BİLSEM students' attitudes and opinions regarding the instructional design of English course blended with art and creativity

The aim of this research is to examine the attitudes and opinions of gifted students in Sciene and Art Centers (BİLSEM) regarding the instructional design of English course blended with art and creativity. The research was designed according to the combination (variation) pattern, one of the mixed method designs. The design of this mixed method research is one group pretest-posttest design which is one of the weak experimental designs. The study group consisted of 19 students studying at the ÖYG (Developing Special Abilities) Program at Martyr Prof. Dr. İlhan Varank Science and Art Center which is affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Karesi District of Balıkesir province in the 2022-2023 Academic Year. For the quantitative method, "Attitude Scale Towards English Class" scores were used as the pre-test and post-test. Within the scope of the English field class, 16-hour "Art Education and Instructional Design Program Blended with Creativity" activities developed by the researcher were applied to the study group. In addition to the post-test which was applied at the end of the practice, a focus group interview was conducted by applying the "Semi-Structured Interview Form Regarding the Art and English Language Skills Learning Process" and "The Activity Evaluation Form Containing the Opinions of the Students on the Differences in their Interests in Language Learning" to 8 randomly selected students from the study students. To compare the pre-test and post-test scores of the "Attitude Scale Towards English Class", a paired samples t-test was conducted on the study students. As qualitative data collection tools; "Semi-Structured Interview Form Regarding the Art and English Language Skills Learning Process" and "TheActivity Evaluation Form Containing the Opinions of the Students on the Differences in their Interests in Language Learning" were used to analyze the interviews' content. Even if there were no statistically significant differences in students' attitudes toward English class, the result of the study showed that there was an increase in their arithmetic scores. At this point, it was seen that the 16-hour art education and the instructional design program blended with creativity were not effective in changing the attitudes of the students towards the English class. However, according to qualitative data; it was among the findings that the blending of activities with art and creativity contributed to the development of students' positive attitudes towards the English class, increased their willingness to participate in the class, students found the lesson enjoyable, they transferred their learnings to their lives, formed their interest to the branches of art, increased their creativity and developed their self-confidence. At the end of the research, based on the results obtained, suggestions for the use of activities related to art and creativity in English classes were listed.