International Journal of Language Academy

1-16

Authors: Nesrin SİS & Naciye BAŞPINAR YÖRÜK

This study is an experimental investigation evaluating the degree of contribution of musical creative listening activities on listening success and listening attitudes of seventh grade secondary school student. The research was conducted as pre-test and post-test with control group. The period of investigation was 6 weeks, as 4 weeks of activities and application of each test for one week. The study group comprises seventh grade students attending Seyhan Sakarya secondary school in Adana city in 2015-2016 academic year. Comparibility between the experimental and control groups was deduced in terms of Turkish language and cumulative grade point average. The Expository Text Achievement, Narrative Text Achievement and Listening Attitude Scale tests were administered to evaluate the listening comprehension of the students. For this purpose, Narrative Text Achievement, Expository Text Achievement and Attitude Scale towards listening tests were applied as pre-test/post-test to the experiemental and control groups students. SPSS program was utilized in the analysis of numerical data obtained as a results of applied tests. In the research, due to non parametrical data, Mann Whitney U Test was utilized to determine the relation between the success and listening attitude pre-test/post-test of experimental and control groups students (the comparison of two groups). On the otherhand, Wilcoxon Test was applied to figure out the relation between pre-test/post-test points of experimental and control groups. At the end of the study it was determined that the experimental group students, subjected to musical creative listening activities, had higher points in listening comprehension tests than the control group students and the difference was statistically meaningful. Additionally, a meanlingful difference in listening attitude scale between experimental and control groups students was detected in the favour of experimental group. Finally it was found that the musical creative listening activities resulted in the developement of listening success and listening attitude scale of secondary school students.

30-42

Authors: N. Feyza ALTINKAMIŞ

Fully acquiring a language is concerned with both linguistic and communicative competence. In order to be able to conclude that a child has learned his mother tongue, what he has acquired in the domain of linguistic competence, should be supported by language use in appropriate contexts, called as social competence (Semrud-Clikeman, 2007). As children, especially in the early period, are primarily surrounded by their caregivers, the languge they are exposed to is characterized by the properties of child-directed speech (CDS) which are different from those of adult-to-adult speech. According to Peccei (2006), some modifications in CDS when talking to their children are shorter MLU, more content words but fewer function words and more repetitions. Through CDS, parents also provide social opportunities to their children so they will develop a social and cultural understanding of their first language. This research is concerned with the role of Turkish CDS in children’s acquiring the pragmatic functions of their native language, specifically politeness. Specifically, the aim of this research is to investigate linguistic politeness frames in Turkish CDS, so we will be able to keep a track of politeness in the language children mostly hear. To achieve this overall goal of our study, we analysed longitudinal data of video-recordings based on 9 Turkish mothers’ natural interaction with their children aged nearly 01;04-03;06. In an overall manner, the results indicated a paralellism between Turkish children’s order of politeness acquisition markers and Turkish CDS.

51-66

Authors: Atiye NAZLI

Long folk stories taking root from the past of a nation and shedding light to its future, telling the life of a hero, his heroism, his battles and loves are known as myths. However, the myths that are not put into a written form become stories according to the conditions of their era. This newly formed category is called a “mythical folk story” by the researchers. Stories of Köroğlu is one of them. One of the Turkish World’s common heritages is Köroğlu Stories. Numerous versions of stories of Köroğlu who is an epic hero have been narrated in the west and east of the Caspian Sea. Geography of Köroğlu Stories, which have just three variants in our country as Erzurum, Maraş and Istanbul variants of the integrity of the work, is quite wide. The dates on which the stories were put down in paper are after XVIII. century and folktale elements are seen in their narrations as well. Especially poetry sections of its versions, which have poetry and prose properties, and its six poems evaluated by Eşref Ertekin and published in Çorumlu Journal. Çorumlu Journal is a quite rich source in terms of Çorum’s culture, traditions and folk literature. In our study, equivalents between six Köroğlu poems seen in Çorumlu Journal and other Köroğlu variants will be analyzed, if any, their similarities and differences will be elaborated. Its compiled and transcribed the poems move from Corum transferred Koroglu and Koroglu, which tells a story with this and over time we also have been forgotten, but it is believed that this can be achieved partly by extensive field work

81-98

Authors: Erol BARIN - Önder ÇANGAL & Umut BAŞAR

Teaching Turkish as a foreign language is gaining importance day by day. Therefore, there is a rising need for Turkish teachers to work in this field and it is clear that the short - term certification programs opened by a lot of universities in teaching Turkish as a foreign language is trying to fulfil this need. However, there is not any standard in the contents of these certification programs. Since there is no separate undergraduate program of the profession of teaching Turkish as a foreign language and the research studies related to this discipline are limited to postgraduate programs, some problems about the implementation process can happen. It affects the quality of education in the Turkish courses negatively. The teachers working in the field of teaching Turkish as a foreign language should have the knowledge of the special field and the general culture as well as the pedagogical formation. It is known that the special field qualifications for teaching Turkish as a mother tongue have been established by the Ministry of National Education but the special field qualifications for teaching Turkish as a foreign language have not been established by a governmental organization yet. In this study which is a descriptive research, ‘the Special Field Qualifications for Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language’ were created in accordance with the present special field qualifications prepared by Ministry of National Education. It is hoped that this research should also provide a basis for the undergraduate program of the profession of teaching Turkish as a foreign language.

107-118

Authors: Murat Hismanoglu & Rasit Colak

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the reading strategies of Turkish ESP students when they read academic texts in English. To achieve this purpose, 286 university sophomore students studying Economics, Business Administration, Public Administration, Finance, Econometrics at the Economics and Administrative Sciences Faculty of a state university located in the West part of Turkey participated in the study. The Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) (Mokhtari & Sheorey, 2002) was used in this study. The findings revealed that the participants were high level users of reading strategies. The findings also revealed a statistically significant relationship between individual variables such as age, gender, academic field, success and students’ use of reading strategies. Lastly, some pedagogical implications were made for students, teachers and materials developers in the field of teaching/learning English for specific purposes.

131-151

Authors: İlker AYDIN - Ali DİZMAN & Ayşe KARACA

Human as a social being needs to transfer what s/he sees, feels, thinks or dreams and his/her various experiences to other people. In doing so, he either uses written or verbal communication. For effective communication, individuals need to know and comply with the rules of communication types. Both in native language education and in foreign language education, the individual is expected to use the language accurately and effectively and to improve his/her narrative skills. As narrative skills, there appear two subskills. These are speaking and writing skills. The individual is offered a variety of opportunities to improve these basic skills throughout his/her entire education and training life and language lessons are scheduled. The activities prepared in parallel to the curricula play an effective role in the acquisition of these skills. There are various rules and difficulties in transferring feelings, thoughts and dreams to the other side with accurate fluency in writing. Problems of textualization appear as the most important difficulties in writing activity. Writing rules and principles of textualization are instructed to students and various environments are prepared for their activities. The written narration skills of first grade graduates who have taken sufficient Turkish language courses (oral narration, written narration, language and narration) in primary education or secondary education processes are expected to be sufficiently developed even whichever graduate program they have ever replaced. The purpose of this research is to measure written narrative skills of first grade graduate students who take the course ‘Turkish Language I: Written Expression’ at Ordu University in 2016-2017 academic year by using the analytical scoring directive developed by Arı (2008). The directive evaluates the texts in terms of external structure, language and narration, editing features. In this study, descriptive survey method was used and the narrative texts written by the students using keywords were evaluated by four field experts. In the study, in addition, the problems of textualization in written narration process have been tried to be mentioned.

160-180

Authors: Neşe CABAROĞLU & Stefan RATHERT

Even though there is a body of research on functions of teacher and learner first language (L1) use in foreign language (L2) teaching, studies examining deliberate implementation of activities designed to benefit from the learners’ first language are scarce. This paper reports on a case study in which a principle-based implementation of bilingual activities in teaching English as a foreign language to a group of 26 young adult learners at a Turkish state university was examined. The learners’ perceptions of first language inclusion were studied through minute papers in which the participants immediately responded to particular bilingual activities and an overall course evaluation at the end of the 14-week course. Furthermore, a semistructured interview with six participants was conducted to gain a deeper understanding of the learner perceptions. The results show that bilingual activities were perceived as conducive to language learning, multifunctional, enjoyable and activating. The participants also expressed concerns indicating that deliberate L1 use should be restricted in order not to lose the focus on the target language. Another concern was directed to the inappropriateness of bilingual activities for exam preparation. The results indicate the potential of bilingual activities but also call for due consideration in implementing them in instructional practice.

222-229

Authors: Refika ALTIKULAÇ DEMİRDAĞ & ALİ ALTIKULAÇ

In 1930's, there are short plays written for the purpose of "to take advantage of the theater performance’s discipline" in schools. There are also plays written by Resat Nuri Güntekin who is an important writer of Turkish Literature. These works which is written by Arabic alphabet, some of which are still forgotten on the library shelves today. His short games called Ümidin Güneşi, Gazeteci Düşmanı, Şemsiye Hırsızı, İhtiyar Serseri, Yıldızböceği, Bir Köy Hocası, Ümit Mektebinde and Vergi Hırsızı were undoubtedly written to contribute to the training of the students. We can say that the concept of "discipline" will be more accurate to meet the concept of "values education" today. Considering that the children's theater is associated with education from the Tanzimat to the Republics, the issue of which values are tried to be acquired with theater plays gains importance. In this work we will examine what values contains in the plays written by Reşat Nuri to be exhibited at the schools. For this, we will examine a play called Bir Köy Hocası. Thus, we will try to show why these values are important in education for Reşat Nuri Güntekin.

230-265

Authors: Nurullah ULUTAŞ & Murat KEKLİK

Bosnia Herzegovina had a special importance for Balkans both before and after it was conquered by Ottomans with its geographical location, special alphabet and cultural structure. Since Mehmet the Conqueror's conquest of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1463, Bosnia has met Turkish-Islam identity which consequently led Bosnian people to steer towards Turkish language willingly. Hasan Kâfi’s Usûlü –hikem fi nizâmi’l-âlem, Mollâ Mustafa Başeski’s Rûz-nâme, Salih Sıdkî’s Tarih-i Bosna are important works in this scope. 128 Divân poets are reported to be raised in Bosnia Herzegovina. A good number of periodicals, particularly Behar, Bosna, Bosnjak, Bosnjak Kalender, Djulistan, El-Hidaye, Gajret, Gajret Kalender, Hikmet, Misbah, Jenji Misbah, Mearif, Nada, Narodna Uzdanica, Neretva, Nova Behar, Rehber, Takvim and Vatan newspapers are the indicator that Bosnia was active in cultural sense. One of the most important of these newspapers is Vatan. Although Austria-Hungary Empire occupied Bosnia Herzegovina upon Yeşilköy / San Stefano Agreement signed in Berlin in 1878, Bosnian people stood against this occupation. The publication of the newspaper Vatan was supported with the leader writer Mehmed Hulusi in order to attract the sympathy of people in a sense. Turkish poems and abjad calculations were published in this newspaper along with social and political news. This paper aims to analyze poems published in Vatan newspaper between 12 October 1884 and 2 April 1897 in terms of structure and content.

300-311

Authors: Şahin ŞİMŞEK

The course book is learning-teaching material that consists of texts prepared in accordance with the developmental characteristics and level of the student, prepared in line with the principles of the curriculum and presenting information on students. The course book, an integral part of the teaching process is an important tool that used teachers and students most frequently enabling the achievements of the curricula. Course books are prepared in order to ensure that students learn on their own in an orderly and accurate way. Especially course books that play an important role in learning from texts also make the implementation of teaching programs considerably easier. It is expected that they will give positive messages from texts in Turkish course books. The purpose of this study is to determine the positive messages given by the texts in the 8th grade Turkish course book and to determine whether the activities are aimed at finding these messages. This study is a descriptive study in the screening model. Documentary screening method was used in the research. Documentary screening involves finding, reading, grading and evaluating resources for a specific purpose. Identification of positive messages in texts is important for students to gain positive behaviors. Positive messages in Turkish course books should be reinforced with questions and activities. The required activities should be done in and out of the classroom so that the child can internalize these messages.

345-358

Authors: Bahir SELÇUK

The love that exists in human nature is the name of a universal phenomenon. Love, the name of extreme love that takes the will of man, and thoughts about love differs from society to society. Love is blessed in some societies, while in others it is excluded. But in many cultures and literatures of nations, thought of love merges with religious and mystical elements and creates colorful and vibrant paintings. Gasset, one of the most important Spanish thinkers of the 20th century, in his book translated into Turkish by the name of Sevgi Üstüne, explored the concepts of affection and love in various ways and found important and interesting findings. Among determinations about love and affection In Gasset’s Sevgi Üstüne and love thought expressed in love-oriented classical Turkish poetry, striking similarities and relations are attract the attention. For this reason, Gasset's determinations about love and the comprehension of love thought expressed in classical Turkish poetry are important. In this scope of work, intersection points of thought of love that Gasset expressed in Sevgi Üstüne and conception of love in Fuzûlî (Dîvân and Leylâ vü Mecnûn) with a system of mystical thought will be emphasized.

383-422

Authors: Üzeyir SÜĞÜMLÜ

This research is done to identify the relation of learner autonomy with the attitude towards writing and motivation in writing skills. Another purpose of this research is to gain a new perspective for writing skills with learner autonomy. Activity applications for gaining learner autonomy skills and writing skill exercises based on learner autonomy are fulfilled with the students in the study group. The research is done by qualitative investigation designs concerning action research. Action research is a kind of research which is often used in research related to practice and duration in qualitative research design. The study group of this research consists of 25 students from 7th grades of a state school called Kazım Karabekir Secondary School who were voluntarily chosen by the random sampling method in Kadıköy, İstanbul, in 2014-2015 educational year. The data of this research consists of activity appliances, pupils’ compositions, researcher’s observation, and pupil’s diaries. The qualitative data was gained by content and descriptive analysis techniques. The compositions for obtaining data on learner autonomy skill were analyzed by content analysis. In this research, category analysis was used amongst the kinds of content analysis. This research was sorted out through researcher’s observation and pupil’s diaries and descriptive analysis in qualitative analysis techniques. With activity applications for gaining learner autonomy skill and writing skill exercises based on learner autonomy, learner autonomy skills of students increased, attitude towards writing of students increased, students’ motivation for writing increased, writing skills of students increased and it is determined that there is an existence of positive relationship between writing skill and learner autonomy for motivation and attitude of writing.

423-436

Authors: Yusuf SÜLÜKÇÜ

Muizzuddin Aybeg, who took control from the Ayyubids in 1250 as a result of the assassination of AlMuazzam Turanshah, established the Mamluk Dynasty, ruling Egypt and surrounding area for 267 years. However, the fact that the Dynasty did not speak Arabic and the citizens were Arabs who did not speak Turkish caused problems in communication. Thus, many books of Turkish teaching were written to teach Turkish to the public and especially the officials who would take part in the government. Today, only six of these books have reached the present day. In this study, existing books were examined comparatively in terms of date of writing, language materials used, number of pages, Turkish teaching techniques and methods, and so forth. As a result of the examination, it was seen that it was not accurate to generalize all the books written in the field of Mamluks by defining them as a “Dictionary-Grammar Book”. It was determined that harekes (vowel points) were used for vowels, and an alphabet with 21 and 23 consonants were used for the works in Turkish. There were 2943 words in Et-Tuhfetu'z-Zekiyye, 2650 in Kitabu’l-Idrak, 1597 in Tercuman-i Turki, 1135 in Bulgatu'l-Mustak, 1027 in Ed-Durretu'l-Mudiyye, and 898 words in ElKavaninu'l-Kulliyye. It was understood that the works in the field of Mamluks were different from each other in terms of titles, division and sorting. In terms of foreign language teaching approaches, methods and techniques, it was determined that an inductive approach was used, except for Ed-Durretu'l-Mudiyye, and that all of the works contained more than one method and technique.

433-440

Authors: Engin ÇETİN

Idioms are very important for every language in terms of reflecting the viewpoints and ideas of the nations to life and actions. The Idioms which its most important resource is nation can be settled as translated elements from a language into another language. This situation is mostly valid for the societies which have familiar relations regarding cultural effects. There are also idioms which are formed the same words and have the mutual or similar expressions between the different cultures. The appearances of these sort of idioms are explained as the definition of the different societies for the familiar actions in the same way, not as translations. The idioms are extremely important materials for a culture which is handled in this work. The idioms which include the words “agız”, “köz” and “yüz” in the Uigur texts translated from Chinese are examined as comparatives. The situations of the idioms in Chinese which have the words “agız”, “köz” and “yüz” were located in Uigur were handled and it was examined whether another words could be used during the translations. The determination of the idioms in the translated texts and the discovery whether the idioms were gained to the language by translation or adaptation are important when it is given a thought that the idioms are values which belong to the societies at issue. The translation of the idioms are not an easy work. If the different cultures at issue, a direct translation cannot always give the meaning which is expected. For example the frequency of using the relativity names like mother, father etc. and the animal names like horse, camel etc. which are important in Turkish culture and used in idioms are not same in every culture. By the way, despite the existence in next periods and the multiplicity of the number of the idioms which are formed by the animal names and relativity names at issue above, it is a remarkable subject that the number of idioms formed by animal names were very insufficient in the age of Old Turkic. In Turkish the direct translations of the idioms formed by these words don‟t have influence upon native speakers of Turkish. Therefore the examination of the idioms in translated texts are important. In this manner, it can be possible to suggest an idea whether the translated texts reflects culture. Organ names which are the best representatives of the main lexicon are always important in the form of the idioms and proverbs in Turkish as every language. From the past to the present especially the number of the idioms formed by the organ names which replaced in head is too many.