Art and craft activities in vocabulary teaching: a case study with the 5th grade students at a state primary school

iiABSTRACTART AND CRAFT ACTIVITIES IN VOCABULARY TEACHING:A CASE STUDY WITH THE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS AT A STATE PRIMARYSCHOOLEliz CANMaster Thesis, English Language Teaching DepartmentAdvisor: Asst.Prof.Dr. Jülide Ä NÖZÜJune, 2007, 97 pagesMeaningful learning, storage and the retrieval of the vocabulary items in English as aforeign language is the common problem encountered in teaching and learning process. Forthis reason, following Cameron?s (2001) proposal that vocabulary learning is best achievedvia actions that learners take to help themselves understand and remember vocabulary; weaim at using arts and crafts activities to foster the success in vocabulary learning. Within theframework of the dynamics of a case study involved in teaching vocabulary to the 5th gradeelementary school students studying at Akpınar Primary School in Adana, Turkey, thepurpose of this study is to investigate the possibilities of teaching lexical items proposed inthe curriculum utilizing authentic and realistic situations to be created in the implementationof art and craft activities with the purpose of: developing and cultivate students? interest in learning English vocabulary, developing and cultivate students? basic vocabulary treasure in communicativecompetencyThe variables focused on here include the use of various art and craft activities invocabulary teaching as independent and the success level of the students participating in thestudy in their learning English vocabulary as dependent variables. Through the findings ofthis study, we revealed some evidence to highlight the relationships between students?vocabulary learning performance and the use of art and craft activities.Keywords: vocabulary learning,vocabulary teaching, art and craft activities, young languagelearners.