PandemicCovid-19 Emergency online teaching English language teaching and learning First year analysisThe world recently witnessed the unexpected emergence of a coronavirus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic and severely impacted all aspects of human life. The sudden lockdown that came with the announcement of the pandemic affected health systems, the world economy and, inevitably, education systems across the globe. Due to the pandemic, schools and universities were closed, face-to-face education was suspended and a shift to emergency online teaching was instituted. English language training took its share in this transition and several studies were conducted to investigate the effects of the pandemic on emergency online teaching and the learning of English. This integrative literature review study analyses and synthesizes the research studies conducted between March 2020 and February 2021 to illustrate the first year of the pandemic in terms of English language teaching and learning globally. Thus, 69 research studies were selected for analysis. Findings show that the emergency online teaching and learning of English mainly created challenges due to the internet connection problems and students' access to computer or smart phones. On the other hand, contributing the teachers' digital literacy skills, the significance of online teaching and learning in case of emergency situations was highlighted as the findings showed. The studies produced conflicting results in terms of the implementation of emergency online teaching and learning practices, English language teachers and students' perceptions and attitudes, the affective, motivational and cognitive aspects, and the impact of emergency online teaching on the language development of students. Research Article

Today, the ability to communicate in English is a need brought about by the globalization process encompassing developments in many fields such as science and technology. To address this need, English language teaching programs in Turkey (henceforth ELTP) underwent substantial changes within the larger curriculum reform movements taking place in 1997, 2006 and 2013, the last of which is also called the 4+4+4 education system. In these ELTPs, major differences were based on primary school English language teaching and learning. However, there is a growing claim that these ELTPs did not achieve the intensions in equipping primary school students with the necessary communicative skills in English. Thus, this integrative literature review study aims to explore the results of the evaluation studies so as to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each ELTP regarding such program components as aims and outcomes, content, materials, and testing and assessment. In line with this, studies conducted to evaluate the 1997, 2006 and 2013 ELTPs were examined thoroughly, and their findings were identified for the analysis. The analysis of the studies showed that problems with the ELTPs under evaluation included not carefully written aims and outcomes failing to include all domains. It also reveals problems with the selection and design of the content and materials which failed to be adequate and effective. Lastly, reliance on paper-based assessment even failing to include productive skills is seen to be another problem. All these issues seem to be persistent over all the ELTPs, thus they call for careful consideration and action for the improvement of further program changes.

Due to its importance in almost all significant fields such as science, technology, education and trade, English language is offered as a compulsory course in all levels of formal education in Turkey. In the higher education context, most universities offer one-year compulsory English preparatory education for students enrolled in departments whose medium of instruction is in English. Commonly, the two systems existing in preparatory programs known as modular system and progressive system enact the legislation and organization of courses as well as the assessment, classroom procedures and material design. In progressive system, English education is offered throughout the year based on learners' level of English according to the placement test given at the beginning of the education year; on the other hand, in modular system English is taught in different modules at the same time allowing learners to move forward or fall behind their current levels. Because of the poor English levels of the preparatory class students at a state university in Turkey, a system change from a progressive system to a modular one took place which started to be implemented from 2015-2016 academic year onwards. For the purpose of evaluating both systems, English language instructors' views related to strengths and weaknesses of the modular and progressive systems were gathered through a semi-structured opinion form. The data were gathered from 23 participants who actively taught English in the both systems and were analysed through inductive content analysis. Findings of the study show that the participants found the modular system effective and efficient since students were placed in their correct levels of English unlike in the progressive system and since they were assessed based on their current level of English, Additionally, the participants favoured the modular system due to well-planned placement system in each module although they reported that modular system caused confusion on the part of the instructors because of the frequent exams and quizzes applied within a limited period. Besides, delivering English in more than one module at a time also caused the instructors to feel under pressure and a burden. As for progressive system, it was found that it was practical in terms of planning and organization in spite of decreasing student motivation. These findings indicate that although instructors find modular system effective and efficient, it needs a good planning and organization.

Exploring higher education learners’ e-learning experiences and the challenges they encounter is required to equip them with necessary skills and strategies to attain their academic goals (Cooper & Corpus, 2009). By identifying the types of and the frequency of exposure to distractors, the study was specifically geared towards finding out the level of motivational self-regulated strategies, including volition and goal commitment strategies, employed against online distractors during e-learning by higher education learners. The data were gathered through a questionnaire developed after a comprehensive literature review and semi-structured interviews (n = 38). The questionnaire was completed by higher education learners (n = 279), who were found to implement goal commitment and volition strategies at moderate levels despite the high frequency of exposure to distractors. The overall findings imply that equipping learners with motivational e-learning strategies encompassing goal commitment and volition strategies is necessary. This will require more in-depth research conducted to explore the role of self-regulated strategies in predicting learner engagement in the context of online learning.

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What students in EFL classes think and feel about the target language culture has always been in a great domain for all teachers and other stakeholders. It is always a great concern, whether or not learners accept and absorb the target language. They may find it useless or unnecessary, even though the course books or classroom activities exposed them to it. This study reports on the measures on the perceptions of Turkish EFL Learners toward the target language culture. It examines the meaning of culture; whether it is important to have knowledge and information on the target language culture; and the advantages and drawbacks of learning the target language culture to make the questions in the minds clear. The study involved 20 EFL learners at a university in Turkey. It used in-depth interviews with the participants, and attempted to identify the learner’s perceptions concerning the target culture. The research results show that the participants’ perceptions on the target culture vary greatly.

Metadiscourse is a tool for writers to guide and interact with readers through texts. Yet in most student texts, one of the points lacking is the interaction between writers and readers. In this study, frequency and type of interactive and interactional metadiscourse features were explored via students’ research-based essays based on Hyland’s metadiscourse taxonomy. Additionally, the students’ English Vocabulary Profile (EVP), lexical diversity, lexical density, and readability features of the texts in the corpus were scrutinized, which serve as an indicator of writing quality. Finally, the relationship of metadiscourse use with students’ writing performance, lexical diversity, lexical density, and readability was explored through statistical measures. Findings show that following explicit metadiscourse instruction, students’ research-based essays included more interactive metadiscourse than interactional metadiscourse, indicating that the students were dealing with more textual features, such as coherence, than interactional metadiscourse. Apart from findings regarding EVP such as lexical diversity, lexical density, and readability features, a positive relationship was explored between metadiscourse use and writing performance, lexical components, and textual features. It is concluded that metadiscourse should be integrated into the writing syllabus since it has a positive relationship with students’ use of academic vocabulary in their essays.

The purpose of this study is to understand university preparatory class students' mental images about their English language instructors through metaphors. With regard to this aim, 148 students enrolled in 16 different programs were required to write metaphors on the metaphor elicitation task including the statement "my English instructor is like