Google Search Applications in Foreign Language Classes at Tertiary Level

Abstract

Given that it is challenging for EFL teachers to create an input-rich learning environment with ample learning and practice/production opportunities, the integration of online resources into language classes has gained importance recently. Although the effective use of technology in educational settings is viewed as a 21st century skill, the issue of providing EFL learners with systematic training in the use of online search techniques in educational settings has not been explored sufficiently and many learners are not yet aware of how to utilize technological resources for educational purposes. Hence, this chapter aims to investigate how EFL majors in an English preparatory program at a public state university in the west of Turkey use Google searching skills receptively and productively in pedagogical tasks, to highlight how Google search tasks can be used to raise language awareness and to offer suggestions for effective integration of search techniques into teaching EFL at the tertiary level.

Explicit and Implicit Written Corrective Feedback in Higher EFL Education: Evidence from Turkey

“…In Turkey, Kırkgöz, Babanoğlu and Ağçam (2015) investigated CF types used in EFL primary classrooms through classroom observation, and informed that all types of corrective feedback were used by the teachers to help students overcome errors they made in classes of various grades and that explicit correction was the most and peer correction was the least frequently used CF types in all four grades. In a specific research, Zengin and Kaçar (2015) examined the use of Google search applications in writing activities in respect of written corrective feedback. Kazemifar and Chakigar (2016) reviewed the role of oral and written CF in learners` grammar through both theoretical and practical studies, and concluded that CF can be a pedagogical means of providing modified input to learners through interaction which would consequently lead to learners to modify their output, and that both oral and written feedback can contribute to the improvement of learners` grammar and accordingly to that of their writing.…”