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The purpose of present research is to examine the speaking anxiety observed by the instructors in their students in teaching Turkish as a foreign language settings. For this aim, phenomenology, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. The participants of the research are the instructors working in the Turkish teaching centers of various state universities who were reached through the snowball sampling technique. A semi-structured interview was used to collect the data from these tutorials. To analyze the data a content analysis technique with MAXQDA 2020 program was utilized. Instructors of Turkish as a foreign language stated that material and instructor proficiency are the most common factors in foreign language teaching, while motivation, attitude and anxiety are the most common internal factors. According to the results of the study, speaking is the language skill most affected by anxiety. It was concluded that the most common causes of speaking anxiety experienced by the students were the fear of being ridiculed, the thought of failure, and the lack of personal development. Instructors think that speaking anxiety occurs mostly with a shy attitude while speaking. In addition, the instructors stated that they took various measures to solve this situation in their students who they thought had speaking anxiety. These are mostly creating a flexible and relaxing learning environment, applying interesting activities, and allocating special time for the student.

The present study aims to determine the readability and clarity levels of certain Turkish tales for middle-school students. The study was conducted with a survey model. The study material consists of three tales each chosen from the books titled "Az Gittik Uz Gittik" and "Masal Masal Içinde," and the study group consists of 90 students who were studying in a middle school located in the central district of a province in the Spring semester of the 2018- 2019 academic year. The data collection tools used in the study include the Atesman Readability Formula, Çetinkaya-Uzun Readability Formula, and a Cloze Readability Application. Data collection was performed in two stages. In the first stage, the readability conditions of the first one hundred words of the tales were determined in order to apply the readability formulas. In the second stage, the Cloze Readability application was completed within three weeks by applying it to the study group using two texts per week. The analysis of the data was performed using the Descriptive Analysis technique. It was determined that the tales had a readability level of "easy" according to the Atesman readability formula, and "educational" according to the Çetinkaya-Uzun readability formula. It was found that the book titled "Az Gittik Uz Gittik" had a readability level of "difficult (frustration)" while the book titled "Masal Masal Içinde" had a readability level of "educational (assisted)" according to the Cloze Readability application.

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between the writing motivation levels and written expression skills among secondary school students. The study was carried out using the correlational research model of the quantitative research methods. The study group for this study consisted of 230 students attending three different secondary schools in the fall semester of the 2018-2019 school year. For the selection of the study group, the convenient sampling method of the non-probabilistic sampling methods was used. The data collection tools for this study were the writing motivation scale, the writing evaluation form and a personal information form. The writing studies were assessed separately by three researchers. Statistical analyses were performed on the data collected from the writing motivation scale, which was applied to determine the writing motivation levels of the students, and the writing evaluation form, which was assessed using the writing studies. Based on the findings of this study students with high writing motivation scores had high writing evaluation scores.

In this study, the relationship between the speech anxiety and speaking skill attitudes of middle school students and the reasons for students' speech anxiety, the conditions in which speech anxiety is observed, and the solutions of teachers were scrutinized. In the research, mixed method was used since it allows more in-depth examination. In this method, the sequential explanatory design was used. The first stage of the study was conducted with 546 middle school students in order to determine the relationship between the speech anxiety and speaking skill attitudes of middle school students. The second stage of the study was conducted with 20 teachers working in the same school that students are studying in order to determine the conditions that speech anxiety is observed, the reasons of these conditions, and the activities that teachers perform in order to eliminate speech anxiety with the opinions of teachers. The data collection tools of the study consist of personal information form, speech anxiety scale, speaking skill attitudes scale and interview form. In the analysis of the data, the IBM SPSS and MAXQDA 12 programs were used. According to the results of the study, there was a negative significant relationship between the speech anxiety and speaking skill attitudes of the students. Furthermore, teachers stated that they observe speech anxiety in students when they are speaking in front of a group, the reasons of speech anxiety are mostly the fear of being mocked and lack of self-confidence and that they create more appropriate speech subjects and anxiety environments in order to eliminate speech anxiety.

The present study aims to develop a measurement tool that involves parental support for the language skills development process in mother tongue education or language arts classes (Turkish course in Türkiye, L1). Family is an undeniable factor in a child's academic performance. In this context, there is no measurement tool that examines the support provided by families to their children in the field of language arts (mother tongue education). Considering that such a measurement tool would be useful for researchers and teachers, the study set out to develop it. The scale is not language specific, but in order to apply it to the Turkish parents it was created in Turkish. In order to develop the measurement tool, first, a literature review was conducted. The relationship between family and academic achievement, family social support, and parental academic support were investigated. In addition, interviews were conducted with five parents on a voluntary basis, and the actions that parents can take to support language skills were investigated. Thus, the item pool of the measurement tool was formed as 32 items. These items were prepared within the framework of the relevant literature and interviews with parents in a way to cover the following topics: parents' guiding and activities that can support language skills, parents' emotional support to the child, parents' material support that can enhance language skills, parents' support to the child in homework assignments in language arts classes (Turkish course in Türkiye). The items were presented to the inspection of two field experts and one measurement and evaluation expert. In addition, the items were presented to a field expert and two parents for the inspection of language and expression, and measures were taken to ensure that there were no incomprehensible items. After these stages, a total of 439 parents formed the participants of the study. While 204 of these participants were used for item analysis and EFA (exploratory factor analysis), 235 of them were used for CFA (confirmatory factor analysis), convergent validity and reliability analysis. Based on the findings obtained, 24-item, 4-factor "Parental Support in Language Skills Development Scale" can be considered as a valid and reliable measurement tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of metalinguistic awareness, which refers to knowing and consciously applying the structural features of the language that people speak, is a concept related to being able to understand the language. It can be said that these skills are expected to be acquired by those who will teach language lessons. Because these teachers transfer all aspects of language to students. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine the relationship between Turkish teacher candidates' meta-linguistic awareness and teacher self-efficacy beliefs. For this purpose, 308 prospective Turkish language teachers were reached. Since these prospective Turkish teachers should have taken most of the skills and teaching courses, the students were selected from the 3rd and 4th grades. "Turkish Metalinguistic Awareness Scale", "Self Efficacy Belief Scale in Turkish Language Teaching" and "Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale" were used as data collection tools. In the analysis of the data, t-test, correlation analysis and regression analysis were used. According to the findings of the study, it was concluded that metalinguistic awareness significantly predicted Turkish language teaching self-efficacy and teachers' sense of efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]