This cross-sectional survey study investigates students' perceptions of the effectiveness of Turnitin in detecting plagiarism in academic presentation slides. The data was collected online from 311 students studying at a prominent... more
This cross-sectional survey study investigates students' perceptions of the effectiveness of Turnitin in detecting plagiarism in academic presentation slides. The data was collected online from 311 students studying at a prominent English-medium instruction university in Turkey. The findings indicated that more than half of them believed in the effectiveness of Turnitin in detecting plagiarism in presentations. Students perceived themselves as academically honest when preparing their presentations. Also, they were aware of the importance of using Turnitin in a required presentation skills course to detect plagiarism. This research can add to the literature since, unlike research on the use of detecting plagiarism in writing, the literature on the use of Turnitin in presentations is not rich and diverse.
It is impossible to imagine a university instructor who does not make use of the internet today. The internet provides not only quick access to reliable research data but also certain programs that teachers can tailor to use in their own... more
It is impossible to imagine a university instructor who does not make use of the internet today. The internet provides not only quick access to reliable research data but also certain programs that teachers can tailor to use in their own specific contexts and to interact with their students in practical ways. There might still be resistance to learning new technologies and adapting to them even in the most 'modern' work environments even among the relatively younger teachers. The aim of this study was to explore the ELT instructors' perspectives on the use of Web 2.0 technologies in university level academic English skills courses in an English-medium university, and to test whether a year-long regular training program made a difference in their perceptions and practice of the use of Web 2.0 tools in their teaching. 21 instructors from Middle East Technical University were offered regular training sessions on the practical uses of certain Web 2.0 tools such as, the Google Drive, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Docs, Google Forms, Kahoot, Mysimpleshow, Poll Everywhere, Nearpod, Mentimeter, Edpuzzle, and QR codes. A pretest and posttest to explore the instructors' knowledge of and attitudes towards Web 2.0 tools were administered before and after the series of training sessions to see if there were any significant changes. Also, follow-up interviews were carried out with the instructors who participated in the sessions to obtain a deeper insight into their perspectives. Both the questionnaire and the interview results revealed that there were significant changes in these instructors' attitudes towards the use of Web 2.0 tools.
Analytics as one of the recent fields in technology-based learning offers many benefits to educators, instructors, and administrators to improve the efficiency and quality of alternative educational materials, and learning experience... more
Analytics as one of the recent fields in technology-based learning offers many benefits to educators, instructors, and administrators to improve the efficiency and quality of alternative educational materials, and learning experience through tracking and storing students' log data on web platforms over an extended period of time. This mixed-method study investigates students' log data retrieved from the opencourseware (OCW) specifically launched for a required academic English speaking skills course offered at Middle East Technical University in Turkey with the aim of enhancing the quality and efficiency of the materials available for the course. By understanding the reasons behind students' behaviors via the interviews conducted with 50 students on this online courseware, this study also aims to provide useful practical hints to the instructors and guide them to act on future decisions. The analyzed data is based on learner behavior with a specific emphasis on average view duration, likes and dislikes, and comments. This study can serve as a starting point to guide and provide the instructors and administrators about the future of the aforementioned course which is also offered in a rotational hybrid learning format where the effectiveness of online materials gain even more importance.
English language teaching programs in Turkish universities do not have uniform standards. The quality of education given to teachers in their undergraduate programs varies as does the teacher training provided during employment. The... more
English language teaching programs in Turkish universities do not have uniform standards. The quality of education given to teachers in their undergraduate programs varies as does the teacher training provided during employment. The factors affecting the teacher training policies are numerous, such as the needs of the institution, the funding, time, technology and especially the importance attached to an ongoing development process. Particularly in higher education, lip service is paid to English language teacher training policies. To investigate the shortcomings of these teacher training policies, this research study was conducted by interviewing instructors from twenty different universities in Turkey. The study conducted has revealed the fact that there is a gap in specific language learning management policies concerning preservice and in-service language teacher training for university instructors in Turkey.
Advancements in information and communication technology have revolutionized the notion of teaching and learning in terms of strategies, context, and methods. One of the most remarkable tools used in teaching and learning in the 21st... more
Advancements in information and communication technology have revolutionized the notion of teaching and learning in terms of strategies, context, and methods. One of the most remarkable tools used in teaching and learning in the 21st century is YouTube, especially in language education. The literature demonstrates the need for elaboration of the use of YouTube in university level language skills education settings. In the 2016-2017 academic year a YouTube channel with a variety of supplementary material videos, was used in the Academic Speaking Course offered to all departments at Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. The channel has course-related content input, sample presentations and tasks displaying the expectations of the course, in addition to conversation opening content. This study aims to investigate students’ experiences and perceptions towards the use of this YouTube channel. The study was conducted on 70 students taking the compulsory Academic Speaking Skills course offered to students from varying disciplines in Middle East Technical University. Students were asked to fill out a Google Sheets survey at the end of the course on their perceptions on the benefits and drawbacks of the aforementioned YouTube channel. The data was analyzed based on both descriptive statistics and deductive content analysis. The results indicated that the majority of the students benefited to a large extent from the videos on the playlists of this specifically-designed supplementary material YouTube channel. The findings can contribute to further guiding university language instructors by suggesting the abundance of alternative ways to benefit from YouTube and similar online video source platforms.
Socratic pedagogy is an approach to teaching through questioning mainstream practices without being judgmental in an effort to understand, empathize and reach more objective conclusions about reality. This study explores the effects of... more
Socratic pedagogy is an approach to teaching through questioning mainstream practices without being judgmental in an effort to understand, empathize and reach more objective conclusions about reality. This study explores the effects of its use on student teachers' critical awareness skills during their participation in a Spoken English course given at a Foreign Language Education Department in Turkey. This qualitative study was conducted with freshman students and the intervention lasted one academic year. Individual and focus group interviews, and observation notes based on student performance in class were used as data collection tools. The results clearly indicate the development of students' critical awareness of political, economic and culture-related issues regarding language teaching settings, and they generated deeper insight to multiple aspects of teaching English. Students displayed an understanding of the consequences of political decisions as well as the economic dimensions of educational commitments, and expressed a positive attitude towards cultural diversity after a yearlong Socratic pedagogy intervention.
A wide variety of approaches have been adapted for the purpose of conducting research related to English Language Teaching. In the first quarter of the 20th century, reflective thought was introduced by John Dewey. He highlighted the role... more
A wide variety of approaches have been adapted for the purpose of conducting research related to English Language Teaching. In the first quarter of the 20th century, reflective thought was introduced by John Dewey. He highlighted the role of reflection through interpretation of the experience, naming the problem coming into view during experience, offering explanations for the problem, producing hypotheses and experimenting them. Although these phases seem familiar in today’s instructional context, it is truly compelling that reflective thought has become prominent and characteristics of effective instruction almost recently. This may be due to discrepancy between teachers and researchers or several researchers’ disregarding the important variables that directly influenced the results they obtained. Currently many prefer to proceed on the basis of their own determinations of the particular context of the research setting, essentially acknowledging the teacher’s active role in determining the most appropriate methodologies to use, contextual and affective factors. Thus, much post method era research eschews adherence to established methods and their principles and is at liberty to tailor approaches to contextual requirements. This paper intends to provide a brief overview of ELT research shift towards a more context specific and reflective stage.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many changes to the way teachers teach and students learn. Although there is a surplus of research on online education, the transition period to online education is also worth investigating. This study... more
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many changes to the way teachers teach and students learn. Although there is a surplus of research on online education, the transition period to online education is also worth investigating. This study set out to explore language learners’ perceptions of how they were impacted by emergency remote teaching (ERT). All the participants were students attending an English medium university in Turkey. The mode of teaching, changes in teacher-student and student-student interaction, online tools and materials used in the courses were investigated by a comprehensive self-developed online survey and the data were triangulated later by semi-structured interviews conducted with the volunteering participants. Most found the transition to ERT demanding, particularly the loss of face-to-face interaction; however, some students benefited from being able to better regulate their own learning process thanks to the recorded lectures and online materials. Students also appreciated receiving regular feedback from instructors about their progress.
This study addressed a different approach to online language teacher training programs. The researchers investigated the pros and cons of having local mentor support for an online course titled Using Technology in the English Language... more
This study addressed a different approach to online language teacher training programs. The researchers investigated the pros and cons of having local mentor support for an online course titled Using Technology in the English Language Classroom provided by the AE E-Teacher Program. The course was offered to preservice teachers from 24 different universities across Turkey. The study collected data through a pre-and post-online survey and individual semistructured interviews. The results revealed that while local mentoring as a supplement to the main course content contributed to teacher candidates' emotional and professional attachment to their profession by helping them relate theory to contextualized educational settings, it can still be improved by the integration of more interactive tasks that would help the attendees refer to specific practical implementation of the educational technology tools introduced in the program.
Korean education has attracted the attention of researchers in the field of education due to its fast and steady development in the last 40 years. This paper aims to compare the educational systems, teacher education, and English language... more
Korean education has attracted the attention of researchers in the field of education due to its fast and steady development in the last 40 years. This paper aims to compare the educational systems, teacher education, and English language education of South Korea (hereafter Korea) and Turkey, by document and content analysis to compare the two countries. The results were enriched and validated with semi-structured interviews with the educational counsellor of the Korean Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, and with a Korean parent who raised two children in the Korean education system. The findings indicated that sharing elements of an Asian culture in which individualism is still a rather foreign concept especially in relatively more conventional parts of both Turkey and Korea, where governmental funding is insufficient, both Turkey and Korea are striving through some turbulences in their education systems, and English language teaching in particular. Rather than the more mechanical, years a...
This paper reports on the emergency remote education period of the instructors at the School of Foreign Languages of a Turkish state university. The university the study was conducted in, along with all other higher education institutions... more
This paper reports on the emergency remote education period of the instructors at the School of Foreign Languages of a Turkish state university. The university the study was conducted in, along with all other higher education institutions in Turkey, switched to online education with the sudden spread of the COVID 19 pandemic. To evaluate how the instructors dealt with this sudden transition, 110 participants teaching at the School of Foreign Languages completed an online survey at the end of the emergency remote education academic semester. Thereafter 24 of them volunteered to be interviewed about their experiences in more detail. The findings reveal that most instructors had some apprehension and difficulty in making the transition to online teaching, yet still considered themselves competent in dealing with the unexpected and unprepared teaching medium. Many thought the experience had been valuable to their personal development and referred to aspects of online education that will be integral to their professional development. It was observed that the instructors also repeatedly expressed that they perceived the experience as one that interaction among colleagues benefitted them most both in developing their digital skills and in providing them with psychological support.
Silent films have long been shown during language classes to ease contextual and pragmatic acquisition. Equally empowering, muted videos are commonly used to help students to learn culture-laden and fixed expressions. They report to... more
Silent films have long been shown during language classes to ease contextual and pragmatic acquisition. Equally empowering, muted videos are commonly used to help students to learn culture-laden and fixed expressions. They report to appreciate and enjoy using visual cues to understand and then appropriately use unfamiliar language, and especially to cope with novel situations such as job interviews. This study analyses students' voiceover responses to a series of muted videos shown during their participation in an oral communication skills course intended to develop their sociolinguistic awareness. The researchers wanted to know the extent to which students benefited from the muted video task. A mixed method design was used to identify the most common challenges learners face with when using culture-laden expressions. Both self-developed, online pre and post-test, and focus group interviews were used as data collection tools. The participants, selected according to the convenience sampling method, were students studying at an English-medium state university in Turkey and taking a compulsory oral communications-oriented English course. Afterwards, participants were seen to have developed sensitivity towards using context-bound fixed phrases. The research data was also useful in helping to pinpoint common challenges for learners when using contextually fixed phrases in English.
