Instructors’ Awareness of the Syntactic and Morphological Differences between British and American English

Abstract

This study explores Turkish English as a foreign language (EFL) instructors" awareness of the syntactic and morphological variation in British English (BrE) and American English (AmE). The data were collected through a survey which was administered to 38 EFL instructors working at preparatory schools of different universities. The participants were asked to analyze 49 sentence-pairs in the survey to decide whether given sentences were correct or incorrect. The results indicated a) that the participants were better at recognizing the morphology and syntax of BrE than AmE, b) that of all the participants, the ones who were exposed to both varieties were better at recognizing the different uses of the syntactic and morphological forms in BrE and AmE than the ones exposing to the forms only in one variety, c) that the departments the participants graduated from did not have an impact on the recognition of the differences between BrE and AmE in syntax and morphology.

Efl Teacher Candidates’ Inner Circle English Preferences and the Factors Behind Them

“…Being a notable exception in this particular context, Yaman (2015) showed that pre-service teachers were not able to distinguish variety differences in terms of spelling, pronunciation, and word choice. Compared to the studies featuring EFL teachers and university-level students as participant groups, the findings are similar to the study of Toscu (2019) regarding spelling and grammar, particularly the use of present perfect tense and prepositions, and Dubravac et al (2018) in terms of spelling, but not consistent with the work by Ay and Uzun (2017) regarding spelling and grammar, Toscu (2019) with respect to the use of definite articles, and Dubravac et al (2018) in terms of grammar. Some interpretations can be made despite the differences across the literature and mixed results obtained from the study.…”

“…Teachers also considered BrE as the more prestigious yet more challenging variety to learn. In another study, Toscu (2019) found that instructors recognized the syntax and morphology components corresponding to the British variant better. In a comprehensive research carried out by Özmen et al (2018), on the other hand, EFL teachers in Turkey were found to idealize AmE as the lingua franca despite a dominant presence of BrE in the teaching materials.…”

“…Finally, following word groups listed in the vocabulary section were replaced with alternative words in the cases which featured or resembled a Turkish loanword with exact or different meaning in either of the variants as it was revealed in the previous research (Dubravac et al, 2018) that learners tend to favor items similar to those in their native languages: a) flat/apartment, the latter corresponding to "apartman" in Turkish, b) biscuits/cookies, the first one being used as "bisküvi" in Turkish, c) football player/soccer player, part of the first word corresponding to "futbol" in Turkish, d) chips/French fries, the first one being used as "cips" in Turkish. The following set of words, which reflect the differences between both varieties and used in other studies as well (e.g., Toscu, 2019), was included in the instrument: aubergine/eggplant, pavement/sidewalk, driving licence/driver"s license, and holiday/vacation. Due to the aforementioned changes, the sentences in which the excluded words were used have also been replaced with sentences featuring the new set of words in the second part of the survey (Appendix A).…”

Pre-Service English Language Teachers’ Problematic Sounds

“…The problematic phonemes were /f/, / dʒ/, /z/, /θ/ and /h/. Toscu (2019) explored Turkish English as a foreign language instructors" awareness of the syntactic and morphological variation in British English (BrE) and American English (AmE). The data were collected through a survey which was administered to 38 EFL instructors working at preparatory schools of different universities.…”

Does Multimedia Technology Facilitate Pragmatics Awareness among Teenage Learners? A Case of Secondary-School Students

“…It may be more fruitful to engage with pragmatic issues to promote effective communication in the target language; however, as already stated, the prime focus in teaching has generally been on grammar, phonology, structure, syntax, semantics, etc. ( Bardovi-Harlig & Dornyei, 1998;Cohen, 2008;Jianda, 2007;Toscu, 2019). When pragmatic topics such as useful expressions are taught, the main aim is to develop pragmatic competence (Bardovi-Harlig, 1996;Crandall & Basturkmen, 2004;Murray, 2010).…”