INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LANGUAGES' EDUCATION AND TEACHING

1-19

Authors: Ahmet AKPINAR

When it comes to Turkish cultural history we must mention the old Turkish religion and the belief system. Because, the nomad lifestyle of the Turks had designated their envision of life and believes, too. Communities of Turk, who got in contact with various religions and dominated in many regions throughout their history, not only adopted the religious systems they got influenced by, but also they had preserved their national and religional believes. Comparative folklore and linguistics studies demonstrate that ancient Turkish believes and traditions stemmed actually from Turkish religions and Shamanism. Some of them failed to preserve its religious context and turned out be unharmful daily traditions in the society, however mostly these traditions were adopted as if they belonged to Islam and reverted to changes that are harmful to our national identity. Linguistically, these tradition and believes used in Shamanic period transformed into some word with special meanings which express superstition or into everyday words, losing their meanings, yet preserved their existence for centuries. Thanks to comparative folklore and linguistics studies in Turkey progress, important findings can be obtained about the role of some words in Turkish culturel history and about their semantics progress from historical texts. It is indeed necessary to study the culturel history in order to make analysis with strong sources and obtain in the accurate results in semantic research. In this study, the words ‘uçuk, kaş, yağırnı, saçı, yalpala-’ that are still in use in Bayburt dialect. Firstly, it is determined synchronic meaning of these words in General Turkish and Bayburt dialect; secondly, diachronic semantics progress of these words in the oldest historical texts that are compared. Finally, it is determined the fundamental meaning and function of the words by clarifing their roles in Turkish shamanism. As a result, it has been determined they had a significant role in Shamanism. The word ‘saçı’, in Bayburt region, is used for representing a special meaning within marriage customs after it lost its original religious meaning by the influence of Islam. The same goes for the words ‘uçuk, yalpala-, kaş, yağırnı’. These words also turned into words in everyday language bu losing their religious meaning completely

36-47

Authors: Buket KASAP

The aim of this case study is to analyze the supplementary instructional materials, namely worksheets, used in an English preparatory school in one of the Turkish universities. The data were gathered from the materials development unit of the school. Using the content analysis method, worksheets from 2015 spring and 2016 spring terms were analyzed. The findings revealed that most worksheets included decontextualized, repetitive grammar activities though the theme-based course book included integrated skills activities, appealing various learning styles. It was also observed that students were evaluated based on their proficiency in basic four skills while they studied mostly grammar based worksheets. As a result, a shift to a more eclectic method which caters for all learning styles and equally includes all skills is suggested to the school board.

61-104

Authors: Elif Esra ÖNEN

Şiiri Özlüyorum which is the first poetry journal of Nevşehir, is published by poet Fuat Çiftçi in Avanos district of Nevsehir. There are article, essay, criticism, interview, book review, obituary, report, news, memory, biography, autobiography kinds of articles outside of poetry in the journal which is expressed"two months poetry journal”. There are phrose translations as well as poetry translations in the journal. Analysis method have been discussed in the introduction of the study. The content of the journal was examined as poetry and prose in two parts. Thus, contributions were tried to have been determined on 2000s Turkish poetry and criticism of the journal. From 7 to 29 numbers of the journal’s systematic index was prepared in alphabetical order according to the author's name. In this context, it is intended to demonstrate the content of the journal’s articles and contribute to the Turkish literature research

122-138

Authors: Fatma YUVAYAPAN

Recently the notion of conceptual fluency has attracted much attention owing to its potential to native-like use of foreign language. It has conclusively been shown that comprehending the concepts of the target language, L2 learners may acquire the ability to speak as native speakers. Situated within the framework of developing conceptual fluency of L2 learners, this study examined whether the type of instruction has an effect on the conceptual fluency development of beginner level adult EFL learners. The participants consisting of 38 beginner level preparatory students of School of Foreign Languages of Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University were divided into two groups. The experimental group was exposed to a translation method rested on the comparison of L1 and L2 concepts to learn idioms taken from the songs while the control group learned these idioms through traditional translation method. The data included students’ one minute response paper gathered after each treatment which lasted 3 weeks and a 20 item-multiple-choice post-test. An ANCOVA analysis of the post-test scores showed that the experimental group accomplished better than the control group. The content analysis of the students’ one minute response paper also highlighted that translation method rested on the comparison of L1 and L2 concepts increased the awareness of the participants towards the non-literal meaning of English idioms. It appears that translation method comparing L1 and L2 concepts might contribute to the conceptual fluency development of beginner level adult L2 learners

151-163

Authors: Halil İbrahim BALKUL - Hüseyin ERSOY

Translation is an important shareholder of today’s communication society and became an independent academic discipline in the name of “translation studies” at the end of the 20th century. Graduate theses are undoubtedly one of the agents playing a significant role in the development of this namely young academic discipline. In the present study, the graduate theses prepared in the field of translation studies in Turkey until 2016 were examined by using document analysis method with a descriptive point of view. The graduate theses about translation field which were prepared in other departments rather than translation studies departments were not included in the current research. The graduate theses being the research object of this study were obtained from the website of National Theses Center which is a branch of Turkish Higher Education Council. A content analysis of the aforementioned theses was conducted with the following variables in mind: academic level of the theses, the completion year of the theses, the main and sub-branches of the theses in translation studies and data collection methods used in the theses. The obtained findings reveal that the graduate theses generally focus on similar research areas and methodologies. In this way, some suggestions were presented to the young scholars of translation studies who are willing to pursue a career in this discipline by indicating research gaps of the field and some research topics which might inspire authentic research in the field were stressed.

187-206

Authors: Mehmet ÖZCAN Münevver ÇETİN

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectivity and efficiency of education administration, supervision, planning and economics graduate degree. To achieve this purpose, graduate students definitions were revealed on effectivity and efficiency of graduate programme. Research data were collected through questionnaires. Opinions were investigated quantitatively through questionaires developed by the researcher both on effectivity and efficiency. The total number of questionaires collected is 334 from graduate participants. The findings revealed that graduate students most often referred to methodology and literature study in their definition of education administration, supervision, planning and economics graduate degree and effectivity and efficiency. Participants stated their ideas of effectivity and efficiency on graduate programme

217-257

Authors: Mustafa ÇAKIR - Cemal Yıldız

The number of Turkish and Turkish Culture teachers in the Federal Republic of Germany in 2013-2014 academic year amounts to 1047. Some of these teachers are assigned by the local authorities in Germany, and some are composed of teachers selected by the Ministry of National Education among the ones working in Turkey. There are 510 teachers assigned by the Turkish Ministry of Education to give Turkish and Turkish Culture lessons in Germany. Both the teachers sent from Turkey and the ones assigned by local German authorities must cope with a number of problems. In this study, the results of 398 questionnaires, which consisted of three main open-ended questions and were sent to 510 teachers working in Germany, who formed the sample group for the study, were evaluated. According to the study, the observed problems are mainly about parents’ and students’ indifference to classes, the inadequacy of physical infrastructure in schools, school principals’ unwillingness to cooperate with the Turkish teachers and insufficiency of teaching materials.

267-275

Authors: Ruth Ortega-Dela Cruz

Learning second language considers a number of factors that influence the manner in which the language is taught. Understanding of the learners’ goals and motivation for learning is one. Using descriptive-correlational research design, this study determined the influence of student English utility and teacher efficacy on the students’ English proficiency. A total of 101 students from first year to fourth year level served as the respondents of the study. The study quantified the students’ perception towards English utility and their evaluation of English teacher efficacy which employed a researcher-made survey questionnaire. Results revealed high positive perceptions of students towards English utility. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences in the perceptions of high school students on the efficacy of their English teachers. Correlation coefficients indicated a positive linear relationship among the given variables. The p-value revealed significant relationship of teacher efficacy (r = .691, p-value = .000) and English utility (r = .467, p-value = .000) to students’ English proficiency. Results of regression statistics revealed that English utility has no significant influence on the student English proficiency. Therefore, the main factor that must still be considered then should be the teacher. Finally, there is an explicit indication that high level of teachers’ efficacy performing in teaching has much powerful influence on the English proficiency of high school students. Thus improving the methods of teaching English provides a better way of motivating students to achieve higher levels of proficiency in the future.

293-305

Authors: Sukini Andayani - Muhammad Rohmadi - Budhi Setiawan

Poem Appreciation is a compulsary course at Indonesian Language and Literature Education Department of higher education. This exploratory research aimed at exploring problems and needs encountered by lecturers and students in Poem Appreciation course in the areas of Surakarta ex-residency and Yogyakarta Special Region. The research subjects were lecturers and students involved in poem learning in those areas. Observation, interview, document analysis, and questionnaire were used as data collection techniques. Related to Poem Appreciation course, the problems and needs for lecturers are: (1) the arrangement of lesson plan and syllabus; (2) the implementation of its procedure; (3) the evaluation of its learning; whereas those for students include the use of strategy and learning models which are innovative, effective, and studentscentered. Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) is necessarily needed by lecturers and students in Poem Appreciation course

320-335

Authors: Yanxiang ZHANG

This paper takes an overall literature review of non-native English-speaking teachers’ professional identity so as to bring forth the issue of “non-native speakership” and to elicit the marginal area of research on this issue. Firstly, it gives an overview description of the definition of “identity” and “professional identity” developed over the years, some related concepts and identity formation process. Then it reviews the empirical works of teacher identity, especially non-native English-speaking teachers’ professional identity. These works include research on teachers’ perception of their English proficiency, their identity construction and development and their own narrative stories. Subjects of these works range from student teachers, novice teachers and experienced teachers. Finally, it concludes that future research on this issue can still further enrich the current literature by means of wider research confines, more diversified research techniques and subjects as well.