International Journal of Language Academy

1-20

Authors: Olga Sanchez CASTRO

This longitudinal study investigated the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs (i.e. personal judgements of second language performance capabilities) and participation patterns in face-to-face interaction and synchronous text-based computer-mediated communication. Specifically, this study examined the discourse behaviour of two intermediate second language students of Spanish, a high and a low self-efficacy learner, and explores whether synchronous text-based computer-mediated communication (SCMC) can play a role in promoting social interaction and interactive participation. A mixed-mode research approach was selected to account for the complexity of the process under study. This involved documenting participation by the high and the low self-efficacy learners across the two modes of communication over a university academic year. The two case-study participants’ chat-log and conversation transcripts were analysed by employing: a) quantitative measures of participation; namely words and turns produced; b) Dörnyei and Kormos’ (1998) taxonomy of Communication Strategies, and c) Eggins and Slade’s (2004) classification of Speech Functions. Quantitative results indicated that participation patterns were affected by Self-efficacy beliefs regardless of the mode of communication. However, fine-grained, qualitative analyses suggested that, over time, textbased chat indeed allowed discourse roles to become increasingly more symmetrical. Findings thus indicate that SCMC can play a positive role in promoting opportunities for equal interactional control and interactivity in discourse co-construction, particularly, for learners with lower self-efficacy beliefs.

21-44

Authors: Öznur ÇELİK

In 2012, when the compulsory education in Turkey was increased from 8 years to 12 years, which is called as the 4+4+4 compulsory education, with an aim to catch up with the changing world, the foreign language curriculum of the primary and secondary schools was also modified and developed. Up to that time, students would start to learn English in the 4th grade, which is almost equivalent with the age of 10. Since then, the students have been starting to learn English in the 2nd grade, which is approximately equivalent with the age of 8. This study aims to find out the attitudinal differences of students who have started to learn English at 2nd grade and the ones who have started to learn English at 4th grade towards English. For the purposes of the study, a quantitative research was carried out. The study was conducted with 290 3rd grade students and 395 5th grade students in eight different state schools in Mezitli district of Mersin in the academic year of 2014-2015. Data were collected by means of a Smiley Face Language Attitude Scale. The study results revealed that students who have started to learn English at 2nd grade show more positive attitudes towards English than the ones who have started to learn English at 4th grade. The study also demonstrated that female language learners have more positive attitudes towards English than male language learners.

59-71

Authors: Selen RAMOS

Beliefs have been recognized as a core issiue among EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners all over the World. Borg (2001) defines belief as “a proposition which may be consciously or unconsciously held, is evaluative in that it is accepted as true by the individual, and is therefore imbued with emotive commitment; further it serves as a guide to thought and behavior”. Accordingly, beliefs may be described as the dynamic truths held by the individuals depending on the situation. In this regard, this paper examines Turkish ERASMUS exchange students’ beliefs about English language learning experienced during Erasmus Student Exchange Programs abroad. In order to collect data, a questionnaire (Horwitz, 1988) was presented to 21 ERASMUS Exchange students and, then oral interviews were applied to 5 Turkish exchange students who were chosen randomly among the same data group at a foundation university in Turkey. The results of the research have indicated that the role of English is inevitably expanding and speaking English is becoming a necessity. As expressed by the exchange students, ERASMUS exchange program has defineltely a great and positive impact on students’ English learning. ERASMUS program helped them to improve their English language learning skills and may provide them a better job in business life. Additionally, their self-beliefs are becoming higher with their study abroad experience.

88-96

Authors: Ahmet Erdost YASTIBAŞ

Anxiety is a common problem faced in English language teaching (ELT) and has been studied a lot in the literature related to anxiety and ELT. Most of these studies focused on types of anxieties (reading, listening, speaking, writing, and classroom anxiety) separately or dealt with two of them like listening and speaking anxieties together, but the literature showed that the relationship among all types of anxieties in Turkish ELT context has not been studied. Therefore, the present study aimed to find out the relationship(s) among all types of anxieties. The study adopted quantitative research method. Seventy Turkish students studying English as a foreign language (EFL) joined the study. Data were collected through five scales prepared to measure different types of anxieties in a language classroom. As the data were not distributed normally, Spearman’s rank-order correlation was used to analyze the data. The results of the data showed that there is not a correlational relationship between four skill-oriented anxieties; but there is a correlational relationship between speaking anxiety and classroom anxiety. The results were discussed in terms of their implications in English language classrooms.

115-123

Authors: İlhami SIĞIRCI

Turkish will be one of the twenty-three official languages of the European Union with Turkey’s membership of European Union and also it will be the second most spoken language after German as mother tongue in the EU. In order for Turkish to gain the official language status, 9.1 million terms issued in 23 languages, 600 thousand abbreviations and 200 thousand idioms and most importantly the EU acquit consisting of 120 thousand pages should be transferred into Turkish. It is a legal necessity for Turkey to complete this great task before becoming a member of the Union. Within this context, what can be done to overcome the problems encountered in the glossaries during the EU accession process of Turkey? What steps are being taken in this regard in our country and in EU, how can the accuracy of coined terms be checked and most importantly what kind of studies should be completed in order to join European Union’s Term Union. How can the terminology problems be overcome? In particular, what can be done to ensure term unity? We discussed the problems encountered on this subject with a comparative method and tried to propose solutions. It is rather hard to say that there are adequately extensive glossaries or studies for the terms used within EU in Turkey despite the fact that there have been 15 years since 3 October 2005 when Turkey started negotiations with European Union. When compared with the number of terms used within EU, terms coined in Turkish remain extremely poor. Glossaries prepared until today remain extremely poor; thus it is necessary to prepare much more comprehensive glossaries. These terminology studies have great importance both for the EU translation process to be performed properly and for the citizens to understand community legislation on technical areas such as economics, business, economics, communications, agriculture and medicine.

134-142

Authors: Ruhi İNAN

While contemplating overcoming the difficulties faced in the late period with procedural alterations, the Ottoman found itself struggling with its internal matters. It was attempted to prevent the negative developments and restrictive measures were taken. Westernization movements, which gained speed and momentum with Tanzimat caused a loss of state’s sensitiviness to the events taking place within itself, thus arriving at wrong solutions with a mistaken diagnosis. Institutions, not only within the state but also outside of it, had their share of this situation. Social expectations, general tendency of the time for nationalism with the prospect of independence made it necessary/natural for the state to takea series of measures related to these matters. Certainly, these measures were applied extensively above the normality by the guardians of the law and sometimes they resulted in deaths. Tevfık Nevzat, who was dealing with literature and politics in İzmir, was one of those persons affected by this negative atmosphere in this period of chaos and social depression. Things written about his death sparked many doubts afterwards. In this study, this sad event is evaluated taking into account the texts written about his death as well as his letters to friends and to his brother.

156-176

Authors: Umut BAŞAR

The aim of this study is to compare activities that help the development of language skills, support and reinforce the things taught and increase student’s ability to use Turkish language in the course of teaching Turkish as a foreign language and to determine their significance levels. Survey questions in the nature that would enable measurement in Analytic Hierarchy Process were prepared by determining criteria, subcriteria and alternatives required in teaching Turkish as a foreign language by means of consulting to expert opinion and scanning related resources and data were collected through interviews with experts engaged in teaching Turkish as a foreign language. Data, obtained by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in the study, were analyzed using Microsoft Excell program. At the end of this study, the significance levels of four basic skills aimed to be acquired during the process of teaching Turkish as a foreign language (reading, listening, speaking and writing) and supplementary activities were determined by percentage. According to the results obtained; it was concluded that the most important of the four basic skills aimed to be developed in teaching Turkish as a foreign language was speaking skills with 48%. This was followed by listening skills with 33% and reading skills with 11% respectively. Writing skills was found to be significant by 8%. Living in Turkish-speaking environments for a certain period of time achieved the first place by 22% in the comparison of activities for using the language effectively. According to the results of this study, individuals who learn as well as teach Turkish will be able to decide easily which activities should be concentrated on in accordance with basic skills that is taught of being acquired.

188-205

Authors: Arife CAN GÖKSU & Mustafa ARSLAN

The aim of this study is to compare activities that help the development of language skills, support and reinforce the things taught and increase student’s ability to use Turkish language in the course of teaching Turkish as a foreign language and to determine their significance levels. Survey questions in the nature that would enable measurement in Analytic Hierarchy Process were prepared by determining criteria, subcriteria and alternatives required in teaching Turkish as a foreign language by means of consulting to expert opinion and scanning related resources and data were collected through interviews with experts engaged in teaching Turkish as a foreign language. Data, obtained by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in the study, were analyzed using Microsoft Excell program. At the end of this study, the significance levels of four basic skills aimed to be acquired during the process of teaching Turkish as a foreign language (reading, listening, speaking and writing) and supplementary activities were determined by percentage. According to the results obtained; it was concluded that the most important of the four basic skills aimed to be developed in teaching Turkish as a foreign language was speaking skills with 48%. This was followed by listening skills with 33% and reading skills with 11% respectively. Writing skills was found to be significant by 8%. Living in Turkish-speaking environments for a certain period of time achieved the first place by 22% in the comparison of activities for using the language effectively. According to the results of this study, individuals who learn as well as teach Turkish will be able to decide easily which activities should be concentrated on in accordance with basic skills that is taught of being acquired.

227-237

Authors: Ata ATAK & Betül ÇETİN

Authentic and unauthentic texts can be used in the preparation of course materials that are used in foreign language classes. The course materials used in foreign language teaching should guide students to use authentic language. When the materials are under debate in the frame of the argument which necessitates the student to direct the use of authentic language, it is concluded that the use of authentic materials in lessons is significant. The texts, directing students to use authentic language and enabling them to use foreign language for communicational goals, increase success in language learning. These authentic texts should be described for which linguistic units and structures they are convenient by being studied in order to be used successfully. In this study, the advertisement texts are under debate which provides authentic language data. In Turkish advertisement texts, while qualificative adjectives, active and dynamic verbs which give liveliness to the text, demonstration and time adverbs are often used, in syntax level inadequate structures are used which is equal to noun phrases. Complements have an important place in noun phrases. The advertisement texts were searched in 3 different newspapers for 31 days to describe whether the advertisement texts present suitable examples on purpose of teaching complements. When the data is evaluated it has been concluded that indefinite possessive complements are used more often than definite complements in advertisement texts. Also given a place to explanations about how the complements are studied in the field, course material model that can be used as the purpose of teaching complements in teaching Turkish as a foreign language has been presented in this study. The example of course material has a recommendation character how an advertisement text can be used which was presented in the frame of Presentation Practice (PPP) Production Model, had been taken from a newspaper.

248-266

Authors: Havva YAMAN & Abdullah DAĞTAŞ

The purpose of this study is to develop a scale to assess the attitudes of students towards reading from the screen and to implement the validity and reliability analysis of this scale. 297 secondary school students in total from 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades who are studying in the province of Sakarya constitute the sample of this research. In order to determine the factorial structure of the scale, descriptive and confirmative factorial analysis has been performed. As a result of the factorial analysis, an assessment instrument consisting of 36 articles and 2 sub-dimensions explaining the 58,92% of the total variance has been developed. These sub-dimensions bear the names “positive effects of reading from the screen on reading attitudes” and “negative effects of reading from the screen on reading attitudes”. Entire articles involved in the scale are distinctive for the sub-groups and super-groups of 27% (p<0,05). Internal consistency coefficient (0,967) of ASTRFS (Attitude Scale Towards Reading From Screen) has been determined as 0,961 for the first dimension and as 0,954 for the second dimension. According to these findings it can be uttered that ASTRFS is a valid and reliable assessment instrument to be used in schools.

283-294

Authors: Havva YAMAN, Üzeyir SÜĞÜMLÜ & Tuğba DEMİRTAŞ

Communicative skills come into prominence and are placed in the centre in any type of product published, digital or in another form in the new millenium – when technology is developing rapidly. Ability to communicate is the basic skill in many courses, and mainly in the native language course. Writing, one of the basic fields of skill in languages, is an important domain of linguistic skill in which individuals share their feelings, ideas, dreams and desires with the external world; and it is one of the three basic instruments of communication (namely, spoken, written and visual). This research aimed to develop a tool of measurement in order to determine secondary school students’ motivation for writing. The scale was composed of 4 sub-scales; namely, self-efficacy, affective state, social acceptance, and physical state. The number of items in the Writing Motivation Scale was 28 in total. Therefore, the maximum score receivable from this scale – which was in 3-pointed Likert type- was 84 whereas the minimum score was 28.

303-314

Authors: Servet KARÇIĞA

The language, a living organism, which is changing and developing perpetually is affected by the worldview of the community in which it comes into existence. The words that belong to a language represent the memory of the people talking that language. While most of the words that take place in that memory are arbitrary, namely it is not known how and where that words get their meaning from, they become like motivated in time as people ascribe different meaning to them. As can be understood from its name, euphemism refers to the words, objects, concepts, which are not found acceptable or not approved by a community owing to various reasons, being expressed implicitly. Euphemism providing an individual to feel himself/herself in secure and happy and to communicate easier is closely related to theology, sociology, pschology, onomatology and semantics. Euphemism can be regarded as a culture oriented semantics issue. Because studies on euphemism that comes into existence as a result of concepts such as morality, propriety, respect, sadness and fear enable significant hints about culture of that society. In this study, firstly information regarding euphemism will be given and then euphemism concepts in Dede Korkut Book, one the most important works of Turkish Language and Literature, will be determined and it will be explained in detail that where, how and why Ghuzz Turks used them.

331-347

Authors: Ferhan KARABUĞA

The fact that teacher education programs need a systematic evaluation has been emphasised by many researchers. The present study aims to investigate the pre-service EFL teachers’ views on EFL teacher education programs they attend in Turkey and their instructors by means of Peacock’s (2009) recent evaluation model. This study is based on the data collected from fourth graders ELT department students and their instructors via questionnaires and interviews. The questionnaire used in the present study is based upon Peacock’s (2009) evaluation framework and the interviews included structured questions. The results obtained through data collection tools revealed that the pre-service EFL teachers had a strong agreement in general with the program they were attending. However, the programs were stated to have some shortcomings such as lack of enough opportunity to practice, less focus on improving speaking skills etc. and some suggestions were put forward to be taken into consideration to overcome those shortcomings.