No abstract

The present study aimed to investigate perceptions of EFL teachers working at state primary schools on core language skills, assessment types and question types used in assessing student’s foreign language development and proficiency during an academic year. Data were gathered from 56 EFL teachers working at 42 primary state schools in Turkey through a questionnaire comprising a variety of items to elicit their perceptions and applications of language assessment in the classes of 4th to 6th graders. Results obtained from frequency analyses indicated that the pen-and-paper tests, performance tasks, and in-class observation are the mostly used assessment tools, and that the selected response items are mostly employed question types in the tests, and that performance-based and communication-based assessment types are preferred more frequently than the traditional types in evaluating students’ success in learning EFL.

The topic of teacher identity has lately begun to be associated with general notions of teacher training and development. Becoming an expert through gradual learning and teaching also calls for awareness of self-identity as a teacher when considering the standards of the teaching profession. Language teachers start to develop their identity as a teacher during their higher education at language teaching departments, and the development in concern constitutes the basis of their roles in the teaching process. With that in mind, the current study was motivated to investigate perceptions of Turkish EFL teacher candidates on their early teacher identity. The participants of the study were senior students enrolled in two English Language Teaching Departments at a state university and a private university in Turkey. Data were collected from the students in concern through a Likert-type questionnaire during their teaching practicum. The research findings indicated that they held a high level of early teacher identity scores, and that they somehow significantly differed in their perceptions about early teacher identity with regard to gender and the attended university type.

This study investigated the efficiency of explicit and implicit written corrective feedback in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education in higher education. Participants of the study were late-elementary and pre-intermediate adult learners of English who were attending a preparatory school in a Turkish state university. During a period of four weeks, exercises on prepositions were delivered to subjects who were divided into three groups as two treatment groups receiving explicit and implicit written correction and a control group receiving no feedback. A pre-test and a post-test were applied to the groups at the start and the end of the fourweek treatment, respectively in order to examine possible development of the groups. The results indicated significant differences between pre-test and post-test scores of the groups receiving the two types of written corrective feedback.

Corrective feedback (CF) has become a significant notion in EFL learning as it is seen as a facilitator to enhance L2 learning. CF is basically refer to any feedback provided to learner containing evidence of learner error of language form (Russel & Spada, 2006), or an immediate response by teacher to learner utterances containing error explained which is also theoretically a complex phenomenon with several functions (Lyster, et.al., 2012). A distinction can be drawn whether CF types are being implicit or explicit that there is not a clear indication of error in implicit CF whereas there is in explicit CF types. This study investigates the explicit and implicit CF types used by teachers in EFL classrooms in primary levels aiming at to see whether there are quantitative differences in the preference of CF types being explicit/implicit. Data of the study gathered from EFL classroom teachers' course session observations at various levels of primary school. Methodology depends on frequency analysis of CF types employed by teachers during EFL course sessions. Results favored explicit CF types by teachers during EFL sessions.

Teaching is described as a demanding job that requires in-depth knowledge of subject content, age-specific pedagogy, and many varied skills such as patience, leadership, and creativity. Teaching a foreign language constitutes another challenge for the teachers who are already attached the primary liability in raising generations for contributing to the development of their country. Considering that foreign language teachers' attitudes toward their job largely influence their professional performance, this study aims to scrutinize whether attitude of EFL teachers toward teaching profession significantly differ across level of educational institutions where they are working. Accordingly, an attitude scale was administered to EFL teachers working at state primary schools, secondary schools, and institutions of higher education in Turkey. The results indicated that the majority of the participants have positive attitudes toward their job despite problems they encounter while performing it. The study reported and discussed research findings in comprehensively, and offered a few pedagogical implications, and suggestions for further directions.

Contraction forms in English are mostly occur in speech and informal writing and they are generally avoided in formal writing types such as academic prose, business reports and journal articles, therefore, most teachers discourage their use in academic essays (Biber, Johansonn, Leech, Conrad and Finegan 1999). Contractions in English have two types; negative contractions (isn’t, haven’t, doesn’t) and verb contractions (I’m, they’ve, that’s). This corpus based study attempts to investigate contraction usage in learner and native English speaker essays. Major goal is to examine whether learners consider essay writing rules in respect of contractions which are accepted inappropriate for academic prose style. Five corpora, three learner and two native English, were utilized in order to analyze verb and not-contraction forms. Frequency calculations of contraction forms in each corpus compared via log-likelihood measurement for statistical significance.  Results revealed that learners use considerably more contraction forms, especially negative ones, than native English students in their argumentative essays.Keywords: English for Academic Purposes, learner corpus, contractions

Türkiye'de 2012 yılında gerçekleşen eğitim reformunun ardından, İngilizce dersi öğretim programı, Avrupa Dilleri Ortak Çerçeve Programı temelinde 2017 yılında güncellenerek takip eden eğitim-öğretim yılında uygulanmaya başlanmıştır. Programda, önceliğin; okuma ve yazma gibi geleneksel olarak vurgulanan becerilerden ziyade iletişimsel becerilere verildiği belirtilmektedir. Bu çalışmada, güncellenen öğretim programında tanımlı kazanımlar ile ödev önerilerinin, programın iletişimsel amaçlarına ne ölçüde hizmet ettiği araştırılmıştır. Veriler, Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı'nın resmi internet sayfasında yayınlanmış bulunan İngilizce dersi öğretim programından elde edilmiş ve içerik analizi yöntemiyle çözümlenmiştir. Araştırma bulguları, kazanımların %86'sının konuşma ve dinleme becerilerini geliştirmeye yönelik tasarlandığını ve programın iletişimsel yapısı ile uyumlu olduğunu göstermiştir. Ödev önerilerinin ise, programın temel felsefesinin aksine, öğrenciler arasında işbirliği ve iletişim gerektirmediği, %76'sının öğrencilerin bireysel çabası temelinde yapılandırıldığı ortaya çıkmıştır. Çalışmanın, araştırmaya dayalı uygulama önerileri ile mevcut alan yazına katkı sağlayacağı düşünülmektedir.