The belief that the native language practices of individuals improve their competence in a foreign language gave rise to a number of bilingual language pedagogies, one of which is translanguaging. This term does not merely refer to switching between two languages, on the contrary, it involves a systematic use of two languages in a particular language teaching activity. In this study, English language teachers' perceptions of translanguaging were examined through a questionnaire. Classroom observations were done to examine for what purposes they apply the use of L1 in their teaching and semi-structured interviews were done to figure out the reasons of the differences between their perceptions and actual use of L1. The participants of the study were English language teachers (EFL) who work at state and private schools in Turkey. The Likert-type items in the questionnaire were analyzed quantitatively using descriptive statistics and the data gathered from open-ended questions in the questionnaire, classroom observations and semi-structured interviews were exposed to structural-coding analysis. The results showed that EFL teachers' perceptions were not akin to their practices. Although they held positive views about translanguaging in some particular situations, they did not frequently employ this pedagogy due to the expectations of their institutions, colleagues and parents of their students.
Academic writing practices constitute central processes through which students learn the conventions of their disciplines to meet the expectations of their academic communities. Therefore, academic writing courses should touch on the specific dimensions of it. One of the most prominent requirements of these courses is to identify the needs of students and implement a program based on the negotiation between the needs of students and the expectations of academic communities. The present study aimed to explore the academic writing needs of Turkish postgraduate students in the departments of English Language Teaching and English Language and Literature through an online questionnaire including Likert-type items and open-ended questions. The Likert-type items were analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent samples t-test statistics while the data gathered from openended questions was exposed to thematic analysis. We found that the participants (30 Turkish postgraduate students of English) obtained a clear idea of the disciplinary conventions and the importance of communication with readers in academic genres but they did not seem to develop awareness of building stance in academic genres. There was not a statistical difference between MA and PhD students' academic writing needs. Apparently, academic writing courses in post-graduate programs should place heavy demands on more specific needs-based curriculum to meet their students' target needs.
Based on contrastive interlanguage analysis, this study explores the usage of lexical bundles occurring in doctoral dissertations produced in the English language related studies in the USA by L1 American English speakers and in Turkey by Turkish speakers of English in the last ten years between 2010-2019. In our analysis of the data, we identified a significant number of types of 4-word bundles from both corpora from a structural and functional perspective. The findings regarding the types of lexical bundles and their structural and functional dispersions revealed significant differences between the two corpora. While L1 English writers refrained from heavily utilizing formulaic sequences, the opposite could be observed in the works of L2 English authors. This study has significant implications for academic writers producing work in the English language since corpus-informed lists and concordances might be of great help to L2 speakers of English in identifying appropriate lexical bundles that are specific to their disciplines.
There are ever-increasing studies about online classes and their applications in terms of benefits and deficits in transitioning to online education especially after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in the world. This study investigates the English language learners’ evaluations about transitioning to online classes in higher education in a sample of students at English language and literature (ELL) department. In addition to this, following a mixed-method design, it attempts to find out the students’ preferences whether this change about online delivery in higher education is well welcomed or not. ELL students’ preferences and evaluations were assessed through a five-point Likert survey and a focus group interview. After employing convenience sampling, 96 ELL students responded to the survey and 10 students who answered the survey participated in the focused interview voluntarily. The results showed that both groups of learners had positive evaluations about transitioning to online classes in terms of the content, delivery and structure during pandemic. The participants also thought that their professors utilized online classes effectively leading to a seamless transition to online learning for them. The implications of these findings for online classes in Turkish higher education context are discussed.
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