A Comparison between the Fifth Grade Intensive English Language Curriculum and the Fifth Grade English Language Curriculum: Students’ Achievement in Speaking

Abstract

It is aimed, in this study, to compare the achievement level of the students taught with the fifth grade intensive English language curriculum (IELC) and the ones taught with the fifth grade English language curriculum (ELC) in terms of their speaking skills. With this aim, it is also intended to find out the failure behind the students' speaking skills. Sequential explanatory strategy, which is one of the mixed-methods research designs, was used for this study as the aim was to further explain the quantitative findings. There were two groups of participants in this study. The first group included 64 fifth grade students selected from two different schools though simple random sampling, while the second group consisted of the five teachers teaching the fifth grade IELC. Two instruments developed by the researcher were utilized to collect data. The first instrument was an achievement test developed to measure students' success in speaking skills, while the second instrument was a semi-structured interview schedule developed to collect data from the teachers implementing the fifth grade IELC. The quantitative data collected through the achievement test were analyzed with descriptive statistics including means and standard deviations and inferential statistics through independent samples t-test which was used to compare the two groups of students' achievement levels, while the qualitative data gathered through the semi-structured interviews were analyzed with content analysis. The findings indicated that only one objective was attained by the students, the results of independent samples t-test indicated that there was not a significant difference in the achievement levels of the students taught with the fifth grade IELC and the ones taught with the fifth grade ELC. The reasons behind this failure was found to be resulting from teacher-related, student-related, and Ministry of National Education (MoNE)-related factors referring to implementation problems rather than curriculum design.

An Analysis of Foreign Language Oriented Fifth Grade English Curriculum: Opinions of Students, Teachers and Administrators

“…Erdem and Yücel-Toy (2017) also indicated that there were difficulties in speaking skill. Similarly, Kaya (2019) found in his study, which compared fifth grade students with and without foreign language oriented education, that despite the 15-hour language teaching per week, the students subjected to foreign language oriented education were not different than the students who were subject to 3 or 5 hours of language teaching per week in terms of speaking skills. In the same study, teachers also confirmed this situation and emphasized that there was always a deficiency in speaking skills, even though they did not experience any difficulties in developing other skills of the students.…”

“…Seçkin (2011) indicated in their research that teachers stated that they could not reach enough explanations and examples regarding the activities. In addition, Kaya (2019) concluded that teachers had anxiety about associating with daily life and that they did not consider some of their practices sufficient. In this study, the inability of teachers to reach sufficient instructions about the activities may have reduced the overall effectiveness of the activities.…”

“…The fact that teachers did not have access to the curriculum and course materials on time and that they did not participate in in-service training in general may be an important factor in the failure of the teachers to carry out the program effectively. As a matter of fact, in his study, Kaya (2019) attributed the problems in the implementation of the curriculum to the teachers' inability to understand the program adequately and not achieving the desired goals although he claimed that the curriculum was in harmony with the constructivist approach. Similarly, various problems were asserted by teachers in different studies such as leaving the decisions about teaching to the teacher in the process as a result of late delivery of materials and insufficient information (Dilekli, 2018;Dinçer & Koç, 2019;Erdem & Yücel-Toy, 2018;Kambur, 2018;Kayabaşı & Köse, 2019;Özkan et al, 2018).…”

“…In this context, there have been some studies to examine the voluntary practices before the publication of a curriculum for foreign language oriented education in fifth grades from various perspectives (Gür, Yurdakul & Çelik, 2016;Özkan et al, 2018;Erdem & Yücel-Toy, 2017) and the practices and the curriculum of the pilot study process started in 2017-2018 school year (Aksoy, Bozdoğan, Akbaş & Seferoğlu, 2018;Canlıer & Bümen, 2018;Dilekli, 2018;Dinçer & Koç, 2020;Kambur, 2018;Kaya, 2019;Kayabaşı & Köse, 2019). Most of these studies were conducted by examining the opinions of teachers (Aksoy et al, 2018;Erdem & Yücel-Toy, 2017;Dilekli, 2018;Dinçer & Koç, 2019;Kambur, 2018;Özkan et al, 2018); with a limited number of studies with students (Erdem & Yücel-Toy, 2017;Kaya, 2019) and school administrators (Kayabaşı & Köse, 2019). Taking the opinions of students and administrators, two of the most important stakeholders of the curriculum, within the scope of this program is at least as valuable as the opinions of the teachers.…”

Use of Cloud Technologies in the Process of Professional and Linguistic Training of Law Students for the Development of Academic Performance

“…Scholars from different theoretical schools and fields have begun to actively develop this problem. Interesting research has emerged on the targeted component of general and higher education (Ritchie Bates & Deary, 2015), models of critical thinking (Sadler, 2010), styles of thinking and perception of high school students (Kaya, 2019;Minchekar, 2017;Serin Serin, Saracaloglu & Ceylan, 2010), the role and relationship between critical thinking skills and learning outcomes of pupils/students (Ghazivakili et al, 2014;Sharma & Neetu, 2011).…”