Speaking Skills Attitude Scale for Primary School Students: Validity and Reliability Study

The current study was conducted to develop a scale to measure students’ speaking skills attitudes. This study is a scale of development study. The current research study group comprises 225 third and fourth-grade students attending primary schools in Mugla in the 2019-2020 school year. After conducting a literature review and interviews with primary school students, an item pool consisting of 106 items was created. KMO value was found to be .759. The exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the 32-item scale, and a scale composed of 18 items gathered under three sub-dimensions was obtained. Cronbach Alpha test was found to be .78. Thus, it can be said that the scale developed to measure primary school students’ attitudes towards speaking skills is a reliable and valid scale. In addition, it can be noted that this scale will provide convenience in measuring primary school students’ attitudes towards speaking skills and in evaluating and interpreting students’ attitudes

Impromptu Speaking Skills of Pre-service Teachers

The purpose of the study is to examine pre-service teachers' impromptu speaking skills on the basis of the evaluations of the instructor, peers and their own. The study employed a descriptive case study design, one of the qualitative research methods. A total of 23 pre-service math teachers taking the course of Art of Effective Speech in a state university in Turkey in the 2016-2017 academic year participated in the study. The data of the study were collected through the observations of the researcher and pre-service teachers. Descriptive analysis was used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the study, it was found that in most of the observation items, the pre-service teachers found themselves inadequate in terms of impromptu speaking skills while they were found to be adequate by their peers and instructor. In addition, it was revealed that the pre-service teachers found themselves inadequate in some items related to the use of voice while they found themselves adequate in most of the items related to articulation/diction and body language and in all of the items related to communication. However, while the instructor observed that the pre-service teachers were generally competent in all the sub-dimensions, she determined that they needed improvement in the sub-dimensions of eye contact, pausing at the appropriate place and speaking without repeating words. &nbsp

PROJECT WORKS IN PRIMARY EDUCATION: CLASSROOM TEACHERS' EXPECTATIONS OF PARENTS

The purpose of the this study is to determine classroom teachers’ expectations of parents related to project works. The research is designed as survey was conducted with the participation 338 classroom teachers who work at 78 primary schools in Eskisehir city center in 2008-2009 spring term. Data were collected with a questionnaire. In the analysis of the data, frequencies, percentage and chi-square test were used. According to results of the research, significant correlations were found between gender, professional experience, educational status and economical level of classrooms regarding classroom teachers' expectations of parents related to project works.Primary education, project works, classroom teacher, parent.