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Speaking has been stated as being one of the most challenging skills by EFL learners in Turkey. A combination of psychological factors such as anxiety or fear of being criticized and linguistic incompetence has led to this problem. Although initially emerged as a tool to assist learners in listening skills, shadowing technique has also proven to be useful in improving learners' speaking skills as well. The aim of the present study was to see if shadowing technique was efficient enough to help B1 level EFL learners develop positive attitudes towards their speaking skills. Furthermore, the study set out to see if learners get rid of their speaking anxiety and could take active part in communicative activities in the future classes. For this ultimate purpose, a Likert scale consisting of seven questions and interview questions were used. After taking the required permission from the ethics committee, the study was conducted for four weeks, in which participants listened to and repeated the tracks from the podcasts chosen in accordance with their language levels. 31 participants took part in the study. The participants were asked to carefully watch the recordings by paying attention to the pronunciation, stress and intonation. The results from the study were analysed through content analysis and a descriptive research design was used. According to the results, it was observed that the majority of the participants developed positive attitudes towards speaking skills and felt more willing to express themselves in communicative activities. Further studies with more participants are recommended to see if shadowing technique is also applicable in different contexts and groups.

This study aims to explore the autonomy level and use of language learning strategies in a preparatory school of a state university before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. One hundred fifty-five preparatory school students from a state university participated in the research. For the data collection, Oxford's Language Learning Strategy (LLS) and a learner autonomy questionnaire developed by Zhang and Li were used. Means, standard deviation, t-test, and Pearson's r-correlation were used to analyze the data. The results showed that while participants' level of learner autonomy before the pandemic was high, during the pandemic it was moderate. Additionally, the results from the LLS questionnaires showed that students used a moderate proportion of language learning strategies before and after the pandemic. Finally, the correlation analysis used to determine the relationship between the level of learner autonomy and LLS use before and during the COVID-19 pandemic indicated that there is a positive and linear relationship between the level of learner autonomy and LLS use.

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of using visual materials in teaching vocabulary to deaf students of EFL. For this purpose, 80 deaf students from a state special education vocational high school in Turkey contributed to this study. All students had first English classes in their lives and they are at the starter level of English, thus pre-test for their English proficiency was not given. The students were randomly divided into two groups to form the experimental group and the control group. 10 vocabulary items per week were taught to the students, and 50 target vocabulary items in total were taught during the whole study. To the experimental group, the vocabulary items were taught via visual materials together with the sign language. The control group was not presented with any visual items during the teaching process of the experiment, only sign language instruction was used for them. After the treatment, a vocabulary test was given to each group as an immediate post-test to measure the impact on learning. Six weeks after the immediate tests, delayed post-test was given to the groups to test long term retention. The results of the two post-tests were analyzed through Independent Samples t-test and Paired Samples t-test calculations to investigate the effectiveness of visual materials. According to the results of the study, visual materials were found to be more effective than using only the sign language that does not contain any visual items in teaching vocabulary items to deaf learners who learn English as a foreign language.

The construct of L2 teacher immunity refers to the self-established protective shield that teachers develop against challenges posed by the instruction process. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to measure this construct of L2 language teacher immunity, which was put forward by Hiver and Dörnyei (2017), based on the constituents constructs such as teacher resilience, burnout, attitude, openness, classroom affectivity, and coping. The present study was designed as a quantitative study. A questionnaire, offered by Hiver (2017), was administered to 87 EFL teachers. Purposeful sampling method was used to select the participants. both experienced and inexperienced teachers were selected to enable comparison possible. Another point in the selection of the participants was to select those who hold postgraduate degrees as well. The results indicated that the EFL teachers in the present study have a moderate level of immunity. Moreover, results also indicated that although experience did not play a significant role in L2 teacher immunity, graduation was more important. Finally, the cluster analysis demonstrated that highly immunized tended to have lower levels of burnout and tend to use more coping strategies.

The present study was undertaken through a qualitative research model in order to examine which subcategories of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) emerged during the practicum process of four novice English teachers enrolled in a teaching certificate (formation) program at a public university. The teaching sessions of four prospective teachers (PTs) were recorded and follow-up interviews were conducted with the prospective teachers. "Stimulated recall technique" was used in the interviews. Each prospective teacher was observed for four times and the lessons conducted by prospective teachers were recorded. The PCK categorization suggested by Moradkhani et al. (2013) was utilized. They categorized PCK in 8 macro categories with accompanying micro categories. The study was conducted throughout one semester in which the novice teachers were supposed to complete their practicum. The results indicated that knowledge of students is extremely important in the language teaching process, which is followed by knowledge of transferring knowledge and knowledge of teaching techniques. Further, findings also indicate that PTs need development in knowledge of language, knowledge of language teaching methods, and knowledge of linguistics. PTs must develop insight into how to provide effective input.

Metacognition is an umbrella term encompassing thinking and memory, learning, motivation, and cognitive development as indicated by Metcalfe & Shimamura (1994). As is generally believed, metacognition has direct linkage with higher order thinking skills, which is all about regulating and functioning on cognitive processes of learning. According to Livingstone (2003: 2), "activities such as planning how to approach a given learning task, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating progress towards the completion of 'that' task is metacognitive in nature." As to the educational practices, learners thinking styles and metacognitive awareness should be attached importance in the sense that both are considered influential factors on learning and thinking. Therefore, the current study aims to scrutinize this possible relationship that takes place in foreign language education specifically. For this purpose, a representative group of 121 pre-service EFL teachers enrolled in English Literature Department was the participant group of this study. "Thinking Styles Inventory" ("TSI") and "Metacognitive Awareness Inventory" ("MAI") were used to collect data. The results were statistically analyzed through the application of SPSS 22.0 version. Based on the findings of the study, it can be said that the participants have a moderate level of metacognition, the most prominent thinking styles are "legislative," "judicial," "monarchic," and "anarchic" thinking styles, and "legislative," "executive," "monarchic," and "internal" thinking styles predict metacognition.

The present study was undertaken in order to analyze two elementary school coursebooks in terms of their intercultural content. The analysis was based upon Yuen's (2011) framework, which comprises of products, practices, perspectives, and persons. The category of products involves tangible products such as books or paintings as well as abstract products, such as oral tales or traditional dances. Based on this framework, it is possible to categorize food, entertainment, tools, dwellings, clothing, laws, education, religions, or travel as products. The category of practices encompasses the behavioral patterns of a particular society such as customs and information about daily life, forms of address, use of personal space, and rituals. The third category, perspectives, is related to the underlying beliefs and values, inspirations, myths, superstitions, and world views of a given society. Finally, the category of persons includes famous individuals and fictitious or unknown people from a particular society. The present study aims at analyzing the cultural content in Turkish high school coursebooks, namely Moonlight 7 and Moonlight 8, based on this framework. The rationale behind sticking to Yuen's model is that it allows cultural content to be analyzed in an explicit and understandable way.

Learning is as much an emotional process as a cognitive one. There is no doubt that human beings are emotional beings, which, to a large extent, determines their cognitive and social relations with their environments. Teachers are no exceptions as they can both enhance or inhibit student learning. Teacher emotion is a burgeoning area of research and has received considerable attention lately. Studies underline the role of teacher emotions in their practices. Nevertheless, although there is an abundance of research on emotions, very few studies focused on the role of emotions on beliefs about teaching approaches. Therefore, the present study aims at measuring pre-service EFL teachers' emotions and their impact on their beliefs about teaching approaches. Purposeful sampling was utilized in the study. Pre-service teachers who have gone through the process of practicum were selected to gain better insights into their emotions and approaches to teaching. Two questionnaires were used within the scope of the study. The first is "Teacher Emotion Inventory," developed by Chen (2018). The second instrument is the "Approach to Teaching Inventory," developed by Trigwell, Prosser, and Ginns (2005). A total of 67 EFL teachers participated in the study. Results indicate that the most common emotion among pre-service EFL teachers is "fear" and the most preferred teaching approach is "knowledge transmission approach." In addition, the findings also show that "sadness" is highly related to "knowledge transmission approach".

The aim of the present paper is to measure the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) of preservice EFL teachers learning to teach English as a foreign language (EFL). In order to collect data, a survey, designed and validated by Baser et al. (2016), was used. The survey consists of five sections which are technological knowledge (TK), content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and a fifth section that combines technological content knowledge (TCK), technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK), and TPACK items. This survey intends to assess pre-service EFL teachers' competencies in pedagogies and technologies. The present study is quantitative in nature. The participants of the study are 77 pre-service EFL teachers. The results indicate that pre-service EFL teachers have a satisfactory level of competence in technological pedagogical content knowledge; yet, there are also some areas in which they need development.

The aim of this study is to examine the levels of language learning strategies employed by A1-A2 level high school students while learning English as a foreign language. In the Turkish formal education system, English is a compulsory subject in all public and private schools, and students start to learn English from 2nd grade at the elementary level to 12th grade at the secondary level. While they are learning English only a few of them become successful and be able to express themselves during the communication process. The research used a quantitative study to show the findings statistically. LLS inventory was administered to 129 high school students from A1 to A2 level. The survey is applied to teenagers who study in Imam Hatip High School (Religious High School) (RHS) and Anatolian High School (AHS). Students' ages range from 15 to 18. The findings indicated that students have a moderate level of LLS usage. The analysis of the results from gender difference in LLS use conveys a message that there is no significant difference between males and females in terms of cognitive, compensation, affective and social strategy use. However, memory strategies differ in favor of females, whereas metacognitive strategies differ in favor of males. In the study, it was found that there is no significant difference between AHS and RHS students except for the usage of memory strategies which differs significantly in favor of Religious High School students.

This study tries to explore the relationship between prospective EFL teachers' locus of control and academic self-efficacy in Turkey. For the purpose of the study, the quantitative data of the research was collected through Multidimensional Locus of Control Scale developed by Levenson (1974) and adapted to Turkish by Kiral (2012). The scale, consisting of 24 items (6 point Likert type), simply examines the internal and the external locus of control of pre-service EFL teacher candidates. It measures (a) internal locus of control (8 items), (b) locus of control based on others (6 items), and (c) locus of control based on chance (5 items). The Cronbach Alpha coefficient for this scale is 0.77. As to the Academic Self-efficacy Scale, College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale was adapted from Owen & Froman (1988), consisting of 33 items measuring male and female ELT students' academic self-efficacy beliefs as a whole. The Cronbach Alpha coefficient for this scale is 0.83. The scale is a 5- point Likert scale ranging from 'very little' (1) 'quite a lot' (5). It is assumed that the higher the locus of control of EFL teachers, the higher level of academic self-efficacy is. At the end of the study, considering the results, some recommendations will be made for language instructors at these institutions.

The review of literature clarifies that teacher education starting from the faculty as a preservice process needs refreshment in making revisions of its boundaries, competences and classifications as providing gains for the whole system. Thus, this study provides a sample for other subject fields of teacher education since it aims to show how a new generation tool named as European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages (EPOSTL) can be used to define the needs of prospective English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers and foster the teacher education system with its gains. The sample of the study consists of 4th grade prospective EFL teachers studying at Hacettepe University, Department of ELT (N=38). For data collection, the adapted 5 point Likert-type scale version of EPOSTL was applied to the participants. In the data analysis process in addition to the calculations of frequencies and percentages, some parametric statistics were used. The findings of the study reveal that EPOSTL can be a new tool for describing the competences of both prospective and in-service EFL teachers which could be inspiring for other teacher education programs as well.

This particular small-scale research tries to scrutinize the teacher training practices and the quality of Pedagogical Formation ELT Certificate Programs from the perspectives of teacher candidates. In this respect, those teacher candidates' views about the issue will be taken through a questionnaire consisting of 5-point Likert-type items and an open-ended section. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics as well as content analysis. The number of participants is 63. Some of the participants were currently enrolled in the pedagogical formation program when the study was conducted and some of them were graduates of the programs with several years of teaching experience. The results indicate that the pedagogical formation program helped the participants improve themselves to a certain extent. Another important finding of the study was that the participants who are employed as teachers and have several years of experience valued the outcomes of the pedagogical formation program more than the prospective teachers. Finally, the study also indicated that more teaching practice is needed.

The current practices in the field of foreign language teacher education have a heavy inclination to make use of traditional means especially throughout the assessment process of student teachers at foreign language departments. Observing the world in terms of teacher education makes it urgent to include more reflective and objective tools in teaching practices courses. Since the success and the level of affective factors play a huge importance in teacher education as well as cognitive factors while preparing the student teachers to their real life experiences, taking into consideration of their self-efficacy and an attempt to increase the level of self-efficacy comes on the scene of teacher education. Thus, this study aims to determine the self-efficacy levels of 4th grade prospective ELT program teachers studying at Hacettepe University, Faculty of Education. For this purpose, the European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages (EPOSTL) was adapted into 5 point Likert-type scale and filled by 38 prospective teachers in the fall semester of 2014. The collected data was analyzed via SPSS 17.00 package program for social sciences. In the light of the findings, it is proposed that the EPOSTL should be integrated into teacher education programmes which will make this process more reflective and convenient for the prospective teachers by using it also as a scale for raising their self-efficacy level.

This study to be conducted with English Language Teachers at the secondary education in our country during the first semester 2014-2015 academic year, aims to explore the beliefs of these in-service ELT teachers during the micro teaching sessions by the prospective ELT teacher candidates. This study aims at reporting the progress inbetween the feedback sessions provided by the mentor teachers for micro teaching practices to be performed by about 120 student teachers attending the ELT department at Hacettepe University. The goal of the micro teaching is to provide the student teachers with the opportunity to practice the teaching skills and evaluate themselves concerning these skills before their future roles as teachers. In the study, the participants are asked to comment on the micro teaching practice in terms of positive and negative sides of it, its difficulty, and the gains of it. The data of the study are collected through a survey designed by the Ministry of National Education for this aim 4 sections, namely (1) Content Area Knowledge, (2) Planning, (3) Assessment, and (4) Other Professional Competencies. The data to be obtained will be analyzed through descriptive analysis method and discussed based on the quotations from the reports of the participants. The findings to be obtained are considered to show that the micro teaching practice is useful for student teachers to reduce their deficiency in teaching skills and help these teacher candidates to develop much more positive attitudes towards their future professions.

This study aims to scrutinize the possible relationship between academic self-efficacy beliefs and foreign language achievement among prospective ELT teachers. To do so, the data for the study were collected through a questionnaire, "College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale" adapted from Owen & Froman (1988), consisting of 33 items measuring male and female ELT students' "Academic Self-Efficacy Beliefs" as a whole. The scale is a 5-point Likert scale ranging from "very little" (1) to "quite a lot" (5). The reliability was found r = 0.827. In this study it has been observed that there is statistically a significant relationship between "academic self-efficacy beliefs" and "prospective ELT teachers' achievement" among male and female groups.

This research intends to exemplify one of the new practices that can be used for the assessment of prospective English language teachers' qualifications. Thus, the scope of this research covers the prospective EFL teachers and the implementation of European Profiling Grid (EPG) aimed to be commonly used for language teacher education in Europe. This research is based on a mixed-type research design focusing on both qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Thus, it refers to descriptive and experimental research designs. For this purpose, the participants of the study were chosen among the prospective EFL teachers (N = 38), their mentors (N = 12), course supervisors (N = 3), and course registration supervisors (N = 3). Totally the research includes 56 participants who reflect the prospective teachers' teaching qualifications in terms of an adapted 7 point Likert-type form of EPG. In data analysis process, a series of one-sample T tests, Kruskal Wallis H test for independent samples, one-way ANOVA statistics were applied to the data. The results of the study reveal that EPG has significant effects on prospective EFL teachers in that it can be proposed to use commonly in English language teacher education instead of the Council of Higher Education's assessment form for prospective teacher education.

This study primarily aims to (1) examine the relationship between foreign language reading proficiency and eye movements during reading, and (2) to describe eye movement differences between two CEFR proficiency groups (B1 and B2) by using eye tracking technique. 57 learners of EFL were tested under two experimental conditions: Natural L2 reading and isolated sentence stimulus. The results revealed that total fixation duration and first pass time were predicted significantly by L2 reading proficiency in both experiments while second pass time and single fixation duration were found to be stimulus sensitive. Furthermore, B2 learners were observed to have less total fixation, first pass and second pass time and rate in both experiments when compared to B1 learners. The findings confirmed that characteristics of eye movements change as L2 reading skill develops. The use of eye tracking technique in future language classrooms to observe L2 learner reading development was also discussed.

Problem Statement: Computer technology plays a crucial role in foreign/second language (L2) instruction, and as such, L2 teachers display different attitudes towards the use of computers in their teaching activities. It is important to know what attitudes these teachers hold towards the use of computers and whether they have these varying attitudes based on factors such as age, gender, subject domain, and computer education. Purpose of Study: This study aims to discover the attitudes of pre-service Turkish teacher's towards computer use. Methods: A survey was administered to 95 ELT, Linguistics, Literature, Translation, and Interpretation students at Hacettepe, Gazi, and Middle East Technical state universities. Participants were assessed for their computer attitudes using a Likert type questionnaire with four factors: affective components, perceived usefulness component, perceived control component, and behavioral intention component. Findings and Results: The results revealed that the participants of the study had a high overall attitude towards computer use, and also showed that affective components had a positive significant correlation with behavioral intention, but a significant negative correlation with perceived usefulness. Put differently, the more the students' feelings towards computer use increased, the more intensively their beliefs about the usefulness of computers in their job decreased. In addition, it was found that perceived usefulness was negatively correlated to behavioral intention. There was not any significant gender difference. Furthermore, computer courses had no effect on one's attitude towards computers, whereas the participants' age and subject domain had a significant effect on their attitude towards computer. In the study it was found that students in the age group 20-24 had more intensive behavioral intention and high overall attitude towards computer use. ELT students in comparison to other subject domains possessed strong beliefs about the usefulness of computers in their job. Translation and interpretation students in comparison to other subject domains were more interested in computers, had a more intensive behavioral intention, as well as higher overall attitudes towards computer use. Conclusions and Recommendations: In the current study, it was found that pre-service teachers were intensively interested in computers but their belief about using computers as an educational tool as part of their job was rather poor. Educational centers have to be aware that if teachers don't have enough internal interest towards computer use, it will not work in the classroom. The most important thing that educational centers need to focus on is the integration and internalization computer use as an educational tool.

This study aimed to find out whether watching subtitled cartoons influences incidental vocabulary learning. The study was conducted with 42 first grade English Language Teaching (ELT) department students at the University of Mehmet Akif Ersoy, Burdur. To collect data from the subjects, a 5-point vocabulary knowledge scale was used and 18 target words were integrated into the scale. The pre-test and post-test group design was selected for the administration. After subjects had been randomly assigned into two groups (one subtitle group and the other no-subtitle group), they were given the same pre- and post-tests. The findings of study did not support the assumption that the subtitle group would outperform the no-subtitle group, since there were no significant differences between two groups according to t-test results. However, there was significant improvement in both of the groups from pre-test to post-test scores. This progress was attributed to the presentation of target words in cartoons. In this way, the target words were contextualized and it became easy for participants to elicit the meanings of the words.

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This study attempted to examine how different teacher education programs affect the identity perception of future language teachers. This qualitative research used a Vygotskian sociocultural theoretical lens informed by Engeström's activity theory to compare English language teacher education programs in Turkey and Finland. Initially, language teacher education programs in Turkey and Finland were subjected to document analysis at curricular base according to the curriculum comparison model of Adamson and Morris (2014) under four components of curriculum: language and linguistic components, literary and culture components, pedagogical components, and practicum component. Then, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and field notes were applied to investigate the professional identity perception of pre-service language teachers in both Finland and Turkey. The comparison of curricula revealed a number of theoretical and structural variations. Comparison of identity perceptions, on the other hand, revealed that there were five main differences stemming from differences in teacher education programs, which were explained as dilemmas. Depending on the results, the research suggested that (1) Finnish and other European teacher education systems might be adapted to provide language teachers in Turkey with MA degrees, (2) universities in Turkey may apply aptitude tests to the applicants considering the total number of applicants, and (3) as future educators, pre-service language teachers should have access to resources to help them map out a professional path that aligns with their values and goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]