The effect of key words on vocabulary development

The purpose of the study is to determine the effect of key words, which take part in 4th and 5th grade's Turkish Language Education Programme and are related to " health and environment theme, on vocabulary development and comprehension levels.In this study description method is used as a qualitative research technique. Moreover, interview and document analysis techniques are applied.All of the 4th and 5th grade students at primary education schools during 2006-2007 education year in district A, which is a district of Bolu, forms the target population of the study. Three main stages are followed in this study. Although key words are given in the first stage, they are not provided in the second stage. In the third stage, students are expected to write short stories making use of the answers they give to the questions( designed fort he purpose of finding keywords) and they are expected to form mind maps. During the above mentioned stages, sampling is not taken from the population. On the contrary, population forms the sampling. However, snowball and chain samplings were taken during the interview method in which oral answers of subject related questions are recorded. 74 5th grade and 71 forth grade students have participated in short story writing and mind map activities. Interview has been carried out with 29 4th grade and 21 fifth grade students.Semi- structured interview and document analysis techniques are used in data collection process. Main data collection instruments (means) are stories written by students, mind maps and interview questions prepared by consulted specialists.Descriptive data analysis method is used in data evaluation process. the data is organized according to the subjects that are determined by research questions. Findings which are obtained from descriptive analysis are organized and interpreted.In order to provide validity and reliability of the study, the research is corried out in real class atmosphere with the guidance of a teacher. Students have enough time to answer the questions and there is not any intervention. Questions are prepared according to the views of specialists and asked in an understandable language.The following results are concluded:1)Results about the first sub problema) It is observed from the short stories written by the given key words that, forth grade students have used the word ?ağaçlar? correctly and the word ?durak? incorrectly. Likewise, fifth grade students have used the word ? orman? correctly and ? edüstri? incorrectly.b) According to the stories written without key words, forth grade students have used ?hastalık? frequently and ?kavşak? rarely. Similarly, fifth grade students have preferred to use ?hastalık? frequently and ?eğitim? rarely.c) Forth grade students have mostly used the word ?kanguru? and rarely used the word ?sıçramak? while writing stories in the light of key words and answers of the comprehension questions. Moreover, it is concluded that fifth grade students have mostly used ?kuduz? and rarely used ?cömert?.2)Results obtained from second sub problema)Interview records have shown that while forth grade students have preferred the word ?hastalık? at maximum and ?antibiyotik? at minimum level, fifth grade students have used ?atık? at maximum level and ? toprak ana? at minmum level.3) Results obtained from third sub problema)Results of the mind map activities( by giving the key words) point out that while forth grade students have used the word ?ağaçlar? at maximum and the word ?kulak misafiri olmak? at minimum level, ?hastalık? is stated at maximum and ?kamuoyu eğitimi? is stated at minimum level among fifth grade students.b)Results of Mind map activities which are prepared without key words present that, while forth grade students have used ?ağaçlar? mostly, they have used ?durak? and ?yakmak? rarely. In addition to the following results, fifth grade students have used ?hastalık? at maximum level but they have chosen ?doğal zenginlik, toprak ana, sanayileşmek, turizm and deney? at minimum level.c)In the light of the mind map activities done by asking questions, it can be inferred that forth grade students have commonly used ? trees? but they have rarely chosen the words ?kesmek and fren sesi?. Furthermore, ?hastalık? is mostly preferred but ?toprak ana? is rarely preferred by fifth grade students.Key words: concept, word, key word, mind map, vocabulary