The educational evaluation of vocabulary elements in Turkish course books in the first and fifth grades of primary education

ABSTRACT Master Thesis The Educational Evaluation of Vocabulary Elements in Turkish Course Books in the First and Fifth Grades of Primary Education Süleyman Kaan YALÇIN Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences Division of Turkish Education 2005; Page: XVII + 245 Language is the most effective factor that mankind use to express themselves and communicate with the world outside. Because language basically includes words which are the symbols of concepts, objects and events of the outside world and shape the humans' thought and existance world. Words are not the concepts themselves but their equivalent symbols in human mind. In the direction of these symbols, mankind think about the outside world by interiorizing it, communicate and arrange his social life. In short, he draws the borders of comprehension and explanation. From that point words form the focusing basic for perception, comprehension, interpretation, understanding and transfer of what is understood. Being brought in the words which are on the basis of properly understanding and explaining effectively depends on the course books used as the most influential material during education and teaching process and especially the Turkish course books' being mostly rich in terms of vocabulary with the aim of teaching the native language. This study has been done to determine the native language that takes an active role in the development of individuals' concept and vocabulary, the distribution, frequency,sufficiency and availability of vocabulary elements to the intellectual development process and the duration at which age they are taught. In this study two course books suggested by the Ministry of National Education to be taught in the first and fifth grades of Primary Schools in 2004-2005 academic year weer used. Then the repeated and unrepeated numbers of transferred words, in the texts, the distribution of words in vocabulary, usage frequency, and origins were determined with regard to sub- aims of the thesis, and also the finding depending on the words were made concrete by having been turned into graphics. The results of the study show that the texts used in Turkish course books in the first and the fifth grades of primary school are not sufficient in terms of vocabulary and the vocabulary of the texts could not be prepared according to age, and cognitive development process based on age and teaching principles that were formed depending on this process. Key Words: Word, vocabulary, basic vocabulary, concept and vocabulary development, Turkish course book. VI