Effectiveness of a call program with a morphological analyser on Turkish students' vocabulary learning

The aim of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of an Intelligent Computer Assistant Language Learning (ICALL) program on Turkish learners? vocabulary learning. Within the scope of this research, an ICALL application was developed and used in an English language preparatory class to measure its effects on students? achievement in vocabulary acquisition as well as their attitudes towards such an ICALL environment. This study employed a pretest-posttest control group design. The sample consisted of 42 low intermediate learners who were assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group members were exposed to reading activities in the computer lab with YVZ, i.e. the ICALL application developed for this research and the control group followed a conventional reading program through traditional techniques, such as the use of monolingual and bilingual dictionaries or guessing word meaning from the context. Both groups used the same reading book but the experimental group saw only the electronic version. The instruments for data collection were the Self-Report Vocabulary Mastery Scale and the ICALL Attitude Scale. The independent samples t test was used to study the differences in continuous variables between the experiment and control groups. The improvement in the vocabulary knowledge of the participants was measured as to two different aspects, i.e. morphological knowledge and the knowledge of words? definitions and usage. The results indicate that `reading activities with YVZ? have proved to have positive effects on both learners? vocabulary learning and their attitudes towards the use of an intelligent CALL application in the classroom. It is believed that this study can provide language teachers with necessary knowledge and enthusiasm to incorporate an ICALL application intended to teach vocabulary in their language classrooms. It can also be concluded that the morphological analyser of YVZ has proven to be technologically mature and pedagogically effective