Students have difficulty in writing activities, which are the requirements of English classes, and teachers are reluctant to teach this skill. In collaborative studies, students may carry onward their linguistic and cognitive levels further than the existing level. In this study, based on Vygotsky's socio-cultural constructivist theory, it is aimed to develop students' writing skills by providing learning support to each other. This study primarily takes aim at developinging L2 writing skill of the students studying at foreign language department of a state high school in Hatay, Turkey through collaborative writing. It also targets to find out whether there is quality and quantity difference between the individual writings and collaborative writings of the students in their essays. Within this context, the study was carried out with 12th grade Foreign Language Department students in Anatolian High School in Hatay. During the study process, writing training was given first and then writing activity applications were performed. Since only two schools in the district have a Foreign Language Department, Purposive Sampling Method was used in student selection. The participants were divided into two main groups, the control group and the experimental group. Both groups worked on the same tasks during the study. Writing skills were covered in the first semester courses and practice was done in the second semester. Each period took 8 weeks with 2 lesson hours in each week. The control group performed these practices individually, while the experimental group performed in accordance with the collaborative method, in 4 groups of 3 students. The analyses of writings were carried out in line with an evaluation rubric that is a four-point scale and borrowed from ESL Composition Profile (Jacobs, et al., 1981). The results of analysis showed that students who wrote collaboratively scored higher marks in terms of content, organization, vocabulary/languge use, and grammar usage than the control group did. Keywords: collaborative writing, individual writing, colloboration, writing in EFL, essay/paragraph writing
A corpus-based study on the English used in automotive engineering: Implications for teaching English for specific purposes
The trend of incorporating corpus data with classroom applications in ESP (English for Specific Purposes) settings has accelerated in recent years since its contribution into genre-based instruction was widely recognized at tertiary education. Until then, as Flowerdew (2015) points out, "as far as pedagogy is concerned, corpora have had far more impact on indirect applications, that is, on reference works such as dictionaries and grammars, than on direct ones" (p.100). In order to increase the potential benefits of corpus research into ESP instruction, thereby encouraging learners towards DDL (data-driven learning) through direct corpus applications rather than indirect ones, the present study mainly aims to improve the content of English for Automotive Engineering course and construct an applicable needs-driven and corpus-informed syllabus. As a secondary purpose, the study intends to familiarize AE students with technically relevant lexical items they are going to utilize in their future workplaces, which will ultimately heighten their occupational skills. Lastly, in addition to its benefits to ESP learners, it is anticipated that the study will provide assistance to ESP practitioners, material developers, and syllabus designers correspondingly. In accordance with these purposes, first and foremost, by taking Automotive Engineering department in a state university in Turkey as a case, the study explores language needs and expectations of 168 participants involved in the process; namely AE (Automotive Engineering) students, ESP practitioners in the setting, subject matter teachers and automotive engineers. This needs-analysis phase which aids to take a snapshot of the status quo of ESP instruction is extended by the creation of Automotive Engineering English Corpus. AEEC, which consists of 114 written automotive texts is a customized corpus with 2,160,512 running words. In order to represent this specialized register of English for pedagogical purposes, an Automotive Engineering Technical Word List (AETWL) and an Automotive Engineering Technical Collocation List (AETCL) were extracted by calculating the frequencies of lexical items in AEEC into account. Owing to both needs analysis and corpus analysis conducted in this study, it is explicitly revealed that there is an urgent need for a novel instructional approach to the ESP lesson based on productive skills and free from traditional classroom applications. Besides, corpus analysis results demonstrate that AEEC includes relatively more technical items when compared to its counterparts. The synthesis of both quantitative and qualitative findings from needs analysis and corpus analysis has enabled the preparation of a sample genre-based ESP syllabus and a tentative micro-teaching lesson plan accordingly. In conclusion, this case study promises highly significant and proactive measures in terms of the results it has provided in line with the philosopy of learner-centredness. Keywords: English for Specific Purposes, corpus, data-driven learning, data-driven teaching, genre-based instruction.
Lesson study-a personal and professional development model for preservice ELT teachers
This study is an adaptation of Japanese professional development model "Lesson Study" into preservice English language teacher education in Turkey. The study explores Lesson Study engagement of six preservice teachers to investigate its impact to the personal and professional development for the purpose of observing if Lesson Study makes a difference in the personal and professional growth of the participants and leads to positive changes in their implicit beliefs and personal theories about teaching and instructional practices that is informed by student learning oriented nature of Lesson Study application. To obtain research aims, the study documented seven months Lesson Study experience of the participants consisted of five RLs which were implemented in five different schools. As the present research aimed to shed light on a complex phenomenon called Lesson Study and provided a detailed interpretation by observing the participants in their natural context, qualitative research approach was chosen as the methodological foundation for the study. By nature of the study large volume of qualitative data was collected by means of variety of data collection tools. The data collection tools employed in the present study were, unstructured Interviews, semi-structured interviews, classroom observation sheets, reflective journals and focus group interviews. The collected data was subjected to qualitative data analysis with Atlas.Ti. to analyse it systematically. The results revealed that Lesson Study intervention impacted the participants in various aspects at varying degrees such as personal development, improvements in instructional strategies, heightened awareness about student learning, increased ability to plan effective lessons, professional development, deeper appreciation for promoting interaction in the classroom, and increased concern for teacher related issues and the classroom oriented matters as an obstacles in front of student learning. As for the professional development of the participants, the results revealed that the process contributed to the professional development of participating preservice ELT teachers significantly in a number of ways but the strongest impact was observed in such dimensions as positive attitude towards professional development opportunities like lesson study experience, willingness to work in a collaborative environment, positive changes in perceptions about teaching and learning process, increased awareness about multidimensional nature of classroom and critical moments, and deeper focus on student learning. The present study offered a striking result by providing evidences to support the claim that Lesson Study procedure had the strongest impact on the personal development of participating pre-service ELT teachers. It was observed that Lesson Study intervention triggered making critical and valid teaching judgements and led to improvements in participants' adaptability skills. The results further pointed to a moderate level of impact on the participants' creativity, their self-awareness, and establishment of rapport with students.
An evaluation of ma english language teaching programme at Çukurova university from students' perspectives
The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the Master of Arts programme offered at the English Language Teaching Department of Çukurova University by taking the opinions of the students who have completed the course period. Field scanning of the graduate programmes in Turkey has been made and in this direction, research questions were created to meet the needs. When evaluating this program, students' reasons for enrollment, course, content, student support, and a general evaluation of the program were required. When these components were taken into consideration, the study examined the quality as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the current program evaluated by the students and aimed to provide important information to decision-makers. In addition, the data on to what extent the expectations of the students enrolled in this program are met are also presented. A literature review was conducted to compile a data collection tool that was adapted to the study to collect quantitative data and questions were developed to be used in semi-structured interviews to obtain the qualitative data. While the quantitative data obtained was evaluated statistically, qualitative data was analyzed and evaluated by coding and theming method. The results reveal the main reasons for the enrollment as well as significant information about the strenghts and weaknesses of the programme at hand. Keywords: Programme evaluation, students' perspective, evaluation
An investigation on possible contributions of the professional development course to the training of the prospective English language teachers
In recent years, the professional development of English language teachers has gained importance at a high level to make the teaching process more effective and make teachers continue their interests, creativity and enthusiasm in their teaching careers. Some of the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities have been applied to contribute to the professional development of English language teachers. Although having such an essential place, CPD is not given much space in the curriculum of English Language Teaching (ELT) education programs. Besides, studies on perceptions of pre-service English language teachers on PD are quite limited while much research has been carried out to find out the PD perceptions, attitudes and activities of in-service English language teachers. Therefore, this research primarily aims to examine the possible contributions of a rare PD (Professional Development) course given in the ELT department of a Çukurova University in Turkey on the prospective teachers' education. Utilizing a mixed research approach, prospective ELT students who enrolled on the course were asked to fill out a questionnaire including both Likert-scale and open-ended items before and after the course while pre and post semi-structured interviews were conducted besides reflection papers which were filled out during the course as qualitative data. To examine the data obtained, SPSS 25.0 and thematic analysis were used. The findings unveiled that PD course raised awareness on a better understanding of ELT profession, professional development concept and PD activities, also encouraged future teachers on being lifelong learners through reflective teaching and affected prospective EFL teachers' feelings positively as prepared, confident, conscious, comfortable and committed for their future teaching careers. This study has important implications for future research into professional development in English language teaching and teacher education programs. Keywords: Professional Development, Teacher Education, English Language Teaching
A media literacy course design for english language teacher candidates
Media literacy education is critical for foreign language teachers. In addition to being media literate, foreign language teachers should be equipped to use the media in foreign language teaching and to educate their students accordingly. However, there is no standardized media literacy course for language teacher candidates in Turkey to address these needs. This dissertation aims to focus on this gap and design a media literacy course for English language teacher candidates at a state university in Turkey. The English language teacher candidates in their final year at the department have been chosen as participants of this study. In order to explore the media literacy levels of the candidate teachers, a media literacy levels scale was conducted at the beginning of the semester. The same scale has been utilized as a post-test at the end of the course to see the improvement in the candidate teachers' media literacy levels. Their opinions about the course have been collected through the course evaluation forms during and at the end of the semester and semi-structured interviews at the end of the course. Media literacy levels of English language teacher candidates are high at the beginning of the semester and at the end. A significant difference has been found in the media literacy levels, which shows the effectiveness of the course. As a result of the analysis of participants' expectations, course evaluations, and semi-structured interviews, the course has been found to meet the expectations. The study concludes that the course's strengths are its educational impacts that increase critical thinking skills, its thought-provoking and eye-opening content, and its student-centered, inclusive, and participatory methods and techniques. On the other hand, its weaknesses are the year the course is given; lack of media production activities, excess of theoretical knowledge, time limitations that do not allow to offer more examples or to speak, and hesitancy to participate due to sensitive subjects. This study emphasizes the necessity of a media literacy course designed for English language teacher candidates and presents valuable insights for further studies in the field. Keywords: Media literacy, media literacy education, English language teacher candidates
Enhancing the motivation of students for writing by using creative writing activities
Along with listening, reading, and speaking, writing is one of the four essential skills in language education. Writing is a crucial aspect of language learning as it enables students to enhance their vocabulary, retain information, and self-monitor their progress. Additionally, if practiced successfully, the process of writing has the potential to be entertaining. If students are intrinsically motivated, they have a better chance to produce high-quality writing. One way to enhance students' creativity and writing motivation is to incorporate more creative writing activities in the writing process. Therefore, the researcher proposed a creative writing intervention to increase the writing motivation of eighth-grade students in the school setting. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of creative writing practices on writing motivation. The intervention was designed on the socio-cultural research that puts the emphasis on the writing process, which includes setting goals, generating and organizing ideas, and reviewing and editing. The study utilized a mixed-methods research methodology to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data was gathered from the Writing Motivation Questionnaire (De Smedt et al., 2020) as the pre-test and the post-test for the study. Additionally, qualitative data was gathered from both semi-structured interviews and the students' creative writing products. The study revealed that creative writing activities have a positive effect on writing motivation. Students reported in the semi-structured interviews that their will to write continued after the intervention took place. Another finding was creative writing practices had a positive impact on the creativity of the writing products; however, the study revealed that regular attendance is crucial for creative writing practices to have a positive impact on the creativity of the writing products. One unexpected finding was on the students' preferred feedback type. Research findings suggest that providing students with immediate feedback is more beneficial in enhancing their learning outcomes than giving them delayed feedback. The reason why they preferred immediate feedback was due to the writing environment. The students reported instead of writing on their own, they enjoyed writing within a group of writers where they get help from both their teacher and peers. The overall results demonstrated that creative writing practices have a positive impact on both creativity and motivation. Keywords: Writing, writing motivation, creative writing, feedback, immediate feedback, delayed feedback.
A case study on how to explore and professionally develop Iraqi test writers' language assessment literacy through lesson study model
This qualitative case study explores how Iraqi English as a Foreign Language (EFL) test writers develop their Language Assessment Literacy (LAL) through a collaborative professional development model known as Lesson Study (LS). Although the importance of LAL is increasingly recognised worldwide, structured training opportunities in Iraq remain scarce, often resulting in the continued use of conventional and less effective assessment practises. The study examines LS as a context-sensitive, practise-based framework that fosters collective lesson planning, classroom-based inquiry, and reflective dialogue. Ten university-level EFL instructors engaged in three main stages of LS: planning, implementation, and reflection. The participants jointly designed a classroom-oriented assessment task, implemented it in real teaching environments, and refined it based on feedback from students, peers, and collaborative reflection. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, focus groups, reflective journals, classroom observations, and document analysis. Thematic analysis revealed notable development in participants' LAL across four domains: (1) technical competence, including enhanced understanding of validity, reliability, and alignment; (2) practical skills in designing more authentic, communicative assessments; (3) critical awareness in challenging previously held assumptions about testing; and (4) contextual sensitivity in adapting assessment practises to local constraints. The LS process encouraged professional agency and fostered collegial engagement, enabling the exchange of ideas and enhancing participants' confidence in their assessment practises. Many reported a clear transition from isolated, procedural approaches to more reflective, pedagogically informed methods. The findings suggest that Lesson Study offers a feasible and sustainable model for LAL development, particularly in resource-constrained environments. The study recommends integrating LS into formal teacher development programmes and encourages further research into its broader application and long-term outcomes. Keywords: Language Assessment Literacy, Lesson Study & Teacher Professional Development.
English language teacher as researcher: Constructing a bridge between practice and theory
The reconceptualisation of teachers not solely as conveyors of knowledge, but as producers of knowledge as well, has brought about a substantial paradigm shift in education. A key aspect of this shift is the redefinition of teacher identity, particularly through the perspective of the teacher-researcher role. Especially since the early 21st century, global educational policies and teacher education practices have aimed to position teachers as autonomous professionals who question classroom practices, think critically and make decisions through systematically collecting data. In this regard, the current study aims to understand English language teachers' perceptions of research, the relationship between practice and research, the obstacles to teachers' engagement with research, and how they develop a teacher-researcher identity. Adopting a multiphase mixed method design, the study was conducted in four stages: (a) document analysis of curricula, (b) quantitative data collection and analysis through a survey, (c) qualitative data collection and analysis through a training course and subsequent action research, and finally (d) a thorough analysis of semi-structured interviews covering the entire process. Within the first phase, English Language Teaching (ELT) undergraduate programmes of 44 state universities in Türkiye were examined. The analysis demonstrated that Research Methods courses are included in the curricula. However, the duration and content of these courses vary among universities to some extent, with some programmes that allocate more time and offer more comprehensive content. The survey data collected in the second phase revealed that the teacher respondents (N = 112) perceived research as an endeavour that is largely academic, statistically based, and irrelevant to classroom practices. Additionally, the rates of conducting and reading research, as well as perceiving research as a tool for professional development, were notably low. Time constraints, lack of theoretical knowledge and institutional support, and professional isolation emerged as primary obstacles. Within the third phase, in-depth studies were conducted with five volunteer teachers who took part in a teacher research training course and engaged in action research. The participant teachers were observed to experience a significant change in their perspectives on research. Through action research implementation, they developed systematic solutions to classroom-related problems, enhanced their reflective thinking skills, and fostered professional autonomy. The semi-structured interviews, conducted in the fourth phase, revealed that the participant teachers developed positive attitudes towards research thanks to the training course and action research practice. The teachers emphasised the significance of peer collaboration and sustainability despite the challenges they encountered. Overall findings of the study demonstrated that the entire process enhanced the teachers' reflective thinking and systematic problem-solving skills, as well as highlighting to teachers that the teacher-researcher identity could be sustainable regarding professional development. The current research reveals that multidimensional strategies addressing not only knowledge transfer but also motivational factors and institutional support are necessary to enhance teachers' engagement in research. As a consequence of the study, the formation of the teacher-researcher identity can be sustained through structured professional development initiatives, reflective learning environments and collaborative school cultures.
Enhancing EFL students' language learning through blogs
The present mixed type study, conducted in the first semester of fall 2016-2017 academic year at a higher education institution, aims to provide more insights into learners' English use in their comfort zones in out of class activities, their attitudes towards the use of blogs as a source of language input outside the classrooms and the contributions of blogs to their improvements in terms of their academic and social skills, learner autonomy and motivation. The study lasted 10 weeks. In order to collect data, a five point likert scale questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were held. The results of the questionnaire were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and the interviews were transcribed and analyzed through content analysis. During the coding process, emergent coding is preferred in order to avoid researcher bias and not to limit the coding process with certain categories. The results indicated that the general attitudes of the students towards blogging were positive after the implementation process. In general, the participants talked about the limited affordances of English use both inside and outside the classroom, thus they mentioned blogs as additional language input outside the classroom. Students stated that blogs were motivating, enhancing learning, providing continuous assessment of student progress, increasing interaction with their peers and teacher, giving more detailed and practical feedback, and improving critical thinking skills. Keywords: Blogging, educational technology, computer assisted learning,communication and information technologies in ELT.
Investigating teacher perceptions of and student reactions to oral and written feedback in foreign language classroom
Teachers' written and oral feedback has a considerable impact on students' learning and achievement process in English as a foreign language classroom. Both students and teachers value feedback as it provides the opportunity for both parties to identify the strengths and weaknesses that should be dealt with in classroom conditions. Much research on feedback has so far concentrated upon the type and the effectiveness of teacher feedback. However, why the teachers give the feedback as they do and how the students react and perceive the teachers' feedback is under-investigated. Therefore, the aim of this study is twofold: First, find out teachers' purpose and constraining factors while giving feedback, and second, elicit student reactions to teacher feedback provided by their teachers in the class. To collect data for the study, two teachers working in a state school in Turkey were given open-ended written questions, and additionally, students were given a questionnaire. The findings suggest valuable insights into the process of giving oral and written feedback to students and what the students think about it.
Students' attitudes to teacher's oral feedback in EFL classroom
The purpose of this study is to explore the overall views and opinions of students regarding feedback in the preparatory classes of a high school. The study specifically was focused on the students' attitude towards oral feedback and aimed to find out what kinds of oral feedback are mostly used by the language teachers in EFL classrooms. The study also portrays how, where, when they want to receive feedback. Generally, all the themes worked here demonstrate how the students' attitude constitutes. Feedback is a valuable part of learning and teaching in EFL classrooms and has been studied in the previous researches in terms of written feedback and corrective feedback from the standpoints of both teacher and students. However, the issue of oral feedback's influence in students' attitude has been less studied in the literature. Therefore, this study comes out with the new knowledge on the issue and is significant in feedback field. The quantitative and the qualitative features of the study are because of the data gathering methods, which is a questionnaire including two open-ended questions and a statement, and also the observation of the lessons on the types of oral feedback given by the teacher. The equipment was the questionnaires of 109 preparatory students in a high school, and the recordings of the four lessons. The findings of the study display that students are eager to receive feedback as part of their learning process, and almost all of them were positive about feedback process. The classroom was the place the students received the feedback. The teachers provided feedback to the whole class at once, and the students were asked to what kind of oral feedback they would like to receive. The students' interest in communication led them to keep up with the necessary changes in speaking and pronunciation, and grammar as well. Oral feedback was supposed to point to the mistakes, or to assist decreasing the mistakes themselves. The students also think oral feedback is enhancing and motivating. The observations of the classes showed us that the explicit correction is the most frequently used type of oral feedback and the others are, respectively; praising, recasting, interactional feedback. The study had some limitations so the results should not be generalized universally. Nevertheless, this extensive study on oral feedback in the classroom provided insightful considerations about both the students' attitude and the types of the feedback the teachers use in the EFL classroom. It was also interesting to find out teachers' beliefs which are about the oral feedback.