No abstract

No abstract

English language teaching (henceforth ELT) has always been criticized due to the performance of Turkey in global English proficiency indices and students' lack of speaking ability. Despite several attempts to change language teaching programs, it cannot be claimed that the situation has transformed. ELT programs and students studying in these programs as one of the major elements of language teaching and learning issues in the country have been investigated in this study. The statistics regarding ELT programs and ELT students between the years 2016 and 2019 have been taken from YÖK Atlas, an online platform launched by the Council of Higher Education. The statistical data taken from this platform were analyzed, taking students' gender, educational background, university preferences, and foreign language test mean scores as well as ELT programs' academic staff, performance in exchange programs, and students' program preference statistics into account. The statistics indicated the dominance of female students and relatively low English proficiency of the students in ELT programs. Assistant professors were found to be the leading academic staff in these programs. Moreover, ELT students' preferences with regard to geographical proximity and availability of student exchange programs have been provided in the findings. Finally, some potential future research topics have been suggested.

This study examines the impact of 'Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling' (TPRS) on students' grammar and vocabulary performance as well as their attitude toward learning English. The participants are 38 freshmen, 14 in experimental and 24 in control group, studying in the department of tourism and hospitality services of a 2-year vocational school at a state university in Turkey. A pre-test including grammar and vocabulary questions as well as an attitude questionnaire was used as pre-test and post-test in the beginning and end of a four-week intervention as the data gathering tool. TPRS technique was implemented for four sessions in the experimental group to teach target vocabulary and structures. While The Mann-Whitney U test was run to find out the differences between pre-test and post-test scores of control and experimental groups, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was employed to find out the differences between the pre-test and the post-test scores of experimental group. The results indicated that TPRS technique had positive impact on students' grammar and vocabulary performance as the students in the experimental group outperformed the ones in the control group in the posttest. TPRS technique was also found to be effective in creating positive attitudes toward learning English. Some implications to employ TPRS in English classes as well as suggestions for further research were also provided.

The chapter explores the impact of freewriting on university students' foreign language writing boredom and anxiety in online academic writing classes. Fifty-nine students majoring in English language teaching participated in the study. The equivalent time samples design was used in the study for 10 weeks during which the participants had a freewriting activity every other week. Pre- and post-writing boredom and anxiety surveys, a semantic differential scale, and students' reflections were collected as data. The results indicated a significant decrease in students' boredom and an increase in their anxiety. Weekly analyses of students' responses revealed that students' boredom showed a decreasing trend, and it was continuously lower in the weeks with freewriting activities. However, students' anxiety fluctuated. Thematic analysis was employed to identify recurring themes and categories in students' reflection papers indicating boredom and anxiety increasing and decreasing factors.

Welcoming more than 1.7 million refugee and asylum-seeker children, Turkey has put a considerable effort in turning this tragedy into an advantage for these children in terms of their education. Language teaching has played a remarkable role in this effort. Turkey has offered both Turkish and English language courses to these people. Considering the significance of English as a global language for social integration and future studies, this study attempted to investigate young Syrian refugee students’ attitudes toward English language and their reasons to learn English. Moreover, their perspectives were compared with Turkish young learners. Thirty-eight Turkish and 26 Syrian 5th graders (aged 10–11) voluntarily participated in this study. The findings indicated that learning English makes Syrian students happy, whereas Turkish students enjoy the fun activities in English classes. Learning English is considered both relatively easy and important by both groups. Turkish and Syrian young learners’ reasons to learn English differed slightly. Suggestions were provided for refugee young learners to overcome the potential problems regarding language learning.

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

Due to unsatisfactory number of researches investigating ELT post-graduate programs, and perceptions of academics and students in these programs regarding mediation theory of Feuerstein, this study attempted to investigate the aspects of this theory in doctorate and master programs in ELT department of a state university. Methodologically, this study employed a qualitative case study approach and researchers made use of 4 semi-structured personal interviews with academics and 2 focus-group interviews with students. The results showed idiosyncrasy of academics’ use of mediation theory aspects. ‘Significance’ and ‘purpose beyond the here and now’ were important aspects for students in being a guide for them to find research topics. Academics paid special attention to relate the topics and tasks with learners’ daily practices. However, in order to maximize student-supervisor relationship and increase students’ success, there is a need for a change in the system. Most of the criticisms of the students stemmed from the limited time of the academics. Therefore, institutional implications include necessary changes in this post-graduate program. The results of this study allowed academics to know the views of the students in post-graduate programs regarding how, when, and where exactly they could use mediation theory aspects more effectively.