I work as an associate professor at the Department of English Language Teaching, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey. I am a teacher trainer and researcher. I teach Teaching English to Young Learners, Materials Development, and Adaptation in ELT, Teaching Experience, Technology Use in ELT. My research interests are technology in language teaching and language teacher education, telecollaboration, corpus use, young learners. Address: Ankara Turkey
APA Citation: Aşık, A. (2017). A sample corpus integration in language teacher education through ... more APA Citation: Aşık, A. (2017). A sample corpus integration in language teacher education through coursebook evaluation. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 13(2), 728-740. Submission Abstract The use of corpora has an increased interest in language teaching in the past two decades. Many corpora have been utilized for several purposes in language classrooms directly or indirectly. In spite of the increasing awareness towards the use of corpora and the corpus tools, language teacher education programs still do not include corpus consultancy in their programs. This study aims to present a sample corpus integration in a language teacher education program at a large university in Turkey. The participants of the study were 21 senior pre-service English teachers enrolled in a fourth grade course called Materials Adaptation and Evaluation. The task of coursebook evaluation was one of the requirements of the course. After being trained on the use of corpora for lexical awareness and ...
In foreign language (FL) learning, albeit technology is widely used, it is still discussed what l... more In foreign language (FL) learning, albeit technology is widely used, it is still discussed what language teachers experience when they are employing existing technologies for effective language learning practices. For technology-enhanced language classrooms, the first step would be to determine the needs and possible challenges of technology integration into actual classroom mediums. With regard to this motive, this study aims to investigate the on-site classroom practices of technology use for language teaching through the eyes of the pre-service teachers (PSTs) at a practicum school context. A total of 22 PSTs was required to observe and reflect on the teaching practices of cooperating teachers (CTs) at a high school related to the integration of technology in FL teaching. Data were collected qualitatively via reflection reports and semi-structured interviews along with observation and field notes on technology use, current practices in implementing technology in classes, and PSTs' own views about technology use with specific examples. The results yielded that PSTs reflected their observations often on the use of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) as accessible technology in the school context. However, they underlined the ineffective use of these devices and CTs' lack of awareness in implementing technology so as to enrich learning opportunities. Findings indicate fruitful implications for language teachers and teacher educators to integrate technology into language teacher education (LTE) and language classrooms.
Language teacher education (LTE) is a dynamic field which needs to keep abreast of the changes in... more Language teacher education (LTE) is a dynamic field which needs to keep abreast of the changes in other fields and the teacher-oriented developments. In the 21st century, teacher education is required to meet the expectations of the pre-/in-service teachers, the learners, the technology, and the changing qualifications. In this sense, it is fundamental to investigate how the research trends in LTE should be shaped with a bottom-up perspective. To this end, the current study aims to investigate the needs of academics and researchers in the field of LTE in a variety of contexts (i.e., Turkey, Portugal, and Poland). The study was conducted as a part of an Erasmus+ Project called ILTERG (International Language Teacher Education Research Group) co-funded by the Turkish National Agency and Erasmus+ Program. A total number of 139 participants from three countries participated in the study. The data were collected through a needs analysis survey and semi-structured interviews. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data revealed that all items in the survey might be guiding for the academics to conduct research on. The list of the research topics could guide novice and/or expert researchers to conduct further studies in LTE.
The aim of the study was to investigate how well language teacher education (LTE) programmes prep... more The aim of the study was to investigate how well language teacher education (LTE) programmes prepare future teachers for ICT integration with the comparison of three different contexts (Turkey, Portugal and Poland) from the perspectives of the teacher trainees and teacher educators (TEs). Using a scale and multiple interviews, the data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results revealed that although there were three different contexts in three countries, LTE programmes seemed to implement teacher education strategies so as to prepare future teachers for educational technology use similarly at a moderate level. Modelling TEs and reflection on technology use were found to be significant strategies followed while feedback and instructional design strategies were challenging for the programmes. Furthermore, the results also indicated limited access to resources, lack of institutional support and qualified TEs who could successfully use and integrate technology into their teaching. Based on the findings, implications on how to integrate technology training into LTE programmes are discussed.
This article reviewed research on recent trends and issues in CALL teacher education. For this pu... more This article reviewed research on recent trends and issues in CALL teacher education. For this purpose, it examined the studies published in four prominent journals between 2010- 2018 to identify the general inclination in CALL teacher education in terms of study context, education context and method, and to investigate recent trends and issues regarding technology and language teacher education (LTE). Qualitative analysis revealed five major themes on teachers’ a) knowledge, use, attitudes and beliefs towards CALL integration, b) experiences related to training on technology, c) perceptions and attitudes regarding CALL/technology courses and programs, d) TPACK and CALL competency, and e) experiences related to blended learning. As a result, systematic review offered insight in understanding the relationship between technology and LTE to inform future line of research.
Journal of Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 2019
The concept of professional agency has recently been predominating in the field of teacher educat... more The concept of professional agency has recently been predominating in the field of teacher education. Despite this considerable attention given to exploring professional agency embedded in different contexts, there is still scarcity in research on teacher trainees’ agentic roles. To this end, this study focuses on exploring the impact of practicum teaching on the construction of a professional agency of teacher trainees in three countries. Eleven teacher trainees (four from Turkey, three from Poland and four from Portugal) prepared reflection reports responding to 12 open-ended questions focusing on factors that contribute to or detract professional agency. The reflection reports displayed supporting and detracting factors about professional agency as self-related (responsibility, perseverance and sense of belonging to the profession), mentor-related (rapport, modelling, being a team member and decision-making, constructive feedback, allowing adequate space) and classroom and student-related issues (authenticity, role in students’ eye, discipline and classroom management).
This study investigates the online peer feedback practices of teacher trainees who are engaged in... more This study investigates the online peer feedback practices of teacher trainees who are engaged in designing CALL materials. The participants are 111 pre-service English language teachers enrolled in a teacher education programme in Turkey, who post the materials they produce to an online course blog and then evaluate each other's materials. The data come from the compilation of blog posts produced to provide online peer feedback, forming the Corpus of Online Peer Feedback in Teaching. The data are analysed using corpus linguistics, drawing on frequency, collocation, concordance, and keyword analyses. Our findings show that the participants highlight particular features of CALL materials such as student-centeredness, learner interest, and visual aspects by using constructive peer feedback with hedged evaluations, which brings data-based evidence for their knowledge on and beliefs about CALL materials. This research makes a methodological contribution to the study of online data in the field of language teacher education by employing the analytical lense of corpus linguistics. More importantly, the findings reveal that such an analytic approach can bring new insights into understanding the technological and pedagogical knowledge and beliefs of teachers in relation to language teaching materials design and development. The implications of the findings for research on CALL teacher education as well as on feedback and reflection practices are discussed.
The study aims to present how technology integration can be fulfilled into Language Teacher Educa... more The study aims to present how technology integration can be fulfilled into Language Teacher Education (LTE) contexts by tracking the development of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) of the pre-service English Language teachers through Learning Technology By Design approach. A total of 100 senior student teachers (STs) of English at a large state university in Turkey participated in the study. The STs were required to train their peers about one digital tool and prepare digital materials to be used in language classrooms. The data were collected through three instruments quantitatively and qualitatively: the TPACK-EFL survey, peer reflective discussion forms and focus-group interviews. The findings revealed that the TPACK-EFL knowledge of the STs has improved significantly in all domains after the research intervention, and the STs reported considerably positive perceptions about the digital tools such as increasing motivation and positive atmosphere, more attractive and content-rich materials and more practical and found the experience of peer teaching very effective. The study suggests implications for a variety of digital tools to be used in language classrooms and an effective technology training in LTE contexts .
The use of corpora has an increased interest in language teaching in the past two decades. Many c... more The use of corpora has an increased interest in language teaching in the past two decades. Many corpora have been utilized for several purposes in language classrooms directly or indirectly. In spite of the increasing awareness towards the use of corpora and the corpus tools, language teacher education programs still do not include corpus consultancy in their programs. This study aims to present a sample corpus integration in a language teacher education program at a large university in Turkey. The participants of the study were 21 senior pre-service English teachers enrolled in a fourth grade course called Materials Adaptation and Evaluation. The task of coursebook evaluation was one of the requirements of the course. After being trained on the use of corpora for lexical awareness and corpus-informed coursebook evaluation, the participants evaluated local English coursebooks used in secondary schools in Turkey according to the frequency level of target words, vocabulary selection, presentation and practice. Findings are discussed and analyzed to provide an example of corpus integration in language teacher education programs. Thus, this experience of student teachers might be of interest for teacher trainers and trainees to empower their research skills and to increase hands-on experiences on corpus use.
Reflective practices are considered significant in terms of increasing the level of reflective an... more Reflective practices are considered significant in terms of increasing the level of reflective and critical thinking of language teachers by promoting self-evaluation. Analysis of classroom interaction can be regarded as one of the ways to improve teacher reflection. This study aims at investigating reflectivity of pre-service English teachers by engaging them in the analysis of their language use through a framework that enabled them focus on self-evaluation of teacher talk and various aspects of classroom interaction. For this purpose, a total of 44 pre-service teachers in the English Language Teaching programmes of two universities in Turkey participated in the study. The participants consisted of a control group and a study group. The study group received training on the analysis of their own talk by using the self-evaluation of teacher talk framework. The study was conducted through mixed methods approach. Quantitative data were collected through a questionnaire while qualitative data were collected through reflective diaries. The results indicated that although both groups improved their reflectivity, pre-service English teachers in the study group were able move upwards in reflectivity levels compared to the control group through the use of a specific framework. The study might be of interest of teacher trainers, pre-service teachers and researchers as it provides useful implications for the role of reflection in teaching. ÖĞRETMEN KONUŞMASI ANALİZİ İLE YANSITICILIK: HİZMET ÖNCESİ İNGİLİZCE ÖĞRETMENLERİNİN DURUMU Özet Yansıtıcı uygulamalar, öz-değerlendirmeyi destekleyerek dil öğretmenlerinin yansıtıcı ve eleştirel düşünme seviyesini arttırması açısından önemli bulunmaktadır. Sınıf etkileşimi analizi, öğretmen yansıtmasını geliştirmenin yollarından birisi olarak görülebilmektedir. Bu çalışma, öğretmen konuşmaları ve sınıf içi etkileşimin farklı yönleri üzerine öz değerlendirme yapmaya olanak veren bir çerçeve vasıtasıyla, hizmet öncesi öğretmen adaylarının kendi dil kullanımlarını analiz etmelerini sağlayarak yansıtıcılıklarını incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Bu amaç doğrultusunda, Türkiye'deki iki üniversitenin İngilizce Öğretmenliği programlarından toplam 44 hizmet öncesi öğretmen çalışmaya katılmıştır. Katılımcılar, bir kontrol grubu ve bir de araştırma grubundan oluşmaktadır. Araştırma grubu, öğretmen konuşmasının öz değerlendirmesi çerçevesini kullanarak kendi konuşmalarının analizi konusunda eğitim almışlardır. Araştırmada karma yöntem yaklaşımı uygulanmıştır. Nicel veriler bir anket ile toplanırken, nitel veriler yansıtıcı günlüklerle toplanmıştır. Sonuçlar, hem araştırma hem kontrol grubundaki öğrencilerin yansıtmalarında bir gelişim olmasına rağmen belirli bir çerçeve kullanan araştırma grubundaki hizmet öncesi İngilizce öğretmenlerinin yansıtıcı düşünme seviyelerinin kontrol grubuna göre daha üst seviyelere çıktığını göstermiştir. Çalışma, öğretimde yansıma hakkında yararlı çıkarımlar sağladığı için öğretmen eğitmenleri, hizmet öncesi öğretmenler ve araştırmacıların ilgisini çekebilir.
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to announce that The International Conference on Teaching Languag... more Dear Colleagues, We are pleased to announce that The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners will be held in Ephesus, Turkey on 16-18 May, 2017. This conference will be organized as part of the “SBATEYL: A Web and School-based Professional Development Project for Foreign Language Teachers of Young Learners” funded by the European Commission under Erasmus + Key Action 2 program. Project Web Site: www.sbateyl.org Conference Web Site: www.sbateyl2017.org The conference will be convened at the beautiful Palm Wings Ephesus Hotel, Ephesus - Turkey. We believe the venue and timing of the event is as charming as the idea of sharing and disseminating our work. The conference hotel is a gorgeous five star luxurious resort, operating on an all-inclusive basis for our presenters' joy and comfort. Ephesus and the region should also be extremely pleasant and fragrant in this merry month of May. We believe our participants will be able to find plenty to do in their free times. We are therefore pleased to organize The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners to bring theoreticians, researchers, and practitioners together to discuss the issues surrounding the area of early language teaching. We would like to welcome researchers, teacher educators, ESL/EFL experts, and practitioners from across the globe to submit papers to report their research findings; explore issues related to early language teaching; and share their classroom practices to foster the professional development of early language teachers and accordingly their classroom teaching practices in primary schools. We are also glad to have very distinguished scholars in the area of child second language acquisition, early language teaching and learning as plenary speakers in our conference. The plenary speakers are:
Helena Curtain, University of Wisconsin, USA Belma Haznedar, Boğaziçi University, Turkey Fiona Copland, University of Stirling, United Kingdom Graham Hall, Northumbria University, United Kingdom Yasemin Kırkgöz, Çukurova University, Turkey We are also pleased to announce that the first 60 fully registered international participants of the GlobELT 2017 Conference ( www.globeltconference.com ;18-21 May 2017) will be granted free attendance and accommodation at The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners 2017, Palm Wings Hotel, Ephesus, Turkey. All-inclusive accommodation and registration fees will be fully covered by EU Funds, thus making attending GlobELT and The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners an enticing 2-in-1 academic feast. I hope you will not miss on this golden opportunity in a unique venue. Hope to see you in Ephesus in May! Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hacer Hande UYSAL Conference Chair
Recent years have witnessed increasing attention to the role of interaction in the classroom. Reg... more Recent years have witnessed increasing attention to the role of interaction in the classroom. Regarding the dynamic nature of language classrooms, teacher talk is assumed to promote interaction. Based on this assumption, this paper aims at investigating EFL teachers’ perceptions of their use of teacher talk and how analysis of language use contributes to their professional development. For this purpose, a total of 23 pre-service teachers from ELT departments of two universities in Turkey participated in the study. They received training on analysis of their own talk by using a specific instrument (SETT) designed to assess relationship between language use and pedagogic purpose. The pre-service teachers recorded snapshots of their teaching to analyse different interactional features of their talk, organised peer sessions to discuss each other’s language use and wrote three reflective diaries. Two raters coded qualitative data using the Constant Comparison Method. Results indicated that the SETT experience helped them to increase awareness of what they did, how they did it and how they used language in the classroom environment. The findings offer valuable insights about teachers’ language use and its effects on the development of classroom interaction.
This paper presents the analysis of the self-reported reflections of pre-service English teachers... more This paper presents the analysis of the self-reported reflections of pre-service English teachers about the use of digital storytelling and its tools in terms of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Through the reflection reports of 78 pre-service English teachers and a focus-group interview after implementing a digital storytelling project, the present study investigated the perceptions and reflections of pre-service English teachers regarding the use of digital storytelling to teach English to young learners. The data were analysed through mixed (qualitative and quantitative) methods. The results revealed that pre-service English teachers reflected positive perceptions towards to the use of digital storytelling. Their reflections are significant in terms of the tools to be used for digital storytelling, the viewpoints regarding young learners and the improvement in their Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. The findings should be of interest to teacher education programs in supporting pre-service teachers to integrate technology into language classrooms.
Data-driven learning (DDL) has become an innovative approach developed from corpus linguistics. I... more Data-driven learning (DDL) has become an innovative approach developed from corpus linguistics. It plays a significant role in the progression of foreign language pedagogy, since it offers learners plentiful authentic corpora examples that make them analyze language rules with the help of online corpora and concordancers. The present study attempts to reveal Turkish EFL learners’ attitudes and beliefs about DDL instruction in terms of lexical awareness and development. A mixed method including a questionnaire and a focus group interview was used to gather data. The statistical analysis of the results indicated positive attitudes towards DDL instruction in terms of raising the depth of lexical awareness particularly for synonyms and collocations. However, participants reported that their awareness towards word frequency, idioms and vocabulary learning strategies did not increase satisfactorily. Negative attitudes were also observed due to technical problems of the software and time-consuming nature of doing tasks through corpus.
This study aims to discuss the authenticity of dialogues in locally produced ELT textbooks used i... more This study aims to discuss the authenticity of dialogues in locally produced ELT textbooks used in the secondary schools in Turkey. Turkey, like many countries, takes the initiative to produce and use locally written coursebooks approved by the Ministry of Education rather than those by international publishing houses, and these coursebooks are used in state schools. It is a possible drawback, however, that most of the government-issued coursebooks may fail to introduce natural, appropriate and correct use of language. This study attempts to explore whether the spoken discourse presented in dialogues in locally produced ELT coursebooks are authentic and genuine. Accordingly, a number of coursebooks are used to collect core language teaching texts to be evaluated via the corpus and the views of native speakers of English. The coursebook dialogues are compared with their authentic equivalents so as to collect, classify and exemplify the main and significant differences. Acknowledging the advantages of national coursebook projects, the study highlights the importance of effective use of the corpus and editing by native speakers for textbook writers particularly in English as a foreign language contexts.
This study attempts to investigate the level of awareness and the opinions of Turkish EFL teacher... more This study attempts to investigate the level of awareness and the opinions of Turkish EFL teachers about the use of corpora in language teaching to promote discourse-pragmatic competence in EFL classrooms. To these ends, the study used two instruments: a survey with 42 Turkish EFL university lecturers and interviews with 10 of them. Data analysis was conducted through both quantitative and qualitative type of analysis. The results of the survey showed that 11 % of the participants were familiar with the corpora and used them in their teaching while the others did not have any particular knowledge of corpora and concordancers due to lack of awareness, knowledge and time. The results support the idea that in spite of the developments in corpus applications, the issue of the use of corpora has not been fully recognized by EFL teachers. The EFL teachers need corpus consultation and trainings about the use of corpora in language classrooms. Moreover, the analysis of the interviews showed that the teachers had positive opinions about the corpus examples as they provide authentic and functional elements of spoken English. Thus, the study includes some pedagogical implications about the use of corpora in language classrooms to promote discourse-pragmatic competence in EFL classrooms.
Discourse markers are seen as one of the fundamental units in spoken discourse due to their frequ... more Discourse markers are seen as one of the fundamental units in spoken discourse due to their frequent and multifunctional use by native speakers of English. Discourse markers also have significance in foreign language instruction. In this respect, this study explored the perceptions of Turkish EFL teachers towards the use of discourse markers in terms of the pragmatic and pedagogic value and their representations in EFL classrooms. To this end, a questionnaire was administered to 104 EFL instructors working at seven different state universities in Turkey. The quantitative analyses of the data yielded that the teachers had positive perceptions towards discourse markers by finding them necessary for improving pragmatic competence of language learners. They also stated that discourse markers had teaching value so they highlighted them in their instruction. Moreover, the study also discussed the integration of discourse markers into language instruction. The study had some implications for further discussion over the issue of discourse markers in terms of investigating teacher talk, real classroom practices during language teaching instruction and teaching materials.
The aim of this study was two-fold. Firstly, it attempted to investigate the effectiveness of voc... more The aim of this study was two-fold. Firstly, it attempted to investigate the effectiveness of vocabulary presentation modes: i) Corpus Based Contextual Guessing; ii) Dictionary Use; and iii) Online Instruction on the vocabulary development of EFL learners’ recall and
retention. The second purpose of the study was to compare the learners’ success of recalling and storing the target vocabulary with their attitudes towards these presentation modes. For this purpose, a pre-test and two recall post tests and an attitude questionnaire were administered to learners. One-way ANOVA indicated that the Corpus Based Contextual
Guessing was the most effective presentation mode for learning and storing new vocabulary, yet it was the least favored one for both developing their cognitive skills and affective factors.
This study investigated the production of discourse markers by non-native speakers of English and... more This study investigated the production of discourse markers by non-native speakers of English and their occurrences in their spoken English by comparing them with those used in native speakers’ spoken discourse. Because discourse markers (DMs) are significant items in spoken discourse of native speakers, a study about the use of DMs by nonnative speakers is necessary and guiding. Thus, the study was based on two specific corpora. First, a research corpus was composed using the transcriptions of the course presentations of twenty non-native undergraduate students studying at an English Language Teaching (ELT) program in Turkey. To compare the data, transcripts of student presentations of native speakers were attained with the help of MICASE Corpus. The occurrences of the discourse markers in both corpora were determined with frequency analysis. The results indicated that non-native speakers of English use a limited number and less variety of discourse markers in their spoken English. The study therefore highlights the importance of the need for raising non-native speakers' awareness of using discourse markers in their spoken English, and recommends implications for English language teaching.
This action research is conducted upon noticing the need to provide pre-service teachers of Engli... more This action research is conducted upon noticing the need to provide pre-service teachers of English with a deeper insight into their microteaching demonstrations in TEYL course, which takes place in third year of the teacher training program before the practicum. Regarding the microteachings in TEYL course, the pre-service teachers complained about not being sure how children learn, think and act. Their concerns and dissatisfaction about the performance and feedback stages of microteaching sessions were also acknowledged by the researchers. Thus, 71 pre-service teachers were required to re-conduct their storytelling with target age children and complete a reflection questionnaire. The qualitative analysis of the data reveals that microteachings had some drawbacks in preparing pre-service teachers to the teaching profession. Actual practices with children enabled the pre-service teachers experiencing the natural atmosphere of teaching and developing understanding how children think, learn and react.
APA Citation: Aşık, A. (2017). A sample corpus integration in language teacher education through ... more APA Citation: Aşık, A. (2017). A sample corpus integration in language teacher education through coursebook evaluation. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 13(2), 728-740. Submission Abstract The use of corpora has an increased interest in language teaching in the past two decades. Many corpora have been utilized for several purposes in language classrooms directly or indirectly. In spite of the increasing awareness towards the use of corpora and the corpus tools, language teacher education programs still do not include corpus consultancy in their programs. This study aims to present a sample corpus integration in a language teacher education program at a large university in Turkey. The participants of the study were 21 senior pre-service English teachers enrolled in a fourth grade course called Materials Adaptation and Evaluation. The task of coursebook evaluation was one of the requirements of the course. After being trained on the use of corpora for lexical awareness and ...
In foreign language (FL) learning, albeit technology is widely used, it is still discussed what l... more In foreign language (FL) learning, albeit technology is widely used, it is still discussed what language teachers experience when they are employing existing technologies for effective language learning practices. For technology-enhanced language classrooms, the first step would be to determine the needs and possible challenges of technology integration into actual classroom mediums. With regard to this motive, this study aims to investigate the on-site classroom practices of technology use for language teaching through the eyes of the pre-service teachers (PSTs) at a practicum school context. A total of 22 PSTs was required to observe and reflect on the teaching practices of cooperating teachers (CTs) at a high school related to the integration of technology in FL teaching. Data were collected qualitatively via reflection reports and semi-structured interviews along with observation and field notes on technology use, current practices in implementing technology in classes, and PSTs' own views about technology use with specific examples. The results yielded that PSTs reflected their observations often on the use of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) as accessible technology in the school context. However, they underlined the ineffective use of these devices and CTs' lack of awareness in implementing technology so as to enrich learning opportunities. Findings indicate fruitful implications for language teachers and teacher educators to integrate technology into language teacher education (LTE) and language classrooms.
Language teacher education (LTE) is a dynamic field which needs to keep abreast of the changes in... more Language teacher education (LTE) is a dynamic field which needs to keep abreast of the changes in other fields and the teacher-oriented developments. In the 21st century, teacher education is required to meet the expectations of the pre-/in-service teachers, the learners, the technology, and the changing qualifications. In this sense, it is fundamental to investigate how the research trends in LTE should be shaped with a bottom-up perspective. To this end, the current study aims to investigate the needs of academics and researchers in the field of LTE in a variety of contexts (i.e., Turkey, Portugal, and Poland). The study was conducted as a part of an Erasmus+ Project called ILTERG (International Language Teacher Education Research Group) co-funded by the Turkish National Agency and Erasmus+ Program. A total number of 139 participants from three countries participated in the study. The data were collected through a needs analysis survey and semi-structured interviews. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data revealed that all items in the survey might be guiding for the academics to conduct research on. The list of the research topics could guide novice and/or expert researchers to conduct further studies in LTE.
The aim of the study was to investigate how well language teacher education (LTE) programmes prep... more The aim of the study was to investigate how well language teacher education (LTE) programmes prepare future teachers for ICT integration with the comparison of three different contexts (Turkey, Portugal and Poland) from the perspectives of the teacher trainees and teacher educators (TEs). Using a scale and multiple interviews, the data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results revealed that although there were three different contexts in three countries, LTE programmes seemed to implement teacher education strategies so as to prepare future teachers for educational technology use similarly at a moderate level. Modelling TEs and reflection on technology use were found to be significant strategies followed while feedback and instructional design strategies were challenging for the programmes. Furthermore, the results also indicated limited access to resources, lack of institutional support and qualified TEs who could successfully use and integrate technology into their teaching. Based on the findings, implications on how to integrate technology training into LTE programmes are discussed.
This article reviewed research on recent trends and issues in CALL teacher education. For this pu... more This article reviewed research on recent trends and issues in CALL teacher education. For this purpose, it examined the studies published in four prominent journals between 2010- 2018 to identify the general inclination in CALL teacher education in terms of study context, education context and method, and to investigate recent trends and issues regarding technology and language teacher education (LTE). Qualitative analysis revealed five major themes on teachers’ a) knowledge, use, attitudes and beliefs towards CALL integration, b) experiences related to training on technology, c) perceptions and attitudes regarding CALL/technology courses and programs, d) TPACK and CALL competency, and e) experiences related to blended learning. As a result, systematic review offered insight in understanding the relationship between technology and LTE to inform future line of research.
Journal of Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 2019
The concept of professional agency has recently been predominating in the field of teacher educat... more The concept of professional agency has recently been predominating in the field of teacher education. Despite this considerable attention given to exploring professional agency embedded in different contexts, there is still scarcity in research on teacher trainees’ agentic roles. To this end, this study focuses on exploring the impact of practicum teaching on the construction of a professional agency of teacher trainees in three countries. Eleven teacher trainees (four from Turkey, three from Poland and four from Portugal) prepared reflection reports responding to 12 open-ended questions focusing on factors that contribute to or detract professional agency. The reflection reports displayed supporting and detracting factors about professional agency as self-related (responsibility, perseverance and sense of belonging to the profession), mentor-related (rapport, modelling, being a team member and decision-making, constructive feedback, allowing adequate space) and classroom and student-related issues (authenticity, role in students’ eye, discipline and classroom management).
This study investigates the online peer feedback practices of teacher trainees who are engaged in... more This study investigates the online peer feedback practices of teacher trainees who are engaged in designing CALL materials. The participants are 111 pre-service English language teachers enrolled in a teacher education programme in Turkey, who post the materials they produce to an online course blog and then evaluate each other's materials. The data come from the compilation of blog posts produced to provide online peer feedback, forming the Corpus of Online Peer Feedback in Teaching. The data are analysed using corpus linguistics, drawing on frequency, collocation, concordance, and keyword analyses. Our findings show that the participants highlight particular features of CALL materials such as student-centeredness, learner interest, and visual aspects by using constructive peer feedback with hedged evaluations, which brings data-based evidence for their knowledge on and beliefs about CALL materials. This research makes a methodological contribution to the study of online data in the field of language teacher education by employing the analytical lense of corpus linguistics. More importantly, the findings reveal that such an analytic approach can bring new insights into understanding the technological and pedagogical knowledge and beliefs of teachers in relation to language teaching materials design and development. The implications of the findings for research on CALL teacher education as well as on feedback and reflection practices are discussed.
The study aims to present how technology integration can be fulfilled into Language Teacher Educa... more The study aims to present how technology integration can be fulfilled into Language Teacher Education (LTE) contexts by tracking the development of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) of the pre-service English Language teachers through Learning Technology By Design approach. A total of 100 senior student teachers (STs) of English at a large state university in Turkey participated in the study. The STs were required to train their peers about one digital tool and prepare digital materials to be used in language classrooms. The data were collected through three instruments quantitatively and qualitatively: the TPACK-EFL survey, peer reflective discussion forms and focus-group interviews. The findings revealed that the TPACK-EFL knowledge of the STs has improved significantly in all domains after the research intervention, and the STs reported considerably positive perceptions about the digital tools such as increasing motivation and positive atmosphere, more attractive and content-rich materials and more practical and found the experience of peer teaching very effective. The study suggests implications for a variety of digital tools to be used in language classrooms and an effective technology training in LTE contexts .
The use of corpora has an increased interest in language teaching in the past two decades. Many c... more The use of corpora has an increased interest in language teaching in the past two decades. Many corpora have been utilized for several purposes in language classrooms directly or indirectly. In spite of the increasing awareness towards the use of corpora and the corpus tools, language teacher education programs still do not include corpus consultancy in their programs. This study aims to present a sample corpus integration in a language teacher education program at a large university in Turkey. The participants of the study were 21 senior pre-service English teachers enrolled in a fourth grade course called Materials Adaptation and Evaluation. The task of coursebook evaluation was one of the requirements of the course. After being trained on the use of corpora for lexical awareness and corpus-informed coursebook evaluation, the participants evaluated local English coursebooks used in secondary schools in Turkey according to the frequency level of target words, vocabulary selection, presentation and practice. Findings are discussed and analyzed to provide an example of corpus integration in language teacher education programs. Thus, this experience of student teachers might be of interest for teacher trainers and trainees to empower their research skills and to increase hands-on experiences on corpus use.
Reflective practices are considered significant in terms of increasing the level of reflective an... more Reflective practices are considered significant in terms of increasing the level of reflective and critical thinking of language teachers by promoting self-evaluation. Analysis of classroom interaction can be regarded as one of the ways to improve teacher reflection. This study aims at investigating reflectivity of pre-service English teachers by engaging them in the analysis of their language use through a framework that enabled them focus on self-evaluation of teacher talk and various aspects of classroom interaction. For this purpose, a total of 44 pre-service teachers in the English Language Teaching programmes of two universities in Turkey participated in the study. The participants consisted of a control group and a study group. The study group received training on the analysis of their own talk by using the self-evaluation of teacher talk framework. The study was conducted through mixed methods approach. Quantitative data were collected through a questionnaire while qualitative data were collected through reflective diaries. The results indicated that although both groups improved their reflectivity, pre-service English teachers in the study group were able move upwards in reflectivity levels compared to the control group through the use of a specific framework. The study might be of interest of teacher trainers, pre-service teachers and researchers as it provides useful implications for the role of reflection in teaching. ÖĞRETMEN KONUŞMASI ANALİZİ İLE YANSITICILIK: HİZMET ÖNCESİ İNGİLİZCE ÖĞRETMENLERİNİN DURUMU Özet Yansıtıcı uygulamalar, öz-değerlendirmeyi destekleyerek dil öğretmenlerinin yansıtıcı ve eleştirel düşünme seviyesini arttırması açısından önemli bulunmaktadır. Sınıf etkileşimi analizi, öğretmen yansıtmasını geliştirmenin yollarından birisi olarak görülebilmektedir. Bu çalışma, öğretmen konuşmaları ve sınıf içi etkileşimin farklı yönleri üzerine öz değerlendirme yapmaya olanak veren bir çerçeve vasıtasıyla, hizmet öncesi öğretmen adaylarının kendi dil kullanımlarını analiz etmelerini sağlayarak yansıtıcılıklarını incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Bu amaç doğrultusunda, Türkiye'deki iki üniversitenin İngilizce Öğretmenliği programlarından toplam 44 hizmet öncesi öğretmen çalışmaya katılmıştır. Katılımcılar, bir kontrol grubu ve bir de araştırma grubundan oluşmaktadır. Araştırma grubu, öğretmen konuşmasının öz değerlendirmesi çerçevesini kullanarak kendi konuşmalarının analizi konusunda eğitim almışlardır. Araştırmada karma yöntem yaklaşımı uygulanmıştır. Nicel veriler bir anket ile toplanırken, nitel veriler yansıtıcı günlüklerle toplanmıştır. Sonuçlar, hem araştırma hem kontrol grubundaki öğrencilerin yansıtmalarında bir gelişim olmasına rağmen belirli bir çerçeve kullanan araştırma grubundaki hizmet öncesi İngilizce öğretmenlerinin yansıtıcı düşünme seviyelerinin kontrol grubuna göre daha üst seviyelere çıktığını göstermiştir. Çalışma, öğretimde yansıma hakkında yararlı çıkarımlar sağladığı için öğretmen eğitmenleri, hizmet öncesi öğretmenler ve araştırmacıların ilgisini çekebilir.
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to announce that The International Conference on Teaching Languag... more Dear Colleagues, We are pleased to announce that The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners will be held in Ephesus, Turkey on 16-18 May, 2017. This conference will be organized as part of the “SBATEYL: A Web and School-based Professional Development Project for Foreign Language Teachers of Young Learners” funded by the European Commission under Erasmus + Key Action 2 program. Project Web Site: www.sbateyl.org Conference Web Site: www.sbateyl2017.org The conference will be convened at the beautiful Palm Wings Ephesus Hotel, Ephesus - Turkey. We believe the venue and timing of the event is as charming as the idea of sharing and disseminating our work. The conference hotel is a gorgeous five star luxurious resort, operating on an all-inclusive basis for our presenters' joy and comfort. Ephesus and the region should also be extremely pleasant and fragrant in this merry month of May. We believe our participants will be able to find plenty to do in their free times. We are therefore pleased to organize The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners to bring theoreticians, researchers, and practitioners together to discuss the issues surrounding the area of early language teaching. We would like to welcome researchers, teacher educators, ESL/EFL experts, and practitioners from across the globe to submit papers to report their research findings; explore issues related to early language teaching; and share their classroom practices to foster the professional development of early language teachers and accordingly their classroom teaching practices in primary schools. We are also glad to have very distinguished scholars in the area of child second language acquisition, early language teaching and learning as plenary speakers in our conference. The plenary speakers are:
Helena Curtain, University of Wisconsin, USA Belma Haznedar, Boğaziçi University, Turkey Fiona Copland, University of Stirling, United Kingdom Graham Hall, Northumbria University, United Kingdom Yasemin Kırkgöz, Çukurova University, Turkey We are also pleased to announce that the first 60 fully registered international participants of the GlobELT 2017 Conference ( www.globeltconference.com ;18-21 May 2017) will be granted free attendance and accommodation at The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners 2017, Palm Wings Hotel, Ephesus, Turkey. All-inclusive accommodation and registration fees will be fully covered by EU Funds, thus making attending GlobELT and The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners an enticing 2-in-1 academic feast. I hope you will not miss on this golden opportunity in a unique venue. Hope to see you in Ephesus in May! Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hacer Hande UYSAL Conference Chair
Recent years have witnessed increasing attention to the role of interaction in the classroom. Reg... more Recent years have witnessed increasing attention to the role of interaction in the classroom. Regarding the dynamic nature of language classrooms, teacher talk is assumed to promote interaction. Based on this assumption, this paper aims at investigating EFL teachers’ perceptions of their use of teacher talk and how analysis of language use contributes to their professional development. For this purpose, a total of 23 pre-service teachers from ELT departments of two universities in Turkey participated in the study. They received training on analysis of their own talk by using a specific instrument (SETT) designed to assess relationship between language use and pedagogic purpose. The pre-service teachers recorded snapshots of their teaching to analyse different interactional features of their talk, organised peer sessions to discuss each other’s language use and wrote three reflective diaries. Two raters coded qualitative data using the Constant Comparison Method. Results indicated that the SETT experience helped them to increase awareness of what they did, how they did it and how they used language in the classroom environment. The findings offer valuable insights about teachers’ language use and its effects on the development of classroom interaction.
This paper presents the analysis of the self-reported reflections of pre-service English teachers... more This paper presents the analysis of the self-reported reflections of pre-service English teachers about the use of digital storytelling and its tools in terms of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Through the reflection reports of 78 pre-service English teachers and a focus-group interview after implementing a digital storytelling project, the present study investigated the perceptions and reflections of pre-service English teachers regarding the use of digital storytelling to teach English to young learners. The data were analysed through mixed (qualitative and quantitative) methods. The results revealed that pre-service English teachers reflected positive perceptions towards to the use of digital storytelling. Their reflections are significant in terms of the tools to be used for digital storytelling, the viewpoints regarding young learners and the improvement in their Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. The findings should be of interest to teacher education programs in supporting pre-service teachers to integrate technology into language classrooms.
Data-driven learning (DDL) has become an innovative approach developed from corpus linguistics. I... more Data-driven learning (DDL) has become an innovative approach developed from corpus linguistics. It plays a significant role in the progression of foreign language pedagogy, since it offers learners plentiful authentic corpora examples that make them analyze language rules with the help of online corpora and concordancers. The present study attempts to reveal Turkish EFL learners’ attitudes and beliefs about DDL instruction in terms of lexical awareness and development. A mixed method including a questionnaire and a focus group interview was used to gather data. The statistical analysis of the results indicated positive attitudes towards DDL instruction in terms of raising the depth of lexical awareness particularly for synonyms and collocations. However, participants reported that their awareness towards word frequency, idioms and vocabulary learning strategies did not increase satisfactorily. Negative attitudes were also observed due to technical problems of the software and time-consuming nature of doing tasks through corpus.
This study aims to discuss the authenticity of dialogues in locally produced ELT textbooks used i... more This study aims to discuss the authenticity of dialogues in locally produced ELT textbooks used in the secondary schools in Turkey. Turkey, like many countries, takes the initiative to produce and use locally written coursebooks approved by the Ministry of Education rather than those by international publishing houses, and these coursebooks are used in state schools. It is a possible drawback, however, that most of the government-issued coursebooks may fail to introduce natural, appropriate and correct use of language. This study attempts to explore whether the spoken discourse presented in dialogues in locally produced ELT coursebooks are authentic and genuine. Accordingly, a number of coursebooks are used to collect core language teaching texts to be evaluated via the corpus and the views of native speakers of English. The coursebook dialogues are compared with their authentic equivalents so as to collect, classify and exemplify the main and significant differences. Acknowledging the advantages of national coursebook projects, the study highlights the importance of effective use of the corpus and editing by native speakers for textbook writers particularly in English as a foreign language contexts.
This study attempts to investigate the level of awareness and the opinions of Turkish EFL teacher... more This study attempts to investigate the level of awareness and the opinions of Turkish EFL teachers about the use of corpora in language teaching to promote discourse-pragmatic competence in EFL classrooms. To these ends, the study used two instruments: a survey with 42 Turkish EFL university lecturers and interviews with 10 of them. Data analysis was conducted through both quantitative and qualitative type of analysis. The results of the survey showed that 11 % of the participants were familiar with the corpora and used them in their teaching while the others did not have any particular knowledge of corpora and concordancers due to lack of awareness, knowledge and time. The results support the idea that in spite of the developments in corpus applications, the issue of the use of corpora has not been fully recognized by EFL teachers. The EFL teachers need corpus consultation and trainings about the use of corpora in language classrooms. Moreover, the analysis of the interviews showed that the teachers had positive opinions about the corpus examples as they provide authentic and functional elements of spoken English. Thus, the study includes some pedagogical implications about the use of corpora in language classrooms to promote discourse-pragmatic competence in EFL classrooms.
Discourse markers are seen as one of the fundamental units in spoken discourse due to their frequ... more Discourse markers are seen as one of the fundamental units in spoken discourse due to their frequent and multifunctional use by native speakers of English. Discourse markers also have significance in foreign language instruction. In this respect, this study explored the perceptions of Turkish EFL teachers towards the use of discourse markers in terms of the pragmatic and pedagogic value and their representations in EFL classrooms. To this end, a questionnaire was administered to 104 EFL instructors working at seven different state universities in Turkey. The quantitative analyses of the data yielded that the teachers had positive perceptions towards discourse markers by finding them necessary for improving pragmatic competence of language learners. They also stated that discourse markers had teaching value so they highlighted them in their instruction. Moreover, the study also discussed the integration of discourse markers into language instruction. The study had some implications for further discussion over the issue of discourse markers in terms of investigating teacher talk, real classroom practices during language teaching instruction and teaching materials.
The aim of this study was two-fold. Firstly, it attempted to investigate the effectiveness of voc... more The aim of this study was two-fold. Firstly, it attempted to investigate the effectiveness of vocabulary presentation modes: i) Corpus Based Contextual Guessing; ii) Dictionary Use; and iii) Online Instruction on the vocabulary development of EFL learners’ recall and
retention. The second purpose of the study was to compare the learners’ success of recalling and storing the target vocabulary with their attitudes towards these presentation modes. For this purpose, a pre-test and two recall post tests and an attitude questionnaire were administered to learners. One-way ANOVA indicated that the Corpus Based Contextual
Guessing was the most effective presentation mode for learning and storing new vocabulary, yet it was the least favored one for both developing their cognitive skills and affective factors.
This study investigated the production of discourse markers by non-native speakers of English and... more This study investigated the production of discourse markers by non-native speakers of English and their occurrences in their spoken English by comparing them with those used in native speakers’ spoken discourse. Because discourse markers (DMs) are significant items in spoken discourse of native speakers, a study about the use of DMs by nonnative speakers is necessary and guiding. Thus, the study was based on two specific corpora. First, a research corpus was composed using the transcriptions of the course presentations of twenty non-native undergraduate students studying at an English Language Teaching (ELT) program in Turkey. To compare the data, transcripts of student presentations of native speakers were attained with the help of MICASE Corpus. The occurrences of the discourse markers in both corpora were determined with frequency analysis. The results indicated that non-native speakers of English use a limited number and less variety of discourse markers in their spoken English. The study therefore highlights the importance of the need for raising non-native speakers' awareness of using discourse markers in their spoken English, and recommends implications for English language teaching.
This action research is conducted upon noticing the need to provide pre-service teachers of Engli... more This action research is conducted upon noticing the need to provide pre-service teachers of English with a deeper insight into their microteaching demonstrations in TEYL course, which takes place in third year of the teacher training program before the practicum. Regarding the microteachings in TEYL course, the pre-service teachers complained about not being sure how children learn, think and act. Their concerns and dissatisfaction about the performance and feedback stages of microteaching sessions were also acknowledged by the researchers. Thus, 71 pre-service teachers were required to re-conduct their storytelling with target age children and complete a reflection questionnaire. The qualitative analysis of the data reveals that microteachings had some drawbacks in preparing pre-service teachers to the teaching profession. Actual practices with children enabled the pre-service teachers experiencing the natural atmosphere of teaching and developing understanding how children think, learn and react.
This chapter aims to focus on presenting a number of implications about using technology for lang... more This chapter aims to focus on presenting a number of implications about using technology for language teaching purposes in young learner classrooms by suggesting sample digital applications and practices. Since suggested digital tools and/or relevant websites can change or increase every day, this chapter will include how foreign language teachers may access and create their own technology-enhanced classrooms according to their own contexts and needs
It is acknowledged that technology has several affordances on raising cultural awareness and incr... more It is acknowledged that technology has several affordances on raising cultural awareness and increasing the intercultural communicative competence of foreign language learners. Therefore, this chapter aims to explore how technology can be used to increase intercultural awareness of foreign language learners. The advent of the internet and Web 2.0 in the ICT field has been significant in the use of technology for intercultural competence. In this regard, this book chapter will present a concise historical background of technology use for cultural awareness such as social media use, online games, podcasting, etc. With this background in mind, the chapter will mainly focus on the current implementations of technology use which contribute considerably to increase intercultural awareness.
This article reviewed research on recent trends and issues in CALL teacher education. For this pu... more This article reviewed research on recent trends and issues in CALL teacher education. For this purpose, it examined the studies published in four prominent journals between 2010- 2018 to identify the general inclination in CALL teacher education in terms of study context, education context and method, and to investigate recent trends and issues regarding technology and language teacher education (LTE). Qualitative analysis revealed five major themes on teachers’ a) knowledge, use, attitudes and beliefs towards CALL integration, b) experiences related to training on technology, c) perceptions and attitudes regarding CALL/technology courses and programs, d) TPACK and CALL competency, and e) experiences related to blended learning. As a result, systematic review offered insight into understanding the relationship between technology and LTE to inform future line of research.
Discussing Global Citizenship through Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) - Virtual Exchange (VE) in Language Learning and Teaching Symposium Proceedings, 2023
This is the edited collection of the papers presented at an international symposium held at Coven... more This is the edited collection of the papers presented at an international symposium held at Coventry University in hybrid mode on 16th November 2022. The publication aims to share research findings and good Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) - Virtual Exchange (VE) theory and practice for the development of global citizenship competences for the 21st Century, with a focus on language teacher education and language learning. The papers bring a variety of perspectives on COIL-VE for language learning and teaching and report on COIL-VE projects involving Higher Education Institutions from Spain, Brazil, France, Turkey, Vietnam and the UK.
Uploads
Papers by Asuman Aşık
four from Portugal) prepared reflection reports responding to 12 open-ended questions focusing on factors that contribute to or detract professional agency. The reflection reports displayed supporting and detracting factors about professional agency as self-related (responsibility, perseverance and sense of belonging to the profession), mentor-related (rapport, modelling, being a team member and decision-making, constructive feedback, allowing adequate space) and classroom and student-related issues (authenticity, role in students’ eye, discipline and classroom management).
and focus-group interviews. The findings revealed that the TPACK-EFL knowledge of the STs has improved significantly in all domains after the research intervention, and the STs reported considerably positive perceptions about the digital tools such as increasing motivation and positive atmosphere, more attractive and content-rich materials and more practical and found the experience of peer teaching very
effective. The study suggests implications for a variety of digital tools to be used in language classrooms and an effective technology training in LTE contexts .
We are pleased to announce that The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners will be held in Ephesus, Turkey on 16-18 May, 2017. This conference will be organized as part of the “SBATEYL: A Web and School-based Professional Development Project for Foreign Language Teachers of Young Learners” funded by the European Commission under Erasmus + Key Action 2 program.
Project Web Site: www.sbateyl.org
Conference Web Site: www.sbateyl2017.org
The conference will be convened at the beautiful Palm Wings Ephesus Hotel, Ephesus - Turkey. We believe the venue and timing of the event is as charming as the idea of sharing and disseminating our work. The conference hotel is a gorgeous five star luxurious resort, operating on an all-inclusive basis for our presenters' joy and comfort. Ephesus and the region should also be extremely pleasant and fragrant in this merry month of May. We believe our participants will be able to find plenty to do in their free times.
We are therefore pleased to organize The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners to bring theoreticians, researchers, and practitioners together to discuss the issues surrounding the area of early language teaching. We would like to welcome researchers, teacher educators, ESL/EFL experts, and practitioners from across the globe to submit papers to report their research findings; explore issues related to early language teaching; and share their classroom practices to foster the professional development of early language teachers and accordingly their classroom teaching practices in primary schools.
We are also glad to have very distinguished scholars in the area of child second language acquisition, early language teaching and learning as plenary speakers in our conference. The plenary speakers are:
Helena Curtain, University of Wisconsin, USA
Belma Haznedar, Boğaziçi University, Turkey
Fiona Copland, University of Stirling, United Kingdom
Graham Hall, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Yasemin Kırkgöz, Çukurova University, Turkey
We are also pleased to announce that the first 60 fully registered international participants of the GlobELT 2017 Conference ( www.globeltconference.com ;18-21 May 2017) will be granted free attendance and accommodation at The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners 2017, Palm Wings Hotel, Ephesus, Turkey. All-inclusive accommodation and registration fees will be fully covered by EU Funds, thus making attending GlobELT and The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners an enticing 2-in-1 academic feast.
I hope you will not miss on this golden opportunity in a unique venue.
Hope to see you in Ephesus in May!
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hacer Hande UYSAL
Conference Chair
language classrooms, teacher talk is assumed to promote interaction.
Based on this assumption, this paper aims at investigating EFL
teachers’ perceptions of their use of teacher talk and how analysis
of language use contributes to their professional development. For
this purpose, a total of 23 pre-service teachers from ELT departments
of two universities in Turkey participated in the study. They received
training on analysis of their own talk by using a specific instrument
(SETT) designed to assess relationship between language use and
pedagogic purpose. The pre-service teachers recorded snapshots of
their teaching to analyse different interactional features of their talk,
organised peer sessions to discuss each other’s language use and
wrote three reflective diaries. Two raters coded qualitative data using
the Constant Comparison Method. Results indicated that the SETT
experience helped them to increase awareness of what they did, how
they did it and how they used language in the classroom environment.
The findings offer valuable insights about teachers’ language use and
its effects on the development of classroom interaction.
42 Turkish EFL university lecturers and interviews with 10 of them. Data analysis was
conducted through both quantitative and qualitative type of analysis. The results of the survey
showed that 11 % of the participants were familiar with the corpora and used them in their teaching while the others did not have any particular knowledge of corpora and concordancers due to lack of awareness, knowledge and time. The results support the idea that in spite of the developments in corpus applications, the issue of the use of corpora has
not been fully recognized by EFL teachers. The EFL teachers need corpus consultation and trainings about the use of corpora in language classrooms. Moreover, the analysis of the
interviews showed that the teachers had positive opinions about the corpus examples as they provide authentic and functional elements of spoken English. Thus, the study includes some pedagogical implications about the use of corpora in language classrooms to promote discourse-pragmatic competence in EFL classrooms.
retention. The second purpose of the study was to compare the learners’ success of recalling and storing the target vocabulary with their attitudes towards these presentation modes. For this purpose, a pre-test and two recall post tests and an attitude questionnaire were administered to learners. One-way ANOVA indicated that the Corpus Based Contextual
Guessing was the most effective presentation mode for learning and storing new vocabulary, yet it was the least favored one for both developing their cognitive skills and affective factors.
four from Portugal) prepared reflection reports responding to 12 open-ended questions focusing on factors that contribute to or detract professional agency. The reflection reports displayed supporting and detracting factors about professional agency as self-related (responsibility, perseverance and sense of belonging to the profession), mentor-related (rapport, modelling, being a team member and decision-making, constructive feedback, allowing adequate space) and classroom and student-related issues (authenticity, role in students’ eye, discipline and classroom management).
and focus-group interviews. The findings revealed that the TPACK-EFL knowledge of the STs has improved significantly in all domains after the research intervention, and the STs reported considerably positive perceptions about the digital tools such as increasing motivation and positive atmosphere, more attractive and content-rich materials and more practical and found the experience of peer teaching very
effective. The study suggests implications for a variety of digital tools to be used in language classrooms and an effective technology training in LTE contexts .
We are pleased to announce that The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners will be held in Ephesus, Turkey on 16-18 May, 2017. This conference will be organized as part of the “SBATEYL: A Web and School-based Professional Development Project for Foreign Language Teachers of Young Learners” funded by the European Commission under Erasmus + Key Action 2 program.
Project Web Site: www.sbateyl.org
Conference Web Site: www.sbateyl2017.org
The conference will be convened at the beautiful Palm Wings Ephesus Hotel, Ephesus - Turkey. We believe the venue and timing of the event is as charming as the idea of sharing and disseminating our work. The conference hotel is a gorgeous five star luxurious resort, operating on an all-inclusive basis for our presenters' joy and comfort. Ephesus and the region should also be extremely pleasant and fragrant in this merry month of May. We believe our participants will be able to find plenty to do in their free times.
We are therefore pleased to organize The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners to bring theoreticians, researchers, and practitioners together to discuss the issues surrounding the area of early language teaching. We would like to welcome researchers, teacher educators, ESL/EFL experts, and practitioners from across the globe to submit papers to report their research findings; explore issues related to early language teaching; and share their classroom practices to foster the professional development of early language teachers and accordingly their classroom teaching practices in primary schools.
We are also glad to have very distinguished scholars in the area of child second language acquisition, early language teaching and learning as plenary speakers in our conference. The plenary speakers are:
Helena Curtain, University of Wisconsin, USA
Belma Haznedar, Boğaziçi University, Turkey
Fiona Copland, University of Stirling, United Kingdom
Graham Hall, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Yasemin Kırkgöz, Çukurova University, Turkey
We are also pleased to announce that the first 60 fully registered international participants of the GlobELT 2017 Conference ( www.globeltconference.com ;18-21 May 2017) will be granted free attendance and accommodation at The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners 2017, Palm Wings Hotel, Ephesus, Turkey. All-inclusive accommodation and registration fees will be fully covered by EU Funds, thus making attending GlobELT and The International Conference on Teaching Languages to Young Learners an enticing 2-in-1 academic feast.
I hope you will not miss on this golden opportunity in a unique venue.
Hope to see you in Ephesus in May!
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hacer Hande UYSAL
Conference Chair
language classrooms, teacher talk is assumed to promote interaction.
Based on this assumption, this paper aims at investigating EFL
teachers’ perceptions of their use of teacher talk and how analysis
of language use contributes to their professional development. For
this purpose, a total of 23 pre-service teachers from ELT departments
of two universities in Turkey participated in the study. They received
training on analysis of their own talk by using a specific instrument
(SETT) designed to assess relationship between language use and
pedagogic purpose. The pre-service teachers recorded snapshots of
their teaching to analyse different interactional features of their talk,
organised peer sessions to discuss each other’s language use and
wrote three reflective diaries. Two raters coded qualitative data using
the Constant Comparison Method. Results indicated that the SETT
experience helped them to increase awareness of what they did, how
they did it and how they used language in the classroom environment.
The findings offer valuable insights about teachers’ language use and
its effects on the development of classroom interaction.
42 Turkish EFL university lecturers and interviews with 10 of them. Data analysis was
conducted through both quantitative and qualitative type of analysis. The results of the survey
showed that 11 % of the participants were familiar with the corpora and used them in their teaching while the others did not have any particular knowledge of corpora and concordancers due to lack of awareness, knowledge and time. The results support the idea that in spite of the developments in corpus applications, the issue of the use of corpora has
not been fully recognized by EFL teachers. The EFL teachers need corpus consultation and trainings about the use of corpora in language classrooms. Moreover, the analysis of the
interviews showed that the teachers had positive opinions about the corpus examples as they provide authentic and functional elements of spoken English. Thus, the study includes some pedagogical implications about the use of corpora in language classrooms to promote discourse-pragmatic competence in EFL classrooms.
retention. The second purpose of the study was to compare the learners’ success of recalling and storing the target vocabulary with their attitudes towards these presentation modes. For this purpose, a pre-test and two recall post tests and an attitude questionnaire were administered to learners. One-way ANOVA indicated that the Corpus Based Contextual
Guessing was the most effective presentation mode for learning and storing new vocabulary, yet it was the least favored one for both developing their cognitive skills and affective factors.
five major themes on teachers’ a) knowledge, use, attitudes and beliefs towards CALL integration, b) experiences related to training on technology, c) perceptions and attitudes regarding CALL/technology courses and programs, d) TPACK and CALL competency, and e) experiences related to blended learning. As a result, systematic review offered insight into understanding the relationship between technology and LTE to inform future line of research.
The papers bring a variety of perspectives on COIL-VE for language learning and teaching and report on COIL-VE projects involving Higher Education Institutions from Spain, Brazil, France, Turkey, Vietnam and the UK.