Lesson Study for Professional Development of English Language Teachers: Key Takeaways from International Practices

Even though various professional development practices are provided for language teachers worldwide, these practices are still considered ineffective in addressing teachers’ needs in their classrooms. The effectiveness of these practices is stalled when teachers do not actively engage in their professional development processes. When language teachers are not involved as active decision makers regarding their own professional development practices, the outcomes may not be as desirable as policymakers plan. Considering the deficiencies of the current language teacher professional development practices in Turkey, this paper provides a systematic review of lesson study as a professional development model for language teachers which promotes agency and reflective practice. Comparing the current practice of lesson study in Turkey to the international practices reported in the literature, this review suggests that lesson study has potential to support teacher professional development in the country in alignment with the educational visions of decision makers. Given the empowering dimension of lesson study model both in terms of content and form, it can be adopted as a model for effective and sustainable language teacher professional development

Children's Foreign Language Anxiety Scale: Preliminary Tests of Reliability and Validity

Foreign language anxiety (FLA), which constitutes a serious problem in the foreign language learning process, has been mainly seen as a research issue regarding adult language learners, while it has been overlooked in children. This is because there is a lack of appropriate tools to measure FLA among children, whereas there are many studies on the scales that aim to measure anxiety levels among adult learners. Thus, the current study aims to conduct the preliminary tests of reliability and validity of the Children's Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (CFLAS) and to report on the pilot examination of reliability, validity and factor structure of the CFLAS. The findings of the pilot study show that CFLAS is a reliable and valid tool to measure FLA levels among children who learn English as a foreign language (EFL) within the age range of 7-12 in a Turkish EFL context

From "Robot" to "Rejuvenating Warrior": An EFL Learner's Conceptual Metaphors During School Transition

Drawing on conceptual metaphor theory, I investigated the school transition experience of an English as a foreign language (EFL) learner. In this narrative case study, the participant's emotion labor was followed throughout his first semester at a high school in Turkey. Exploring narrative journals, conceptual metaphors, and interviews, I examined his dynamic emotional states. The findings revealed that school transition may entail inhibiting emotion labor for high school freshman EFL learners. Moreover, it was also shown that these emotions may force adolescent learners to reconceptualize foreign language learning with a negative perspective and develop surviving learner's strategies that may support them in terms of getting satisfactory grades in a summative assessment culture but may jeopardize language learning in the long run.YY

From “Robot” to “Rejuvenating Warrior”: An EFL Learner’s Conceptual Metaphors During School Transition

Drawing on conceptual metaphor theory, I investigated the school transition experience of an English as a foreign language (EFL) learner. In this narrative case study, the participant’s emotion labor was followed throughout his first semester at a high school in Turkey. Exploring narrative journals, conceptual metaphors, and interviews, I examined his dynamic emotional states. The findings revealed that school transition may entail inhibiting emotion labor for high school freshman EFL learners. Moreover, it was also shown that these emotions may force adolescent learners to reconceptualize foreign language learning with a negative perspective and develop surviving learner’s strategies that may support them in terms of getting satisfactory grades in a summative assessment culture but may jeopardize language learning in the long run

The Foreign Language Teaching Anxiety Scale: Preliminary Tests of Validity and Reliability

Although anxiety in the foreign language learning context has been studied extensively, the anxiety experienced by foreign language teachers, who are important stakeholders of classroom contexts and language learners themselves, seems to be overlooked. While research mainly focuses on foreign language anxiety in a learning context, there is not sufficient research to contextualize foreign language teaching anxiety (FLTA). In addition, in the current literature, few studies were performed to measure FLTA. In light of this, this study aims to present the preliminary results of the validity and reliability of the Foreign Language Teaching Anxiety Scale (FLTAS). A background questionnaire and the FLTAS were administered to 100 senior pre-service teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL), before performing Cronbach's Alpha and exploratory factor analysis. The findings showed that the scale obtains a high reliability coefficient and internal consistency in a five-factor solution. The study ends with recommendations for further research

The effects of the use of paralinguistic cues on foreign language anxiety among English as a foreign language speakers

Research has mainly focused on the causes and effects of foreign language anxiety (FLA), an affective factor that adversely affects speaking skills, while few studies have concentrated on how to decrease the level of FLA among English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. Moreover, research lacks the effects of the use of paralinguistic features on FLA among English EFL speakers. Thus, this study aims to investigate the effects of the use of paralinguistic features on FLA regarding speaking skills. The sample group of the study consisted of 40 EFL learners at an advanced level. The research was designed to be experimental and included four weeks of speaking activities that aimed to use paralinguistic features in EFL speaking classes. Results showed that the use of paralinguistic features in EFL speaking classes considerably decreases FLA in terms of communication apprehension and fear of negative evaluation, while it increases test anxiety. In light of the findings, it is recommended that paralinguistic features should be used in EFL speaking classes to decrease the level of FLA, and that their sample behaviors should be reflected in speaking tests

Editorial-Special Issue | Practitioner Inquiry: Towards Efficiency and Responsibility in Teaching and Teacher Education

In contrast to top-down professional development practices mandated by institutions, outside experts, and local educational authorities, teachers all over the world who wish to enhance their competences as professionals are now more willing to pursue their professional development by engaging in different modes of practitioner inquiry - action research, teacher research, exploratory practice, and self-study (Hanks, 2019; Mercer et al., 2022; Rutten, 2021). Although the terminology for practitioner inquiry differs across different teaching contexts, it continues to be the key focus of teacher professional development at both pre-service and in-service levels as it enables teachers to transform their practices and increase student learning by intentionally creating reflective and reflexive spaces for them to identify their professional learning needs (Hanks, 2019; Uştuk and Çomoğlu, 2021) and encouraging teacher autonomy and agency (Dikilitaş and Griffiths, 2017; Uştuk and Çomoğlu, 2019). Thus, the aim of this special issue is to display the implementation of some critical pedagogies of bottomup teacher professional development as practitioner inquiry from a range of international perspectives through a holistic depiction of opportunities and tensions in the practitioner inquiry process.</p