Journal of problem based learning in higher education, May 7, 2024
This multiple case study aims to describe how Turkish students in English Language Teaching (ELT)... more This multiple case study aims to describe how Turkish students in English Language Teaching (ELT) and Electrical-Electronics Engineering Program (EEP) conceive of Problem-based Learning (PBL), and how they experience their studies within a PBL-oriented curriculum. With the inclusion of these two cases into the study, the rationale is to represent two different educational perspectives and to obtain in-depth, extensive, and comparable data. The participants from the ELT and EEP were first-year students who pursued courses in English, which is taught as a foreign language in Turkiye. During one semester, the data were collected through open-ended questionnaires and reflection reports, both of which were analyzed qualitatively with an interpretative phenomenological approach. The results revealed commonalities as well as differences in how students in these two comparable programs perceived and experienced PBL. Commonalities were many in number and involved positive perceptions along with beneficial experiences of PBL. Yet, differences only stemmed from the number of frequencies of some similar issues raised by both groups of students. The most eye-catching difference was that the EEP students emphasized the anticipated benefits of PBL less frequently than the ELT students did. However, at the end of the process, the EEP students proposed benefits gained from PBL more frequently. Examining the Application of a Similar Problem-Based Learning Procedure
With the intent of facilitating the professional development of English-as-a-foreign language (EF... more With the intent of facilitating the professional development of English-as-a-foreign language (EFL) teacher trainees, the impetus of this qualitative study is to evaluate the depth and breadth of teacher reflection using vignettes within an initial teacher education program. To this end, this study utilized the vignette technique to reveal 12 EFL teacher trainees' reflectivity from a collegial perspective. Over a nine-week time period, the participants worked in pairs, and each pair first created vignettes based on their observations or teachings in practicum. Afterwards, they generated reflective responses to the pre-designed questions, which led them to think about the problematic or critical issues raised in the vignettes of their pairs. At the end of the process, a total of 108 vignettes were gathered. The whole qualitative data was exposed to the analysis in light of the two-dimensional framework of Fund et al. (2002), which focuses on both the depth and breadth of teacher reflection. Results indicate that the vignette-based reflections showed more balanced variety in breadth, whereas they did not contain a great number of comments made at deeper levels of reflection. Therefore, it is recommended that all the stakeholders should take more active roles to foster reflectivity and criticality toward educational matters raised in the vignettes.
English Language Teaching Educational Journal, May 3, 2021
Kırkgöz & Turhan (Views of Turkish EFL teacher trainees toward technology-integrated PBL practice... more Kırkgöz & Turhan (Views of Turkish EFL teacher trainees toward technology-integrated PBL practices) questioning techniques (Pecore, 2013), PBL practices can be more fruitful with technology integration as revealed in the current study.
International Journal of Languages' Education and Teaching, 2017
Advertising is a prominent discourse type which is inevitably linked to a range of disciplines. T... more Advertising is a prominent discourse type which is inevitably linked to a range of disciplines. This study examines the language of a non-product advertisement, not isolating it from its interaction with other texts that surround it. It is based on Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework in which there are three levels of analysing texts: description, interpretation and explanation. In addition to analysing the advertisement at hand in terms of these three levels, the study includes semistructured interviews conducted with English language teacher candidates. The purpose is to explore the social function of advertising not only from sounds, sights and language of the text, but also assess the impact of these on teacher candidates' views. To this end, three teacher candidates were interviewed; they were asked to explain how they related the advertisement to their own context. Findings from the inductive content analysis of interviews point to the fact that there is a close connection between the advertisement discourse and the "teacher" image in the minds of participants. The core results imply that integrating discourse analysis activities in teacher education programs can be fruitful in regard to gaining insight into how to question ideologies critically and resist manipulations. Thus, teacher candidates will be able to teach their future students how the use of language influences our understanding of social or moral issues transmitted through media.
This study aims at providing an account on the relationship between freshman Turkish students" me... more This study aims at providing an account on the relationship between freshman Turkish students" metacognitive awareness of reading strategies and their academic achievement in the Advanced Reading and Writing Skills course. In this particular study, the reading strategies employed by 52 freshman students studying in the English Language Teaching (ELT) department at a state university in Turkey were investigated and the gender difference in the use of reading strategies was described. To achieve this, the participants were administered a 30-item Likert-Scale Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002) and descriptive statistics was applied in the analysis and presentation of the inventory items. Independent Samples T-test was utilized to see whether there was a difference between males" and females" metacognitive awareness of reading strategies. Afterwards, Pearson Correlation Coefficient, one of the simple bivariate correlation techniques, was employed to see if there was any significant relationship between the students" metacognitive awareness of reading strategies and their academic achievement in the Advanced Reading and Writing Skills course. Results revealed that problemsolving reading strategies were the most preferred strategies. In addition, there was not found any significant difference between metacognitive awareness of males and females. Finally, some implications were drawn from the correlation coefficient regarding the relation between metacognitive awareness of reading strategies and academic achievement in the Advanced Reading and Writing course.
The literacy trek: Refereed journal of literacy and language studies, Oct 23, 2022
Teachers may face dilemmas when they realize certain discrepancies between theory and practice th... more Teachers may face dilemmas when they realize certain discrepancies between theory and practice throughout their career. Especially for teacher trainees, such dilemmatic spaces may be beneficial in uncovering multiple identities developing and being shaped especially during practicum. More specifically, the most frequent discrepancy could be between the desire to explore one's own teacher identity and to please mentors and supervisors. Therefore, teacher training programs should provide spaces for teacher trainees to reflect and analyze those dilemmas so that they could develop their teacher professional identity (TPI) in an unproblematic and smooth manner. To this end, this study involved twelve senior English teacher trainees into a five-week process when they expressed their growing professional identities through metaphorical discourse within the scope of Teaching Practice I course. The thematic analyses of the elicited metaphors revealed vital hints about the TPI of language teacher trainees. Besides, the place and importance of metaphors for understanding TPI were discussed in the context of teacher education.
A critical and collaborative stance towards retrospective reflection in language teacher education
European Journal of Teacher Education, Apr 22, 2021
The focus of this paper is to investigate how teacher candidates reflect on their observations in... more The focus of this paper is to investigate how teacher candidates reflect on their observations in practicum schools from a retrospective angle. First, ten English language teacher candidates, who w...
Towards becoming critical reflection writers: a case of English language teacher candidates
Reflective Practice, Nov 2, 2018
ABSTRACT This study aimed at investigating English language teacher candidates’ reflections based... more ABSTRACT This study aimed at investigating English language teacher candidates’ reflections based on observations of real language teaching. Participants were 49 third-year undergraduate students studying at the English Language Teaching Department of a state university in Turkey. The rationale for selecting third-year students as participants was to describe the characteristics of written critical reflections of teacher candidates before they started practicum experience in their fourth-year of study at university. Participants’ critical reflection writings were utilized as data collection tools. The data obtained from reflective writings were analysed based on the Reflection Scale by Bain, Packer and Mills (1999). The analysis of data related to participants’ views on the observation and reflection writing process was conducted via inductive content analysis. The qualitative data indicated that English language teacher candidates did not reach a high degree in terms of criticality in their reflections. In addition, they did not tend to become more critical in their reflections over time even though they believed that reflection was beneficial for their professional development.
Research in educational administration & leadership, May 7, 2020
Article Info Mission statements are increasingly becoming an inevitable component of educational ... more Article Info Mission statements are increasingly becoming an inevitable component of educational institutions. The main reason behind this can be attributed to the fact that they are determinants for the accreditation of schools in today's competitive educational arena. Thus, gaining an insight into the emphasized concepts in mission statements of primary schools is essential since primary schools are the places where the education starts for every single individual. In this regard, the aim of this study is to provide a document analysis of mission statements of Turkish public primary schools which are governed by the Ministry of National Education. To achieve this, mission statements of 500 primary schools across Turkey were compiled; particularly schools from the Western and the Eastern parts of the country were randomly selected and included in the analysis. As well as the comparison between mission statements of schools located in two opposite sides of the country, a special attention was paid to whether any reference to language teaching and learning was available in the mission statements. The whole data were analysed via content analysis. The results give in-depth information about common and differing points among mission statements. The most common mission was found to be educating individuals who valued Atatürk's principles and reforms underpinning the Turkish education system. Besides, a number of distinct missions
Efl Teacher Trainees’ Reflective Lenses on Immediacy Behaviors: Learning Gains, Perceptions and Self-Evaluations
Çukurova Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi
This study is an investigation of EFL teacher trainees’ learning gains, perceptions and self-eval... more This study is an investigation of EFL teacher trainees’ learning gains, perceptions and self-evaluations regarding immediacy behaviors as a result of a 14-week Teacher Immediacy course. Approximately four months later, the trainees were invited to write four successive reflections by re-thinking their experiences throughout the course. In fact, 61 trainees attended the course; and among them, six trainees selected based on the maximal variation sampling method wrote individual weekly reflection reports. The ultimate aim of these reflective writings was to elicit opinions toward the outcomes and influences of the course for the trainees’ evolving knowledge on immediacy. Inductive content analysis of the reflections demonstrated that the trainees gained awareness of and expanded theoretical knowledge of teacher immediacy as well as they were able to reflectively and critically look back on the process of their familiarization with the concept of teacher immediacy and look beyond their...
Acquisition of argument structures and ditransitive verbs: Evidence from an elliptical language
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Mar 8, 2023
This study aimed at investigating in-service teacher education in Turkey by comparing the Ministr... more This study aimed at investigating in-service teacher education in Turkey by comparing the Ministry of National Education's regulations on in-service education to the perspectives of multiple stakeholders: teachers, school managers, and a local in-service education director. This goal was achieved by delving into regulations on in-service education of teachers in Turkey, checking whether the regulations were put into practice and what the stakeholders' views were about the current practices. The results revealed that the regulations reflected an ideal in-service education for teachers; however, the satisfaction level of the stakeholders decreased as we moved from the local director to the teachers. The overall findings imply that in order to realize the regulations' goals, teachers' needs should be identified first, practices should be organized for each branch separately, the seminars should be planned for small groups and different school levels, and the evaluation processes should certainly be implemented after the in-service practices.
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