Examining pre-service teachers’ beliefs on democracy and democratic education

AbstractIn this study, the initial aim is to identify prospective teachers’ beliefs on ‘what democracy is’ as a phenomenon they experience in Turkish society. Secondly, it is aimed to define how these pre-service teachers describe the features of democratic education at a school environment. To this end, the participants declared written data on their beliefs concerning the definition of democracy and the description of democratic education at schools. According to the findings, the future teachers identify that there exists ‘the problem of democracy’ in Turkey, and democratic schooling requires the participation of both students and teachers in the decision-making process, which has not yet to be substantiated in schools

English language needs assessment of the students of the Medical Faculty of Cumhuriyet University

Ankara : Institute of Humanities and Letters of Bilkent Univ., 1994.Thesis (Master's) -- -Bilkent University, 1994.Includes bibliographical references.Needs assessment contributes to curriculum planning and helps teachers and syllabus designers offer more efficient services to students. Needs assessment is a very important basis for determining objectives of the curriculum and organizing its content. It is also a strategy by which problems can be focused on and recommendations concerning those problems can be made (Selvadurai & Krashinsky, 1989). English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is one of the educational areas which most benefits from needs assessment. Because ESP views the learner as central to the learning and teaching process, it takes learners' needs as a starting point in teaching language. The main concern of the study was to reveal the English language needs of fourth year medical students at the Faculty of Medicine of Cumhuriyet University. Student-perceived English language needs, teachers' perceptions of their students' needs, and perceptions of students' needs according to the administrators were investigated. Data were collected through questionnaires and interviews, and the perceptions of these people were compared. The four major results of this study were as follows: First, reading and translation are the most required language skills for medical students because of the large proportion of medicine-related readings available only in English. Both medical students and language teachers agreed that medical terminology should be taught and that understanding reading passages in detail is the most important reading subskill. These suggest that medical students need to be taught reading strategies along with medical terminology. Second, the instructional materials are not suitable, which implies a revision of instructional materials in use. Third, a need for inservice training in teaching ESP was revealed. A great number of students and language teachers concur that language teachers who teach ESP are competent in general English, but not in medical English. Finally, it was seen that the focus in English language classes and the perceived needs of the students by medical students, language teachers, and administrators do not match. Thus, medical students' needs are not being fully met by the present curriculum. Based on these results, recommendations were made as to what elements of the present curriculum should be changed and what a new curriculum should include.Alagözlü, Nuray KıymazarslanM.S

EXPLORING EFL STUDENT TEACHERS' ANXIETY IN DISTANCE EDUCATION

The role of affective factors in language education is undeniable, and anxiety as one of the mostly studied affective factors plays a significant role in understanding the psychological constructs during this education process. Many studies regarding anxiety, teacher anxiety and classroom anxiety have been already conducted, yet anxiety studies concerning EFL student teachers are rare and need further elaboration. In such a study context, the present study aimed at disclosing EFL student teachers’ anxieties upon their microteachings and teaching practicum. A total of 123 EFL student teachers were participated in the study. Arising from a quantitative perspective, the data were collected through a 5-point Likert type scale titled “Foreign Language Student Teacher Anxiety Scale (FLSTA)”. The analysis of the data indicated that EFL student teachers had a moderate level of anxiety.  Inspection of gender and grade differences over anxiety levels indicated that grade made a significant difference on FLSTA, but not gender. The findings of the study would be beneficial for teacher education, supervisors and student teachers to create a moderate and comfortable environment for all the parties involved

CONFLICT RESOLUTION STRATEGIES IN TURKISH AND AMERICAN SPEECH COMMUNITIES: A SCHOOL SETTING

Conflicts in communication  are very common in every culture. However, resolving them varies from one culture to another. Conflict management strategies in communication revolve around five solutions collaboration,  compromise, avoidance, competition, and accomodation as stated by Kilman  (1977). This study attempts to explore ways of terminating verbal conflicts in academic settings. In the study, first, we aim to evaluate the ways of solving conflicts in two settings: a Turkish and an American University. Secondly, taking a pragmatic perspective, a classification of speech acts used to end conflicts is targeted according to both Killman’s strategies and a facework analysis. specifically, it  is aimed to investigate:generally how Turkish and American speakers end conflicts in discourse and which strategies they use in order to resolve conflicts  how “face” is reflected in those speech acts as categorized by Ting Toomey (1988, 1992).any differences between Turkish and American speakers stylesany changes in conflict resolution due to power status in both cultures.Results are valuable in that they add up to the knowledge about intercultural pragmatic language use and cultural cognitions. Moreover, as the research aims to reveal  basic verbal and behavioural differences  between two communities,  it is likely to contribute to intercultural understanding