INVESTIGATING INSTRUCTORS’ PERCEPTIONS ON THE USE OF HUMOUR IN HIGHER EDUCATION

In psychology, humour refers to ‘a specific positive emotion that is elicited by the perception of playful incongruity, usually occurs in an interpersonal context, and is typically expressed by laughter’ (Martin, 2007). Existing literature has shown that it is a useful tool in teaching various subjects especially in primary and secondary education. Our study was designed to scrutinize the perceptions of EFL instructors on the use of humour in higher education to reveal whether this is also true for higher education. 42 EFL instructors working at school of foreign languages at three state universities in Turkey participated in this study. A questionnaire consisting of multiple choice and open-ended items was prepared and administered to the participants administered to elicit their opinions on the significance of humour in language education offered to undergraduate students who would attend various programmes in the following academic year. The overall qualitative and quantitative analysis of the findings demonstrated that the EFL instructors tend to have positive perceptions about the use of humour in language classes; however, they have slight hesitations with its use. The study ends with a couple of pedagogical implications on related findings, and a few suggestions for further research.  Article visualizations

Author stance in doctoral dissertations of native and non-native speakers of English: A corpus-based study on epistemic adverbs

Academic writing is not just about conveying an ideational ‘content’, it is also about the representation of the self (Hyland, 2002, p. 1092). It allows writers ‘to gain credibility by projecting an identity invested with the individual authority, displaying confidence in their evaluations and commitment to their ideas (Hyland, 2002, p. 1092). Our study concentrates on the epistemic adverbs used in conveying author stance in academic English. The Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (Granger, 1996) was run to three sets of corpora comprising doctoral dissertations written by native and non-native academic authors of English. Epistemic adverbs occurring in the dissertations were identified through a computer programme and their frequencies were separately computed for each corpus. Lastly, a log-likelihood test was administered to see whether there is a statistically significant difference across the groups in concern concerning the use of these adverbs.DOI: 10.20420/rlfe.2015.001

Evaluation of the Learning Outcomes in the Revised EFL Curriculum: A research on Outcome Verbs

EFL curricula for primary and secondary education in Turkey were revised based on the 2012 educational reform, and issued to the institutions of primary and secondary education affiliated to the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) in 2017 to be put into practice the following academic year. This study was motivated to examine the revised primary EFL curriculum with a focus on the outcome statements with respect to verb choice. Accordingly, seven sets of data were compiled from these statements identified for 2nd to 8th grades in the document, and a total of 376 outcome statements were analysed. The results demonstrated that only active verbs, which are recommended for writing learning outcomes, consitutited 14% of 403 verbs in these statements while over 41% were comprised by vague verbs that should be avoided in writing learning outcomes such as understand and know as they make the statements hard to evaluate. The findings were discussed and outlined in detail, and a couple of practical implications were offered for curriculum designers based the findings reported in this research

EXPLORING SELF-EFFICACY BELIEFS OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN TURKEY

Analyzing teacher self-efficacy has been a prominent issue in educational research since late 1970s. Teacher efficacy basically refers to teachers’ beliefs in their abilities to organize and execute courses of action necessary to bring about desired results (Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). This study attempts to examine self-efficacy beliefs of teachers working at primary state schools in Turkey regarding dimensions such as instruction, adapting instruction to individual needs, motivating students, and maintaining discipline. It specifically aims to reveal whether gender and experience have a significant influence on the teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. Data obtained from the participants’ responses to the items in the Norwegian Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2010) were analysed using SPSS Version 17.0. Findings of the study suggest that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs are improved through gaining professional experience, and that female teachers seem to have lower self-efficacy beliefs than their male colleagues with respect to motivating students, keeping discipline in classroom, and coping with challenges. The study concludes with practical implications of the findings, and a few suggestions for further directions.   Article visualizations

ANALYSING NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS IN TURKEY REGARDING TEACHER TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT

This research is motivated to investigate five-year national development plans (NPDs) prepared in Turkey between 1963 and 2013 with regard to teacher training and employment. The data were elicited from the plans in concern, and qualitatively analysed through content analysis. The preliminary findings demonstrated that the related decisions were made with a focus on three purposes: (i) to meet teacher shortage, (ii) to reduce the number of students per teacher, and (iii) to balance distribution of teachers nationwide. The reasons why most of them could not be successfully implemented might be listed as political instability, decisions taken without sufficient preparation, and inadequacy of efforts to implement NDPs. Even though certain decisions were taken considering teacher qualifications and competencies into account, quantitative concerns caused procrastination in their implementation. The study concludes with some practical implications for decision makers on the preparation and implementation of NDPs with respect to teacher training and employment. 

Turkish EFL Teachers’ Perceptions and Practices of Foreign Language Assessment in Primary Education

The present study aimed to investigate perceptions of EFL teachers working at state primary schools on core language skills, assessment types and question types used in assessing student’s foreign language development and proficiency during an academic year. Data were gathered from 56 EFL teachers working at 42 primary state schools in Turkey through a questionnaire comprising a variety of items to elicit their perceptions and applications of language assessment in the classes of 4th to 6th graders. Results obtained from frequency analyses indicated that the pen-and-paper tests, performance tasks, and in-class observation are the mostly used assessment tools, and that the selected response items are mostly employed question types in the tests, and that performance-based and communication-based assessment types are preferred more frequently than the traditional types in evaluating students’ success in learning EFL

Turkish EFL Teacher Candidates’ Early Teacher Identity

The topic of teacher identity has lately begun to be associated with general notions of teacher training and development. Becoming an expert through gradual learning and teaching also calls for awareness of self-identity as a teacher when considering the standards of the teaching profession. Language teachers start to develop their identity as a teacher during their higher education at language teaching departments, and the development in concern constitutes the basis of their roles in the teaching process. With that in mind, the current study was motivated to investigate perceptions of Turkish EFL teacher candidates on their early teacher identity. The participants of the study were senior students enrolled in two English Language Teaching Departments at a state university and a private university in Turkey. Data were collected from the students in concern through a Likert-type questionnaire during their teaching practicum. The research findings indicated that they held a high level of early teacher identity scores, and that they somehow significantly differed in their perceptions about early teacher identity with regard to gender and the attended university type

Second language acquisition of any-type negative polarity items (npis) in english by turkish adult learners

TEZ6841Tez (Yüksek Lisans) -- Çukurova Üniversitesi, Adana, 2008.Kaynakça (s.71-72) var.xii, 105 s. : rnk.res. ; 29 cm.A Negative Polarity Item is a word or phrase that can appear in a context which includes a negative. The English any-type Negative Polarity Items are the ones upon which the present study is concentrated. Its main purpose was to investigate the second laguage acquisition of the items in concern by Turkish adult learners. Two groups of students attending the English Language Teaching Department of Çukurova University, Adana were the participants of our study. They were given an oral sentence-completion task and their responses were transcribed. The data obtained from the task in question have been analyzed with respect to the frequencies of correct responses, NPIs as well as errors occurred through the experiment. The outcomes of the study have indicated that the more proficient the learners, the more frequently they produced NPIs. In addition, it is noteworthy that both groups produced incorrect responses to approximately two third of the items which involved them to use NPIs in embedded clauses when the matrix clauses contained a negative while they showed an impressive success in their performance of responding the items when no negative appeared in the matrix clause.Olumsuzlama öğesi, olumsuz öğe içeren bağlamlarda karşımıza çıkan sözcük ya da sözcük grubudur. Bu çalışma, İngilizce hiç- olumsuzlama öğeleri üzerine yoğunlaşmıştır. Amacı söz konusu öğelerin yetişkin Türk öğrenciler tarafından edinilmesini incelemek olan çalışmanın katılımcıları Çukurova Üniversitesi İngilizce Öğretmenliği Bölümü'nde okumakta olan iki grup öğrenciydi. İleri ve orta düzey İngilizce öğrencilerinden yarım bırakılmış cümleleri sözlü olarak tamamlamaları istenmiş ve verdikleri yanıtlar kaydedilmiştir. Elde edilen veriler; verilen doğru cevaplar, olumsuzlama öğeleri ve hataların sıklıkları doğrultusunda çözümlenmiştir. Sonuçlar, ileri düzey İngilizce öğrencilerinin olumsuzlama öğelerini daha sık kullandıklarını göstermektedir. Çalışma ayrıca, ana cümlenin olumsuz öğe içerdiği ve yan cümlede olumsuzlama öğelerinin kullanılması gerektiği durumlarda her iki grubun da kendilerine yönlendirilen soruların büyük çoğunluğuna yanlış yanıt verdiklerini, ana cümlenin olumsuz öğe içermediği durumlarda ise son derece iyi bir performans sergilediklerini ortaya koymuştur.Bu çalışma Ç.Ü. Bilimsel Araştırma Projeleri Birimi Tarafından Desteklenmiştir. Proje No

Akademik İngilizcedeki yazar duruşu üzerine derlem temelli bir çalışma.

TEZ9442Tez (Doktora) -- Çukurova Üniversitesi, Adana, 2014.Kaynakça (s. 193-205) var.xviii, 208 s. : tablo ; 29 cm.Duruş; tutum, duygu, yargı ya da bir iletinin içeriği ile ilgili yüklenimin sözcüklerle ifadesidir (Biber & Finegan, 1989). Duruş, akademisyenlerin bir iddianın doğruluğu ya da güvenirliği ile ilgili yorum yaparken konularını açıklamada veya tutumlarını karşı tarafa aktarmada izledikleri yoldur (Hyland, 2005). Biber (2006)’a göre duruş; duygu ifadesi içeren sözcüklerle (sevmek, nefret etmek vb.), dilbilimsel olmayan yollarla (el hareketleri vb.) ve dilbilgisel yollarla (kiplik, yarı-kiplik, duruş zarfları ve tamlayan tümcecikleri) aktarılabilir. Bu çalışmada, Akademik İngilizcede yazar duruşunu aktarmada kullanılan bilgisel duruş araçları ele alınmıştır. Anadili İngilizce, İspanyolca ve Türkçe olan doktora öğrencileri tarafından İngiliz dilinde yazılmış tezler arasında söz konusu araçların kullanımı açısından anlamlı bir fark olup olmadığının ortaya çıkarılması amaçlanmıştır. Derlem temelli olan çalışma, söz konusu öğrenciler tarafından yazılmış 136 doktora tezinin Karşılaştırmalı Ara Dil Analizi (Granger, 1996) sonuçlarını içermektedir. Tezlerdeki duruş araçları, WordSmith Tools Programı (Scott, 2001) kullanılarak belirlenmiş ve bilgisel zarflar, bilgisel fiiller, bilgisel sıfatlar ve bilgisel adlar (Biber, 2006) olmak üzere dört ana grupta incelenmiştir. Daha sonra, bu araçlar kesinlik ve olasılık araçları olmak üzere her kategoride iki alt gruba daha ayrılmış ve her bir derlem içindeki sıklıkları hesaplanmıştır. Derlemler arasında söz konusu araçların kullanımı bakımından anlamlı bir farkın olup olmadığı Log Likelihood Test ile belirlenmiştir. Bulgular, üç derlemde de kesinlik araçlarının olasılık araçlarından daha sık kullanıldığını ancak anadili İngilizce olmayan doktora öğrencileri tarafından yazılan tezlerden oluşan iki derlemde iki grup arasında ölçülen farkın anadili İngilizce olan doktora öğrencileri tarafından yazılan tezlerin yer aldığı derlemde bulunandan çok daha yüksek olduğunu ortaya koymuştur. Sonuç olarak, anadili İngilizce olan akademik yazarların düşünce ve öngörülerini aktarmada anadili İngilizce olmayan akademik yazarlara oranla daha temkinli olduğu düşünülmektedir.Stance refers to the lexical and grammatical expression of attitudes, feelings, judgments, or commitment concerning the propositional content of a message (Biber and Finegan, 1989). It is the way academics annotate their texts to comment on the possible accuracy or creditability of a claim, the extent they want to commit themselves to it, or the attitude they want to convey to an entity, a proposition or the reader (Hyland, 2005). According to Biber (2006), it can be conveyed through value-laden word choice (love, hate, and etc.), paralinguistic devices (e.g. gestures) and grammatical stance devices (modal and semi-modals, stance adverbials and stance complement clauses). The present study was intended to cover the epistemic stance devices used in conveying author stance in Academic English. It investigated whether there is a statistically significant difference across the doctoral dissertations authored in English by native, Spanish-speaking and Turkish-speaking candidates with respect to the use of these devices. Being corpus-based in design, the study included the results elicited through the Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (Granger, 1996) of a total number of 136 doctoral dissertations written by native and non-native speakers of English (Native: 45; Spanish: 43 and Turkish: 48). Following Biber (2006), epistemic stance devices found in the dissertations were identified through Wordsmith Tools (Scott, 2001) and examined in four groups (epistemic adjectives, epistemic adverbs, epistemic nouns and epistemic verbs). Subsequently, these devices were subcategorized into two groups as certainty and likelihood devices in each category and their frequencies were separately measured for each corpus. Finally, Log Likelihood Test was administered to see whether there is a statistically significant difference across the groups as regards the use of these devices. Findings of the study have indicated that certainty devices were used

Author stance in doctoral dissertations of native and non-native speakers of English: A corpus-based study on epistemic adverbs

Academic writing is not just about conveying an ideational ‘content’, it is also about the representation of the self (Hyland, 2002, p. 1092). It allows writers ‘to gain credibility by projecting an identity invested with the individual authority, displaying confidence in their evaluations and commitment to their ideas (Hyland, 2002, p. 1092). Our study concentrates on the epistemic adverbs used in conveying author stance in academic English. The Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (Granger, 1996) was run to three sets of corpora comprising doctoral dissertations written by native and non-native academic authors of English. Epistemic adverbs occurring in the dissertations were identified through a computer programme and their frequencies were separately computed for each corpus. Lastly, a log-likelihood test was administered to see whether there is a statistically significant difference across the groups in concern concerning the use of these adverbs.DOI: 10.20420/rlfe.2015.001