A Quest to Prepare All English Language Teachers for Diverse Teaching Settings: If Not Us, Who? If Not Now, When?

Fueled by present-day globalization and influx of migration, the unprecedented global demand for English language necessitates the provision of high-quality education for English language learners across the world. This picture places English language teaching at the top of the educational agenda in both English-speaking and non-English-speaking countries. As a result of this critical prominence of the global English language teaching enterprise, the need for preparing all language teachers (teacher-learners coming from a range of ethnolinguistic, cultural, racial age, backgrounds with various past teaching, learning and educational experience) for diverse teaching settings in the U.S. and international contexts is more pivotal than ever. The current dissertation research sheds an important light on this need by adopting a TESOL teacher education department and its three MATESOL programs as a research context, and by providing a multifaceted exploration of how program components provide affordances and constraints in developing a knowledge base for ethnolinguistically diverse teacher-learners to work effectively with English language learners in diverse teaching contexts. The current research project is a holistic descriptive case study utilizing quantitative and qualitative analyses to explore the perceptions of (a) an ethnolinguistically diverse group of teacher-learners who were enrolled in, (b) an ethnolinguistically diverse alumni who graduated from, and (c) instructional faculty teaching in three MATESOL teacher education programs housed in a large, research-intensive university located in a bustling metropolitan area in the mid-Atlantic United States. The data collection sources included questionnaires, a series of semi-structured, in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and programmatic documents. The current study primarily draws upon sociocultural perspectives and more specifically utilizes Activity Theory as an analytical organizing framework to examine the complex interrelations among the participants, and to identify existing institutionalized tensions and contradictions among systemic components in the activity system under scrutiny. Activity Theory has proven to be a useful tool to capture the complexity of this teacher-learning context, and gain insights into the personal, pedagogical, and institutional affordances and constraints embedded in the activity system. Activity theoretical analysis of individual and programmatic efforts towards preparing teachers for diverse teaching settings in the U.S. and international contexts brought together three interrelated results that highlight an increased need for (1) diversification and dynamic re-orchestration of programmatic efforts, (2) reimagining distributed agency, and (3) developing practicum alternatives. The study concludes with the urgency of embracing the critical need, role and importance of English language teacher education, re-examining the current efforts in our quest to prepare all teachers for diverse teaching settings. The study closes by providing a series of recommendations for diversifying teacher education practices and developing a shared accountability in teacher preparation for diverse teaching settings and contexts

Attitudes towards German language and culture: Reflections from Turkey

This study investigates the language attitudes of students enrolled in the Department of Foreign Language Education at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. In particular, the study aims to shed light on the status of German as a foreign language and attitudes attributed to German language and culture. The research findings gathered through a questionnaire, in general, pointed that the attitudes toward German language and culture are instrumentally positive in the sense that German language serves for the participants‟ personal development regarding inter- and cross-cultural and linguistic competence of the learners

Faculty and Administrative Partnerships: Disciplinary Differences in Perceptions of Civic Engagement and Service-Learning at a Large, Research-Extensive University

In recent years, considerable energy has been expended attempting to define, evaluate and promote active learning pedagogies such as civic engagement and service-learning. Yet much of this scholarship treats civic engagement and service-learning at either a macroscopic level (studying an entire university system) or microscopic level (studying a particular course or project). There has been comparably less research examining how different disciplinary cultures influence the conceptualization and implementation of active learning pedagogies within individual institutions. This study draws on quantitative survey methodologies to examine faculty perceptions of civic engagement and service-learning at a major public research university within and across four disciplines: the Humanities, Behavioral and Social Sciences, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), and the Applied Professions. Quantitative results reveal significant variance in disciplinary approaches to civic engagement and service-learning across a variety of measures including advocacy, concerns, and goals for active learning pedagogies. The findings suggest several strategies for recognizing disciplinary differences and encouraging collaboration among faculty and between disciplines on civic engagement and service-learning approaches in higher education

Resisting English medium instruction through digital grassroots activism

Recently, we have been witnessing the emergence of digital grassroots activism in social networking sites (e.g. Facebook) - affording discursive tools and spaces to engage in normative approaches to preserve Turkish(ness) and raise ideological oppositions against English medium instruction (EMI). By linking Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, N. 2013. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London, UK: Routledge.) with the principles of visual semiotics (Kress, G., and T. van Leeuwen. 2006. Reading Images. London: Routledge.), the current study explores the discursive acts of language policing (Blommaert, J., H. Kelly-Holmes, P. Lane, S. Leppanen, M. Moriarty, S. Pietikainen, and A. Piirainen Marsh. 2009. "Media, Multilingualism and Language Policing: An Introduction." Language Policy 8 (3): 203-207.) manifested by means of textual descriptions and visual artefacts in four Facebook groups which have been established around the idea(l)s of maintaining the linguistic order and Turkish(ness). It is found that these groups maintain linguistic order as guardians of monoglot ideology, and by recontextualizing the EMI debate within the broader discourses of nationalism and national identity with the help of symbols (e.g. flags), strategies (e.g. quotes) and actors (e.g. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk) evident in the collective psyche of the Turkish nation.

English as the language of marketspeak: Reflections from the Linguistic Landscape of Turkey

The ubiquitous spread of English is vividly observed in local linguistic landscapes and urban spaces around the world, and Turkey is no exception. Emerging as a bona fide line of inquiry at the nexus of sociolinguistics, sociology, social psychology, geography and media studies (Sebba, 2010), linguistic landscaping examines the dynamic relationship of English vis-a-vis the local languages, and documents, analyzes and interprets the attributes, patterns, characteristics, meanings and the creative uses of English in such domains as advertising (Kelly-Holmes, 2005; Vettorel, 2013) and shop signs (MacGregor, 2003; Ong, Ghesquiere & Serwe, 2013; Schlick, 2002). These studies provide contextualized accounts of language contact situated in local sociolinguistic contexts and contribute to the representation of reflections from various parts of the world (e.g. see Backhaus (2007) and MacGregor (2003) for Japan; McArthur (2000) for Switzerland and Sweden; Griffin (2004) and Ross (1997) for Italy; Schlick (2002) for Austria, Italy and Slovenia; Dimova (2007) for Macedonia; Hasanova (2010) for Uzbekistan; Ong, Ghesquiere & Serwe (2013) for Singapore; El-Yasin & Mahadin (1996) for Jordan; Wang (2013) for China; Ben Said (2010) for Tunisia; Schlick (2003) for Slovenia, Austria, Italy, and the UK; Stewart & Fawcett (2004) for Portugal; Thonus (1991) for Brazil; and Baumgardner (2006) for Mexico)

Türkiye'deki işyeri isimlerinin toplumbilimsel açıdan çok etkenli analizi.

The growing world supremacy of English and its relentless spread across the globe is both widely criticized for becoming a ‘threat’ and causing socio-cultural destruction in the form of linguistic imperialism and appreciated for being a ‘basic survival skill’ and a global commodity to which every individual adds a distinct flavor and which has crucial pragmatic and instrumental functions, benefits and prestige for its users. Acknowledging the current global role and status of English in mind, this thesis investigates the causes and consequences of English language use in business naming practices in shop names in Turkish business discourse. As a result of the study, it was concluded that foreign influence in shop names in Turkish discourse might be grouped under three major categories: (a) foreign signs (both English and non-English signs), (b) hybrid signs (Turkish-English, English-Turkish), and (c) Englishized Turkish signs (names using of Turkish words spelled according to English orthographical conventions to looks like English and sound like Turkish). Research results indicated that business naming practices are manifestations of English language dominance in Turkey. Foreignization of shop names in Turkish is spearheaded by English. Nevertheless, foreign words in business names include those from languages other than English. The undisputed dominance of English in business discourse is not limited to business names but includes window displays, signs on the window or door of commercial entities, exterior signs for public entities such as billboards, as well as advertising posters. While certain sectors such as personal care, restaurants and cafes, stores selling information system goods are more susceptible to English language use, others such as durable consumer goods, pharmacies, auto galleries, gas stations, car repairers, driving schools, bookstores, and publishing houses almost have no place for the English language occurrences.M.A. - Master of Art