focus on elt journal (felt) vol 2, issue 1, 2020 issn: 2687-5381 editorial note: letter from editors-in-chief https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00201 aahmet başal bceyhun yükselir and cerdem akbaş a assoc. prof. dr., yıldız technical university, turkey, abasal@yildiz.edu.tr b assist. prof. dr., osmaniye korkut ata university, turkey, ceyhunyukselir@osmaniye.edu.tr c assist. prof. dr., erciyes university, turkey, erdemakbas@erciyes.edu.tr dear focus on elt journal readers, on behalf of the editorial board, it is our privilege and great pride to announce the release of volume 2 issue 1 of ‘focus on elt’ (felt). devoted to and focused on solely to the english language teaching and learning, felt is an open source journal and accepts articles written from a theoretical or applied perspective with the possible applications to the field of english language teaching and learning. in spite of being a relatively new journal in the field, we are happy to have received a great number of submissions from local and international scholars. with the help of invaluable time, dedication and constructive feedback of our editorial team and reviewers of this particular issue, we have been able to select high-calibre original scientific studies relevant to the field. we therefore thank members of our community for their encouragement, continuous support and interest. with this in mind, we are truly confident that the future of our journal is promising. we believe that our community, specifically practitioners, researchers and academicians in the field of english language teaching and learning shall greatly benefit from each of the articles in the current issue. the first issue of volume 2 features four articles investigating various topics with respect to the field and shares detailed findings for particular cases. availing this opportunity, we would like to inform our readers that felt starts accepting book reviews in the field of english language teaching and learning from vol 2 issue 2, 2020 in december. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00014 mailto:abasal@yildiz.edu.tr mailto:ceyhunyukselir@osmaniye.edu.tr mailto:erdemakbas@erciyes.edu.tr https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4295-4577 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4781-3183 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2204-3119 başal, a., yükselir c. & akbaş, e. / focus on elt journal, 2(1), (2020) 2 the first paper of the issue titled ‘test anxiety in the foreign language learning context: a theoretical framework’ is authored by ferdane denkci akkaş, selami aydın, asiye baştürk beydilli, tülin türnük and i̇lknur saydam. the study mainly deals with a theoretical framework of test anxiety in the foreign language learning context. the researchers focus on the conceptualization of test anxiety with a historical view to the research in the field and various relevant accompanying issues to shed light on how it could be related to the test performance, particularly in foreign language learning environment. considering the relation between foreign language learning and affective states, the article concludes with a set of recommendations in order to decrease the effect of test anxiety in the learning process. the second paper of the issue titled ‘the effects of reflective teaching techniques on teachers’ self-evaluation for further lessons: analysis through diary keeping’ by i̇smail çakır and i̇rem işık investigates the reflective teaching practices by focusing on the attitudes and beliefs of english language teachers. presenting the importance of reflective teaching in the area of teacher education and teaching pedagogy, the authors also explore if the diary keeping could be one of the effective ways of reflective teaching and self-evaluation of the teachers. the qualitative data coming from four language teachers through interviews and diaries reveal that language teachers made a great use of reflection in the process helping them go deeper and realize the classroom practices and issues leading to a sort of autonomy while making decisions for their own classrooms. the participant teachers clearly identified their weaknesses and strengths in their teaching atmosphere, which stands out to be a useful practice for the sake of self-evaluation. the third paper of the issue titled ‘suggested syllabus for world englishes and culture elective course at elt departments’ is authored by kürşat cesur and sezen balaban. the article attempts to suggest the potential integration of world englishes (we) and culture course into the undergraduate curriculum of english language teaching programme and share a syllabus specifically designed for this module. following a mixed method sequential exploratory research design, the researchers collected core documents (i.e. research articles about we and culture, books and other syllabi from universities offering such a module) to decide the core topics with respect to we and culture by a content analysis. following this, sixty-three teacher trainers in turkish context via google forms were asked to order the significance of items in the suggested syllabus. the document analysis revealed a range of key issues ranging from ‘the effect of culture on language teaching’ and ‘english culture and history’ to ‘the use of english as an international language’. on top of selecting the item of ‘the effect of culture on language teaching’, the teacher trainers seemed to have believed the suggested course syllabus should have a topic dealing with ‘raising awareness on we and culture’ at undergraduate level. the article also presents a suggested syllabus for the module at the end for the practitioners who are into offering such a module in their contexts. başal, a., yükselir c. & akbaş, e. / focus on elt journal, 2(1), (2020) 3 the fourth paper of the issue by hong yu connie au and filiz yalçın tılfarlıoğlu titled ‘non-critical analysis of efl classroom discourse in a speaking course through bowers’ model’ explores an authentic spoken discourse of an efl class by employing bowers’ model (1980) to examine various teaching functions and how they enhanced the speaking opportunities for students. the researchers sought to answer the research question regarding the distribution of l1 and target language, distribution of student talking time and teacher talking time, patterns of teacher-student interaction, and functions of classroom discourse based on bower’s model in a beginner level efl class by using structured classroom observation and transcriptions as the data collection tools. the study sheds light on complex dynamics of discourse in an efl speaking class by focusing the interactions between teachers and learners. since publishing a journal is one of the most intriguing processes in academia, we are happy to be part of this and devoted to do our best for the continuity of our ‘crawling’ journal. one of the objectives of this journal is to encourage publication from various contexts addressing issues from different perspectives as is outlined above. we therefore would like to welcome submissions to discuss the latest developments in the field of english language teaching and learning for the future issues of focus on elt journal. we look forward to welcoming you once again in the second issue of volume 2 in december 2020. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). focus on elt www.focusonelt.com focus on elt journal volume 3 issue 2 december 2021 founding editor and editor-in-chief dr. ahmet başal yıldız technical university editors dr. ceyhun yükselir osmaniye korkut ata university dr. erdem akbaş erciyes university issn: 2687-5381 www.focusonelt.com copyright © 2021 by focus on elt journal https://focusonelt.com/index.php/foe/index https://focusonelt.com/index.php/foe/index focus on elt www.focusonelt.com copyright policy all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher and the author(s), except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. copyrights for the articles are retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. focus on elt journal has the right to freely distribute and share the articles by all means with interested parties (e.g., readers, scientists and institutions). the articles can be used under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommercialnoderivatives 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd) license. open access policy focus on elt journal adopts an open-access approach to remove the barriers of reaching scientific studies rather than subscription-based model of scholarly publishing. principal contact dr. ahmet başal, yıldız technical university publisher, focus on elt journal phone: +90 505 572 33 80 email: ahmetbasal@gmail.com mailto:ahmetbasal@gmail.com focus on elt www.focusonelt.com about the journal founding editor and editor-in-chief dr. ahmet başal yıldız technical university editors dr. ceyhun yükselir osmaniye korkut ata university dr. erdem akbaş erciyes university section editors dr. ali karakaş burdur mehmet akif ersoy university dr. ece zehir topkaya çanakkale onsekiz mart university dr. i̇rem çomoğlu dokuz eylül university dr. sedat akayoğlu bolu abant i̇zzet baysal university book review editor dr. betül bal-gezegin ondokuz mayıs university statistical editor dr. emine yavuz erciyes university editorial assistant mustafa özer abdullah gül university editorial/advisory board dr. ali fuad selvi middle east technical university, northern cyprus campus dr. ece zehir topkaya çanakkale onsekiz mart university dr. dr. jan hardman university of york dr. isabel herrando-rodrigo university of zaragoza dr. kenan dikilitaş university of stavanger dr. olcay sert mälardalen university dr. selami aydın istanbul medeniyet university focus on elt www.focusonelt.com editorial & technical office lecturer muhammet toraman yıldız technical university lecturer fatih ercan osmaniye korkut ata university reviewers for volume 3/2021 dr. asuman aşık dr. çiğdem karatepe dr. dilek büyükahıska dr. fatma şeyma doğan dr. hakan demiröz dr. handan çelik dr. kürşat cesur dr. levent uzun dr. mehmet kılıç dr. nalan bayraktar balkır dr. sedat akayoğlu dr. semin kazazoğlu dr. serpil-meri yılan dr. sezen arslan dr. şeyda selen çimen dr. yunus emre akbana dr. yusuf demir focus on elt journal is currently abstracted/indexed by: 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https://www.scilit.net/journal/4341154 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com volume 3 issue 2 (2021) editorial editorial note: letter from editors ahmet başal, ceyhun yükselir, erdem akbaş 1-4 articles creating a frequency-based turkish-english loanword cognates word list (telcwl) xiaoli yu & veysel altunel 5-35 an extended literature review on in-service efl teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs ayşe nesil demir 36-50 an investigation into gender representations in an english coursebook sibel can acar 51-64 book reviews book review: writing for change: an advanced ell resource haris haq 65-68 book review: developing language teacher autonomy through action research erzsébet ágnes békés 69-73 focus on elt journal vol 3, issue 2, 2021 issn: 2687-5381 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com editorial: letter from editors https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.1 aahmet başal bceyhun yükselir and cerdem akbaş a assoc. prof. dr., yıldız technical university, i̇stanbul, turkey, abasal@yildiz.edu.tr b assoc. prof. dr., osmaniye korkut ata university, osmaniye, turkey, ceyhunyukselir@osmaniye.edu.tr c asst. prof. dr., erciyes university, kayseri, turkey, erdemakbas@erciyes.edu.tr dear focus on elt journal readers, as we all know, selecting an appropriate publication outlet for scholarly work is a crucial decision. in this context, we believe that focus on elt journal is the right outlet for potential contributions to the field of english language teaching since we ensure that contributions meet the target audience at their best form after a rigorous blind peer-review process. we also believe that with every issue, we are getting better recognition and building a reliable and trustworthy name in the field, therefore reminding us of the heavy responsibility to set the quality bar high for the upcoming issues. we are very happy to announce that the second issue of volume three in 2021 of focus on elt journal includes five contributions, three of which are research articles featuring particular topics in language learning and teaching with different paradigms. this issue also covers two book reviews, recently published, giving comprehensive views about english language learner resources for supporting writing skill and the scope of teacher autonomy. it is noteworthy to state that with this issue, our journal has completed the third year in the field of elt, which not only makes us excited and motivated for the next issues but also lays a burden on us to go forward and make more efforts contributing to our specific field with more relevant and robust studies. as a reminder, we ensure that during the editorial decision-making processes for the manuscripts submitted to our journal, we follow stringent publication ethics and rigorous external and internal reviewing cycles with the help of our esteemed editorial team and dedicated reviewers, to whom we express our gratitude and special thanks in reviewers for volume 3/2021 section. as editors, we incessantly attempt to enter major abstracting/indexing databases, and this effort has continuted with our applications to major international indexing https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.1 mailto:abasal@yildiz.edu.tr mailto:ceyhunyukselir@osmaniye.edu.tr mailto:erdemakbas@erciyes.edu.tr https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4295-4577 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4781-3183 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2204-3119 başal, a., yükselir, c., & akbaş, e. (2021). focus on elt journal, 3(2) 2 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com databeses. since the first issue of 2021, we have entered four international indexes, doaj, ici journals master list, base and scilit. with our december 2021 issue, we believe that researchers, academicians and practitioners in the field of elt will greatly benefit from the three published articles exploring particular topics in language learning and teaching using different research methods and data collection tools. furthermore, our readers have also gained an opportunity to have deep insights about two book reviews featuring on language learner resources to support writing and developing teacher autonomy through action research. here we would like to the editorial synopsis of the articles and book reviews in our second issue of volume 3. the first paper of the current issue has been co-authored by xiaoli yu (middle east technical university) and veysel altunel (atilim university). yu and altunel (2021) attempted to establish a frequency-based turkish english loanword cognates word lists (telcwl) in a sample group of turkish english learners. in their articles, the authors give certain information about cognates, loanwords and loanword cognates for l2 learning and language education. for this specific study, two base word list were selected by the authors in order to determine turkish english loanword cognates; the new general service list (ngsl) and frequency dictionary of words (fdw). they found out that telcwl makes a contribution among turkish english learners specifically for improving learners’ reading and writing skills. also, they stated that the scope and impact of telcwl is of significance value in certain disciplines, that is, field-specific corpora not only for turkish learners but also those who want to improve their proficieny levels. the authors conclude their article with pedagocical implications for english instructors and practitioners in line with the usages of telcwl in english classrooms. with this article, the readers may learn the nature and importance of loanword cognates in field-specific corpora and benefit from the wordlists in english classrooms. the second paper is authored by ayşe nesil demir from yozgat bozok university. demir (2021) presents an extended literature review systematically on in-service teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. in her review, the author found 31 articles using important databases (elsevier, taylor & francis online, wiley online library, google scholar, the jstor digital library, education source, eric (ebsco), sage journal, cambridge core, research gate, and research online) and included them after careful investigation in line with inclusion criteria. the articles were published in the past six years, 2015-2021. as is known, selfefficacy, an impeccable part of teacher education, is closely related to enhancing teachers’ capacity and value for the benefit of teacher-student engagement, which makes teachers more confident and efficient. thus, this study opens us a window with the recent steps and implications in teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs showing the latest articles and reminding us of the value and dynamic nature of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, self-confidence, and abilities. for those who want to learn more and improve themselves about self-efficacy beliefs in teacher education, this study can contribute to their present and previous knowledge. our last article in this issue belongs to sibel can acar from çanakkale onsekiz mart university. acar (2021) gives us certain information about the gender representations in the english coursebook entitled ‘progress’ published by the turkish ministry of education. the başal, a., yükselir, c., & akbaş, e. (2021). focus on elt journal, 3(2) 3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com purpose of this paper is to shed light on the gender representations in the selected english coursebook in relation to occupational roles, leisure time and household activities, that is, to gain a broader view about the usages of male-female characters and images in text and visual discourse. for this purpose, the author employed a qualitative research design. the data were collected from english coursebooks published in 2019 by the turkish ministry of education. due to the difficulty of conducting the content analysis for the whole book, the author used four units for data analysis. the results of the study show that there is an both equality and inequality in the quantity and quality of the roles/activities assigned to male and female characters. the first book review on teaching writing in the context of inclusivity belongs to haris haq from georgia state university. in his review, haq (2021) presented a detailed overview of the target book entitled writing for change: an advanced ell resource. the author illustrated how the book could be seen a resource that combined pedagogy with inclusivity and benefitted from various models and activites for promoting writing. the researchers who have been working on writing skill can benefit from this book review and have an idea about language learning resources to support writing. the second book review in our issue comes from erzsébet ágnes békés (universidad nacional de educación). békés (2021) wrote a her review about teacher autonomy in line with the theoretical aspects of action research in teacher education. the review is about the the book called developing language teacher autonomy through action research. the author in this review gives a comprehsive overview about teacher autonomy together with action research which enables teachers to develop their professional development. considering the emergent importance of action research and autonomy in the latest literature in elt, this review can contribute researchers and practitioners to have a broader sense of feeling about teacher autonomy. before we conclude our editorial for the second issue of 2021, once again, it is worthy to share the news that our journal has decided to start publishing ‘special issues’ supported by guest editors and researchers in the next issues along with the regular issues published in june and december each year. our guest editors, prof. dr. ferit kılıçkaya (https://orcid.org/00000002-3534-0924) and assoc. prof. dr. sedat akayoğlu (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-98652546), have been accepting potential articles and managing the editorial process of their special issue scheduled to be published in the second quarter of 2022. availing of this opportunity, we would like to cordially thank our guest editors for handling the manuscripts, inviting reviewers, and finalizing the submissions in our journal system. last but not least, we would like to invite all researchers and practitioners to to consider focus on elt a venue with stringent publication ethics for their articles focusing on english language teaching and learning issues to be featured in the forthcoming regular issues in june and december, 2022. başal, a., yükselir, c., & akbaş, e. (2021). focus on elt journal, 3(2) 4 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com references acar, s. c. (2021). an investigation into gender representations in an english coursebook. focus on elt journal, 3(2), 51-64. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.4 békés, e. a. (2021). book review: developing language teacher autonomy through action research. focus on elt journal, 3(2), 69-72 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.6 demir, a. n. (2021). an extended literature review on in-service efl teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. focus on elt journal, 3(2), 36-50. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.3 haq, h. (2021). book review: writing for change: an advanced ell resource. focus on elt journal, 3(2), 65-68. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.5 yu, x., & altunel, v. (2021). creating a frequency-based turkish-english loanword cognates word list (telcwl). focus on elt journal, 3(2), 5-35. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.2 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.4 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.6 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.3 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.5 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.2 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com focus on elt journal special issue, volume 4 issue 1 april 2022 founding editor and editor-in-chief dr. ahmet başal yıldız technical university editors dr. ceyhun yükselir osmaniye korkut ata university dr. erdem akbaş erciyes university issn: 2687-5381 www.focusonelt.com copyright © 2022 by focus on elt journal https://focusonelt.com/index.php/foe/index https://focusonelt.com/index.php/foe/index focus on elt www.focusonelt.com copyright policy all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher and the author(s), except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. copyrights for the articles are retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. focus on elt journal has the right to freely distribute and share the articles by all means with interested parties (e.g., readers, scientists and institutions). the articles can be used under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommercialnoderivatives 4.0 international (cc by-ncnd) license. open access policy focus on elt journal adopts an open-access approach to remove the barriers of reaching scientific studies rather than subscription-based model of scholarly publishing. principal contact dr. ahmet başal, yıldız technical university publisher, focus on elt journal phone: +90 505 572 33 80 email: ahmetbasal@gmail.com mailto:ahmetbasal@gmail.com focus on elt www.focusonelt.com about the journal founding editor and editor-in-chief dr. ahmet başal yıldız technical university editors dr. ceyhun yükselir osmaniye korkut ata university dr. erdem akbaş erciyes university section editors dr. ali karakaş burdur mehmet akif ersoy university dr. ece zehir topkaya çanakkale onsekiz mart university dr. i̇rem çomoğlu dokuz eylül university dr. sedat akayoğlu bolu abant i̇zzet baysal university book review editor dr. betül bal-gezegin ondokuz mayıs university statistical editor dr. emine yavuz erciyes university editorial assistant mustafa özer abdullah gül university editorial/advisory board dr. ali fuad selvi middle east technical university, northern cyprus campus dr. ece zehir topkaya çanakkale onsekiz mart university dr. dr. jan hardman university of york dr. isabel herrando-rodrigo university of zaragoza dr. kenan dikilitaş university of stavanger dr. olcay sert mälardalen university dr. selami aydın istanbul medeniyet university focus on elt www.focusonelt.com editorial & technical office lecturer muhammet toraman yıldız technical university lecturer fatih ercan osmaniye korkut ata university reviewers for volume 4(1)/2022 dr. agnieszka borowiak dr. ali fuad selvi dr. ali şükrü özbay dr. anıl ş. rakıcıoğlu-söylemez dr. arda arıkan dr. asuman aşık dr. eda duruk dr. ferhat karanfil dr. gökhan öztürk dr. gülden taner dr. hasan sağlamel dr. joanna kic-drgas dr. marlena bielak dr. oya tunaboylu dr. senem yıldız dr. savaş yeşilyurt dr. şeyda selen çimen dr. yusuf demir focus on elt journal is currently abstracted/indexed by: 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https://www.scilit.net/journal/4341154 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com special issue volume 4 issue 1 (2022) editorial preface to the dedicated issue honoring prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu ferit kılıçkaya, sedat akayoğlu 1-6 articles supporting teachers’ engagement in pedagogies of social justice (steps): a collaborative project between five universities in turkey and the usa sedat akayoğlu, babürhan üzüm & bedrettin yazan 7-27 ‘what kind of teacher i wish to be’: exploring prospective english language teachers’ future-oriented identities. reyhan aslan 28-45 the impact of teacher e-feedback on students’ writing: a waste of time or a road to success? gökçe erkan 46-59 what is grammar for pre-service english teachers? entrance and exit level beliefs. zeynep ölçü dinçer 60-73 efl teachers’ opinions on the use of l1 in l2 classrooms: role of experience and context. gülden taner & gözde balıkçı 74-90 an efl instructor’s study and teach abroad experiences and complementary views from learners hanife taşdemir & fatma gümüşok 91-104 an experimental study on efl teacher trainees’ opinions about english as a lingua franca mustafa tekin 105-123 from practicum to real classroom: does experience change perceived self-efficacy beliefs of english language teachers? canan terzi 124-141 language learning strategies used by the turkish efl learners to improve their reading skill. burak tomak 142-160 focus on elt journal special issue, 4(1), 2022 issn: 2687-5381 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com guest editorial: preface to the dedicated issue honoring prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.1 aferit kılıçkaya and bsedat akayoğlu aadam mickiewicz university in poznan, poland, ferit.kilickaya@gmail.com bbolu abant i̇zzet baysal university, turkey, akayoglu_s@ibu.edu.tr dear focus on elt journal readers, we are very pleased and honored to have edited this special issue of focus on elt (felt) journal, which has been prepared as a dedicated issue honoring prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu. we would like to thank ahmet başal, who is the founding editorand editor-in-chief, ceyhun yükselir and erdem akbaş, the editors of felt, for the opportunity to prepare and edit this dedication issue together with prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu’s former students. the honor of this dedicated issue of felt has been bestowed on prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu and the field of language teaching and learning that she has always loved and fostered through her professional career, which also underlies her teaching and research philosophy: ‘live to learn, learn to live.’ it is her teaching philosophy, long-standing commitment to training and mentoring, and dedication to professional service that has a tremendous impact not only on her former and current students’ personal and academic life but also on her field of expertise in applied linguistics and technologyenhanced language learning and teaching. prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu received her b.a. degree in english language teaching from boğaziçi university in i̇stanbul, turkey and did a coursework-based graduate study at the same university in early childhood education. in 1994, she obtained the m.a. degree in tesol at teachers college, columbia university, new york. one year later, she also received her master of education degree in the applied linguistics program at the same university. in 1997, she https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.1 mailto:ferit.kilickaya@gmail.com mailto:akayoglu_s@ibu.edu.tr https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3534-0924 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9865-2546 2 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com received ph.d. in the applied linguistics program of the department of languages, literature, and social studies in education at columbia university, completing her dissertation entitled ‘perceptions about english skills needed for graduate study in the us: a case study of students, instructors, and a language program in turkey’. she worked at the department of foreign language education at middle east technical university in ankara, turkey for 20 years between 2000 and 2020. prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu is now working at the department of teacher education and foundations at california state university, san bernardino in the usa. as the guest editors of this dedicated issue, we believe that we can also express our feelings towards prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu on behalf of her former and current students, some of whom have contributed to this issue. we must clearly state that we were among those lucky students who had the chance to enroll in prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu’s courses. she has combined her passion in teaching with learning, while at the same time, she has been always available and resourceful for her students. she has always encouraged and welcomed us to ask questions at any time during the class or activity. not only that, but she's been quite responsive and personable. she has never stopped learning from her colleagues, and even from her students, and never hesitated to express this. “over the years, i have learned an enormous amount about teaching, learning and research from many wonderful people, all my former and current students and my colleagues. their influence pervades my research and publications,” says prof. dr. seferoğlu (wart, 2021, para. 17). we, as the former but lifelong learners of her, cannot agree more on her influence on us and hope to pass her ambition of teaching and learning to our future learners. we hope that prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu will enjoy reading this dedicated issue and accept this as ‘a little thanks’ for what she has done and will do for us, for her former, current, and future students. we also would like to wish her a happy birthday on this special day (april 4th). may your smile never fade away! 3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com this dedicated issue includes 9 research articles, which have been listed and reviewed here based on the surnames of the authors, alphabetically. the first article of the current issue has been co-authored by akayoğlu, üzüm, and yazan (2022). this article presents the outcomes of a six-week virtual exchange initiative called supporting teachers' engagement in pedagogies of social justice (steps), which involved preservice teachers from five institutions and in-service teachers from turkey and the united states. through professional development and interactions amongst pre-service and in-service teachers from two nations, the study's major goal was to promote social justice-informed pedagogies in k12 classrooms. the second article written by aslan (2022) investigates the perceptions of prospective english language instructors as future teachers as a case study. the 56 participants' writings were utilized as a source of data for a more in-depth examination of the context-sensitive character of their future-oriented identities. in the participants' future-oriented identity work, the findings indicated two patterns: highly developed and (under)developed probable selves as l2 instructors. in terms of the nature of their aspirations and concerns, as well as their exercises of agency and responses to tensions and problems in language education, both groups of participants appeared to be rather distinct. in addition, individuals' potential language teacher identities appeared to be divided into three kinds: l2 teacher development, l2 teacher competency and l2 teacher proficiency). the next study was authored by erkan (2022) to investigate if teachers' electronic feedback (e-feedback) on their student's work in an english for academic purposes program was successful. students submitted their essays using the learning management system (lms), and professors gave online comments through the system. the findings mostly suggest that students profited from getting various types of feedback via the system, and teachers had more discretion to deliver as much input as they wanted for various goals. the findings of this study suggest that e-feedback practices be infused into language classrooms, and that teachers should be provided with appropriate training and practice to develop their knowledge and abilities. the study conducted by ölçü dinçer (2022) is a longitudinal study which investigates the metaphors that pre-service english instructors use to “grammar” and compare their evolution at the beginning and at the end of their four-year education at the university. the findings imply that the opinions of pre-service teachers evolved, indicating that rule metaphors had declined significantly, 4 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com when participants used more system and function metaphors. at the end of the study, it was also determined that pre-service english instructors used a more system-oriented approach to grammar. taner and balıkçı’s (2022) study investigates the role of experience in language instructors' views about the use of l1 in l2 (translanguaging) classrooms. pre-service and inservice teachers took part in this study, and the research questions revealed which areas of language education they agreed and disagreed with the use of l1. teachers' perceptions on specific areas where they use l1 in the findings of both quantitative and qualitative assessments vary significantly between pre-service and in-service teachers, emphasizing the value of experience. while preservice teachers preferred to use only english, experienced teachers were more hesitant to use l1 in all of their activities. it was determined that experience as well as the l2 teaching and learning context were essential factors in using l1. the next study, which is a qualitative study, has been conducted by taşdemir and gümüşok (2022) to investigate how an efl instructor's studies and teaching abroad experiences influenced her classroom practices. it also considered learner reactions to her comments on her study and teaching abroad experiences in the classroom. the findings demonstrated these experiences aided the instructor's personal and professional growth, as well as influencing her teaching techniques. learners also enjoyed the instructor's specific mention of her foreign relationships as a way of offering real input, improving the course topic, boosting class participation, and raising learners' intercultural awareness. as a recommendation, it was stated that language teachers could be supported with teachers’ study or teach abroad programs to improve their intercultural competence. the study by tekin (2022) includes the data obtained from his unpublished ph.d. dissertation entitled “effect of a culturalist versus an interculturalist approach in elt on turkish efl teacher candidates’ proteophilic competence”, which was supervised by prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu. it is due to note that as the guest editors of this issue, we have asked the author not to include prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu as the second author since this issue has been dedicated to her. the viewpoints of three different groups of efl teacher trainees in their first year on the english as a lingua franca (elf) perspective in elt are examined in this study. a six-item questionnaire was used as a preand post-experiment survey to collect data from the 83 participants in the study. the results revealed that teacher candidates favored native english varieties over non-native english varieties, while simultaneously recognising english's role as an international lingua franca. 5 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com the findings of the study corroborate previous research on language learners' impressions of and attitudes toward different varieties of english. terzi (2022) aims at investigating how english language instructors' self-efficacy views altered over the course of four years, from pre-service through in-service. with that purpose in mind, the researchers analyzed how real teaching experience affected efl teachers' self-efficacy views. the data for the study was gathered using the turkish version of the teachers' sense of efficacy scale. the participants' efficacy in classroom management and teaching strategies improved with time, especially after four years of teaching. the last study published in the current issue is conducted by tomak (2022), which investigates the learner strategies used by students. this study is also based on tomak’s doctoral dissertation under the supervision of prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu. since the issue has been dedicated to prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu, we have asked tomak not to add her as the second author. ten individuals were chosen based on their diverse learning characteristics. these students were questioned after the first semester, when they were expected to finish their a2 level. they were also asked to carry out think-aloud-protocols immediately following the interviews to evaluate their reading performance, monitor what type of techniques they employed to complete the tasks, and verify whether they were doing what they had said in the interviews. it was discovered that the hard-working group adjusted their techniques from the first term to the second term. we would like to thank all the authors wholeheartedly for their invaluable contributions to this special issue and cooperation during the review process and the reviewers whose constructive criticisms, suggestions, and comments have been more than welcomed by the authors as well as the guest editors. we wish you good reading, much health, and happiness in these troubled times! references akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. (2022). supporting teachers’ engagement in pedagogies of social justice (steps): a collaborative project between five universities in turkey and the usa. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 7-27. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.2 aslan, r. (2022). ‘what kind of teacher i wish to be’: exploring prospective english language teachers’ future-oriented identities. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 28-45. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.3 erkan, g. (2022). the impact of teacher e-feedback on students’ writing: a waste of time or a road to success? focus on elt journal, 4(1), 46-59. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.4 ölçü dinçer, z. (2022). what is grammar for pre-service english teachers? entrance and exit level beliefs. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 60-73. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.5 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.2 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.3 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.4 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.5 6 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com taner, g., & balıkçı, g. (2022). efl teachers’ opinions on the use of l1 in l2 classrooms: role of experience and context. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 74-90. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.6 taşdemir, h., & gümüşok, f. (2022). an efl instructor’s study and teach abroad experiences and complementary views from learners. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 91-104. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.7 tekin, m. (2022). an experimental study on efl teacher trainees’ opinions about english as a lingua franca. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 105-123. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.8 terzi, c. (2022). from practicum to real classroom: does experience change perceived self-efficacy beliefs of english language teachers? focus on elt journal, 4(1), 124-141. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.9 tomak, b. (2022). language learning strategies used by the turkish efl learners to improve their reading skill. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 142-160. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.10 wart, m. v. (2021, dec. 14). gölge seferoğlu: a master of many research designs. csusb inside. article 551024. https://www.csusb.edu/inside/article/551024/golge-seferoglu-master-many-research-designs https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.6 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.7 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.8 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.9 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.10 https://www.csusb.edu/inside/article/551024/golge-seferoglu-master-many-research-designs ejal article template focus on elt journal (felt) vol 1, issue 1, 2019 issn: 2687-5381  contact: yesimkeslidollar@gmail.com a meta-analysis of the effect of bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning among adult efl learners areem ali jaber and byeşim keşli dollar a independent researcher, jerusalem, palestine, reem.amj94@gmail.com b independent researcher, texas, united states of america, yesimkeslidollar@gmail.com to cite this article: jaber, r. a., & keşli dollar, y. (2019). a meta-analysis of the effect of bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning among adult efl learners. focus on elt journal (felt), 1(1), 43-52. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2019.00001 abstract a meta-analysis is conducted to investigate the impact of english subtitling on efl learners’ vocabulary improvement. this study was conducted by collecting and analyzing previous research to investigate the effect of bimodal subtitles on vocabulary learning, among efl learners in different contexts and settings. the main point here is to systemize the existing literature on bimodal subtitles in relation to vocabulary learning as a topic and to compare the results of different studies in this respect. thus, second language development could be addressed through this area, which can be considered as one effective teaching method for efl learners. in an effort to elaborate previous literature, a meta-analysis is developed to measure the overall effect size of the study, and to guide english instructors accordingly. stata 14 software is used for the analysis. the results extracted from the 10 papers found overall positive effect of the bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning among adult efl learners. keywords: bimodal subtitles subtitling meta-analysis vocabulary learning introduction having english as a dominant language around the world, studies in efl (english as a foreign language) sla (second language acquisition) continue to grasp the language researchers’ attention into building a better system, for a better language education. in this regard, cohen (1998) suggests that language learning requests certain strategies in classroom for guidance of materials in order to be learnt or needed; including language categories, branches, and language rules. in addition to that, beliefs and thoughts affect learners’ behaviors and attitudes in general, and vocabulary learning in specific (easterbrook, 2013). vocabulary learning is considered to be on top as being an indefinite component of language, alqahtani (2015) approves by suggesting that the vocabulary system does not follow fixed rules, unlike other language components. hence, language learners should take some strategies into account in line with language exposure; which is considered to be crucial for language learners to adapt the communicative and authentic part of language. language exposure is reviewed as important as language instruction in sla and efl fields. viera (2017) emphasizes the importance of language exposure by picturing the https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5404-1313 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9741-0759 mailto:reem.amj94@gmail.com mailto:yesimkeslidollar@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2019.00001 jaber, r., a. & keşli dollar, y. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 44 focus on elt journal (felt) foreign language learning as process of changes the learners constantly experience. to illustrate, ellis (2002) comments on language exposure, suggesting that learners have to meditate language in order to discover it. the idea thus sheds the light on the necessity that language learners have to continuously observe the language. accordingly, the noticing hypothesis calls for the necessity of language observance. the noticing hypothesis runs from schmidt’s experiences as a language learner of portuguese, when schmidt realized that linguistic forms begin to make forms and structures by their own (as cited in iwanaka, 1998). one rich source that has eased and opened up for several methods and improvements in education is technology. hence, technology is enlarging to become both; a rich source and a tool to boost language education and acquisition (dovedan, seljan, & vučković, 2002). the main debate here revolves around the power of multimedia and audiovisual in particular, as it is believed to strengthen the acquisition of language components; including reading, writing, speaking, and listening. for instance, gibriel (2017) suggests that language exposure as in incidental vocabulary learning; whether through reading, listening and/ or watching videos, promotes language acquisition and learning. correspondingly, this study investigates bimodal subtitling or same-language subtitling as an effective method in language acquisition. subtitling is defined by number of researchers differently. for example, subtitles or captions are defined by luyken et al. (1991) as “condensed written translations of original dialogue which appear as lines of text, usually positioned towards the foot of the screen. subtitles appear and disappear to coincide in time with the corresponding portion of the original dialogue” (as cited in kuo, 2014, p. 62). whereas cintas & remael (2014) identify subtitling as “a translation practice”, which includes written data and dialogue of speakers as the soundtrack (p. 8). as for schroter (2005), subtitling is a form of translation called “additive translation”; featured with gestures, expressions, and utterances conveyed to captions (as cited in zarei & rashvand, 2011, p. 619). whereas in turkey, there are recent turnouts on using videos with subtitles in teaching english. yıldız (2017) believes that videos with or without subtitles are implemented more often, in order to enlighten search on subtitling and vocabulary learning. according to article studies used in this paper, other countries as iran, norway, and brazil showed major interest in experiments and research on different kinds of subtitles in relationship to different components of language. this indeed indicates the importance of subtitling which was found discover-worthy in different countries and settings. according to the research conducted, a good number of studies reported positive effect when it comes to subtitles and language learning. in general, subtitles were found to be advantageous in language learning in general, and vocabulary learning in specific. however, some studies or experiments were not very supportive in using subtitles due to multiple reasons. and some even suggested that subtitling has no use or effect on language learning (naghizadeh & darabi, 2015). jaber, r., a. & keşli dollar, y. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 45 focus on elt journal (felt) this study however shall determine the effectiveness of bimodal subtitling of english, with its relationship with vocabulary learning among adult efl learners. in order to do so, a meta-analysis was conducted and guided by the following research questions. 1. is using bimodal subtitles effective in teaching vocabulary for adult efl learners? 2. what are previous studies and results reported in terms of methodology? 3. what is the overall effectiveness of the studies on bimodal subtitling and vocabulary learning among adult efl learners? method as this study takes the form of meta-analysis, it is essential to define what meta-analysis is and what it mainly aims at as a research methodology. meta-analysis study was first conducted by karl pearson in 1904. it is defined as a sum of quantitative results, based on several studies of a specific topic, to reach the quantitative effect size using multiple calculations and findings (çoğaltay & karadağ, 2015). some of the advantages of conducting meta-analysis studies include the significance in practical sum of findings. in other words, meta-analysis studies provide evidence to support or reject a specific practice. additionally, meta-analysis can determine the overall relationship for effect size in other approaches, thus researchers are encouraged to use data for evaluation of their literature. this study aimed to systemize previous literature which was conducted on bimodal subtitles along with vocabulary learning, from different settings and countries. as this meta-analysis explores the results of bimodal subtitles in relation to vocabulary learning, studies from different settings were concerned, within and outside the scope of turkey. in order to collect data, different journal articles, master’s theses, and doctorate dissertations related to the topic were used for the study. during the search, articles and dissertations with treatments associated with other types of subtitles were eliminated, and bimodal subtitling articles published within the last 20 years were selected. after the initial search, 44 studies met the criteria of the effect of bimodal subtitles on language learning. however, only 10 studies compiled with the researcher’s strategy of the inclusion and exclusion criteria; indicating that two studies were believed to be efficient enough to avoid bias for a subject in meta-analysis studies (valentine, pigott, & rothstein, 2010). following the implementation of inclusion and exclusion criteria, the meta-analysis resulted in investigating 10 studies; which were conducted between 2010 and 2016, on english adult learners aged above 16. table 1 provides distribution and analysis of the ten studies that were involved in the methodological analysis of the meta-analysis; which underlines the importance of empirical studies made on the topic. jaber, r., a. & keşli dollar, y. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 46 focus on elt journal (felt) table 1. list of 10 studies included in the meta-analysis and their sources title of study authors type of publication year of publication database country of publication the effect of viewing subtitles videos on vocabulary learning harji, woods, & alavi journal article 2010 ebsco/eri c malaysia effectiveness of using subtitled videos in learning english: a study on iranian learners alavi master thesis 2011 bau academic library/pro quest theses & dissertations malaysia the impact of watching subtitles animated cartoons on incidental vocabulary learning of elt students karakaş & sarıçoban journal article 2012 ulakbim turkey the effects of captioning texts and caption ordering on l2 listening comprehension and vocabulary learning roohani, domakani, & alikhani, journal article 2013 ulakbim iran the difference between the effectiveness of authentic and pedagogical films in learning vocabulary among iranian efl students soltani & soori, journal article 2015 eric iran authentic video and subtitles on english vocabulary enhancement rizkiani journal article 2015 bau academic library indonesia the effect of movies with different types of subtitles on incidental english vocabulary learning of iranian high school efl learners mardani & najmbadi journal article 2016 ulakbim iran effects from using subtitled audiovisual material in second language acquisition york master thesis 2016 ulakbim norway the impact of subtitles in second language acquisition eye master thesis 2016 ulakbim norway watching subtitled films can help learning foreign languages birulésmuntané & soto-faraco journal article 2016 bau academic search complete (ekual) spain studies in this meta-analysis were given codes to establish some kind of mutual measurement criteria for the effect size which the bimodal subtitling can leave learners of efl. in regard to the studies distribution and data, each study provided sample size, jaber, r., a. & keşli dollar, y. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 47 focus on elt journal (felt) conditions, and measurement tools to evaluate the effect of its own empirical research. stata 14 software was used for the evaluation, to test the relationship between the effect of bimodal subtitling as an independent variable and vocabulary learning as the dependent variable. as the ten studies vary in the sample size, this meta-analysis program provided estimation of the effect size; in order to avoid errors in the results measured. results to examine the effect of bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning among adult efl learners, 10 articles were reviewed for the study. in order to answer the research questions addressed, detailed analysis was given through meta-analytic tests performed by professional statisticians. it is significant to point here that the three research questions are jointly related, and are answered through the different tests applied in this analysis. therefore, the results and discussion chapters are supposed to follow arguments and evidence coherently. table 2 reflects the general meta-analytic results of the 10 studies with a summary of the significance level of each study. table 2. summary of the studies used in the meta-analysis type of effect effect type number of studies statistically significant effect of bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning positive effect 6 negative effect 1 statistically non-significant effect of bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning positive effect 2 negative effect 1 table 3 presents results of the meta-analysis, which were used to examine the effect of bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning among adult efl learners of the studies. as observed from the analysis conducted on the articles reviewed, the heterogeneity test reflected the dimension of variability among the articles reviewed. the heterogeneity was estimated by examining whether the treatment effect employed in the articles experiences variability within the studies. since the test of heterogeneity was tested to be statistically significant as it is computed; p-value less than 0.05, (< 0.0001), then the random effect model was considered. from table 3, it can be observed that the q-value and i-squared statistics were used to determine the statistical heterogeneity among the articles being studied. the q-value examined the variation between the treatment effect as well as the common effect exceeding the expectation by chance. the q-statistic was computed as q = 248.75, p <.0001. this showed statistical significance as it is an indication that the studies used in this paper to examine the effect were heterogeneous in nature. i-squared was also used to measure the heterogeneity for the study, as it sought to measure the heterogeneity level and how it is presented among the studies. i-squared ranges between 0 to 100%, and it examines the percentage of variations of the reviewed articles (israel & richter, 2011). from the analysis conducted, it was observed that the i-squared was computed to be equal to 96.4%, which showed that the level of heterogeneity was considerable because isquared was greater than 75%. jaber, r., a. & keşli dollar, y. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 48 focus on elt journal (felt) table 3. results of meta-analysis of the 10 studies conducted model estimates fixed random effect size and 95% confidence interval number of studies 10 10 point estimate -1.207 -1.207 lower limit -1.870 -1.870 upper limit -0545 -0.545 test of null (2-tail) z-value 14.52 3.57 p-value <0.0001 >0.0001 heterogeneity q 248.75 df(q) 9 p-value <0.0001 i-squared 96.4 tau-squared tau-squared 1.0693 standard error 3.57 variance 11.289 tau 1.0341 as this study comprised of 10 articles to examine the effect size of bimodal subtitling and vocabulary learning, the main focus was the mean difference in the vocabulary skill of the students; who were included in the treatment after being exposed to the bimodal subtitling. the analysis focused on the standardized mean difference (smd) by estimating the random effect model. the random effect model considered in this study indicated that there was a significant effect of bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning among adult efl students. this was as observed from the standardized mean difference (smd) computed by the meta-analysis considered in the study (smd) = -1.207; z = 3.57, p < 0.0001 (see table 4). table 4. summary of smd estimate across articles with 95% confidence interval study smd [95% conf. interval] % weight j. birulés& muntané -0.330 -0.690 0.031 10.36 madhubala et al -1.245 -1.561 -0.929 10.43 somayeh & afshin -0.691 -1.213 -0.170 10.02 ali & arif -0.263 -0.693 0.166 10.23 siska rizkiani -6.249 -7.323 -5.175 8.34 henrik eye 0.240 -0.367 0.847 9.81 ali roohani et al -1.003 -1.211 -0.795 10.57 erlend urkedal 0.739 0.165 1.313 9.89 mahdi & abedin -3.554 -4.132 -2.977 9.88 zhinoos -0.622 -0.918 -0.326 10.46 d+l pooled smd -1.207 -1.870 -0.545 100.00 d+l pooled smd -1.207 -1.870 -0.545 100.00 to assess the small-study reporting bias in the meta-analysis, a contour-enhanced funnel plot was used to illustrate the statistical significance of the study effect. see figure 1 as a graph on the significance of this study’s effect estimated. the estimates displayed raised concerns that small-study effects; as given in this analysis, question the correct jaber, r., a. & keşli dollar, y. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 49 focus on elt journal (felt) interpretation of the overall effect. to explore the apparent associations between the effect size and the study size, graphical approaches and statistical tests were employed. the funnel plot presented can be interpreted to be asymmetric, which indicates that smaller studies tend to give solid results emphasizing the effect of bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning among adult learners of english. the plot revealed that smaller studies were not only found in the areas of statistical significance given by the shaded areas, but also in the areas of non-significance which is given by the non-shaded areas. therefore, the level of asymmetry might have been caused by several factors and not solely by publication bias. figure 1. statistical significance of the study effect all the calculations above assessed that despite having a small meta-analysis study; comprising of 10 studies, the number of studies used were enough to claim the measurement of the addressed effect. in other words, the plot provided evidence of the asymmetry of study to have used sufficient number of studies, to find an overall significant effect of bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning among adult efl learners. discussion as mentioned earlier, the main aim of this meta-analysis study was to evaluate the effectiveness of implying new interventions in english education. the first goal of this study explored to what extent bimodal subtitles would be advantageous in acquiring new language terminology in the language learning process. to answer this question, each one of the 10 studies was analyzed and interpreted in terms of results and findings. among 10, 6 studies were to provide statistically positive significant influence of the effect of bimodal subtitling on vocabulary recognition (alavi, 2011; birulés-muntané & soto-faraco, 2016; mardani & najmbadi, 2016; rizkiani, 2015; soltani & soori, 2015; york, 2016). on the other hand, a study reported bimodal subtitling has statistically significant negative effect jaber, r., a. & keşli dollar, y. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 50 focus on elt journal (felt) on vocabulary learning of english students (harji et al., 2010). some studies reported nonsignificant change after implying bimodal subtitling on students, with one of negative insignificant effect (roohani et al., 2013), and two with an estimation of positive insignificant effect (eye, 2016; karakas & sariçoban, 2012). there are many research studies made on different types of subtitles in accordance to different aspects of language in general, and vocabulary learning in particular. during the literature search, it was found that subtitling is enlarging by interests of language researchers and instructors. this does not necessarily mean effectiveness in language aspects only; but also includes motivation, anxiety, and important components of the learning process. regardless, some other research studies; that did not meet the inclusion and exclusion criteria, were not included in this meta-analysis study but did support our hypothesis of the effectiveness of bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning. some studies suggested that bimodal subtitling does not have any implications or effects at all. as for the results of this meta-analysis, the 10 studies together reported an overall positive effect of bimodal subtitles on vocabulary learning. the results supported the assumption of the significant relationship between bimodal subtitling and vocabulary learning, which in turn supported our hypothesis. the random effect indicated statistically significance from the standardized mean difference (smd) = -1.207, p<0.0001. this is after considering the heterogeneity level of the studies, which makes the data and meta-analysis reliable for publishing. conclusions there is still a need for wider research with more varieties in the samples. it is especially that some studies were eliminated if no effect or low effect size was found in the study. in addition, this study is conducted on papers that were collected by the researcher. some other papers were unavailable or believed to be unreliable enough, that the researcher had to eliminate from the study. other studies were eliminated as they did not meet criteria of the age of the participants. other limitations of the study included the impossibility to find studies which used same test and/or data measurements. also, researchers criticized metaanalysis due to the potentiality of error, bias, and effort needed which is considered problematic. additionally, studies with poor methodological quality can be confusing, as well as using multiple findings of the same study for the analysis (shelby & vaske, 2008, p. 105-106). following the limitations during the search of this study, direction for further studies was made. future work is always a good idea to draw the attention and interest on a specific topic. as the studies of subtitles in language learning open up for new questions to be investigated by language researchers, studies in specialized areas in language education can be further addressed. for example, fields as in clil (content and language integrated learning) and ict (information and communication technology) in education can be integrated with bimodal subtitling in language education. moreover, subtitling can be a topic of interest in relation to language awareness and analysis, and how incidental language learning is linked to the language awareness process. additionally, exploring different types of subtitles on different aspects of language can be targeted as well. jaber, r., a. & keşli dollar, y. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 51 focus on elt journal (felt) qualitative data can be collected through the perceptions of students and teachers; hence implications can be drawn in guidance with the recommendations. in the present study, the results met the expectations of the effectiveness of bimodal subtitles on vocabulary learning of english adult learners. however, it is crucial to apply this kind of studies on different levels of participants, in order to enlarge studies and draw conclusions in accordance. this is achievable by conducting meta-analysis studies on different addressed groups, settings, and with different comparisons of subtitles in turkey and abroad. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references alavi, z. k. (2011). effectiveness of using subtitled videos in learning english: a study on iranian learners (doctoral dissertation, multimedia university (malaysia). alqahtani, m. (2015). the importance of vocabulary in language learning and how to be taught. international journal of teaching and education, 3(3), 21-34. birulés-muntané, j., & soto-faraco, s. (2016). watching subtitled films can help learning foreign languages. plos one, 11(6), e0158409. çoğaltay, n., & karadağ, e. (2015). introduction to meta-analysis. in leadership and organizational outcomes (pp. 19-28). springer, cham. cohen, j. (2008). listening to learn: boosting vocabulary with interactive activities. online submission. dovedan, z., seljan, s., & vučković, k. (2002, january). multimedia in foreign language learning. in proceedings of the 25th international convention mipro (pp. 72-75). easterbrook, r. m. (2013). the process of vocabulary learning: vocabulary learning strategies and beliefs about language and language learning (doctoral dissertation, university of canberra). eye, h. (2016). the impact of subtitles in second language acquisition: an experimental study on norwegian upper secondary students (master's thesis, ntnu). gibriel, a. m. s. a. (2017). effectiveness of learning vocabulary through listening to tv english news stories of the bbc world a case study of 4th year college of languages students majoring in english as a foreign language at sudan university of science and technology for the academic year 2017 (doctoral dissertation, sudan university of science and technology). harji, m. b., woods, p. c., & alavi, z. k. (2010). the effect of viewing subtitled videos on vocabulary learning. journal of college teaching & learning (tlc), 7(9), 37-42. israel, h., & richter, r. r. (2011). a guide to understanding meta-analysis. journal of orthopaedic & sports physical therapy, 41(7), 496-504. iwanaka, t. (1998). roles of noticing in english language learning : a literature review. kagawa university journal, 8, 53-67. karakaş, a., & sarıçoban, a. (2012). the impact of watching subtitled animated cartoons on incidental vocabulary learning of elt students. teaching english with technology, 12(4), 3-15. kuo, s. y. (2014). quality in subtitling: theory and professional reality. mardani, m., & najmabadi, a. (2016). the effect of movies with different types of subtitles on incidental english vocabulary learning of iranian high school students. research in english language pedagogy, 4(1), 52-63. naghizadeh, m., & darabi, t. (2015). the impact of bimodal, persian and no-subtitle movies on iranian efl learners’ l2 vocabulary learning. journal of applied linguistics and language research, 2(2), 66-79. rizkiani, s. (2015). authentic video and subtitles on english vocabulary enhancement (a quasiexperimental study in one private college in bandung). eltin journal, journal of english language teaching in indonesia, 3(2), 91-96. roohani, a., & domakani, m. r. (2013). the effects of captioning texts and caption ordering on l2 listening comprehension and vocabulary learning. applied research on english language, 2(2), 51-64. shelby, l. b., & vaske, j. j. (2008). understanding meta-analysis: a review of the methodological literature. leisure sciences, 30(2), 96-110. jaber, r., a. & keşli dollar, y. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 52 focus on elt journal (felt) soltani, s., & soori, a. (2015). the difference between the effectiveness of authentic and pedagogical films in learning vocabulary among iranian efl students. advances in language and literary studies, 6(1), 199-202. valentine, j. c., pigott, t. d., & rothstein, h. r. (2010). how many studies do you need? a primer on statistical power for meta-analysis. journal of educational and behavioral statistics, 35(2), 215-247. viera, r. t. (2017). vocabulary knowledge in the production of written texts: a case study on efl language learners. revista tecnológica-espol, 30(3), 89-105. yıldız, t. a. (2017). the effect of videos with subtitles on vocabulary learning of efl learners. international journal of humanities and social sciences, 7, 125-130. york, e. u. (2016). effects from using subtitled audiovisual material in second language acquisition: an experimental study in a second language classroom in norway (master's thesis, ntnu). zarei, a. a., & rashvand, z. (2011). the effect of interlingual and intralingual, verbatim and nonverbatim subtitles on l2 vocabulary comprehension and production. journal of language teaching and research, 2(3), 618-625. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). focus on elt journal vol 2, issue 2, 2020 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: sedabanli@mersin.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. handling with efl learners’ negative attitudes towards speaking english aseda banli a instructor, mersin university, turkey, sedabanli@mersin.edu.tr apa citation: banli, s. (2020). handling with efl learners’ negative attitudes towards speaking english. focus on elt journal, 2(2), 30-40. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00028 abstract this study mainly investigates young adults’ negative attitudes towards speaking in a foreign language with its underlying reasons by developing an action plan to minimize them in a turkish efl context. lower intermediate students (n=35) of vocational high school at a state university in turkey participated in the study. the data required to initiate an action research cycle were collected through in-class observations, and then, randomly selected participants (n=8) were interviewed in order to get in-depth data. the qualitative data were analyzed via content analysis. the analysis of the data showed that adults’ language learning behaviors were not only influenced by their previous learning experiences but also their lack of knowledge in their l1 and l2. the data collected through action research also revealed that students’ negative attitudes towards speaking might also result from the attitudes of their teachers towards them. in terms of the detected problems in the observation process, the present study might be regarded as context-specific since the solutions for speaking anxiety were generated with respect to its own contexts, aspects, variables and effects on learners. keywords speaking anxiety; foreign language learning; adult learners article history received : 03 november 2020 revised : 20 december 2020 accepted : 24 december 2020 published : 30 december 2020 introduction learners’ attitudes and their motivation for learning the target language are important factors for second language acquisition (dörnyei, 2001; oxford & ehrman, 1995). apart from these two traits, foreign language learning is affected by a number of other factors such age, aptitude, intelligence, cognitive style, and personality. furthermore, dörnyei (2008) suggests that foreign language learning embodies “situation-specific motives related to the immediate learning environment and experience” (p.106). among all of these factors, attitude occupies a considerable amount of place in sla literature and it has been a controversial issue. for example, du (2009) summarizes how attitude affects sla as follows: the acquirers with positive attitude tend to learn l2 easily and with rapid progress; while those with negative attitude make slowly progress. attitude decides the commitment. those who give up halfway are probably passive with lower commitment whose achievements are lower than those positive and persistent learners. attitude influences the class participation. the students with positive learning attitude perform actively and can have high grade. (p.163) compared to young learners, adults’ language learning may be subject to some limitations in that “english competence is related to the individual's prior experience with english and his ensuing self-confidence and greater motivation to learn the language” mailto:sedabanli@mersin.edu.tr https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4408-9823 mailto:pelin.irgin@tedu.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00028 banli, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 2 (clément et al., 1977, p. 131). unlike young learners, these prior experiences, if negative, may constitute an impediment in front of learning a foreign language for adults. adults’ language learning behaviors adult learners’ foreign language learning process needs careful handling since motivational or attitudinal characteristics are likely to impact on their achievement in the last analysis (gardner, 1991). in this respect, “to provide the most effective instruction possible, teachers of a second language (l2) should learn to identify and comprehend significant individual differences in their students” (oxford & ehrman, 1993, p. 188). for instance, speaking, more than other skills, has always been perceived as a highly challenging skill both for the learners who will acquire it and for the teachers who will be involved in its teaching process. during this challenging process, teachers “would attest that adults and adolescents require different motivational strategies” (kormos & csizér, 2008, p. 328). the difficulty in reaching a competence in speaking skill is not a local problem and it has also been discussed in other contexts (price, 1991; young, 1990). in turkish higher education, however, there are a number of similar studies in which the association between foreign language learning anxiety and academic achievement of (young)adults has been dealt with (balemir, 2009; dalkılıç, 2001; öztürk & gürbüz, 2014). the findings of these context-specific studies reveal that improving students’ oral proficiency includes various dynamics in it; therefore, it requires systematic investigation. compared to receptive skills, speaking just similar to writing involves some sub-skills such as pronunciation, intonation, stress, and so on. cunningham (1999) states that “speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary (linguistic competence), but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language (sociolinguistic competence)” (p.1). when the challenge of speaking skill is accompanied with adult learning procedure, it deteriorates for the teachers owing to the fact that working with adults requires acknowledging the characteristics of those learners which, in turn, makes the problem more complicated. in terms of adult learners’ characteristics, harmer (2000) sets forth that: they can be critical of teaching methods. their previous learning experiences may have predisposed them to one particular methodological style which makes them uncomfortable with unfamiliar teaching patterns. conversely, they may be hostile to certain teaching and learning activities which replicate the teaching they received earlier in their educational careers. (p. 85) on the other hand, their experiences may add value to the teaching-learning process if teachers provide a convenient learning environment for them. in accordance with this view, roger (2007) adds that: as adults we have had experience of the world and probably also some experience of the subject we have decided to learn. for this reason, we will usually have a great deal to contribute, even if we are also much more likely to be sceptical and to challenge the ‘rules. (p. 35) nevertheless, in terms of adults’ attitudes towards oral skills, there has still been a paradigm which is awaiting to be clarified. to illustrate, speaking has theoretically been the most desired skill to be improved by adult learners; however, when they have to go from theory into practice, they have a tendency of avoiding the chances of speech. this study touches upon a genuine issue that is the result of the observation of an experienced english language teacher who has been working young adults. after the endeavors of making students speak english resulted in a failure, the teacher needed to develop an action plan targeting the improvement of students’ oral skills in english. actually, this problem was not limited to speaking skill and it was so serious that negative attitudes of banli, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 3 the students towards english language not only affect the overall atmosphere of the class but they also hinder their language learning process. therefore, the objectives of this research are: to find out the underlying reasons for the problem of adults’ negative attitudes towards speaking activities, to create an awareness of the importance of oral skills for the students, to find the ways of changing their negative attitudes towards speaking activities. methodology this study rests on an action research cycle as it is intended to be “for the purpose of solving a problem or obtaining information in order to inform local practice” (fraenkel et al., 2012). action research aids conductors to see the problem they are dealing with more closely by following the cycles of plan, action, observation, and reflection respectively. among the two types of action research, this research can be classified under practical action research (fraenkel et al., 2012) whose main purpose is to develop practice as well as to supply information for larger issues. participants this research was conducted with 35 students in tarsus vocational high school in the first semester of 2012-2013 academic year. all of the students were in the department of accounting. 19 of the students were female and 16 of them were male. they were between the ages of 18 and 30. their english level was lower-intermediate. instruments and data collection process data was collected through observation and interviews. the researcher initiated the study with class observation which was followed by interviews with selected students. in the preinterview stage, the researcher worked collaboratively with another english language teacher with whom she was sharing the same class. both teachers agreed on asking 6 interview questions (see appendix) in which they thought they would obtain sufficient amount of data in order to initiate the research cycle. except for the first warming question asking their opinion towards english lesson in general, the structure of all of the questions was mostly written in the form of whquestions. the rationale behind this strategy is to enable already shy students to supply necessary information. by the help of such an approach, students’ negative attitudes towards oral skills and their underlying reasons were aimed to be examined comprehensively. for the analysis of data, content analysis technique was used and the common themes were extracted after having analyzed the interviews since this research involved qualitative data. the procedure in order to answer the research questions, the researcher asked her colleague to videotape an hour of her english lesson regarding the contribution of visual data for the research. for the use of videotapes, silverman and marvasti (2008) suggest that “when people interact face to face, they do not use merely verbal cues. researchers who work with videos have access to many of these cues” (p. 80). having watched the video repeatedly, the researcher detected 8 students who seemed to perform a negative attitude during this lesson. the reason why they were selected as interviewees was that they were uninterested towards the lesson during observation process. despite all the teacher’s efforts during speaking tasks, they refused to talk. in addition, they were the ones who had no classroom materials with them and who were dealing with completely irrelevant things such as playing with their mobile phones, sleeping, banli, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 4 daydreaming, etc. therefore, the researcher decided to pick those students for the interview. the number of the students involved in the interview process was 8. one of the interviewees was female and the rest 7 students were male. the students were asked six interview questions (see appendix). after a careful analysis of the videotapes and the interviews, action research cycle was executed. results and findings the findings from the interviews with the selected students are as follows: question 1: firstly, in order to get a general understanding of interviewees, they were asked whether they liked english language or not. surprisingly, during the interviews, none of these eight interviewees admitted to have a negative attitude towards speaking in the class and english in general. in contrast with what was observed during videotaping and class observation, except for two students, they all stated that they liked it and they wanted to be able to speak it but they could not. on the other hand, the other two interviewees said that they did not somehow like it although they wanted to learn it. question 2: interviewees were asked which language skill they found the most challenging. 5 out of 8 students clearly stated that they had difficulties in the production of sentences in english (speaking). what was interesting was that 3 of those students were also aware of the fact that they suffered from the same problem in their mother tongue as well. the other two students attributed the reason of being unable to produce in english to the lack of word knowledge. question 3: in this question, the students evaluated the frequency of their own participation in the speaking tasks. they all had an awareness of not participating in them. five of the interviewees replied this question as “never”. other three students stated that they “sometimes” intended to join the activities, but they gave up for some reasons. question 4: students were asked to state about the reasons for the problem stated in question 3. most of them explained their reason that they had a fear of being humiliated by their classmates. two of them, on the other hand, said that they sometimes attempted to produce something but other classmates were always quicker on their reply so they got discouraged in time. question 5: the answers to the question “how do you feel when you are pointed to speak in english in front of the class?” were approximately the same with one exception. almost all of them stated that they were anxious as expected; however, one student expressed that he could only be able to speak english upon the teacher’s pointing at him. question 6: they were also asked to give some suggestions for the solution of their negative attitudes. their suggestions are listed as follows: s1: “dialogues as much as possible. in addition, vocabulary games can be played to enhance our word knowledge. we can feel better then.” s2: “students should be made to talk even if they do not want.” s3: “it depends on the person. there should be enough motivation.” s4: “no idea.” s5: “to be honest, i do not have any ideas.” s6: “there should be fewer students. maybe we can open out better then. in addition, there should be constant use of dialogues.” banli, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 5 s7: “specific speaking assignments for students can be very helpful. we can be prepared at home, come to the class and present it to the whole class. you did it once. it really worked.” s8: “the class is too crowded. there should be fewer students.” all of the qualitative data was analyzed with the content analysis method. the common themes were coded and they were labeled under the same category. in the light of the interviews, the underlying reasons for negative attitudes were listed with the coding system in table 1: table1. the analysis of the interviews with the students category label operational definition example feeling of inferiority in general in comparison to others “i refrain from my classmates. i sometimes look at them. when you ask something, they reply it immediately. when i see them, i feel as if they would humiliate me.” s.8 “i am always worried that if i try to talk, my classmates will laugh at me. because they often do, teacher. you know, my english is poor.” s.7 lack of knowledge in english on the topic in l1 “i know that i don’t participate in your speaking activities. this is because i don’t know english. so instead of trifling, i’d rather not talk.” s.3 previous learning experiences about teachers about teaching methods “my lack of participation, maybe, results from my teacher in the primary school.” s.3 “i can’t talk. teacher, i swear, i just started to learn english this year thoroughly.” s.8 personality factors in speaking english in public speaking “of course, i do have something to say. but even if i know the answers, i do not raise my hand. this is not just in english. you can ask other teachers. i am always shy. this is me.” s.5 “this is in fact what we used to do at home. when my brothers and i wanted to talk aloud, my father used to hush us up. maybe that’s why i am always shy while speaking…” s.6 discussion banli, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 6 upon the findings of the interviews along with the class observations, the cycles of an action research have been constructed as follows: cycle 1: developing an action plan having determined the problem and gathered the required data, in order to create a strong action plan, first of all, the researcher asked one of the colleagues to videotape her one more time during the lesson, which was intended to be informative in spotting the weaknesses. the first thing the researcher noticed in this recording was that she was not in a slow pace for those who had a difficulty in oral skills. when the students tried to catch her and more active classmates, they got confused, which resulted in a surrender and from that point on they got distracted. another important issue in her teaching was the lack of getting answers from the students in an order. she tried to create a non-threatening atmosphere just for the sake of promoting their learning by considering “older students who have got out of the habit of the study may find classrooms daunting places” (harmer, 2010, p.15). however, what the researcher saw was she failed in activating the shy students’ speaking out. for example, most of the time she had a tendency of getting the answers in chorus where only already active students led it, and at the end of which only those students were left to answer whereas the others refused to talk and participate in activities. on the other hand, one of the factors which had a very positive influence on her students’ performances was her feedbacks and reinforcements. she tried to encourage them with positive feedbacks, praises and facial expressions immediately after their successful production by keeping in mind the fact that “the way in which we respond to students when they speak in a fluency activity will have a significant bearing not only on how well they perform at the time but also on how they behave in fluency activities in the future” (harmer, 2000, p. 145). thus, the class observations and the subsequent interviews came up with some outcomes which would lead the researcher to a further step. by taking their ideas and suggestions into account, she decided to follow these steps: try to be slower and clearer in the explanations give students sufficient time to think for speaking keep the balance between the leading and passive students follow a democratic strategy while getting the answers keep on giving feedbacks and positive reinforcements cycle 2: implementation the second cycle was to put the ideas developed during the previous stages into practice. the first step for the application was to inform the students about what would be done. next, the teacher asked them whether they were ready for the game which she made up called “all for one, one for all”. in the application process, she made use of the unit “places in a town” on page 21 in their coursebooks (english for life). then, she divided the class into small groups of 4 or 5 students. knowing that there were highly enthusiastic students who could tackle the others’ participation, the teacher paid a special attention to a heterogeneous distribution in the groups. she managed to include all the students even though it created a chaotic atmosphere because of the population of the class. after they all settled, she picked the less talkative students as “spokesman” of the group. she wrote the topic of the unit at the top of the board. next, she wanted each group to utter words that came to their mind about those places. while they were brainstorming, she listed them on one side of the board until it was full of places of their own production. then, she wanted each group to draw a map of an imaginary town that they would create and they would never show other groups until the end of the game. each banli, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 7 group was supposed to finish it in 6-7 minutes. when they finished drawing their maps, each group was asked to choose an individual from other groups whose responsibility was to come to the board and to draw the maps of that specific group correctly by following the instructions of the spokesman. here, all the individuals were competing on behalf of their groups. they followed the instructions coming from the spokesman with no interference from the class and drew the map. after the individual finished the drawing, the group showed the real map to see how close s/he was to the original. the individual who was able to draw the original map was the winner together with the spokesman. this game was followed by an activity in which two individuals from two different groups came to the board and acted out a dialogue where one of them was a tourist asking the way to a specific place s/he chose from the map on the board to the other student. cycle 3: observation by the help of group-work oral tasks during the implementation phase, it was aimed to create a non-threatening and warm environment for the students to change their negative attitudes towards speaking activities. in the light of the interviews, the researcher was trying to make them feel more secure because she thought that this feeling might also result from her attitudes towards them. in accordance with her view, pooley (1949) states that: the insecurity regarding language is largely a product of our own methods of teaching. in the handling of facts about languages in school we have always been so terribly right and the student so terribly wrong that it is natural for a feeling of insecurity, or even despair, to develop. (p. 78) in order to avoid this, she made use of the power of games which was also among the suggestions stated in the interviews. the purpose of such an activity was to assist the students who had difficulties in oral skills to include themselves naturally into the flow of the activity. ur (1996) highlights that “classroom activities that develop learners’ ability to express themselves through speech would therefore seem an important component of a language course” (p. 120). it was evident that this game evoked the students because even the least talkative ones spent considerable effort to be a part of it. during observations, the researcher saw them using their dictionaries to utter words, trying to create sentences in english and sharing their production with the whole class. at this point, the significance and influence of group-work activities on students’ attitudes towards foreign language learning have been proved to be immense one more time because their interaction with other group members gave them a sense of security and self-esteem. the idea of acting out a dialogue evolved during the interviews. some of the interviewees had stressed the efficiency of dialogues to be able to use the language communicatively. indeed, the dialogue they created spontaneously was for real-life purposes and it was their own production. in accordance with this idea, egan (1999) suggests that: foreign language ability is measured by the ability to communicate in the language. this ability is demonstrated in the understanding of authentic aural and written materials and in the ability to generate spoken and written language for real life purposes. (p. 278) yet, it was inevitable for some problems to occur. for example, it was as if the students were more interested in the game rather than its function to learning process. secondly, it was really hard to cool down the competition between the groups even though they were adults. regarding the likelihood of excessive stirring effect of games, the researcher was able to handle it. lastly, the use of mother tongue interrupted the flow of the activities in some cases but it was minimized by ignoring the answers of those who used mother tongue and by reinforcing the answers in english. despite its limitations, these activities helped the banli, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 8 students gain an awareness that every single learner could be able to speak and learn a foreign language. cycle 4: reflection the results of this research have revealed that the problem in speaking skills of adult learners is merely one of the areas that need rational solutions in foreign language teaching. language teachers working with adults face such problems every day. moreover, there are many other problems awaiting in the foreign language classrooms. the process of this action research has shown the ways how to handle a problem, the techniques how to find a way out for that particular problem, and the possible outcomes that will emerge by following a sound course of action. hence, the process of this research can be considered as invaluable as the outcomes it has brought out. conclusion in summary, this research process is highly important in terms of the contributions it has made both to the learners and the researcher. from the students’ perspective, it enabled them to be aware of the situation they were in. moreover, it gave them a chance to face with the problems they had by showing some solutions. students not only took place in the process as participants, but they also became the crucial part of it. similarly, from the researcher’s perspective who is also the teacher of that specific group, this action research study demonstrates that learning and teaching process never end no matter how much negatively the learners think about foreign language learning or what they have brought from their earlier experiences. all in all, with all its contributions, suggestions, and solutions it was quite a fruitful study. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references balemir, s. h. (2009). the sources of foreign language speaking anxiety and the relationship between proficiency level and the degree of foreign language speaking anxiety [unpublished thesis]. bilkent university. clément, r., gardner, r. c., & smythe, p. c. (1977). motivational variables in second language acquisition: a study of francophones learning english. canadian journal of behavioural science/revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 9(2), 123. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0081614 cunningham, m. a. f., (1999). improving adult english language learners’ speaking skills. national clearinghouse for esl literacy education. dalkılıç, n. (2001). an investigation into the role of anxiety in second language learning (unpublished doctoral dissertation). çukurova university. dörnyei, z. (2001). new themes and approaches in second language motivation research. applied review of applied linguistics, 21, 43–59. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0267190501000034 dörnyei, z. (2008). new ways of motivating foreign language learners: generating vision. links, 38(1), 3-4. du, x. (2009). the affective filter in second language teaching. asian social science., 5 (8), 162-165. https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v5n8p162 banli, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 9 egan, k.-b. (1999). speaking: a critical skill and a challenge. calico journal, 16(3), 277293. fraenkel, j. r., wallen, n. e., & hyun, h. h. (2012). how to design and evaluate research in education, 8. mcgraw-hill higher education. gardner, r. c. (1991). attitudes and motivation in second language learning. bilingualism, multiculturalism, and second language learning, 43-63. the mcgill conference in honour of wallace e. lambert. harmer, j. (2000). the practice of english language teaching. pearson education limited. harmer, j. (2010). how to teach english. pearson education limited. kormos, j., & csizér, k. (2008). age‐related differences in the motivation of learning english as a foreign language: attitudes, selves, and motivated learning behavior. language learning, 58(2), 327-355. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2008.00443.x oxford, r. l., & ehrman, m. (1993). second language research on individual differences. annual review of applied linguistics, 13(1), 188-205. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0267190500002464 oxford, r. l., & ehrman, m. e. (1995). adults' language learning strategies in an intensive foreign language program in the united states. system, 23(3), 359-386. https://doi.org/10.1016/0346-251x(95)00023-d öztürk, g., & gürbüz, n. (2014). speaking anxiety among turkish efl learners: the case at a state university. journal of language and linguistic studies, 10(1), 1-17. pooley, r. c. (1949). language behavior of adults. the english journal, 38(2), 73-82. https://doi.org/10.2307/806760 price, m. l. (1991). the subjective experience of foreign language anxiety: interviews with highly anxious students. e. k. horwitz & d. j. young (eds.). language anxiety, 101108. prentice hall. roger, j. (2007). adults’ learning. open university press. silverman, d., & marvasti, a. (2008). doing qualitative research. california. sage publications. ur, p. (1996). a course in language teaching. cambridge university press. young, d. j. (1990). an investigation of students’ perspectives on anxiety and speaking. foreign language annals, 23(6), 539-553. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.19449720.1990.tb00424.x appendix interview questions 1. do you like english lessons? 2. which of the skills is the most challenging for you? 3. how often do you participate in speaking activities? 4. what are your reasons for not participating in speaking tasks? 5. how do you feel when you are pointed to speak in english in front of the class? https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.1990.tb00424.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.1990.tb00424.x banli, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 10 6. what are your suggestions to solve the problem of not participating the speaking tasks? copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). focus on elt journal vol 4, issue 2, 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: clayton.lehman@dufe.edu.cn copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. esl teacher and department autonomy in english-medium international schools clayton lehman eap lecturer, caes of surrey international institute, dongbei university, clayton.lehman@dufe.edu.cn apa citation: lehman, c. (2022). esl teacher and department autonomy in english-medium international schools. focus on elt journal, 4(2), 32-42. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.3 abstract although the english-medium international school market continues to grow and primarily enroll english language learners, the autonomy of esl teachers and the esl department appears to be eroding, as some schools have already combined esl with the english department or special education needs (sen). this quantitative surveybased study with 279 participants explored and compared the opinions of 80 esl, 119 primary, and 80 secondary english teachers concerning esl teacher and esl department autonomy in english-medium international schools. data from the study showed that many participants believed that decision-making processes concerning esl support should be distributed beyond the esl teachers and esl department. further, data showed there was a statistically significant difference between esl and secondary english teachers concerning the combination of esl provision with the department of english language arts or literature. however, there was no statistically significant difference between esl and primary teachers concerning whether esl should be combined with sen. overall, the findings of this study revealed that many teachers in international schools could not differentiate between esl support and english language arts and literature and esl and sen, and as a result, esl teacher and esl department autonomy is in peril. keywords esl department, esl teacher, international school article history received: 22.01.2022 revised: 12.06.2022 accepted: 13.06.2022 published: 25.06.2022 type research article introduction english language acquisition is an essential element of study for most students attending english-medium international schools. with the rising numbers of english language learners enrolling in english-medium international schools (isc research, 2019), the assumption that english as a second language (esl) teachers and esl departments would be integral parts of these schools would appear logical. however, this assumption can be a fallacy, as some esl teachers and esl departments are being subjected to irrelevance as they are combined with other departments, such as the english and special education needs (sen) departments, thereby suffering the loss of autonomy. ultimately, the problem is when esl provision stops being recognized as an independent area of study (carder, 1991) and is considered a set of strategies or skills (harper et al., 2008). when esl teachers and esl departments are marginalized (arkoudis, 2007; carder, 2014), english language learners are usually marginalized, affecting their academic performance (carder, 2013; creese, 2005). mailto:clayton.lehman@dufe.edu.cn https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.3 lehman, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 33 the terms international school and english-medium international school are used interchangeably in this study. while there is considerable confusion in what constitutes an international school (bunnell, 2016), the participants in this study were teaching at schools that used a non-host country curriculum and english as the medium of instruction. the term esl teacher is used for teachers who provide direct support for english language learners. for example, english as an additional language (eal) and english language development (eld) teachers are designated as esl teachers. the term primary teacher is used for foundation, early years, and primary/elementary classroom teachers. the term english teacher is used to represent secondary english teachers who are english language arts and literature teachers, not teachers working with english language acquisition, as the primary purpose of their position. lastly, the term exit depicts when students have satisfied some form of requirement(s) and stop receiving direct english language support from an esl teacher. this study aimed to explore what differences may exist between esl, primary, and english teachers concerning esl teacher and esl department autonomy in english-medium international schools. the researcher developed the following research questions to guide the study. 1. what differences in opinions, if any, exist between esl teachers, primary teachers, and secondary english teachers concerning who should be involved when decisions are made to exit a student from being classified as an english language learner? 2. what differences in opinions, if any, exist between esl teachers, primary teachers, and secondary english teachers concerning english language learner support as an autonomous entity within an international school? a) how do the opinions of esl and secondary english teachers compare concerning whether esl should be combined with the english department? b) how do the opinions of esl and primary teachers compare concerning whether esl should be combined with the sen department? understanding current opinions and practice can enable school leaders and educators to make informed decisions concerning policy and practice. in essence, esl teacher and department autonomy significantly influence an english-medium international school’s culture and attitude towards students who receive english language learner instructional support. esl teachers and the esl department school leaders sometimes downplay the importance of esl programs and think classroom teachers can do the same work as an esl teacher and esl department (carder, 2011, 2013). additionally, school leaders and teachers sometimes develop a misconception that esl teachers use a set of strategies that can easily be acquired and used in a checklist fashion (arkoudis, 2007; english & varghese, 2010). harper et al. (2008) asserted that “the ‘esl as strategy’ view diminishes the impact of ells [english language learners]’ specific linguistic and cultural needs on their language and literacy development, on curriculum content and sequencing, and on their instruction and assessment” (p. 272). regardless, more and more school leaders are shifting the responsibility of english language learner support teaching to classroom teachers, and carder (2013) cautioned school leaders against dissolving esl programs in the pursuit of progressive aims of mainstream inclusion because many mainstream teachers lack specialized training for working with english language learners. in summary, lehman, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 34 downplaying the importance of esl programs and not recognizing esl teaching as a specialism result in the loss of autonomy for esl teachers and esl departments. while many esl teachers in international schools are fully qualified teachers, some international schools hire teachers to work with ells who do not have in-depth training for working with english language learners. sometimes trailing spouses are employed as esl teachers, although they may not have specific training for working with english language acquisition. examining minimum qualifications for esl teachers in international schools in east asia, lehman (2021) found that of 489 teacher and administrator participants, 21 (4.3%) reported that a master’s degree or above in tesol/esl/linguistics was required to be an esl teacher in their school, and 169 (34.6%) reported that an education degree or a postgraduate certificate in education (pgce) was the minimum requirement. the education degree or pgce was not language acquisition specific; therefore, an education degree or pgce in any area of study would have sufficed. lehman (2021) further found that 143 (29.2%) of the participants revealed that a university degree and a tefl certificate were minimum requirements; the remaining percentage consisted of esl teachers having a tefl certificate or no qualification at all. in short, esl teachers should have qualifications that reflect education in second language acquisition (sla) theory and pedagogy (carder, 1991; kalinowski & carder, 1990; shoebottom, 2009). with the ever-increasing numbers of local students being enrolled in international schools, the provision of esl support should be of primary concern, and some authors have written about this matter. according to kalinowski and carder (1990), esl departments are to be considered a resource point in international schools concerning esl support, and gallagher (2008) presented esl as a hub at the centre of a wheel in which many aspects of an international school are connected via spokes to the hub. further, shoebottom (2009) explained how esl teachers and the department have roles that extend far beyond the primary role of esl instruction. in summary, esl teachers and esl departments should be recognized as autonomous entities and not subjected to marginalization by being combined with the english or sen departments. exiting esl support parents of english language learners often expect their child to exit esl support very quickly. according to carder (2007), many parents of students in international schools believe their child will develop language ability within three to six months. studying parent expectations of esl study in an international school in vietnam, lehman (2020) found that 70% of 128 parents thought one year or less was the ideal time for their child to receive esl support. further, many parents wish to avoid extra fees that some international schools charge for the provision of esl support, which may impact english language learners and esl teachers. regardless of whether extra esl study fees are involved, it is imperative that international schools develop a transparent esl policy detailing how english language learners are assessed and the benchmarks required for them to exit esl support. there is no clear consensus in the international school market concerning how english language learners are assessed, the provision of esl support, and what criteria should be met to exit esl support. however, esl teachers are often the most qualified to determine when students should exit esl support. for some guidance, international schools and staff can look lehman, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 35 towards some government agencies in native english-speaking countries for information concerning esl support. for example, in the united states, title iii of the elementary and secondary education act (esea) (20 u.s.c. § 6811, seq., 1965) allows schools and states to establish criteria for exiting ells. the office for civil rights (n.d.) in the united states suggests developing a plan that specifies in detail how english language learners will be assessed and which instrument(s) and or methods will be used to assess language and academic ability. additionally, the office for civil rights (n.d.) holds that students should not exit esl support until they are able “to participate meaningfully in the regular educational program” (ocr memorandum, special education programs). further, schools should have a system for monitoring english language learners for two years after exiting (20 u.s.c. § 6811, seq., 1965). in conclusion, schools should hire esl teachers based on their training, experience, and language acquisition knowledge and allow those teachers to determine when english language learners no longer require esl support. special education needs and the english department there are crossovers between esl instruction and english instruction and between esl instruction and sen instruction; however, there are a number of teachers and schools that believe esl teachers and esl departments should be merged with the english or sen departments. because most english language arts and literature teachers have little to no training in language acquisition, the esl department should not be combined with the english department (carder, 2007). further, carder (2011) declared that an esl department “should certainly not come under the aegis of a sen department,” and reasoned that putting english language learners with students who have special education needs could have a “profoundly negative experience” for them; further, to do so, “shows the ignorance of those devising school structures” (p. 5). additionally, the national subject association for eal (naldic) (n.d.) reported that there is little likelihood of a difference in the percentage of english language learners who are also sen compared to monolingual students who are also sen. in england, the department of education (department of education, 2015) stated, “difficulties related solely to learning english as an additional language are not sen” (p. 85). lastly, the office for civil rights (n.d.) in the united states maintains the position that schools “may not assign students to special education programs on the basis of criteria that essentially measure and evaluate english language skills” (ocr memorandum, special education programs). in conclusion, the office for civil rights in the united states and the department of education in england recognize and assert there are distinct differences between the needs of english language learners and the students with special education needs. method data analysis the researcher used spss software (v. 27) to perform pearson chi-square tests (χ²) with an alpha level of .05. the pearson chi-square test is a nonparametric test used to measure the distribution of frequencies (salkind, 2013). additionally, the pearson chi-square test can evaluate nominal data (creswell, 2012; mchugh, 2013). all of the pearson chi-square test lehman, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 36 assumptions were met (mchugh, 2013). in addition to the pearson chi-square test, the results of fisher’s exact test are also reported. participants the researcher conducted random sampling through the online search of school websites for names, positions, and contact information for potential participants. for specific staff to be considered potential participants, the school website had to reveal that the school did not use the host country curriculum and that english was the medium of instruction. the researcher used a separate survey for each group of teachers and purposefully sent a survey specifically to each teacher; therefore, demographic information was not requested in the survey. because each participant received a survey request sent to their school email address, all participants were working in an international school when they completed the survey. participants were located in africa, asia, the middle east, and south america; most participants were located in east asia. the researcher sent a survey request to 476 esl teachers, 1,836 primary teachers, and 1,294 secondary english teachers. overall, 3,606 teachers received a survey request. after participants with partial answers were removed, a total of 279 international school teacher responses formed the data set for this research study. of the 279 participants, 80 were esl teachers, 119 were primary teachers, and 80 were secondary english teachers. the surveys were completed during may and june of 2021. design and instruments an observational quantitative research design using cross-sectional surveys was used to collect data. a cross-sectional survey does not manipulate a variable; instead, the survey collects data at a single point in time (creswell, 2012). each group of participants received a separate survey containing questions that applied to their group. when cross-comparisons were to be made, the questions were identical. the survey questions for this study were part of longer surveys that the researcher used to gather additional data for other research studies. to establish content validity, three international school educators, who did not participate in the study, served as experts in the field (creswell, 2012) and reviewed the research questions and survey questions. for this study, four survey questions were used (see appendix). the first two questions were asked of all participants. only esl teachers and secondary english teachers were asked the third question, and only esl teachers and primary teachers were asked the fourth question. in the introductory email, potential participants were informed of the intentions of the study. additionally, potential participants were provided a website link to view the research questions and additional information about the study, including biographical information about the researcher. the website also provided a contact box so potential participants could ask questions before and after choosing to complete the survey. the potential participants were not promised any reward and were not coerced into completing the survey. participation was voluntary, and when taking the survey, none of the questions were mandatory. the researcher used survey monkey to host the surveys; all data were stored via a password-protected laptop and password-protected external hard drive. results lehman, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 37 research question one participants were asked if classroom teachers have a role in deciding when students exit the classification of english language learners. of the 279 participants who responded to the question, 196 (70.25%) answered yes, and 83 (29.75%) participants answered no. further, participants were asked who should be involved in the decision-making process of when students exit the classification of being english language learners (see table 1). table 1. decision-making process for exiting esl teachers n=279 esl teachers n=80 primary teachers n=119 english teachers n=80 classroom teachers 85.00% 85.71% 72.75% esl teacher or esl department 97.50% 94.12% 92.50% principal or administrators 32.50% 29.41% 38.75% parents 26.25% 43.70% 36.25% research question two esl teachers and secondary english teachers were asked if the esl department should be combined with the english department. the results of a pearson chi-square test revealed that there was a statistically significant difference in whether esl should be combined with the english department in international schools between esl teachers (group 1: n = 80) and secondary english teachers (group 2: n = 80), 𝜒1 2 = 18.228, p < 0.001. fisher’s exact test reflected p < 0.001. figure 1 reflects the percentages of esl and english teacher responses. figure 1. combine esl with the english department (in percentages). of the 160 esl and english teachers combined, 81 (50.63%) answered that esl should be combined with english, while 79 (49.37%) answered that esl should not be combined with the english department. additionally, 27 (33.75%) of the 80 esl teachers believed esl should be combined with the english department, while 53 (66.25%) answered that it should not be combined. finally, 54 (67.5%) english teachers answered that esl should be combined, while 26 (32.5%) answered that it should not be combined. esl teachers and primary teachers were asked if the esl department should be combined with the sen department. the results of a pearson chi-square test revealed that there was not a statistically significant difference in whether esl should be combined with the sen department in international schools between esl teachers (group 1: n = 80) and early and primary teachers (group 2: n = 119), 𝜒1 2 = 2.165, p = 0.141. fisher’s exact test reflected p = 0.173. figure 2 reflects the percentages of esl and primary teacher responses. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 english teachers esl teachers no yes lehman, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 38 figure 2. combine esl with the sen department (in percentages). of the 199 esl and primary teachers, 129 (64.82%) were against combining esl with sen, and 70 (35.18%) were for combining esl with sen. additionally, individual groups show that of 80 esl teachers, 47 (58.75%) were against while 33 (41.25%) were for combining esl with sen. lastly, of the 119 primary teachers, 82 (68.91%) were against, and 37 (31.09%) were for combining esl with sen. discussion exiting esl support participant responses revealed that a sizeable percentage of classroom teachers in international schools should have a voice in the process of exiting students from esl support. the responses by the respondents show that many teachers believed the decision-making process for exiting students from receiving esl support should involve multiple stakeholders. esl teachers and primary teachers held similar views concerning classroom teachers, esl teachers or esl department, and principals and administrators being involved in the process of when students exit from receiving esl support. an interesting departure in the similarity between esl teachers and primary teachers was the involvement of parents. this difference warrants discussion. a possible reason why only 25.53% of esl teachers believe that the parents of english language learners should have a voice in the exiting process could be that some schools are charging esl fees in addition to tuition (lehman, 2020), which may provoke some parents to put pressure on their children and esl teachers. additionally, some parents of english language learners have unrealistic expectations concerning the length of time needed for their child to acquire english language abilities that would allow them to participate meaningfully in the mainstream classroom as independent learners. many parents of english language learners believe their child will develop english language ability within three to six months (carder, 2007), and according to lehman (2020), a sizeable percentage of parents of english language learners think one year or less is the ideal time for their child to receive esl support. the information and findings reported in the above-cited sources could show how parent expectations may have influenced esl teacher answers concerning whether or not parents should be involved in the process of exiting english language learners from receiving esl support. additionally, 72.09% percent of english teachers thought that classroom teachers should have a voice in the exiting process for english language learners from esl support as 0 20 40 60 80 100 primary teachers esl teachers no yes lehman, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 39 opposed to esl teachers (86.17%) and primary teachers (85.24%). although this difference is relatively small, it is noticeable, as were the percentages of english teachers concerning esl teachers or the esl department being involved in the process and the desire for more participation from a principal or administration. overall, esl, primary, and secondary teachers overwhelmingly supported classroom teachers and esl teachers or the esl department being involved in the decision-making process but did not support the involvement of a principal and administration or parents to the same degree. regardless of which criteria are used to evaluate english language learner readiness to exit esl, international schools should have an esl plan that specifies how students will be assessed, who is involved in the assessment, and to what degree. according to the office for civil rights (n.d.), the following are some suggested examples for evaluating english language learners and esl programs. ● standardized tests; ● teacher observation measures and checklists; ● portfolios; ● grade-point averages; ● graduation/promotion rates; while working in different international schools as an esl specialist and coordinator, the researcher observed how subjectivity without documented evidence sometimes kept english language learners from exiting, even when benchmarks were reached on school-approved language assessments and when parents were paying extra fees for esl support. as the international school market becomes more motivated for profits, some school administrators may have a conflict of interest in exiting english language learners from support programs that charge fees for additional esl support. while allowing classroom teachers and administrators to have a voice in the decision to exit or retain english language learners can be seen as a positive process, not having a clear and transparent process for exiting or retaining students in esl programs can have ethical implications that may lead to disastrous outcomes. the autonomy of esl teachers and the esl department although there was no statistically significant difference between esl teachers and english teachers about whether esl should be combined with english language arts or literature, a point of concern is when the two groups are combined and when examining the esl teacher responses. it is further concerning that slightly more than one-third of the esl teachers support combining esl with english language arts or literature, thereby surrendering esl department autonomy. while there was no statistically significant difference between esl teachers and primary teachers about whether esl should be combined with sen, another point of concern is the percentages of teachers who support this combination, especially the percentage of esl teachers. once again, of concern are the number of teachers who believed esl should be combined with sen, especially the esl teachers, which would result in a loss of autonomy for esl teachers and the esl department. one possible reason why approximately one-third of esl teachers supported combing esl with english and esl with sen may stem from the lack of specific in-depth training that many teachers who support english language learners lack. according to data reported by lehman (2021), of 489 teacher and administrator participants, only 4.3% reported that a lehman, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 40 master’s degree or above in tesol/esl/linguistics was required to be an esl teacher in their school. while lehman (2021) found that 34.6% reported that an education degree or a pgce was the minimum requirement, the remaining 61.1% had a university degree and a tefl certificate or less as their professional credentials. the above data shows that many english language learners in international schools are being taught by esl teachers who lack specific and in-depth training in language acquisition. overall, there needs to be an overhaul in the international school industry, and international schools should hire esl specialist teachers who have qualifications that reflect education in second language acquisition (sla) theory and pedagogy (carder, 1991; kalinowski & carder, 1990; shoebottom, 2009). both the department of education (2015) in england and the office for civil rights (n.d.) in the united states have made it clear that there is a perspicuous distinction between english language learner needs and sen. as such, international schools, school leaders, and teachers need to understand that there is a distinct difference between language learning and sen and work toward ensuring that the esl department is autonomous and independent of the english and sen departments. there is no excuse for english language learners in englishmedium international schools to be denied qualified teachers with the knowledge and training to facilitate acquiring the language they are striving to learn, especially when extra esl support fees are required. further, there is no excuse for english-medium international schools to continue marginalising the very teachers and departments whose job is to facilitate student acquisition of the language of instruction. limitations the researcher assumed that the participants responded to questions with understanding and truthfulness. an additional assumption was that the researcher provided an appropriate array of responses from which participants were able to choose. while the researcher purposefully targeted the participants because of their teaching position as listed on school websites, the researcher assumed that the participants from each of the three groups formed representative samples. although assumptions for the pearson chi-square tests were not violated, a limitation of the study was the number of participants for each group. another limitation was that the study only included participants from schools whose contact information was available on the school website or the internet. conclusion this study aimed to explore what differences may exist between esl, primary, and english teachers concerning esl teacher and esl department autonomy in english-medium international schools. firstly, the researcher sought to explore how esl, primary, and english teachers differ in their views of who should be involved when decisions are made to exit a student from receiving esl support. the data revealed that esl teachers and primary teachers held similar views concerning classroom teachers, esl teachers or esl department, and principals and administrators being involved in the process of when english language learners exit. however, there were differences between the two groups concerning the involvement of parents in the process. secondary english teachers tended to favour the involvement of a principal or member from administration in the process. overall, esl, primary, and secondary lehman, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 41 teachers supported classroom teachers and esl teachers or esl departments being involved in the decision-making process. additionally, the researcher sought to explore how these groups of teachers differ in their views of the esl department as an autonomous entity within an international school. the data revealed a statistically significant difference between esl and english teachers about whether the esl department should be combined with the english department. of concern is that when esl and english teacher responses are combined, slightly more than half favoured combining esl with the english department. for the most part, the data showed that esl and primary teachers held similar views on not combining esl with sen; however, a number of esl teachers supported combining esl with sen, which is concerning since it diminishes the autonomy of esl teachers and esl departments. international school leaders should ensure a transparent esl plan exists in their school that specifies how students are assessed and who is involved in the assessment and is involved in the decision whether students exit esl support. additionally, international school leaders should ensure that esl teachers have the necessary qualifications and training for working with english language learners. further, international school leaders need to understand that esl is not sen (department of education, 2015; office for civil rights, n.d.) and that there is a difference between esl and english language arts and literature. the researcher suggests future research exploring the beliefs of stakeholders involved in the process of exiting students from receiving esl support and why esl teachers and departments in international schools, as hired specialists in the field of language acquisition, appear to be experiencing a diminishing role in the process. further research is suggested studying the potential conflicts of interest that school administrators may have in the decisionmaking process for exiting english language learners from esl support, especially in schools that require an additional fee for esl support. lastly, the researcher suggests future research into why esl teachers support combining esl with sen or the english department, which results in the loss of autonomy for esl teachers and esl departments. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. references arkoudis, s. (2007). collaborating in esl education in schools. in j. cummins & c. davison (eds.), international handbook of english language teaching (pp. 365-377). springer science & business media. bunnell, t. (2016). international schooling: implications of the changing growth pattern. in m. hayden & j. thompson (eds.), international schools: current issues and future prospects (pp. 215-235). symposium books ltd. carder, m. w. (1991). the role and development of esl programmes in international schools. in p. jonietz & d. harris (eds.), world yearbook of education 1991: international schools and international education (pp. 6-14). kogan page ltd. carder, m. (2007). bilingualism in international schools: a model for enriching language education. multilingual matters. carder, m. (2011). esl in international schools in the ibmyp: the elephant under the table. international schools journal, 31(1), 50-58. carder, m. (2013). managerial impact on programmes for second language learners in international schools. https://mclanguage.tripod.com/webonmediacontents/managerial%20impact%20on%20second%20lang uage%20learners%20in%20international%20schools.pdf lehman, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 42 carder, m. w. (2014). tracing the path of esl provision in international schools over the last four decades (part 1). the international schools journal, 34(1), 85-96. creese, a. (2005). teacher collaboration and talk in multilingual classrooms. multilingual matters. creswell, j. w. (2012). educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). allyn & bacon. department of education. (2015). special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years. dfe 00205-2013. english, b., & varghese, m. m. (2010). enacting language policy through the facilitator model in a monolingual policy context in the united states. in k. menken & o. garcía (eds.), negotiating language education policies: educators as policymakers (pp. 107-122). routledge. gallagher, e. (2008). equal rights to the curriculum: many languages, one message. multilingual matters ltd. harper, c. a., de jong, e. j., & platt, e. j. (2008). marginalizing english as a second language teacher expertise: the exclusionary consequence of no child left behind. language policy, 7(3), 267-284. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-008-9102-y isc research. (2019). isc research. isc research. https://www.iscresearch.com kalinowski, f., & carder, m. (1990). setting up the esl department. in e. murphy (ed.), esl: a handbook for teachers and administrators in international schools (pp. 18-46). multilingual matters ltd. lehman, c. (2020). parent knowledge and preferences of language learning and use in an international school in vietnam. vnu journal of social sciences and humanities, 6(5), 577-590. https://doi.org/10.33100/jossh6.5.claytonlehman lehman, c. (2021). resources for ells in international schools: a non-profit and for-profit comparison. the universal academic research journal, 3(1), 38-50. https://doi.org/10.17220/tuara.2021.01.5 mchugh, m. l. (2013). the chi-square test of independence. biochemia medica, 23(2), 143-149. https://doi.org/10.11613/bm.2013.018 naldic. (n.d.). our school has a lot of eal learners on the sen register: is this a justifiable solution? naldic podcast. available at http://www.naldic.org.uk/resources/naldic/home/images/faq6.mp3 office for civil rights (n.d.). programs for english language learners. u.s. department of education. available at https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/ell/index.html salkind, n. j. (2013). statistics for people who (think they) hate statistics (3rd ed.). sage publications. shoebottom, p. (2009). academic success for non-native english speakers in english-medium international schools: the role of the secondary esl department. naldic quarterly, 7(1), 13-18. www.naldic.org.uk 20 u.s.c. § 6811, seq. (1965) title iii of the elementary and secondary education act appendix survey questions 1. do classroom teachers have a role in the process of when esl/eal students exit the classification of being esl/eal students? ● yes ● no 2. who should be involved when decisions are made to exit esl/eal students from being classified as esl/eal students? check all that apply. ● classroom teacher or classroom teachers ● esl/eal leader, esl/eal, teacher or esl/eal department ● principal(s) or other administrator(s) ● parent(s) 3. should esl/eal be combined with the english department? (no primary teachers) ● yes ● no 4. should esl/eal be combined with sen/special education? (no secondary english teachers) ● yes ● no ejal article template focus on elt journal (felt) vol 2, issue 1, 2020 issn: 2687-5381  contact: kursatcesur@comu.edu.tr suggested syllabus for world englishes and culture elective course at elt departments a kürşat cesur and b sezen balaban a assist. prof. dr., çanakkale onsekiz mart university, çanakkale, turkey, kursatcesur@comu.edu.tr b instructor, uludağ university, bursa, turkey, balaban@uludag.edu.tr to cite this article: cesur, k. & balaban, s. (2020). suggested syllabus for world englishes and culture elective course at elt departments. focus on elt journal (felt), 2(1), 37-47. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00017 abstract the council of higher education (cohe) transformed the curriculum for teaching departments into a phase during which more elective courses are taught in recent years. in accordance with this, the related innovation led to the constitution of three essential elective categories named as professional teaching knowledge (ptk), subject area knowledge (sak) and general knowledge (gk). this research study aimed to investigate and suggest the integration of world englishes (we) and culture course into english language teaching undergraduate programme. this study initially targeted to investigate teacher trainers’ views on the most avail contents to integrate within the we and culture course. subsequent to this aim, the study aimed to constitute a syllabus for this course. with this notion, a study which incorporated two distinct stages was generated. the study followed a mixed method sequential exploratory research design. correspondingly, documents which embrace books, university syllabi, google search documents and research articles were analyzed. following this execution, a survey was constituted and conducted on teacher trainers. after analyzing the documents, spss (statistical package for social sciences) 21.0 was employed for the analysis of the quantitative findings. results of the study demonstrated that there were 34 essential topics which were drawn from the analysis of the documents and teacher trainers favored some of these topics more than the others. a syllabus for “world englishes and culture” course was suggested at the end of the study. keywords: syllabus world englishes (we) culture elt elective course received : 18 april 2020 revised : 26 april 2020 accepted : 10 may 2020 published : 22 june 2020 introduction the concern of world englishes (we) has been a substantial issue in applied linguistics and elt (kuo, 2006). the reason for this argument can be that diversity in english language is considerable. to explain, english language has been utilized within environments of distinct geographies and histories. in addition to this, the diversity and variety in english use arise from the purpose of this language use. it could be observed that there exist people who employ english for professional aims and others who perform it for daily conversations. from this view, it has been suggested that english should be considered as a global language. in accordance with this view, it has been argued that world englishes should be allowed to progress in their own context, which could additionally accept the distinctions of these english varieties from the so-called ‘standard’ english. mailto:kursatcesur@comu.edu.tr http://www.orcid.org/0000-0001-5091-9793 http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-2911-6715 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00017 cesur, k. & balaban, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 38 focus on elt journal (felt) background of the study language education in turkey has been exposed to distinct aspects of transformation since an engagement with the european union (eu) criteria and bologna process came into prominence. council of higher education (cohe) undertook the most recent innovations in language teaching programmes in 1997, 2006 and lastly in 2018. additionally, some arrangements were done in terms of professional teaching knowledge (ptk) and general knowledge (gk) courses in 2016. furthermore, additional courses were identified and authorized as supplemental to the obligatory courses. consequently, it was specified that subject area knowledge (sak) courses would comprise over half of the programme, ptk would be involved within almost one-third and gk courses would be included within nearly one-fourth of the programme. in addition to this, the final innovation cohe put into practice in 2018 raised concerns such as the categorization of elective courses, a formation of a common core curriculum and an enhancement in the number of elective courses. aim of the study and research questions investigating distinct university syllabi and other documents, this study comprising two stages aimed at obtaining the most frequently employed contents of we and culture course and views by teacher trainers and accordingly suggesting an ideal we and culture course syllabus for elt departments of education faculties. to this end, the answers to two discrete research questions below were investigated: rq1: what are the most-preferred world englishes (we) and culture course topics in elt departments at education faculties in turkey? rq2: what are the most-preferred world englishes (we) and culture course topics favored by the teacher trainers? significance of the study the significance of this study emerges from discrete aspects. primarily, this study aimed at exploring previous studies in literature on the use of we and culture course. in accordance with this, specific research through providing the current we and culture syllabi in turkey was targeted. furthermore, almost no research has been implemented so as to offer a syllabus to teachers or institutions on “we and culture”. additionally, this research aspires to generate and enhance an awareness of the we issue through designating teachers, teacher candidates, learners and institutions about the diversities and varieties in english as a global language. limitations of the study this research study comprised of two distinct data collection stages. in the initial stage, content analysis of university syllabi was generated; however, there still exist some institutions whose syllabus could not been attained and therefore not analyzed. another limitation could be specified as the number of teacher trainers who responded to the survey. in other words, 63 teacher trainers from elt departments responded the survey. a greater number of participants could have changed the findings on the most-preferred we and culture course topics. one further limitation could be indicated as the deficiency of an item in the quantitative part which would question whether an elective course named as ‘we and culture’ is needed for undergraduate elt learners. cesur, k. & balaban, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 39 focus on elt journal (felt) literature review conceiving its history, it was specified that english has transformed from a local language which was utilized on an island into a global language which is spoken, taught and needed all over the world (kachru & nelson, 2001). according to kachru (1985), whose concentric circle model has been a definition of world englishes, inner circle countries comprise the united kingdom, america, canada, australia, and new zealand; outer circle countries embrace india, nigeria, etc.; and expanding circle countries include china, france, israel, egypt, etc. the researcher states that it is specifically the expanding countries group within this model which construes english as a world language. world englishes (we) or english as a lingua franca (elf) concern has been a crucial matter of research and debate by several researchers. this research and debate put ideological concerns into prominence. from cogo and dewey’s (2012) view, it was argued that english should be utilized as a representative of flexibility. additionally, cogo and dewey (2012) related we to matters of pluricentrism and multilingualism. on the other hand, kachru and nelson (2001) stated that we has generated new dimensions both linguistically and pedagogically. in addition to the theoretical perspectives to we, a pedagogical aspect of this concern led practitioners to involve this issue as a specific course at elt department of universities. with a review of literature, a considerable amount of research studies which were implemented on the integration of we into university syllabi exist. one research study was implemented by tanghe (2014) in south korea. the aim of this experiment was to provide progress in students’ conversational skills, generate awareness on learners about we and enhance their critical thinking skills. two classes which participated in this study were exposed to we course for 15 weeks each session of which lasted for 110 minutes. findings demonstrated that we course assisted learners to progress their confidence in performing english. furthermore, they gained a wider perspective of english and a further understanding mindset towards the varieties of this global language. additionally, they owned a positive attitude towards the future use of technology and blogs in english teaching. a further study was generated by bayne, usui and watanabe (2002) with the aim of considering english from discrete dimensions. to this end, video courses on we were employed within 9-10 weeks so as to encourage learners’ progress in both communication skills and other language skills such as writing, organization, synthesis and word knowledge. the experiment was supported by the application of learner performances, and pre-& postquestionnaires. findings showed that learners reflected positive responses about their we training. a striking comment specified by one of the learners was that there was no one true english. an additional study addressed we concern from a literature basis (sridhar, 1982). this study aimed to highlight the significance of non-native literary texts for esl teaching. accommodating several pieces of literature from distinct non-native cultures, the researcher intended to specify that it was an english teacher’s mission to teach this global language through embracing traditions, native cultures, customs and social issues. it was stated that a language teaching profession is deficient unless these concerns are instructed to learners in addition to linguistic concerns. as a consequence, this paper aims to elaborate the content of cesur, k. & balaban, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 40 focus on elt journal (felt) world englishes and culture course for elt departments and it was aimed to offer stakeholders of elt world various suggestions on generating a we syllabus. methodology research design a mixed-methods research design (creswell, 2014) was implemented so as to generate this research study. the first stage of the study comprised of content analysis of the data collected from the documents. set of analytic activities proposed by lune and berg (2017) while analyzing the data was followed. university syllabi, books, research articles and other documents explored in google were investigated in order to constitute the items of a preplanned survey for teacher trainers. subsequent to this stage, the possible contents to be included within the survey were ordered and composed a survey. in accordance with this, the survey was conducted on teacher trainers with the aim of exploring their views on an ideal we and culture syllabus. therefore, both quantitative and qualitative means of data collection were utilized in this research study. figure 1. mixed methods sequential exploratory research procedures (adapted from ivankova et al., 2006, p. 16) participants 63 teacher trainers from distinct universities in turkey participated in the study. subsequent to the constitution of a survey by means of google forms, these participants were expected to conduct the survey through ordering the syllabus contents which they favored according to their order of significance. no criteria were identified for the selection of participants except for their profession; therefore, the participants were chosen using random sampling. in addition to this, there was no specific research setting or location for the implementation of this study since data collection procedure was generated by means of online research and survey. phase procedure products qualitative data collection elt curriculums of state universities, books, articles, google documents syllabus contents  qualitative data analysis thematic analysis: analysis of the documents on we and culture frequency tables content topics  connecting qualitative and quantitative phases expert opinion final chart of contents to utilise a quantitative data collection tool  quantitative data collection questionnaire  nominal (categorical) item scores  quantitative data analysis spss descriptive analysis questionnaire data results  integration of the quantitative and qualitative results interpretation and explanation of qual & quan results  conclusion, discussion, implications, future research cesur, k. & balaban, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 41 focus on elt journal (felt) data collection instruments and data analysis both qualitative and quantitative data collection processes were generated in this research study. the initial means of data collection embodied documents which were gathered from undergraduate elt world englishes and culture course syllabi, books, articles, and other documents on world englishes (we) and culture. 13 research articles, 18 documents from google, two books and 21 university syllabi constituted the data collection tools to execute the first stage of the study. a qualitative thematic analysis was generated on these instruments using microsoft excel (meyer & avery, 2009). subsequent to the analysis of these documents, topics related to we and culture course were listed and formed a likert scale which encompassed items to rate from 1 to 5 (not at all important – very important). to analyze the data more specifically, the scale was identified within five categories ranging from 1.00–1.79 = not at all important, 1.80–2.59 = low importance, 2.60–3.39 = neutral, 3.40– 4.19 = important and 4.20–5.00 = very important (hemmati & mojarrad, 2016). this means of data collection was formed and utilized so as to explore teacher trainers’ views on we and culture course contents and their order of significance so as to compose a suggested course syllabus for undergraduate elt programs. in accordance with this, mean scores over 4.20 were considered as highly suggested and therefore were specified within the results section. results findings below were obtained as a result of the reflection of two discrete research questions. world englishes (we) and culture course topics obtained from content analysis the first research question constituted the first section of the study and was reflected so as to investigate the most-preferred topics for world englishes (we) and culture elective course at elt undergraduate level. an analysis was generated by means of 13 research articles (coded as ‘a’), two books (coded as ‘b’), 18 documents from google search (coded as ‘s’) and 21 university syllabi (coded as ‘u’). as a result of this analysis through these data collection tools, the topics related to we and culture course were listed as demonstrated in table 1. among university syllabi which were incorporated in this study, merely the ones whose syllabus was explicitly specified and listed were indicated in table in other words, 21 university syllabi were investigated; however, it was not all of these institutions which clearly exhibited their syllabus. cesur, k. & balaban, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 42 focus on elt journal (felt) table 1. findings obtained from content analysis topics f % *codes 1. the effect of culture on language teaching 23 43 a1, s2, s3, s4, s5, s6, s10, s12, s16, s17, a12, a5, a7, a6, a2, a8, b1, b2, u1, u2, u4, u6, u9 2. english culture and history 17 31 s1, s2, s3, s4, s5, s6, s11, s12, s13, s14, s15, s16, s17, s18, a1, a2, u21 3. the use of english as an international language (eil) 15 28 s2, s3, s4, s5, s9, s10, s14, a3, a4, a5, a6, u1, u2, u4, u6 4. internationalization: standards of english 15 28 a1, s2, s7, s8, s9, s10, s11, s15, s16, s17, s18, a13, a9, a7, u21 5. raising awareness on the relationship between language and culture on students 10 19 s10, s14, s15, a13, a9, a5, a6, u1, u2, u4 6. the effects of eil on teacher training 10 19 s2, s3, s5, s9, s10, s14, a3, a4, a5, a6 7. material analysis in terms of cultural elements (coursebooks, literary texts, films, tv shows) 9 17 s5, s6, s16, u1, u2, u4, u6, u9, u11 8. sociocultural and political aspects of english 7 13 s1, s5, s6, s7, s12, s14, s18 9. multilingualism and bilingualism 7 13 s10, s14, a1, a5, a6, a7, a10 10. future of english 6 11 s10, s13, s15, s18, b2, u21 11. english, imperialism, and globalization 5 9 s5, a1, a10, a7, u21 12. kachru's concentric circle model 5 9 s5, s15, a13, a9, a7 13. pidgins and creoles 4 7 s10, s17, a2, b2 14. englishization and nativization 3 6 a1, a8, b1 15. language policy 3 6 a6, a7, a10 16. communicative competence 2 4 a6, a7 17. customs and language in modern western societies 1 2 u21 18. customs and language in british society 1 2 u21 19. eastern societies and british society 1 2 u21 20. modern approaches to british culture 1 2 u21 21.the similarities and differences between the students' own and cultures of the countries where english is spoken 1 2 u21 22. the experience and perspective of people in the countries and communities where the target language is spoken 1 2 u21 23. investigation of language with teachers from local, national or international contexts 1 2 u21 24. awareness of individual, (multi) cultural, and psycho-social diversity in learning environments and adapt to different local contexts 1 2 u21 25. critical thinking on language-related issues emerging from global english contexts 1 2 u21 26. examples of world englishes 1 2 u21 27. introduction: why 'world englishes'? 1 2 u21 28. english today: error and innovation 1 2 u21 29. african englishes: how to write africa 1 2 u21 30. asian englishes: the indian example 1 2 u21 31. china: limits on the acceptability of englishes 1 2 u21 32. western culture during renaissance 1 2 u21 33. industrial era and british society 1 2 u21 34. english literature and its linguistic development 1 2 u21 *code ‘a’ = research articles, code ‘b’ = books, code ‘s’ = documents from google search, code ‘u’ = university syllabi cesur, k. & balaban, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 43 focus on elt journal (felt) as demonstrated in table 1, findings reveal the frequency, percentage and codes of each preferred topic for we and culture as an elective course at undergraduate level. according to these findings, ‘the effect of culture on language teaching’ has the highest percentage which is nearly half of the analyzed documents. furthermore, almost one-third (31%) of the documents analyzed reveal that ‘english culture and history’ should be one of the we and culture syllabus topics. over one-fourth (28%) of the documents specify that ‘the use of english as an international language (eil)’ and ‘internationalization: standards of english’ need to be involved in the course. the fifth most-frequent topics are ‘raising awareness on the relationship between language and culture on students’ and ‘the effects of eil on teacher training’ with 19% frequency. the findings also reveal that ‘material analysis in terms of cultural elements (course books, literary texts, films, tv shows)’ is comprised within nine of the documents, six of which are university syllabi. additionally, over one-tenth of the documents expose that ‘sociocultural and political aspects of english’ (13%), ‘multilingualism and bilingualism’ (13%) and ‘future of english’ (11%) are preferred as topics related to we and culture elective course. moreover, almost 10% of the documents introduce ‘english, imperialism and globalisation’ (9%) and ‘kachru’s concentric circle model’ (9%) as alternative topics to the ones specified above. four of the documents (7%) consider ‘pidgins and creoles’ as preferred topic for the course. merely three documents which involve articles and books highlights ‘englishization and nativization’ and ‘language policy’ (6%) topics. ‘communicative competence’ topic was embraced by two of the articles (4%). the second half of table 1 designates that the topics between 17 and 34 relate to one university syllabus (hong kong university), which has a frequency of 2%. world englishes (we) and culture course topics favored by teacher trainers the second research question represented the second phase of this research study. by means of this question, it was aimed at investigating teacher trainers’ order of significance in terms of the topics which they expected to be included in the syllabus of world englishes (we) and culture as an elective course. as a result of responses obtained from 63 participants who responded to the survey, findings are demonstrated as in table 2. cronbach alfa was identified as 0,886 which indicated high reliability for the survey to be used in the study (büyüköztürk, 2006). table 2. teacher trainers’ order of significance among 35 topics n=63 f *1 2 3 4 *5 mean 1.the effect of culture on language teaching 1 0 4 9 49 4,67 27. introduction: why 'world englishes'? 0 1 4 15 43 4,59 5.raising awareness on we and culture 0 0 4 20 39 4,56 3.the use of english as an international language eil 0 0 10 9 44 4,54 26.examples of world englishes 0 0 9 13 41 4,51 25. critical thinking on language-related issues emerging from global english contexts 1 2 7 12 41 4,43 24. awareness of diversity in learning environments and adapting to different local contexts 0 3 8 18 34 4,32 6. material analysis in terms of cultural elements (coursebooks, literary texts, films, tv shows) 5 1 3 15 39 4,30 16.communicative competence 3 3 6 17 34 4,21 7.sociocultural and political aspects of english 3 3 5 20 32 4,19 10.the effects of eil on teacher training 3 3 8 16 33 4,16 cesur, k. & balaban, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 44 focus on elt journal (felt) 21. the similarities and differences between the students' own and cultures of the countries where english is spoken 2 3 9 22 27 4,10 15.language policy 0 5 12 19 27 4,08 12.kachru’s concentric circle model 4 1 12 17 29 4,05 4.internationalization: standards of english 1 3 15 18 26 4,03 22. the experience and perspective of people in the countries and communities where the target language is spoken 3 2 12 20 26 4,02 35.we in popular culture (music, newspapers,) 0 5 15 17 26 4,02 9.future of english 3 5 15 12 28 3,90 23. investigation of language with teachers from local, national or international contexts 2 9 9 18 25 3,87 2.english culture and history 2 7 13 22 19 3,78 8.multilingualism and bilingualism 4 8 13 15 23 3,71 14.englishization and nativization 2 8 19 16 18 3,63 34.synthesizing research on we 7 3 17 18 18 3,59 28.english today error and innovation 1 7 26 14 15 3,56 17.customs and language in modern western societies 3 11 14 24 11 3,46 18.customs and language in british society 7 9 17 17 13 3,32 13.pidgins and creoles 3 12 24 16 8 3,22 19.eastern societies and british society 7 14 18 14 10 3,10 30.asian englishes 8 13 21 13 8 3,00 20.modern approaches to british culture 1 14 15 14 9 2,94 29.african englishes 9 14 21 11 8 2,92 33.english literature and its linguistic development 17 8 21 11 6 2,70 32.industrial era and british society 24 15 13 8 3 2,22 31.western culture during renaissance 28 14 15 3 3 2,03 *teacher trainers were asked to rate the importance level of the topics from 1 to 5 (not at all important – very important). according to table 2, findings indicate that the most preferred topic for we and culture course is ‘the effect of culture on language teaching’ by 49 of the teacher trainers who found it very important. additionally, ‘introduction: why world englishes?’ is the second most preferred topic for the course which was identified with 4,59 mean score. third, ‘raising awareness on we and culture’ was selected as very important by 39 of the participants (62%). the fourth topic which was considered as very significant to 44 of the teacher trainers is ‘the use of english as an international language’. ‘examples of we’ was selected as the fifth important topic for the course with a 4,51 mean value, which designates 65% of the participants. furthermore, ‘critical thinking on language-related issues emerging from global english contexts’ was identified as the sixth most-preferred topic for the syllabus with the same percentage as ‘examples of we’. additionally, ‘awareness of diversity in learning environments and adapting to different local contexts’ was signified as another preferred topic with a percentage which is over half of the teacher trainers. ‘material analysis in terms of cultural elements’ and ‘communicative competence’ were denoted by almost half of the participants. on the other hand, the least-preferred three topics for the course were specified as ‘english literature and its linguistic development’, ‘industrial era and british society’ and ‘western culture during renaissance’. discussion this research study aimed at investigating and suggesting the most preferred topics for world englishes (we) and culture course for undergraduate level at elt department. therefore, not only providing a syllabus suggestion but also awareness on efl teachers and teacher trainers cesur, k. & balaban, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 45 focus on elt journal (felt) on how to train their learners on world englishes and culture was aimed in the study. being more aware of what to integrate in a syllabus, efl teachers or teacher trainers could reflect the importance of this elective course whilst raising teacher candidates. to this end, two research questions were reflected and their answers were investigated by means of analyzing various documents and a survey. the primary research question intended to explore the content of discrete documents which comprised 13 research articles on google scholar, two books, 18 documents from google and 21 university syllabi. findings demonstrated that ‘the effect of culture on language teaching’ had the highest percentage which is nearly half of the analysed documents. this finding could be specified as closely related to research studies implemented by galloway and rose (2018), matsuda (2003), and bayne et al. (2002). in addition to this correlation, this topic was also encouraged by international college of liberal arts, university of florida at gainesville, sweden’s first university and northeastern illinois university. besides the issue of world englishes, culture is another important factor to be considered. the second most-selected topic as a result of content analysis was identified as ‘english culture and history’. the selection of this topic for we and culture course were suggested by the studies generated by jenkins (2009), bayne et al. (2002). furthermore, this topic was also comprised in the syllabus of institutions such as norwegian university of science and technology, university of southampton, university of illinois at springfield and the university of edinburgh. the third most-preferred topic designated by the analysis of the documents was ‘internationalisation: standards of english’, whose significance could be referred to studies conducted by fang et al. (2017), llurda (2009) and sharifian (2009). the importance of this topic could be observed in syllabi of institutions such as başkent university, middle east technology university and pamukkale university. research question two targeted at discovering teacher trainers’ order of significance on the 35 topics throughout the survey. as a result of the responses by 63 teacher trainers, the first most-preferred topic for we and culture course was selected as ‘the effect of culture on language teaching’, which certainly designates the same finding by the analysis of the documents. similarly, research studies implemented by galloway and rose (2018), matsuda (2003), and bayne, usui and watanabe (2002) indicate the importance of this point within we and culture concern. the second most-preferred topic for the elective course was identified as ‘introduction: why 'world englishes'?’ by teacher trainers, however analysis of the documents demonstrated a contrastive finding (2%). ‘raising awareness on we and culture’ was obtained as the third most-preferred topic by teacher trainers, which demonstrates a similar result with the analysis of the documents. this topic was additionally encouraged by studies implemented by galloway and rose (2018) and tanghe (2014). another important aspect of this research study could be that it involves some contents which designate teacher candidates a practical notion on how to apply world englishes and culture course through discrete materials and within various learning environments. in addition, the order of contents comprised in the suggested syllabus could be distinctive depending on objectives or needs. however, it has been considered that any of these contents could provide teacher candidates with a distinct notion of the ‘world englishes’ issue. cesur, k. & balaban, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 46 focus on elt journal (felt) in addition to the statements above, one further highlighting finding was obtained as a result of the open-ended item in the survey. this finding indicated that there were two teacher trainers who argued that learners need to acquire a sociolinguistics background prior to taking we and culture course at undergraduate level. implications in terms of constituting a syllabus for we and culture as an elective course, teacher trainers’ views and perceptions of discrete topics could be taken into consideration. in accordance with this notion, a categorization of topics obtained from the analysis of the documents could be convenient prior to providing teacher trainers with a group of topics to select. in addition to this, further course syllabi should come into prominence and their contents need to be analyzed so that teacher trainers could be supplied with a greater number of alternative elective courses. considering the findings obtained as a result of this study, it could be appropriate to suggest ‘the effect of culture on language teaching’ as an initial topic for we and culture course since it was the most-preferred concern by both documents and teacher trainers. furthermore, ‘introduction: why 'world englishes'?’ and ‘raising awareness on we and culture’ could be selected as essential topics for we and culture course. in addition, since topics the mean values of which were over 4.20 were closely related to world englishes and culture, the topics might be crucial to consider while forming a suggested syllabus (see appendix). furthermore, teacher trainers’ needs and their learners’ grade at university may be discrete. therefore, it could be convenient to implement a needs analysis in addition to the analysis of the documents so as to constitute an ideal and avail syllabus for their elective course. a further implication could be specified for researchers who plan to conduct research studies on the constitution of a course syllabus. it could be highly suggested to utilize both qualitative and quantitative means of data collection so that they could obtain richer data to constitute a survey and explore participants’ responses. a final implication could be identified in terms of the items which were incorporated in the survey. to explain, there could have been an extra item which questions whether such a ‘we and culture’ selective course is needed for undergraduate elt learners. this implementation is considered to shed light on future research studies which intend to explore and design a syllabus and constitute a survey for this aim. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references bayne, k., usui, y., & watanabe, a. (2002, september). world englishes and self-images of japanese: a summary. in 1st peace as a global language conference proceedings and supplement. tokyo, japan. büyüköztürk, ş. (2006). sosyal bilimler için veri analizi el kitabı (6. baskı). pegem. cogo, a., & dewey, m. (2012). analysing english as a lingua franca: a corpus-driven investigation. bloomsbury publishing. creswell, j. w. (2014). research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (4th ed.). sage publications, inc. fang, f. g., hu, l., & jenkins, j. (2017). overseas chinese students' perceptions of the influence of english on their language and culture. journal of asia tefl, 14(1), 144. galloway, n., & rose, h. (2018). incorporating global englishes into the elt classroom. elt journal, 72(1), 3-14. cesur, k. & balaban, s. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 47 focus on elt journal (felt) hemmati, f., & mojarrad, h. (2016). e-learning and distance education: a study of iranian teaching english as a foreign language masters students. malaysian journal of distance education, 18(1). ivankova, n. v., creswell, j. w., & stick, s. l. (2006). using mixed methods sequential explanatory design: from theory to practice. field methods, 18(1), 3–20. jenkins, j. (2009). english as a lingua franca: interpretations and attitudes. world englishes, 28(2), 200-207. kachru, y. (1985). discourse analysis, non-native englishes and second language acquisition research. world englishes, 4(2), 223-232. kachru, b. b., & nelson, c. (2001). world englishes. in a. burns & c. coffin (eds.), analysing english in a global context (pp. 5-17). routledge. kuo, i. c. (2006). addressing the issue of teaching english as a lingua franca. elt journal, 60(3), 213-221. llurda, e. (2009). attitudes towards english as an international language: the pervasiveness of native models among l2 users and teachers. in f. sharifian (ed.), english as an international language: perspectives and pedagogical issues, (pp. 119-134). multilingual matters. lune, h. & berg, b. l. (2017). qualitative research methods for social sciences (9th ed.). vivar, malaysia: pearson. matsuda, a. (2003). incorporating world englishes in teaching english as an international language. tesol quarterly, 37(4), 719-729. meyer, d. z. & avery, l. m. (2009). excel as a qualitative data analysis tool. field methods, 21(1), 91-112. sharifian, f. (ed.). (2009). english as an international language: perspectives and pedagogical issues (vol. 11). multilingual matters. sridhar, s. n. (1982). non-native english literatures: context and relevance. in b. b. kachru (ed.), the other tongue: english across cultures, (pp. 291-306). urbana: university of illinois press. tanghe, s. (2014). integrating world englishes into a university conversation class in south korea: practical suggestions and theoretical reflections for bringing world englishes into efl classrooms. english today, 30(2), 18-23. appendix suggested syllabus for world englishes and culture elective course weeks topics 1. introduction of course content, structure, tasks, and assessment 2. importance of sociolinguistics for we and culture 3. why 'world englishes'? 4. the effect of culture on language teaching 5. how to analyze cultural elements in language teaching materials. 6. the use of english as an international language eil 7. language-related issues emerging from global english contexts 8. discuss and assign examples of world englishes for week 12&13 9. midterm 10. communicative competence 11. raising awareness on we and culture awareness of diversity in learning environments and adapting to different local contexts 12. debates – oral presentation of examples of world englishes 13. debates – oral presentation of examples of world englishes 14. overall review of the course copyrights copyrights for the articles are retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ejal article template focus on elt journal vol 2, issue 2, 2020 issn: 2687-5381  contact: ferhat.karanfil@yahoo.com copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. content-based instruction (cbi) challenges in turkey: voices of high school students aferhat karanfil a phd candidate, bahçeşehir university, turkey, ferhat.karanfil@yahoo.com apa citation: karanfil, f. (2020). content-based instruction (cbi) challenges in turkey: voices of high school students. focus on elt journal, 2(2), 4-16. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00023 abstract cbi is gaining popularity all over the world and in turkey. we hear more about it as the international baccalaureate are becoming popular. there is void in literature about cbi and high school as most studies are done in tertiary context. the current study is mixed-method research with the participants from high schools in turkey. the findings of the current study have shown that language and content integration provide high school students with a clear and relevant learning background. when language is a key to substantive interactions, events have real intent and involve a sincere exchange of meaning. the themed learning helps students to strengthen their reading and writing skills as they can create schemes during the course and can adapt existing schemes to new learning situations. cbi also found to be a source of motivation for learners to use the language in an authentic context. © 2020 felt and the authors published by felt keywords content-based instruction; english language teaching; high school school; ib schools; dp programme article history received : 10 september 2020 revised : 16 november 2020 accepted : 22 november 2020 published : 30 december 2020 introduction as with the rapid developments in science and other disciplines, the educational trend is moving towards using english as a way for communication and to create a shared basis. more and more students are now studying their courses in english as a medium of instruction (emi universities and in order to prepare to students for tertiary education, content courses (science, mathematics, social studies) are thought in english at high schools. there are different programs such as dp (diploma programme) of international baccalaureate and an increasing number of students join these programmes nowadays. no study, to our knowledge, has ever investigated challenges that high school students face while learning content in english. this research paper deals with the data gathered from students to understand their feelings regarding content-based instruction and the findings may help teachers to understand the problems they experience, and teachers could better suit the courses to students’ needs and thus turning the challenges into learning opportunities. mailto:ferhat.karanfil@yahoo.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4767-8623 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4767-8623 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4767-8623 mailto:ferhat.karanfil@yahoo.com https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00023 karanfil, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 18 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com history of teaching content in language education throughout history, languages have changed along with the changes in the lifestyles of communities they belong to. some languages emerged out of the communities they were utilised and began to be learned and utilised across nations due to political implications, and domination of other countries as well as the use of the language for trade and science (ostler, 2005). this situation necessitated foreign language education across generations. foreign language education had a long history which dates back to ancient times. starting in the earliest periods of human history, the practice of teaching, and learning a foreign language was common as several languages had the lingua franca status. in the period between ancient times through the beginning of medieval ages, in language education, the focus was merely on content. in this long history of language learning, the content used in learning the language has always been significant. the fundamental tool to learn the language was the very books the scholars had to excel in. the only forms of learning materials students of intended language could use in the way of classic texts, religious texts such as the quran and bible, and other scientific reference sources because the primary reason of learners was to make a scholarly understanding of the intended text rather than conversing in the target language. latin was the prerequisite for scholars of ancient, and medieval periods in europe as it was “the language of instruction” (dalton-puffer, 2007, p.2). therefore, some effort was made to determine the vocabulary and master the grammatical forms found in the text. thus, it can be stated that language teaching at an early age was content-oriented. the content had also been an area in which language learners immersed themselves in various grammatical subjects and tried to discover the vocabulary. in the grammar-translation method, the content was the source of grammar rules and forms. then with the audio-lingual method content was mostly dialogue which this time along with grammar patterns also included vocabulary and sound patterns, and finally, with the communicative methods, the content was the place where we can find examples of communication (tedick, 2018). dalton-puffer (2011) describe the emergence of contentbased instruction (cbi) as a language approach in first language education in language across the curriculum movement. widdowson (1978) was one of the first to propose that language and content can be integrated and emphasized the importance of content in communication. it can be said that although some approaches adopted the use of content in language teaching by the 1960s, the term content-based instruction wasn’t into use until the late 1980s. the first implementation of cbi in the education field took place in canada in immersion classes. from that time on, the application areas of cbi have gone to age and school diversity (larsen-freeman, 2005). moreover, murphey (1997) states that “cbi in the efl (english as a foreign language) context is an exciting endeavour well worth the doing and well worth improving” (as cited in moriyoshi, 2010, p.6); it was accepted both by researchers and teachers in the field as a trusted approach effective in the teaching of a language. defining content-based instruction many definitions are formed by scholars to describe the cbi. initially, krahnke (1987) defined it as that “the teaching of content or information in the language being learned with little or no direct or explicit effort to teach the language itself separately from the content being taught” (p. 66). one of the first definitions that emphasized the teaching of a subject karanfil, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 19 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com matter along with second language teaching was made by brinton et al. (1989). in their definition, they emphasized “concurrent” teaching of language and the subject (16). these definitions changed form with the developments in language education. the use of cbi in a wide range of applications from different educational levels to the teaching of academic skills necessitated different definitions. this caused cbi to become a domain rooting many branches with various applications all over the world. to illustrate this phenomenon, stoller (2008) defined cbi as ‘an umbrella term’ for approaches with varying degrees of emphasis on content or language. different models of content-based instruction three "primary models of cbi " was first introduced by brinton et al. (1989). these were sheltered instruction, adjunct introduction, and theme-based instruction. cbi has five models in total even though three of them are more common in language education especially at the tertiary level: theme-based, adjunct, and sheltered model (unirow, 2012). sheltered content instruction sheltered programs are, in many ways, similar to immersion programs. the audience of the courses are l2 speakers, but the most crucial point that the two models differed is the course hours. in the sheltered program, there is a weekly three-hour program, while immersion programs can cover half of the students' whole education programs (johnson & swain, 1997). in sheltered instruction, the audience is the students who still continue their l2 education and development and in their general education environment, they are together with native speaker students who speak their l2. the keyword in this model is “sheltering” or “separation”. several studies showed that sheltered content instruction program proved successful in many settings (brinton & snow, 2017). adjunct model language and content courses are held together in the adjunct instruction. they are called paired courses as well. the language course's goal was to complement the content course's teaching. in comparison to the sheltered teaching, in the content course, l2 students are not segregated from native speaker students and students from both groups that take part in the content course. the language level of content in this type of instruction is higher than the level of sheltered courses. the aim of the training is to enhance the student's language acquisition with a higher level of english content and academic instruction in the participation of the content course. in this type of instruction, the language level of content is higher than that of sheltered courses. the training aims to improve the language acquisition of the student with a higher level of english content and accompanying academic instruction in the language course (brinton et al., 1989). theme based model according to satılmış et al. (2015), theme-based instruction is the most popular, and widely utilised cbi model in educational contexts in which it takes place due to its lack of complexity for implementation. the major principle of theme-based language instruction is that the content and language skills are shaped around particular themes and topics (tsai & karanfil, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 20 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com shang, 2010). the ultimate goal of the theme-based language course is to improve students’ second language competence through specific topic areas. interesting topics that are based on student needs and cognitive and academic interests, especially about social issues, are included in course content, and around these topics; various language tasks are implemented (siqi, 2017). thus, theme-based language instruction might be categorized into student-centered pedagogy by forming the course content according to students’ needs and experiences which can satisfy both their language competence and tastes. in studentscentered teaching, students are expected to actively participate in classroom activities to explore knowledge. in student-centered instruction, the role of language teachers has also shifted towards a facilitator or coordinator to integrate topics related to a specific content area (kızıltan & ersanh, 2007). some brief information about the practices in turkey will be offered in the following chapter. cbi practices in turkey the research in turkey mainly focused on clil (content and language integrated learning) and emi in tertiary settings. in turkey, arslan and saka (2010) investigated the effect of cbi on a group of science students at a preparatory school. they found that students feel positive towards cbi since it increased their motivation as they improved their academic knowledge. they reported that cbi is appropriate for preparatory school students as it meets their language needs providing them with necessary academic language skills. however, neither this study nor the others addressed the challenges the students are facing in high schools. similarly, at the tertiary level, er (2011) investigated the perceptions of instructors towards cbi in a state university in turkey in which cbi is used by some instructors. the results showed controversy in the answers of instructors with reasons behind each. i̇lhan and kayabaşı (2014) also researched in order to examine the effect of cbi on students’ academic achievement in language skills and knowledge related to their subject area. according to the results, there was an increase in the students’ academic achievement in language skills and content knowledge. likewise, satılmış et al., (2015) conducted a study to see whether cbi is an effective strategy to teach students the required language skills and content knowledge of the academic subject. according to the results, content knowledge and language skills can be effectively taught to students through cbi. figure 1. snow and brinton's (2017) updated map of cbi models karanfil, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 21 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com cbi related issues like other teaching methods, cbi is not without issues. in countries such as canada and the usa, the popularity of cbi has risen dramatically due to the growing population of non-english-speaking migrants into english speaking countries (dalton & puffer, 2007). however, the proficiency level of english is a concern both for learners and teachers. fujii (2000) found in this study that students with higher proficiency levels reacted more positively towards the cbi since they had the necessary skills and learning strategies to handle the cognitive load of the cbi courses. conversely, learners with a low level of english proficiency will experience difficulties. the language proficiency of lecturers was studied in the study of dimova and kling (2018) despite awareness of their lack of nuanced vocabulary, lecturers’ content knowledge and teaching experience facilitate their language performance. soruc and griffiths (2017) researched emi tertiary setting at a turkish university and found out that students have difficulties related to speaking and listening, teacher and class, and how they deal with these issues were explained in their study. the current study will shed light on issues experienced in high schools in cbi classrooms. research methodology the current research is a mixed-method inquiry utilizing a mixed-method approach to gather both qualitative and quantitative data (piano-clark & creswell, 2008). a likert scale questionnaire was administered to participant high school students and five voluntary students were interviewed and voice -recorded upon informed-consent form. context as the expectations were increasing from private schools gradually, some private schools now use a unique curriculum that prepares the students to study abroad where the medium of instruction is english. as a result of the current changes, the ibo (international baccalaureate organization and cambridge igcse (international general certificate of secondary education) program schools are becoming popular among parents. they are willing to pay higher school fees or donate generously to get their children into bilingual schools (feng, 2005). in turkey’s education vision 2023 (2019) that different disciplines, such as mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences, and the visual arts, will be integrated with english language education so that students can use the foreign language in various fields. the cie’s igcse and ib’s dp are the most popular curricular programs at junior and high school levels, respectively. as the oldest of the international programs, dp has established itself as the premium university preparatory curriculum for students in grades 11 and 12 (hayden, 2006). schools need to give a critical decision on the program that would best prepare students for the rigour of the dp (çorlu, 2014). in turkey, more and more schools are trying the get authorization from ibo and similar education bodies to be a credible institution in their cities. karanfil, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 22 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com participants the management of two schools and their teachers accepted to take part in the study. although more than twenty schools were contacted, only two schools agreed to participate voluntarily. they all wanted permission document from the governorship, but it took some time to apply to these documents and contact the state schools. three students from the private school and two students from the state school were interviewed. in total 121 students completed the survey; six surveys were excluded from the study as they only choose one option, or many missing values are found in their data. the data of 115 surveys and six interviews (two from a state high school and four are from private high schools were reported in the findings part. data collection the researcher visited the schools and explained the procedures and the instrument about cbi to english teachers. he did not visit the classes; the english teachers helped the students to complete the questionnaires. each school was given two weeks to complete the questionnaires. the survey included 22 items with a 5 -point likert scale. the survey has four subscales; their names are issues related to homework, teacher, learning strategies, and programme. the themes were gathered from the semi-structured interviews. interviews were not recorded, but some notes were taken during the interview in the private school, but in the state school, the permission guaranteed that the researcher would not record voice or video. the statistical analysis revealed that the cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of the questionnaire was over .70 which pointed out to the high internal consistency of the items. the voluntary students respond to the surveys which were given pen and paper with demographic information and 22 items of five-point likert scale which describe the high school students' challenges while studying the content lessons in english. data analysis interrater reliability and consistency checks were done with an english teacher with m.a in elt on the qualitative data. however, to summarise the quantitative data that is collected from the written instrument were analysed by spss 23 (statistical package for social sciences) and the data on the spss were compatible with the amos, so the researcher was able to check the factor analysis of the item and the patterns of a normal distribution is found in the current data. results the researcher first deals with the demographic information of the data set. one of the significant findings was that in state school students (n=34) at this prestigious school studied in private schools either in primary or secondary schools. this may tell us private schools are chosen by parents because of the exam success they have. when the factor teacher was analysed using a one-sample test, the results in the table below were found. the items were; a) when the teacher thought me, the application of knowledge in a practical way, i become happy. b) i love teachers who cooperate with us when they face language problems while teaching c) i observe that some teachers try to do karanfil, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 23 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com translation while they are training us. d) when my teacher is angry, i have difficulties in understanding him or her. table 1. t-test results for attitudes towards the cbi teachers t sig. (2tailed) mean difference m sd std. error mean application 4,21 1,12 ,10537 40,024 ,000 4,21739 language issues 3,46 1,17 ,11000 31,540 ,000 3,46957 translation in mind 3,25 1,33011 ,12403 26,220 ,000 3,25217 teachers’ mood 2,09 1,35707 ,12655 16,560 ,000 2,09565 the findings suggest that when the teacher teaches the application of knowledge in science and maths lessons, students feel happy. (m = 4.21, sd = 1.129), t (115) = 40.02, p = .001.). the result indicates that students want to learn how knowledge is utilized in the real world. another finding is that the students prefer the content-teachers who cooperate with them in their language problems. (m = 3.46, sd = 1.179), t (115) = 31.54, p = .001). when the researcher visited the schools, the administrators gave information about the difficulty of finding content teachers with language proficiency. tedick, christian and fortune (2011) stress that teachers undergo "generic" teacher instruction, but not cbi content-specific information and skills. there should be more cpd opportunities for cbi teachers to collaborate and discuss the bilingual identity of their learners and ways of dealing with it. the "three dimensions of language proficiency" were defined by cummins (1996, p.64). social language is the first dimension; discrete language abilities including soundsymbol relationships are the second dimension, and academic language is the third dimension. clearly, in order to be prepared to work with ells, educators need an understanding of the scope and ability growth involved in sla. the content teacher may have an academic language to study the content i.e. cognitive/academic language proficiency (calp). however, it takes approximately one to two years for a student or teachers to develop bics (basic interpersonal communication skills) (cummins, 1996). we might infer that both content and english teachers should be the right level of bics and calp in order to address the needs of students. we can infer that being bilingual in other majors (maths, visual arts, information technology in global society) will help teachers to be realized and employed in private schools and have the right to work in prestigious state schools. in the last part of the survey, students were asked to make comments about the teachers and the lessons, surprisingly in the private school 91.8 % of the students expressed biology as the most difficult subject but in the state school, most students expressed that the most difficult lesson is tok (theory of knowledge) or english b. “studying biology is nothing different from history, it is full of unfamiliar concepts, and understanding the text and producing something out of it is a challenge.” (private school student 2 / data recorded 10 december 2019 “the most difficult lesson is tok and literature for sure. as i studied in a state school, we were never asked to state our opinions in any course. in reaction essays, we need to karanfil, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 24 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com synthesise the information with our views, it is complicated for us.” (state school students 1 /data recorded on 20 december 2019 from what is expressed by the students in the interviews also in the survey, what makes a lesson achievable or not is the teacher. these students study the same curricula and same books in different schools but their perceptions towards some courses are totally different and this difference might stem from the course instructors and emotions he or she creates in the lesson. ebata (2009) asserted the content has an effective impact on students’ cognitive abilities when they are learning a language or studying the content and teachers also have such a critical role. when the researcher examined the students’ views with one wayanova, it was found that out that assignments that prepare the students themselves for the exit tests are favoured by the students. (m=4.04). the question that has the lowest mean in this subscale was (i have difficulty in understanding what is expected from me in the assignments), the mean score for this question was 2.06 so we might infer that students often understand what is expected from them, but they sometimes have issues in catching up the deadline calendars. table 2. the views regarding assignments using one way -anova n mean std. deviation std. error mean abstract topics 115 3,017 1,221 ,1138 assignments 115 4,043 1,223 ,1141 expectations in homework 115 2,060 1,208 ,1127 submission issues 115 2,530 1,384 ,1291 students in the current study mentioned they enjoy writing abstract essays, at first it was a challenge, “i enjoy studying courses in english, we write both write along in a shred of evidence and finding, we are expected to write about highly abstract topics.” (private school student 2 / data recorded 10 december 2019) table 3. pearson correlation between in writing abstract topics and the assignments that prepare them for the dp exams correlations abstract topics assignments abstract topics pearson correlation 1 ,088 sig. (1-tailed) ,176 n 115 115 assignments pearson correlation ,088 1 sig. (1-tailed) ,176 n 115 115 karanfil, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 25 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com it was also found out that there is a pearson positive and (.80-1.0 “very strong”),088 correlation between the challenges of writing the assignments in abstract topics and challenges students face when they do an assignment that prepares them for the official dp test. although some students mentioned they sometimes do not know what is expected, they are happy about the assignments. table 4. oneway anova results for the language strategies sub-scale to solve the challenges students face. anova sum of squares df mean squares f sig. explanations between groups 1,400 3 ,467 ,208 ,890 within groups 248,548 111 2,239 total 249,948 114 films i watch between groups 2,835 3 ,945 ,822 ,484 within groups 127,548 111 1,149 total 130,383 114 pre-readings between groups 23,308 3 7,769 4,665 ,004 within groups 184,866 111 1,665 total 208,174 114 selective courses between groups 8,417 3 2,806 1,697 ,172 within groups 183,548 111 1,654 total 191,965 114 synthesis difficulty between groups 9,055 3 3,018 2,030 ,114 within groups 165,066 111 1,487 total 174,122 114 strategies for writing between groups 5,688 3 1,896 1,320 ,272 within groups 159,442 111 1,436 total 165,130 114 home-school books between groups 15,046 3 5,015 2,656 ,052 within groups 209,615 111 1,888 total 224,661 114 adding my comment between groups 10,460 3 3,487 2,980 ,035 within groups 129,888 111 1,170 total 140,348 114 karanfil, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 26 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com in order to decrease the type 1 errors of conducting a t-test, one-way anova was conducted, values between groups and within groups were tested. in the challenges and language strategies part, there were 8 items (2,4,6,10,12,14,16,19), the anova results showed that only “pre-readings i have done before courses help me to understand the content better “have a significance p = .004. in the interview, state school 2 said that “i enjoy learning the terms in different courses in turkish first then i learn them in english” (state school student 2 /data recorded on 20 december 2019) by learning the concepts first in their l1, they can translanguage and have better retention of knowledge. students in the cbi programme also can build on their knowledge (scaffold) and learn the things they already know with a bilingual perspective. in a similar vein, xiaozhen (2010) found that learning cbi topics is an advantage for students who already studied these topics in their mother tongue. the participants of the dp programme were chosen from successful students (language and other courses) in both schools. similarly, as mentioned previously fujii (2000) found in this study that students with higher proficiency levels reacted more positively towards the cbi since they had the necessary skills and learning strategies to handle the cognitive and metacognitive load of the cbi course. when students’ general attitudes and challenges toward their cbi programme were examined, the questions 7,9,11,13,17,22 were analysed on the spss programme. the researcher found out that “studying abroad at the tertiary level is the reason for my participation in this bilingual programme. in the interviews, the prep and 9th graders were generally planning to study in turkey but the ones in the 11th and 12th grades were planning to study in canada, uk, holland, germany, and other countries. table 5. the one-sample t-test regarding the attitudes and challenges of the programme test value = 0.005 t sig. (2tailed) mean difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper studying abroad 25,90 ,000 3,551 3,279 3,823 ygs disadvantage 25,72 ,000 3,160 2,916 3,403 too much production 31,29 ,000 3,351 3,139 3,563 some topics 22,25 ,000 3,047 2,776 3,318 world citizen 25,27 ,000 3,368 3,104 3,633 one state school student said that: “i think we have to work harder for the ygs (university entrance exam) as our curriculum and turkish curriculum is slightly different” (state school student 2 /data recorded on 20 december 2019) from the interviews’ entry, we can assume that some students may plan the study in turkey but most students (82%) want to study abroad. the teachers at the private school mentioned that when they graduate from the 12th grade, almost all of them study abroad, as the second-highest mean holder “being a world citizen” is a concern for the dp students that is why they love studying the content in english. moreover, another advantage of cbi karanfil, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 27 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com is that students who have a negative attitude towards english courses receive opportunities to change their negative attitude towards english (british council, 2013). studying in cbi they might understand that english is not a subject at school, it is a lingua franca and a key to the bilingual identity. as a response to the item 22 (my school forces me to produce too much is a short time) on this items t (115) = 31.29, the highest of all in the subscales which means it has more power to reject a false null hypothesis and find a significant result. the results will be elaborated and discussed in the next section. discussion the students taking the lessons using cbi have higher scores in writing tasks than the other group of students in secondary school. they were more eager to learn when their tasks included communicative and authentic features (elgün gündüz, akcan & bayyurt, 2012). we can conclude the cbi programme accelerates their writing skills and they will be expressing the scientific findings in a more fluent way than their peers. lasagabaster and sierra (2009) stated that as a result of working hard to develop students’ foreign language skills, education departments in europe revealed that cbi is the best way to improve students’ foreign language skills. the results of the present study indicated that language and content integration provide a meaningful and purposeful learning context for students for high school students. when language is a medium for meaningful communication through genuine interactions, activities have a real purpose and require an authentic exchange of meaning. the subject matter learning enables learners to improve their reading and writing skills as they can develop schemata about a subject through the course and the learners can apply already existing schema into new learning situations. conclusion the results of the present study have some implications for language teaching in particular to cbi classroom or any other situations where the content is thought in any foreign language. teachers who are qualified in language and content integration could organize teacher cooperation more effectively and design successful cbi programs. objectives can be decided, and the instruction can be planned accordingly. the results indicate that language and contentintegration in efl classes can result in better content learning which can lead to students’ familiarization with different topics from different areas of interest. this is a natural way to improve the target language. students are active during the lessons and cbi helps students to participate in class. maybe as in the past, some teacher training programmes in turkey should be delivered in english so schools can find qualified teachers for these courses. teacher preparation is also needed for successful cbi programs. content-based language teacher training programs should be included in preservice education programs in efl contexts including turkey. for a better designed cbi efl classes, more research should be conducted. the future researchers, rather than challenges, may investigate how bilingual identity develops in pyp (primary years programme) and find out the earlier, the better approach works in the pyp program. karanfil, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 28 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references arslan, r., & saka, c. k. 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(2010). course designing strategies of bilingual curriculum based on cbi. journal of guangdong university. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v6n3p77 http://2023vizyonu.meb.gov.tr/ https://www.britishcouncil.org.tr/programmes/education/research ejal article template focus on elt journal (felt) vol 2 issue 1, 2020 issn: 2687-5381  contact: connieau@gantep.edu.tr non-critical analysis of efl classroom discourse in a speaking course through bowers’ model ahong yu connie au and b filiz yalçın tılfarlıoğlu a instructor, gaziantep university, gaziantep, turkey connieau@gantep.edu.tr b assoc. prof. dr., gaziantep university, gaziantep, turkey, fyalcin@gantep.edu.tr to cite this article: au, h.y.c. & yalçın tırfanoğlu, f. (2020). non-critical analysis of efl classroom discourse in a speaking course through bowers’ model. focus on elt journal (felt), 2(1), 48-59. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00020 abstract this is a descriptive quantitative and qualitative study of speaking classroom discourse. this study aimed to discuss an authentic spoken discourse of an efl class by employing bowers’ model (1980) to examine various teaching functions and how they enhanced the speaking opportunities for students. in this article, the concept of bowers’ model was first discussed and how it was of a vital significance to classroom interaction in an efl class and the efficiency and effectiveness of the various patterns of discourse. besides, the distribution of teacher-talk and student-talk was investigated and who had a higher degree of control over the discourse in the class was highlighted. it also examined the structure of interactions and how the teacher managed the conversation and turntaking. the article included how teachers understood their language affected the role in the classroom as well as how learners were aware of when and where they had to engage in the speaking process. moreover, the article also investigated the functions in a speaking class and how different teacher acts were used in urging learners to participate in classroom discussions. the last section was a conclusion to summarize the main ideas discussed in the article. keywords: discourse bowers’ model speaking non-critical analysis received : 12 may 2020 revised : 7 june 2020 accepted : 11 june 2020 published : 22 june 2020 introduction language is a means of communication in everyday life. people use language either in spoken or written form to communicate and interact with others. the communication pattern seems very natural and becomes an indispensable and natural part of our daily routine. to study language in use in communication, cook (1989) states that sentence and utterance are two potential contents in language studies. sentences are used to study language about how language rules operate while utterances are used to study language in use for communication. when language in use comes to the classroom, the communication pattern turns to very unique. according to walsh (2006), communication in the classroom is unique as the linguistic form uses are often simultaneously the aim of the lesson and the means of achieving those aims. in other words, the language in the teaching and learning process is to achieve the goal of the lesson. hence, classroom language is the language that teachers and students use to communicate with each other in the classroom context. for instance, in a classroom, teachers mailto:connieau@gantep.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00020 http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-3681-1510 http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-0683-6218 au, h.y.c. & yalçın tılfarlıoğlu, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 49 focus on elt journal (felt) generally have an important role as he or she can control the classroom and can change the whole course by teaching and communicating with the students in different ways. discourse analysis (da) is one of the alternatives that can be used to explain the language phenomenon. according to yule and brown (1983), da which is known as ‘analysis of language in use’, studies the relationship between language and context in which it is used (yule & brown, p.1). cook (1989 & 1990) states that da can be categorized into two major kinds in language teaching, that is, spoken and written discourse. da aids teachers in understanding how people use language in reality. da also helps them to plan and design teaching materials to engage students in different learning tasks and hence to reach the learning goals in the target language. by analyzing the function of using language, da examines language concerning its purpose and function in the process of interaction among people. in other words, discourse is a linguistic unit beyond sentences which is used to communicate in the social context (dijk, 1997, p.1). the typical issue of discourse analysis is the analysis of classroom discourse. studying classroom transcripts and assigning utterances into different categories is the way to analyze a classroom discourse. according to sinclair and coulthard (1992), a traditional pattern in classroom discourse is irf, also known as initiation, respond, and feedback. teachers determine the interaction pattern and when students need to participate in classroom communication. questioning patterns have also been studied by many classroom researchers to show teachers exert control over the interaction and only as a means of eliciting information. irf interaction pattern is appealing to most of the teachers as to control the flow of the lesson, the amount of participation by individual students or pair or group work. in contrast to the irf interaction pattern, many alternatives like flint’s model, flanders’ model, and bowers’ model are also developed and used to study the classroom discourse. in a classroom learning and teaching, a large amount of time is spent on speaking and listening. speaking plays a crucial part in the process of learner development. however, speaking is regarded as one of the most important and the most challenging skills for both students and teachers (brown & yule, 2001). many efl students complain that they could not speak fluently and accurately in english, especially when they communicate with native speakers (shumin, 1997). for learners, speaking involves more active participation from the learner, autonomy, and confidence and it impels them to put all their acquired linguistic knowledge to use (silva & duarte, 2012). that is, speaking skills require active participation from in the second language classroom students where they will necessarily have to produce and expose their linguistic competence to others (silva & duarte, 2012). speaking indeed accelerates the acquisition of target language and improves the level of oral proficiency. meanwhile, the most crucial for educators is to develop students’ abilities in various productive skills while using english, and thus students can communicate in class as well as outside the class. over the years, there has been an increasing research interest in the language used in the speaking classes. the spoken discourse students and the teacher and among students themselves is very crucial for language learning as it contextualizes learning experiences while actively participating in classroom discourse engages learners in the learning process (domalewska, 2015). the analyzed spoken classroom discourse “can provide valuable insights into discourse structure and dynamics, and provide pedagogical applications” (mccarthy, p.19). au, h.y.c. & yalçın tılfarlıoğlu, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 50 focus on elt journal (felt) given the tradition of assessing spoken discourse utilizing sinclair and coulthard’s (1992) model, it is hardly surprising that role-play has been the most widely used elicitation technique in the collection of spoken learner data. in the field of efl classrooms, the bowers’ model was rarely employed to assess the speaking opportunities in an efl classroom interaction. due to the lack of research in this register from a native speaker perspective, it is hoped that this study will contribute to our understanding of how target language is used in enhancing oral proficiency through role-play in efl classes and gain insight into how various teaching functions affect teaching and learning goals. literature review discourse analysis discourse analysis (da) is the aspect of linguistics which concerned with build-up meaning in larger communicative, rather than grammatical units (cook, 1989). it studies a meaning in the text, paragraph, and conversation, rather than in a single sentence (mccarthy, 1991). in other words, it aims to extend the meaning above a sentence level (gee, 2014). in a traditional language classroom, a great amount of time is spent on teaching pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary and while these remain the basis of foreign language knowledge. however, da can focus on the skills needed to put this knowledge into action and to achieve successful communication (cook, 1989; gee, 2014; paltridge, 2012; widdowson, 2007). it can provide insights for foreign language teachers into problems and processes of language use and language learning (cook, 1989). according to cook (1989), discourse analysis can be categorized into two major categories in language teaching, known as the spoken discourse and the written discourse. spoken discourse is verbal records of the communicative act that processed become written transcription (brown & yule, 1983). that means the discourse works with an audiotape or tape recording in a speech event in spoken discourse, and then transcribe the utterance of the speaker into text. spoken discourse is possibly the form of discourse that poses a great problem in terms of analysis (nurpahmi, 2017). unlike written discourse, spoken discourse can be affected by many factors that can influence the way people speak or use the spoken discourse like the speech events (nurpahmi, 2017). examples of spoken discourse are teacher-student discourse, interviews, and lessons. written discourse is reproduction in printed materials of discourse. according to brown and yule (1983), written discourse is “a text reaches beyond the reproduction in printed material in some further printed form” (p. 9). in other words, written discourse is in printed form and the context can be differing in genres. within the context of efl teaching, discourse analysis can be defined as “how stretches of language, considered in their full textual, social, and psychological context, become meaningful and unified for their users” (cook, 1990, p. 3). based on the definition of cook (1990), olshtain and celce-murcia (2001, p.714) summarized discourse point of view in teaching into three main concepts:  the main focus of language teaching is communication  context is of importance in shaping communication  meanings are exchanged dynamically in a speech event au, h.y.c. & yalçın tılfarlıoğlu, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 51 focus on elt journal (felt) classroom discourse classroom discourse is an approach to analyze discourse involving teachers and students as the participants in the class (cazden, 2001). teacher’s control of the interaction is one of the significant classroom discourse features. many teachers tend to limit speaking opportunities for their students and prevent them from developing conversations and dialogues. hence, many kinds of researches have pointed out that there are unequal roles of participants in classroom communication with the teacher managing the conversation and turn-taking. when the teacher teaches in teacher-centered fashion, it may lead to limited learning. there will be limited natural interaction and fluency practices take place in class (sert, 2015). hence, it is very crucial to provide students with opportunities for communicating orally, then learning becomes more meaningful and more effective. according to keith and morrow (1981), speaking is an activity to produce utterances in oral communication (p.70). there are usually two or more people involving in the speaking process. the participants in speaking are both hearers and speakers. in the process of communication, both speaker and hearer are producing in the process of enacting their discourse. they know what they are talking about as they have established the context of shared knowledge and the assumption that the actual language they produce keys into. when communication comes in a speaking course, students should know how to interact and communicate at the right time (cazden, 2001). and they should know why they are drilled with the same utterance several times. drilling does not only help them to improve their pronunciation but also they need these words and utterances to engage in the dialogue. hence, it can see that classroom interaction plays an important role in classroom discourse (sert, 2015). in a language class, the teacher acts upon the class to cause students’ reactions. yet, the reaction from students in turn informs and modifies the next action of the teacher. the class reaction becomes an action, evoking a reaction in the teacher, which influences his or her subsequent action (malamah-thomas, 1996). for example, initiaterespondevaluate (irf) interaction pattern is commonly utilized by teachers to decide the teaching content and topics, and to plan the amount of engagement by individual students, or in pairs. generally, teachers start with a discussion topic, usually posing a question. the move starts of exchange, the teacher as a leader (nurpahmi, 2017). subsequently, students as the followers are expected to give responses that correspond to the teacher’s initiation (nurpahmi, 2017). after that, teachers evaluate the responses, he or she gives praises or feedback to the student’s response (nurpahmi, 2017). according to alexander (2006), the irf pattern is regarded as a ‘monologic discourse pattern’, in which teachers decide the discussion topics and turn-taking. teachers also limit the time for responses according to the lesson plan as well as to control the pacing and direction of the discussion. in a traditional classroom, teachers are usually the ones who have more teachertalking time and dominate classroom discussions unlike the traditional classroom, interactive role-play is always used as a means of classroom interaction in an efl classroom (poliden, 2016). every student is responsible for their role in the turn-taking in the conversation. they have to listen carefully to the teacher and one another and then interpret their responses and correspond to the role play. at this stage, students need to utilize the knowledge they have learned before. teachers here as a facilitator may help elicit the answers from students rather than interrupting them (poliden, 2016). au, h.y.c. & yalçın tılfarlıoğlu, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 52 focus on elt journal (felt) besides, changing the interaction patterns can also help achieve the lesson aims. different interactive patterns supported the aims of different tasks (sert, 2015). for instance, the whole class discussion was very effective to elicit the ideas with concept questions. whereas learners worked in pairs was very productive for the speaking task in role-play. non-critical discourse analysis non-critical discourse analysis is the study concerned with the description of a text’s formal characteristics. while halliday (1985) notes that a text should be considered as a semantic unit instead of a grammatical one (i.e. grammar is a sentence level consideration), one can understand the meanings of a text through the grammar realization within the text. on the other hand, hoey (1994), winter (1994), and coulthard (1994) exemplify non-critical descriptive discourse approaches to the analysis of written texts. they emphasize on the vocabulary, grammar in the texts, and how these relate to the cohesion and the realization of micro or macrostructures of the text. another non-critical approach is genre analysis, where the conventions common to texts of a similar type, for instance, medical reports, as described. conceptual framework bowers’ model (1980) was developed for the analysis of spoken classroom discourse. bowers’ analysis is concerned with characterizing patterns of classroom discourse and investigating the efficiency and effectiveness of the various patterns of discourse (wallace, 1991). bowers expands the bellack moves from four to seven as follows: (1) responding; (2) sociating (i.e. concerned with maintaining relationships); (3) organizing; (4) directing (i.e. any act which encourages a non-verbal activity as an integral part of the learning task); (5) presenting (information, ideas, etc.); (6) evaluating; (7) eliciting (wallace, p.154). he applies these categories both to ‘teacher talk’ and ‘pupil talk’. he also takes note of when the target language (tl) is used (wallace, p.154). bowers (1980) identifies seven categories of ‘move’ from his classroom language data, and ‘move’ is the smallest unit in his system of description (wallace, p. 154). bowers collected the foreign language classroom data, developed seven categories of verbal behaviour the establishment or maintenance of interpersonal relationships in the language classroom, and distinguished among the different definitions of the teaching functions to implement this system of description in this study, every utterance in a lesson has to be coded according to the relevant category, a further note made as to whether it occurs in l1 or target language (tl). table 1 describes the different teacher acts in the process of a speaking class (wallace, p.154). au, h.y.c. & yalçın tılfarlıoğlu, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 53 focus on elt journal (felt) table 1. categories of bowers’ model category description responding any act directly sought by the utterance of another speaker, such as answering a question sociating any act not contributing directly to the teacher or learning task, but rather to the establishment or maintenance of interpersonal relationships organizing any act that serves to structure the learning task or environment without contributing to the teaching or learning task itself directing any act that serves to structure the learning task or environment without contributing to the teaching or learning task itself presenting any act presenting information of direct relevance to the learning task evaluating any act that rates another verbal act positively or negatively eliciting any act designed to produce a verbal response from another person according to bowers’ model (1980), an interactive transaction begins with an elicitation. the teacher prepares the students for the elicitation and attempts to elicit information from one or more learners and this usually takes the form of a question (poliden, 2016). if there is no reply from students after elicitation, the teacher may proceed to another phase, the mediating phase to make sure the understanding of students. elicitation usually comes after a nomination. the functions of the teacher are checking, promoting, clueing, repeating, or rephrasing the elicitation and nominating if the learners are not willing to answer (poliden, 2016). then, the teacher enters the evaluation phase after a reply is given. in this phase, the teachers deal with checking, repeating, assessing, commenting, and establishing continuity. the teachers here may prompt repeatedly or having a question rephrased, prompt again or further clues are provided (poliden, 2016). previous studies numerous classroom spoken discourse studies have been conducted with the use of sinclair and coulthard’s (1992) model (emzir & harahap, 2015; white, 2003). in the study of emzir and harahap (2015), they have investigated an english classroom discourse in a high school. the research results revealed that a great amount of teacher-talking time was spent in the class yet they could not achieve the lesson goal. on the other hand, white (2003) has also conducted a study on classroom discourse with the application of sinclair and coulthard’s (1992) model. the results of the study pointed out that many problems have occurred in applying the model. only initiate and feedback patterns (if pattern) were found and no response was observed in this study. yet, a greater teacher awareness was observed in teacher feedback, teacher eliciting, and teacher evaluation. despite the wide use of sinclair and coulthard’s model (1992), few of them have dealt with bowers’ approach in the field of discourse analysis. only two studies have also investigated similar classroom discourse on efl classroom discourse of a speaking class by using bowers’ model (poliden, 2016; nur, 2012). au, h.y.c. & yalçın tılfarlıoğlu, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 54 focus on elt journal (felt) poliden (2016) studied the teaching functions of teachers in a language class. he employed bowers’ model to examine the effectiveness of teaching functions. the finding showed that eliciting was found to be mostly used teaching function by the english. he concluded that the teaching functions of teachers follow certain patterns that engage the students in classroom activities or discussions. nur (2012) examined the use of bowers’ model and the types of movement and acts of classroom discourse in a speaking class. the study focused on the interaction between teachers and students. the results showed that teachers realize the importance of their language and how it affects students’ interaction and learning opportunities in the class. as mentioned above, there has been a lack of researches investigating classroom spoken discourse with the use of bowers’ model in international efl context. hence, it is necessary for further research at this level. this necessity motived the action research of the present study. more specifically, this study aimed to investigate how such an analysis can be helpful in understanding classroom communication and this research aimed to answer the following research questions: 1) what is the distribution of l1 and target language (tl)in beginner efl class? 2) what is the distribution of teacher-talk time and student-talk time in beginner efl class? 3) how are the patterns of teacher-student interaction in beginner efl lesson? 4) what is the most popular function in a speaking classroom discourse through bowers’ model? methods research design this study is a descriptive qualitative and quantitative study of speaking classroom discourse to determine the functions of classroom discourse. the data was taken from a beginner level speaking class of the celta course. in this study, bowers’ model (1980) was employed to investigate teaching functions and how they maximize communication opportunities for students. also, the model was employed to see how the participant of the classroom activities was aware of when and where they have to take turns, how is an interaction between student and teacher were also observed. a speaking lesson was chosen for this study as it is in nature compared with other skills and to show how successful language learning depends on classroom communication. the classroom discourse of this study was obtained from a speaking lesson of the celta course. in this study, bowers’ model of da will be applied to a transcribed recording of a beginner speaking lesson. participants this study was conducted among six efl adult learners at a language center in istanbul. there are three males and three females. the age of the participants ranged from 38-51 years. the english proficiency level of the sample group was a1 (beginner). the participants were enrolled in a free language class offered by a language center. a convenience sampling method was used because a1 learners were not fluent in speaking abilities and could better demonstrate au, h.y.c. & yalçın tılfarlıoğlu, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 55 focus on elt journal (felt) the process and improvement in speaking. the class was run by a native female speaker. the duration of the lesson was 60 minutes. data collection tool the model of bowers was employed to determine the teaching functions. bowers proposed 7 categories of verbal interaction namely 1) sociating, 2) eliciting, 3) evaluating, 4) responding, 5) directing, 6) organizing, 7) presenting. data collection procedure the data (video) was taken from a beginner level speaking class of the celta course. the data collection followed a qualitative and quantitative perspective that uses a mixed method of data collection, the data collection techniques included structured classroom observation, transcriptions. the following steps were taken in acquiring the data, the first step was through structured observation and numerical data was generated from the observations. the researcher was taking notes for certain categories while observing the class. classroom discourse was analyzed in a 30-second time interval. the data has been transcribed and used for analysis. the data were classified into the following categories: l1 and target language, teacher and studenttalk time, the interaction patterns. the classroom discourse was first analyzed in terms of l1 or target language (tl) and the distribution of l1 and target language was calculated. then, the data were also analyzed in terms of teacher-student talk time and different interaction patterns and hence the frequencies of teacher-talk and student-talk as well as the interaction patterns were also counted. finally, the classroom talk was transcribed and analyzed using bowers’ model (eliciting, evaluating, responding, organizing, sociating, presenting, and directing). data analysis the results of the collected data then analyzed by using descriptive data. the data were analyzed through the following steps: 1. by categorizing bower’s system into different functions, each function analyzed based on the nature of data. 2. summarized the statistics and analyzed the finding by presenting tables. 3. drawing a conclusion based on the finding. research findings results for research question 1. what is the distribution of l1 and target language in beginner efl class? research question 1 intends to find out the distribution of l1 and target language. based on the analysis the results revealed that all languages used in the classroom are target language (100%). students do not speak in their mother tongue (0%). results for research question 2. what is the distribution of student talking time and teacher talking time in beginner efl class? the second research question assessed the distribution of student talking time and teacher talking time. according to the results, findings revealed that student talking time was a bit more au, h.y.c. & yalçın tılfarlıoğlu, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 56 focus on elt journal (felt) than the teacher talking time. normally, teachers highly dominate the class time to achieve lesson objectives. however, in this case, out of 676 times of spoken frequencies, 317 times are spoken by the teacher were recorded. this showed that students have more opportunities to speak in class. teacher talk time takes only 46.95% of lesson time. student talk almost takes 53.05% of the lesson time and which most time is taken by chorus repetition. also, according to the data, it indicates that chorus repetition was the dominant teaching method. the following table 2 shows some examples of chorus repetition in the speaking class: table 2. examples of chorus repetition results for research question 3. how are the patterns of teacher-student interaction in beginner efl lesson? research question 3 aimed to examine the interaction patterns between students and the teacher. through classroom observation and transcription analysis, it could see that there are different types of interaction patterns in the lesson. according to the results, most of the interaction was found between the teacher and the whole class, which accounts for 68.7% of class time. then it followed by the interaction between students in pairs and individual students and teacher, which accounts for 28.71% and 2.58 % of the class time respectively. based on the analysis of the findings, it showed that the teacher has a crucial role in leading classroom interaction pattern. this suggested that the teacher takes overwhelming interaction patterns between the teacher and the whole class. this also implied that the teacher is the facilitator in the speaking class. results for research question 4 what is the most popular function in a speaking classroom discourse through bowers’ model? bowers’ model was employed to analyze the most popular teaching functions in a speaking class. the finding showed the mostly used teaching functions in a beginner speaking class and revealed its importance in enhancing speaking opportunities for students. the results are presented and analyzed as figure 1: t: he’s got a temperature. (point another picture) eliciting (tl) sts: toothache. responding (tl) t: toothache. eliciting (tl) sts: toothache. responding (tl) t: toothache…hmm…(pointing another picture) eliciting (tl) sts: stomachache. responding (tl) au, h.y.c. & yalçın tılfarlıoğlu, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 57 focus on elt journal (felt) figure 1. the functions of the english teacher using bowers’ categories based on the findings shown in figure 1, the dominant teaching function used is eliciting which accounts for 32.84%. eliciting is used in engaging students in classroom activities or discussions. then it followed by evaluating (12.54%), organizing (6.61%), presenting (6.04%), sociating (0.57%), and directing (0.34%). apart from eliciting and evaluating, according to johnson (1985), directing is considered as controlling and it empowers the teacher to plan, adjust, set targets, or control behavior. as indicated in table 3 and 4, some utterances serve more than two functions, usually evaluating and eliciting. table 3. evaluating and sociating at the end of lesson. table 4. an example of utterances serves more than two functions. in this case, the teacher starts her lesson with eliciting before presenting the lesson to the class (table 3.) and ends her lesson by evaluating and sociating (table 4). also, as indicated in the data, classroom interaction is dominated by eliciting followed by a response from students and then evaluating. initiating communication depends on asking questions. eliciting is very effective to engage students in class and build up a rapport with the learners. besides, the findings also pointed out that the teacher interacts with students through praising students’ performance when she evaluates the performance. it is very important in a language classroom to create a friendly environment in teaching-learning process. discussion & conclusion in this study, the spoken discourse of an efl speaking class was transcribed and then analyzed using bowers’ model. based on the results of the analysis, it is clear and obvious that the bowers’ model has a great importance in understanding classroom interaction. the teacher is the control as well as the facilitator of the classroom discourse. this further gave support to the t: they won the game. yes. okay. thank you very much. evaluating (tl) st: thank you. sociating (tl) t: thank you. sociating (tl) t: cough. very good. neida. very good. she’s got a cough. presenting (tl) evaluating (tl) eliciting (tl) au, h.y.c. & yalçın tılfarlıoğlu, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 58 focus on elt journal (felt) study of emzir and harahap (2015) in which the teacher had a more dominant role in classroom discourse. yet, this study revealed that the lesson aim was reached without limiting the speaking opportunities of students. this also somehow contradicted the results of emzir and harahap (2015) suggesting teacher talk-time was higher than that of student talk-time. in this study, it was found that eliciting is the most popular teaching function employed by the teachers in the class to facilitate communication among students and the teacher. findings of this study corroborated that of poliden (2016) which found out that eliciting was the most used teaching function in classroom discourse. meanwhile, in this present study, it revealed that teachers usually use evaluating and sociating to end the class. depending on the classroom lesson and activities, organizing and presenting are interchangeably used in the classroom. interestingly, responding is not a teaching function in this case. responding is not used by the teacher as students do not ask any questions to their teacher. this is associated with the reluctance of willingness in asking questions among efl students. white (2003) similarly claimed that the pattern of response was hardly observed in the lesson, only if pattern could be found. in this current study, a classroom interaction pattern can be observed. the teacher starts the lesson with questions and then the teacher organizes and directs class activities and students give response. it can see that evaluating students’ activities was the last function of the teacher in an interactive process. moreover, the findings were also consistent with the study conducted by nur (2012) that teachers realize the importance of their language and how it affects students’ interaction and learning opportunities in the class not surprisingly, in this study, students can produce a short dialogue based on the chunks and phrases they have learned at the end of the lesson. students can communicate with each other in a short role play as they are engaged in plenty of choral repetition and drilling. the inputs they have taken during the lesson become the output. students are given many opportunities to practice their accuracy and fluency. unlike the study of emzir and harahap (2015) and white (2003), their lesson aims could not be achieved as well as many problems were occurred while applying the model. in this study, this suggested that bowers’ model is a very useful tool to analyze and understand the structure of interactions in a real spoken discourse. at the same time, it provides important insights for teachers. it enables teachers to reflect their output after lessons to reduce and balance their teacher talking time (mcaleesse, 2011). moreover, the analysis of this classroom discourse proves that eliciting is the most frequent teaching function in involving students in classroom activities or discussion. it is concluded that teachers follow certain patterns to engage the students in learning tasks. since responding was found to be the least teaching functions, a teacher can plan his or her lesson with more challenging tasks to facilitate learners’ critical thinking skills and to enhance interaction patterns in the class. the teacher provides authentic language input and classroom materials in the observed lesson. students are given opportunities in speaking and are engaged in cooperative activities such as choral repetition and short dialogue. the frequencies of student talk time reveal that students are given plenty of opportunities to practice the target language. the diversified interaction patterns can also give learners a chance to use the language and interact with other learners. this suggests that more speaking opportunities such as role-plays and interviews can be implemented in the class to enhance speaking abilities. most frequently with a positive comment or feedback supported by teachers. this implies that positive feedback could help to build a positive learning environment and rapport with learners. au, h.y.c. & yalçın tılfarlıoğlu, f. / focus on elt journal, 2020 59 focus on elt journal (felt) despite positive findings of the study, the present study has some limitations. first, the time of the study was short as it only takes an hour. had the study extended a longer class time, more detailed and clear classroom discourse patterns might have been obtained. second, the participants were chosen based on convenience sampling. in the future study, a random sampling method consisting of different proficiency groups could be employed to see whether interaction patterns vary in different groups. also, future studies might include a larger scale of samples for more accurate results. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references alexander, r. 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(ed.), advances in written text analysis (pp. 46-68). routledge. copyrights copyrights for the articles are retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ focus on elt focus on elt journal special issue, 4(1), 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: zeynepdincer@hakkari.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. what is grammar for pre-service english teachers? entrance and exit level beliefs zeynep ölçü dinçer assist. prof. dr., hakkari university, turkey, zeynepdincer@hakkari.edu.tr apa citation: ölçü dinçer, z. (2022). what is grammar for pre-service english teachers? entrance and exit level beliefs. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 60-73. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.5 abstract the present research aims to explore metaphors used by pre-service english teachers as evidence for their thinking about “grammar”. a cohort of 47 preservice english teachers partook in the study. the metaphors were elicited both at the beginning and the end of four-year pre-service education and this interval paved the way for examining the potential change in participants’ beliefs over time. the metaphors were first clustered into two considering their suggested definition for grammar as grammar as a phenomenon and grammar as a school subject. grammar as a phenomenon was further grouped into three subcategories as rule (discrete rules, control mechanism, guideline for rules), system (system of smaller units, central construct of a larger system), and function (medium for meaning). the results suggest that pre-service teachers’ beliefs changed over time. by the end of pre-service education, rule metaphors decreased distinctively while system and function metaphors increased. it is revealed that pre-service english teachers adopted a more system-oriented perspective about grammar at the exit level. keywords: pre-service english teachers, change in beliefs, grammar, metaphor article history received : 20.10.2021 revised : 22.11.2021 accepted : 22.11.2021 published : 04.04.2022 type research article introduction for decades, it has been an unsolved discussion whether learning a language is through communication or through learning lexicogrammar (celce-murcia & larsen-freeman, 1999), and this dilemma has an important impact on our beliefs and attitudes about grammar. indeed, it can be claimed that the role of grammar in language teaching has been affected by the developments in the field of linguistics and second language acquisition. after the onset of the 1970s, the communicative nature of language was highlighted by esteemed linguists. particularly, hymes (1972) introduced the term communicative competence suggesting that meaning might be beyond the form and it ‘may have to do with an attitude, norm of interaction, or the like’ (p. 291). the spread of this idea evoked a paradigm shift in the arguments about language and its nature as well as the debates regarding the role of grammar in language teaching. indeed, these debates were based upon two central approaches. one is the grammatical approach which prioritizes the teaching of grammatical forms. the other is the communicative approach which emphasizes teaching the use of grammatical forms by considering their functions to express the appropriate meaning (canale & swain, 1980). mailto:zeynepdincer@hakkari.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.5 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3680-3986 ölçü-dinçer, z. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 61 the aforementioned developments stimulated the birth of a widely acknowledged language teaching method named communicative language teaching (clt) in the 1980s. the motto of ‘language learning is for communication’ gained momentum. existing theories and practices started to be criticized because language learners in classical grammar-based classrooms were simply not able to use the target language communicatively. in addition, the gradual spread and power of the english language as a common medium of communication around the world led to a natural need for developing communicative skills. this new trend triggered the spread of the communicative language teaching approach in educational policy documents in europe (council of europe, 2001), in the asia-pacific region (nunan, 2003), and many other countries around the globe including turkey (eg. mone, 2018). on the other side, the reign of grammar in traditional teaching contexts was claimed to be a strong factor that prevent learners to develop communication skills. within the light of these discussions, grammar became a stigmatized phenomenon. despite of the voices against grammar-based teaching, language instruction in many classrooms has still been grammar-oriented. in addition, many english language teachers have prior language learning experiences in such contexts. all in all, the ambivalence towards the place of grammar in language teaching paves the way for teachers’ inconsistent beliefs about grammar and grammar teaching as shown in various studies (eg., andrews, 2003; basturkmen, 2012; borg, 2018; farrell & lim, 2005; nishimuro & borg, 2013; underwood, 2012, 2017; watson, 2015). grammar in a nutshell the definition of grammar as a phenomenon is a complex task to achieve. in reputable dictionaries, it is simply defined as "the rules in a language" (oxford online dictionary) or a "system of rules" (marriam webster online dictionary). according to fromkin and rodman (1998), it refers to "the sounds and sound patterns, the basic units of meaning, such as words, and the rules to combine them to form new sentences constitute the grammar of language" (p. 14). to put it in a nutshell, grammar has different manifestations in the relevant sources such as rules, a system of rules, and meaning-making structures. originally, the evolution of this phenomenon is interwoven with linguistic theories, dating back to the traditional grammar of old times. until the emergence of saussure's structural linguistics in the second half of the 19th century, grammar was mainly defined as the morphological and syntactic features represented in isolated sentences. this approach, which is also named traditional grammar, had a kind of prescriptive nature, and grammar was regarded as a set of rules that prescribes the desired language use. together with the rise of structural linguistics, language started to be considered as a structured system that organizes arbitrary signs into meaningful units. accordingly, the definition of grammar also changed into a kind of system. later on, chomsky's oft-cited theory of universal grammar turned this system into a cognitive entity inherent in all humans as a part of their natural resources. after the 1990ies, with the influence of functional grammar scholars started to envision "grammar as a meaning-making resource and to describe grammatical categories by reference to what they mean" (halliday & matthiessen, 2004, p.10). in other words, ölçü-dinçer, z. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 62 grammar is not a "formal network but a communicative device" (batstone, 1994, p.11) as well. for example, one can express the social distance between him/her and the interlocutor by preferring "could you….?" cluster rather than "can you…?" in his/her request (batstone, 1994, p.17). in other words, the speaker’s choice between the two modal verbs constructs the meaning conveyed through the utterance. therefore, it could be claimed that the evolution of grammar started as discrete rules, then it turned into a system of rules. in its final stage, it reached out a functional nature. it could be claimed that the dictionary definitions provided above and the linguistics definitions developed in history are in perfect compliance. they both suggest three major features of grammar as a phenomenon which are being comprised of rules, constructing a system, and having a function. english teachers’ beliefs borg (2003), conducting a comprehensive review study on teachers’ belief systems, claimed that teacher cognition, which refers to what teachers ‘know, believe and think’ (p. 81), is related to the issues of schooling, professional coursework, classroom practices including practice teaching and contextual factors. excluding the latter, the contextual factors which are about the concerns related to the teaching environment, other three issues can also be relevant for pre-service teachers’ belief systems. schooling, for example, refers to teachers’ experiences as learners and pre-service teachers come to teacher education programs with preoccupied belief systems rooted in their learner backgrounds (richardson, 1996) through the apprenticeship of observation (borg, 2004; lortie, 1975). these early beliefs affect how they consider teaching and learning practices (grossman, 1991) and have the potential to shape teacher candidates ‘dominant model of action’ (johnson, 1994; p.450) during their pre-service education. regarding pre-service english teachers’ learner experiences concerning grammar, it can be stated that they were involved in grammar-oriented classroom practices because grammar instruction is still dominating language teaching and learning in turkey (hoş & kekeç, 2014; tepav, 2013) as it is the case in many other countries (eg., assahali, 2013; farrell, 1999; underwood, 2012). in addition, they must get a required grade from a reading and grammar-oriented university entrance exam to be able to apply for english teacher education programs. as a result, it is plausible that the majority of teacher candidates come to these programs as learners of grammar-oriented classrooms having observed many hours of lessons prioritizing grammar and vocabulary over other language components. moodie (2016), expends lortie’s (1975) concept of apprenticeship of observation and claims that teachers sometimes learn from past experiences “what not to do as language teachers” (p.29). therefore, it can be suggested that these observations might motivate the emergence of both positive and negative beliefs about grammar. either apprenticeship or anti-apprenticeship of observation, it is tenable to argue that pre-service teachers enter english teacher education programs with a set of preoccupied beliefs about grammar and grammar teaching. the second issue mentioned by borg (2003), professional coursework, refers to the theoretical and practical courses studied during pre-service education. it is claimed that such coursework ‘may affect existing cognitions’ (borg, 2003, p. 82). it should be kept in mind ölçü-dinçer, z. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 63 that there can be a “mismatch between what students have learned in the past and what they are presented in the teacher education program” (farrell, 1999, p. 1). yuan and lee (2014) claimed that pre-service english teachers’ beliefs about grammar could be affected by such an inconsistency between their grammar-oriented learner experiences and teacher training courses that prioritize communicative language teaching methods. according to borg (2003) classroom practices including practice teaching is another factor that has an impact on pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching grammar. as revealed in a study by farrell (1999), for example, reflective practice can evoke pre-service teachers’ awareness of the effects of their past experiences on their beliefs about grammar teaching. although many research studies have been conducted regarding in-service or preservice teachers’ beliefs about grammar, their mainly hold an instructional perspective. in particular, tese studies are concerned about pre-service teachers’ beliefs about grammar teaching (e.g., andrews, 2003; değirmenci-uysal & yavuz, 2015; dikici, 2012; graus & coppen, 2016; kaçar & zengin, 2013; murniati & riyandari, 2016), in-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching grammar (e.g., sato & oyanedel, 2019; toprak, 2019), the relationship between pre-service teachers’ beliefs and practices (e.g., johnson, 1994), the relationship between in-service teachers’ beliefs and practices ( farrell & lim, 2005; phipps & borg, 2009; uysal & bardakçı, 2014; watson, 2015). to the best of the researcher’s knowledge, there is no study conducted to shed light on pre-service teachers’ beliefs about grammar as a phenomenon itself. therefore, the present study aimed to answer the following overarching questions: 1. what are pre-service english teachers’ metaphors for “grammar”? 2. do the participants’ metaphors at the entrance and exit level show differences? methodology against the backdrop of the pertinent literature imbued with the findings suggesting that language teachers’ beliefs play an important role in understanding teachers’ pedagogical decisions, it is still a challenge to get a concrete definition of such a subtle and deep-seated personal trait. researchers employed various methods to unearth this phenomenon, one of which is metaphor elicitation (erkmen, 2012). after the seminal work of lakoff and johnson (1980), metaphors gained a down-to-earth definition which challenged the perception that metaphors are figurative devices peculiar to literary works. moreover, metaphors used in colloquial language are claimed to reflect and shape our perceptions and “conceptual systems” (lakoff & johnson, 1980). in as much as metaphors are used to understand abstract things (yob, 2003), in educational studies, as suggested by saban (2006), one of the functions of metaphors is being defined as a ‘research tool’. thereby, metaphors have been heavily used by researchers to understand the complex nature of teachers’ belief systems (eg. seferoğlu et al., 2009). considering these, the motivation for using metaphors in the present study as a gate through pre-service english teachers’ beliefs about grammar is twofold. first, metaphors were quite suitable for investigating tacit beliefs as they provide deeper insights into pre-service teachers’ perspectives. second, it was entirely practical to ölçü-dinçer, z. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 64 collect data through elicited metaphors at the onset and end of pre-service teacher education and to have comparable data sets. sample a cohort of 47 pre-service teachers enrolled in an english teacher education department in turkey took part in the study. female participants (n=43) were outnumbering the males (n=4), which is parallel with the overall gender distribution in the department. during these four years, participants took several pedagogical courses and courses to develop their subject knowledge about the english language and culture. in the final two semesters, they went to schools for school experience and practicum. data collection participants responded to an open-ended questionnaire asking “if you are to use a metaphor for “grammar”, which metaphor would you use for it? explain by giving reasons”. in this longitudinal study, the same questionnaire was given to the same participants twice. participants were asked to write their names on the questionnaire. at the entrance level, preservice english teachers responded to the questionnaire in the first month of their education. after completing four years in the department, they answered the same questionnaire right before they graduated from the program. the participants were first informed about the research and they took part in the study voluntarily. in the first phase, 47 participants answered the questionnaire. since some of the participants transferred to other universities and some could not finish the program in four years, only 45 of these participants answered the questionnaire in the second phase. in the end, a total of 92 metaphors were compiled in the study. analysis the data were analyzed and categorized by two different judges who are doing research on language teacher education. first, they categorized the metaphors on their own. then, intercoder reliability between these two researchers was calculated by using the formula suggested by miles and huberman (1994) and found as r = .88. the steps for the thematic analysis of elicited metaphors are as follows:  reading all the metaphors and negotiating for potential themes  discussing on the emerging themes and establishing a set of thematic codes  sorting the metaphors under the thematic codes (each judge worked on the data individually)  calculating inter-coder reliability  identifying the divergent categorizations between the judges and negotiating to reach a consensus. the categorization is made through a rigorous examination of the explanations suggested for each metaphor. accordingly, the same metaphor could be put under different ölçü-dinçer, z. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 65 categories based upon the participants' explanations. for example, when grammar is likened to a brain as the main controller of the body, this metaphor is listed under the category of control mechanism. when grammar is likened to the brain as the most important part of the body, this time it is put under the category of the central construct of a larger system. metaphor skeleton is grouped under the category of medium for meaning when it is defined as a vehicle carrying the body and giving it a shape; on the other hand, the same metaphor is listed under the category of the central construct of a larger system when it is defined as the most important part of the human body. in appendix, examples for metaphors and associated keywords are presented. results firstly, metaphors were clustered into two broad definitional categories as grammar as a phenomenon and grammar as a subject. metaphors in the first category are describing the nature of grammar and the second type of metaphors define the term within a pedagogical frame. the number of metaphors in grammar as a phenomenon is considerably high and of great variety. therefore, they are put into three sub-categories as grammar is rule, grammar is system and grammar is function. later on, the first two of these are put into further subcategories. accordingly, grammar is rule consists of three subtitles as discrete rules which take grammar as isolated rules, control mechanism which defines grammar as a set of rules for controlling language and guideline for rules which defines grammar as a set of guidelines that shows how to follow the rules. grammar as a system has two subcategories as a system of smaller units that defines grammar as harmonious units or a complex system and the central construct of a larger system that considers grammar as the most important part of the language, the larger unit. figure 1 demonstrates the categories of metaphors: figure 1. categories of metaphors metaphors for grammar phenomenon rule discrete rules conrol mechanism guideline for rules system system of smaller units central construct of a larger system function subject ölçü-dinçer, z. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 66 grammar metaphors at the entrance level as illustrated in table 1, the majority of the metaphors elicited in the entrance level are listed under grammar as a phenomenon (f=45), and only 2 metaphors are listed under grammar as a subject. a cohort of 18 metaphors is suggested for grammar as rule. specifically, 5 metaphors for discrete rules (i.e., traffic rules (f=2), driving rules, home life, medicine), 8 metaphors for control mechanism (i.e., brain (f=3), coach, policeman), and 5 metaphors for a guideline for rules (i.e., guide, road map, building project, recipe (f=2)) are identified. it is found out that the majority of the metaphors in this phase are under the category of grammar as a system (f=20). within this category, most of the participants define grammar as the central construct of a larger system (f=14) (i.e., basis of a house (f=2), engine (f=2), heart (f=2), skeleton (f=2), door of house, salt, columns of building, essential piece of puzzle, family in society, brain). in addition, 6 participants described grammar as a system of smaller units (i.e., cell (f=2), puzzle, family, airplane, complex system of smaller parts). finally, 7 metaphors (i.e., central electric unit, legs, steps carrying to the top, skeleton (f=2), roof, rhythm) are listed under grammar is function, in other words, medium for meaning. the two metaphors put in the category of grammar as a subject are a long road and love. table 1. metaphors used at the entrance level defining grammar as phenomenon (f = 45) rule metaphors (f = 18) discrete rules (f = 5) (traffic rules (f =2*); driving rules; homelife; medicine) control mechanism (f = 8) (brain(f = 6); coach; policeman) guideline for rules (f = 5) (guide; road map; building project; recipe (f = 2)) system metaphors ( f = 20) system of smaller units (f = 6) (cell ( f = 2); puzzle; family; aeroplane; complex system of smaller parts) the central construct of a larger system (f = 14) (basis of a house (f = 2) ; engine (f = 2); heart (f =2 ); skeleton (f = 2); door of house; salt; columns of building; essential piece of puzzle; family in society; brain) function metaphors (f = 7) (central electric unit; legs; steps; skeleton (f = 2); roof ; rhythm) defining grammar as subject (f = 2) (long road; love) total: 47 metaphors *when the metaphors are used more than once the frequency of emergence is provided. ölçü-dinçer, z. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 67 grammar metaphors at the exit level nearly all of the metaphors, as illustrated in table 2, are under the category of grammar as a phenomenon (f=44), and only one metaphor is used for grammar as a subject. a total of 5 metaphors are used for grammar as rule. specifically, 2 metaphors are listed under discrete rules (i.e., driving, rules), 2 metaphors are listed under control mechanism (i.e., brain, king) and 1 metaphor is put under guideline for rules (i.e., recipe). the number of metaphors that define grammar as a system in the exit level is 29. a cohort of 6 metaphors is used for a system of smaller units (i.e., brick, orange, sea (f=2), back of the mountain, spider web). metaphors listed under the central construct of a larger system are 23 in total (i.e., cement, milestone (f=2), heart, the key to vip, kitchen, salt (f=2), backbone (f=2), root, stem (f=2), skeleton (f=3), water (f=2), atom, basis of a house (f=2), wheat, pasta of cake). finally, 10 metaphors (i.e., stairs, skeleton, chocolate, eyeglasses, poem, ship, candle, baking powder, mother, sand) are employed for grammar is function. only one metaphor, i.e., shark, is put under grammar as a subject. table 2. metaphors elicited at the exit level defining grammar as phenomenon (f = 44) rule metaphors (f = 5) discrete rules (f = 2) (driving; rules) control mechanism (f = 2) (brain; king) guideline for rules (f = 1) (recipe ) system metaphors ( f = 29) system of smaller units (f = 6) (brick; orange; sea (f=2*); back of the mountain; spider web) the central construct of a larger system (f = 23) (cement; milestone (f=2); heart; key to vip; kitchen; salt (f=2); backbone (f=2); root; stem (f=2); skeleton f=(3); water (f=2); atom; basis of a house (f=2); wheat; pasta of cake) function metaphors (f = 10) (stairs; skeleton; chocolate; eyeglasses; poem; ship; candle; baking powder; mother; sand) defining grammar as subject (f = 1) (shark) total: 45 metaphors *when the metaphors are used more than once the frequency of emergence is provided. ölçü-dinçer, z. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 68 comparing metaphors at the entrance and exit levels in table 3, the results of the two phases are presented together to provide a comparative outlook. it is observed in both phases that the participants tend to use grammar as phenomenon metaphors (45 in the entrance, 44 at the exit) more than grammar as a subject (2 in the entrance, 1 in the exit). the number of metaphors recorded under rule decreased at the exit level (f=5) when compared to the entrance level (f=18). considering the subcategories for rule, it is understood that the number of metaphors in all sub-groups decreases distinctively. specifically, metaphors used for discrete rules are 5 at the entrance level and 2 at the exit level; for control mechanism are 8 at the entrance level and 2 at the exit level; for a guideline for rules are 5 at the entrance level and 1 at the exit level. on the other hand, in comparison with the entrance level, the number of metaphors listed under system (at the entrance level=20, at the exit level=29) and function (at the entrance level=7, at the exit level= 10) shows an increase at the exit level. focusing on the subcategories of system, it is seen that the number of metaphors used for system of smaller units is the same both at the entrance level (f=6) and the exit level (f=6). a distinctive increase is recorded for the number of metaphors listed under the central construct of a larger system. in particular, although 14 metaphors are used at the entrance level, this increased to 23 metaphors at the exit level. table 3. comparison of metaphors at the entrance and exit level grammar as phenomenon grammar as subject entrance rule=18 dr (f=5), cm (f=8), cr (f=5) system= 20 ssu( f=6), cc (f=14) function=7 school subject=2 exit rule=5 dr (f=2), cm (f=2), cr (f=1) system= 29 ssu( f=6), cc (f=23) function=10 school subject=1 abbreviations: dr: discrete rules; cm: control mechanism; cr: guideline for rules, ssu: system of smaller units, cc: central construct of a larger system discussion the study reveals that the majority of pre-service english teachers suggested metaphors for grammar as a phenomenon in both entrance and exit levels. grammar is not perceived as a school subject by them. in other words, they seem to have developed meta-awareness about grammar even before they entered the program and their beliefs remained same in years. on the other hand, our findings indicate that their beliefs about the nature of grammar changed over time. ölçü-dinçer, z. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 69 first of all, the number of metaphors for rule shows a significant decrease, from 18 to 5 at the exit level. this decrease is observable in every sub-category of this group such that discrete rules from 5 to 2, control mechanism from 8 to 2, and guideline for rules from 5 to 1. in the same vein, the number of metaphors defining grammar as function, a kind of medium for meaning-making, showed a slight increase from 7 to 10. moreover, grammar as system metaphors also rises from 20 to 29. as stated by borg (2003), professional coursework affects pre-service teachers’ belief systems. these findings indicate that preservice english teachers changed their rule-oriented beliefs with more system-oriented ones. nevertheless, it should also be considered that majority of the participants define grammar as a central construct of a larger system at the exit level (f=23) and this is nearly twice as much as the same kind of metaphors recorded at the entrance level (f=14). although they showed a move from grammar as rule to grammar as a system, it is observed that they put grammar at the center of the language system even after four years of teacher education. in addition, functional approaches to grammar are not very common among teacher candidates. the reason behind the observed belief change can be interpreted as an effect of preservice training. the curriculum of pre-service english teaching departments in turkey imposes communicative theories and supports the development of a holistic perspective towards language which unites grammar and other skills together within the larger language system. therefore, it can be claimed that pre-service english teachers’ beliefs about grammar at the very beginning resemble the claims of traditional grammar. however, during the pre-service education, they reconstruct their beliefs about grammar and begin to hold a more structuralist and slightly functionalist understanding of the phenomenon. all in all, the current study substantiates the previous researchers’ claims (farrell, 1999; yuan & lee, 2014) in the sense that pre-service education has an impact on prospective teachers’ beliefs system. another interesting finding of the present research is the frequent emergence of rule and system metaphors at the entrance level. this situation can be explained by what borg (2003) named schooling. borg (2003) claims that teachers’ beliefs are based upon their early learner experiences. even though the local educational policies in turkey promote learning english with communicative practices (mone, 2018), in reality, as in many other countries, there is a way to reach these aims. therefore, pre-service english teachers who partook in this study came to the department with preoccupied beliefs about grammar which are based upon the accumulated experiences of grammar teaching and learning practices. although quite a few in number, there are three metaphors used under the category of grammar as a subject. these metaphors are listed as long road, love and shark. considering the suggested explanations by the participants, it is found out that pre-service english teachers are pinpointing the hardship and toughness of grammar as a curricular subject. in this regard, our findings support the previous research reporting teachers’ negative beliefs about learning grammar (andrews, 2003). ölçü-dinçer, z. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 70 conclusion our findings suggest that pre-service english teachers’ beliefs about grammar seem to evolve from rule to system and function with the effects of the pre-service curriculum. this underscores the role of pre-service education on the belief systems of candidate teachers. on the other hand, the effects of pre-service education cannot be ignored as it is observed in the present study that teacher candidates are affected by their learner experiences at the entrance level. therefore, it can be suggested that when functional approaches to grammar become widely used in k-12 schools, future teachers would come to departments with this background. put in other words, developments in school practices have the potential to facilitate training qualified english teachers in the departments. unearthing pre-service english teachers’ beliefs about grammar at the entrance and the exit level, this study evidences that their beliefs are prone to change through pre-service education. therefore, it can be argued that pre-service teachers’ beliefs about grammar can be headed to a functional level utilizing conscious practices, such as reflection (farrell, 1999). such kind of a change in pre-service teachers’ belief systems, in return, could help them develop better theories and practices of communicative language teaching. finally, the findings of the present study point out a need for further research investigating the relationship between pre-service teachers’ beliefs about grammar and how they interpret communicative language teaching. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. an earlier version of this paper is 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(2014). pre-service teachers’ changing beliefs in the teaching practicum: three cases in an efl context. system, 44, 1–1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2014.02.002 appendix: sample metaphors and annotated keywords home of a family (has rules and is essential for the family) basis of a house (essential for the house, it makes the building durable) https://doi.org/10.24167/celt.v16i1.566 https://doi.org/10.37546/jaltjj35.1-2 https://doi.org/10.2307/3588214 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2009.03.002 https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210601017386 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2019.06.005 https://doi.org/10.1080/03055690802648135 https://www.britishcouncil.org.tr/sites/default/files/turkey_national_needs_assessment_of_state_school_english_language_teaching.pdf https://www.britishcouncil.org.tr/sites/default/files/turkey_national_needs_assessment_of_state_school_english_language_teaching.pdf http://www.iojet.org/index.php/iojet/article/view/398 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2012.04.004 https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244017722185 https://doi.org/10.15700/201412120943 https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2015.1016955 https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1022289113443 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2014.02.002 ölçü-dinçer, z. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 73 the substructure of a building (the most fundamental part of the language) cell (building blocks of a language) salt (very important for the meal) road map (shows us how we can use the language to speak write etc.) love (hard and requires time and effort) copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). felt article template focus on elt journal vol 2, issue 2, 2020 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: pelin.irgin@tedu.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. english as a lingua franca: from classroom to out-of-class communication apelin irgin a asst. prof. dr., ted university, turkey, pelin.irgin@tedu.edu.tr apa citation: irgin, p. (2020). english as a lingua franca: from classroom to out-of-class communication. focus on elt journal, 2(2), 4-16. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00022 abstract this study explores the perceived contributions and impacts of out-of-class english as a lingua franca (elf)-oriented practices on english as a foreign language (efl) learners’ perspectives for efl communication. twenty-two turkish efl learners studying at a state university participated to the study and each of them were asked to engage in communication with a large number of international and exchange students from different culture and language contexts on campus. at the onset of the process, turkish learners were informed about the written and spoken genres of the out-of-class communication (including business meetings, job interviews, academic reports, resumes etc.) incorporated into an oral communication skill course in 14 weeks. immediately after each elf communication, that is the out-of-class communication activity completed with the native speakers or non-native speakers of english, they kept their weekly records and wrote self-reflections. the collected data were analyzed by following the steps of thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2006). findings suggest that elf-oriented practices out-of-class communication raised efl learners’ awareness and perceptions towards cultural and linguistic diversities. also, efl learners appeared to show new insights on intelligibility in communication and willingness to employ communication strategies such as negotiation for meaning, use of non-verbal communication, in order to enhance their intercultural communicative competence. © 2020 felt and the authors published by felt keywords english as a lingua franca; oral communication; out-of-class communication; elf-oriented practices article history received : 10 september 2020 revised : 23 december 2020 accepted : 24 december 2020 published : 30 december 2020 introduction in today’s globalized world, english as a lingua franca (elf) has emerged as a way of sociolinguistic concept referring to the contemporary use of english for communication. since roughly one of every four users of english around the world is the native speakers of english (crystal, 2003), the native speakers are outnumbered by non-native speakers of english, which creates a distinctive insight about elf communication. as english is the communicative medium of choice by non-native speakers, it functions as a phenomenon for international and intercultural diversity, which is characterized by changeability, fluidity and flexibility (cogo, 2012). with the global spread of english, “english as an international language” (eil) (jenkins, 2003) and “world englishes” (brutt-griffler, 2002) have been used for users of english spanning inner circle, outer circle, and expanding circle contexts (kachru, 1992; seidlhofer, 2011). within the scope of kachru’s concentric circles, eil comprises the intranational and international communication; however, there is not a clearly captured distinction between localized eil and globalized eil that people can engage into mailto:pelin.irgin@tedu.edu.tr https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5222-5648 mailto:pelin.irgin@tedu.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00022 irgin, p. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 5 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com three concentric circles: (i) inner circle english is the first language (for example, the uk, the usa), (ii) outer circle – english is an additional language (e.g. india, singapore), and (iii) expanding circle – english is taught and learnt as a foreign language (e.g. turkey, china). despite welcomed by some culture contexts and disapproved by others, english is globally accepted as a lingua franca, which is shaped by non-native speakers as well as by native speakers of english. the consequence of the international use of english as a foreign language (efl) creates a paradox, which refers to the dominance of native speakers on the last decision about the acceptable usage of the verbal expressions. thus, elf with its linguistic productivity and diversity into english language challenges native english as they are regarded as a yardstick of linguistic competence (galloway & rose, 2015). in fact, cogo’s paper (2012) suggests, elf speakers have multicompetences and effective communication strategies in contrary to the obstacles sourced from their different backgrounds. apart from understanding the elf communication moving towards appreciation of cultural and linguistic diversities, it is worth considering the engagement of elf approach to elt practices. elf presents language learners awareness and choice-making about different ways of speaking english (cogo, 2012). as for the teaching of english to non-native learners, there is a need for the clarification that foreign language learning is not all about grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation but rather it is the unity of all competences for fruitful communication instead. the point here is that many researchers might regard it as the process involving both language and cultural awareness. in order to engage language teachers on elf into their teaching practices, it is necessary to underpin the empirical research on the use of elf and to provide elf oriented practical applications in and out of elt classrooms. it is widely reported that esl and efl view the ultimate aim of the learners to be native-like speakers while english as a lingua franca (elf) regards this aim as being able to communicate with other speakers (whong, 2015). with the use of english for communication by the learners from different cultural backgrounds, elf communication is driven by out of native-speaker norms. elf scholars emphasize the need for elf-oriented pedagogical practices incorporated into the classrooms. in designing english as a subject in elt classes, prescriptive decisions about the aspects of language are taken, which are basically designed in connection with the objectives and processes of learning. however, the main point here is to reconsider the objectives and processes of learning that might be unreal, irrelevant and even old fashioned for the learners. the pedagogical relevance of elf suggests an alternative way of thinking in elt (seidlhofer, 2011). however, very few studies (galloway & rose, 2015; sung, 2018) have empirical evidences on elf-oriented practices and the learners’ perspectives on elf pedagogies. thus, this study explores the perceived contributions and impacts of out-of-class elf-oriented practices on efl learners’ perspectives for efl communication. awareness on elf in elt: previous research to date, majority of the research focus on elf at the theoretical level rather than the pedagogical implications of elf. bayyurt and akcan (2015), cogo (2012), and sung (2015) have put forward some suggestions to expose language learners to elf in elt. bayyurt and akcan (2015) argued the value of increased exposure as english as a lingua franca and varies application of world englishes in language teaching practices in multilingual and multicultural contexts. they suggested to conduct further research on the pedagogical implications for raising english teachers’ awareness on how awareness on elf can be irgin, p. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 6 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com implemented in a multicultural and multicultural context. cogo (2012) suggested many researchers to approach language teaching from different perspective such as seeing language teaching more than skills, communication and knowledge. also, he directly linked a better understanding of elf communication drawing the attention on the appreciation on multicultural identities and diversities. furthermore, to increase the awareness of the researchers and practitioners on elf concept, sung (2015) provided some suggestions on the implementation of elf-aware approach within the classrooms. with this issue in mind, he claimed that teachers would be in a better position to prepare their learners to deal with the challenges in intercultural communication. galloway and rose (2015) provided an academic rationale for the use of listening journals in elt to raise awareness of language learners on global englishes. they presented pedagogical tasks to expose learners to the diversity of english in elt, so the inclusion of various accents in elt was a gain from learners’ perspective. however, sung (2015) discussed galloway and rose’s finding in that it is crucial for teachers to take their students’ perspectives and concerns in the elf-adaptation process including the need for the exposure to different accents via the use of listening journals and the possible negative perceptions towards different l2 accents. additionally, sung (2018) conducted a research on the implementation of an out-ofclass communication component in an elt course in hong kong context to understand the impact of elf activities on students understanding english in the global world. the students appeared to show new insights on elf and increased their awareness of elf. thus, much research (blair, 2015; martin-rubio & cots, 2018; sifakis, 2019; sifakis & bayyurt, 2018; sung, 2018; vettorel, 2015, 2016) suggested for further research on elf-oriented instructional activities incorporated in elt to have a clear understanding of learners’ perspectives. as sifakis and bayyurt (2018) stated, if teachers become elf-aware themselves, they can teach their learners how to be elf-aware language users. dewey (2012) advocated exploring teachers’ awareness in elf in order to understand the impact of elf in language education. in this vein, bayyurt and sifakis (2015) composed a model to increase awareness of teachers on elf, and they conducted a study with inservice teachers at private and state schools in both turkey and greece. based on their observations, there was a shift towards elfawareness in elt. in order to change teachers’ mindsets about elf-aware approach in elt, they offered three levels for the implementation of the elf approach as in the following: (1) introducing theoretical aspects of elf through reflective practice (2) preparing elf-aware activities/lesson plans and implementing these in their classrooms (3) critical reflection of elf-aware practice through the evaluation of their implementation of elf-aware activities/lesson plans apparently, it is important to raise english teachers and students’ awareness on the elf and to conceptualize elf and elf practices in foreign language teaching and learning. the more aware teachers become about efl in multilingual and multicultural contexts, the more aware they become towards the changing paradigms (such as linguistic and cultural diversities) in their teaching practices. based on the citations above, there is a need to go beyond the theory-based teaching and to do deep analysis and critical reflections on elfawareness based practices in and out of classrooms. as there has been very few research into learner’s perspective into the incorporation of elf into classroom, this study attempts to fill the void in the field. hence, this present study aims to explore the perceived contributions irgin, p. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 7 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com and impacts of out-of-class elf-oriented practices on efl learners’ perspectives for communication. this paper seeks to answer the following research questions: 1. what are the impacts of out-of-class elf-oriented practices on leaners’ perspectives for elf communication? 2. what are the perceived impacts of out-of-class elf-oriented practices? methodology setting and participants the study was conducted at a state university in turkey, which gives undergraduate education in both turkish and english languages (some other foreign language courses optionally, as well). beside the courses taken in the departments of the university, international office in the university presents english and turkish classes annually for international students. the english language teaching and english language and literature students at the university were encouraged to be in communication to foster elf communication activities, and to have an impact on both turkish and international students’ elf conceptions. also, the university provides education to a large number of exchange students from different european countries having erasmus partnership. both national and international students undertook their courses in english at the same university campus. the international students had major courses in different faculties and field of studies of the university such as education sciences, english language education, engineering, human resources, and economy. the university had approximately 200 international students in 2018-2019 academic year and they were participating the meetings organized by the international office of the university in order to increase their awareness on turkish culture context and to present their own culture to the students from other cultures. an elective oral communication course covered by the researcher in an academic semester at the university was designed to improve efl learners’ use of spoken english in a variety of communication-oriented activities that require clarity of expression and critical assessment on cultural and linguistic diversities, and to develop awareness on global englishes. twenty-two students enrolled on the oral communication course were foreign language learners of english studying at the english language and literature department, whose english proficiency level ranged from upper-intermediate to advanced levels tested via pearson english language test (pte) for academic purposes. the students had very limited opportunities to practice elf communication in the classroom setting as there are almost two or three exchange students in their classes every academic term. the classroom language was english but turkish students had high potential to use their l1 in and out of the classroom. rather than engaging in elf communication with the exchange students in the department, they were using turkish language for oral interaction in order to teach them turkish language. based on the researcher’s observation, it was seen that turkish students had some ambivalent attitudes towards the different accents and hesitations on how to deal with communication breakdowns by reason of different accents in practice. therefore, the content of the oral communication course was designed to encourage and do actually out of class elf communication with international and exchange students from different language and culture backgrounds. irgin, p. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 8 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com table 1. the weekly course content weeks topics skills & objectives 1 introduction to the course syllabus, getting to know each other, setting expectations, english as a lingua franca (elf), selfreflection paper writing -introducing the course syllabus presenting guideline on how to write selfreflection 2 small talk -initiating & maintaining a conversation on safe topics in different situations 3 expressing opinions & debating -expressing opinions and debating skills 4 academic oral presentations skills -delivering & reflecting on academic presentations -expanding collocation & vocabulary 5 interviews & job talks -practicing skills of conducting & participating in interviews 6 culture: manners and politeness -inter-cultural awareness on politeness and manners -expressing social communicative functions 7 mid-term exam 8 health issues -practice medical language -pronunciation of problematic medical words 9 world politics and religious issues -practice discussing controversial political and religious issues 10 news & current affairs -understanding radio and tv news & documentaries -debating and argumentation skills 11 language & literature -discussing language and literary issues -retelling stories -understanding american and british english 12 world englishes & accents -discussing world english and english: local accents and global accents 13 charity & voluntary works -discussing charity and voluntary works 14 final exam they were informed about taking notes about time, setting, interlocutor(s)’ background, and purpose of the oral communication (see figure 1). also, they were expected to write their self-reflections following the instructor’s guideline on how to write their reflections (see figure 2). based on the weekly tentative course syllabus illustrated in table 1, the participants were expected to practice on the relevant topic and write down their reports and self-reflection papers after each weekly topic was covered in the class. then, they implemented the out-of-class communication, english as a lingua franca (elf) practices with the international students at the university campus taking nearly 30 minutes talks each week. later, the participants wrote their weekly reports and self-reflection papers irgin, p. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 9 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com in english. eleven weekly reports and reflection papers was gathered from each participant during the academic term. then, the students were directed to participate to the meetings of the international office to perform their weekly out-of-class communication. immediately after each elf communication, that is the out-of-class communication activity completed with the native speakers or non-native speakers of english, they kept their weekly records and wrote selfreflections to submit them to the instructor. the students could respond to each item/question in their self-reflections and reports. pseudo name week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 time duration place interlocutor(s)’ native language and nationality 1 2 3 4 oral communication topic purpose personal notes (observations on linguistic features, communication breakdowns, oral communication strategies, etc.) figure 1. template for students’ weekly records guideline for self-reflections __write your reflections on your oral communication experiences over the 14th week process. __reflect on your oral communication practices generally (setting, interlocutor/s, communication language/s, time, duration, and etc.) __reflect on your reasons for oral communication practices. __reflect on the language features of your interactions. __write the difficulties you face in oral communication, and your ways to deal with them if there is/are. __write the contributions of your oral communication practices. __comment on how competent you and your interlocutors were in the interactions. __state clearly whether the oral communication let you create new insights on english language, culture, identity, and so on. __discuss critically what you have learned from the oral communication practices. figure 2. instructor’s guideline for students’ self-reflections the collected data was analyzed by following the phases of a thematic analysis as described by braun and clarke (2006). students’ weekly written reflections were reviewed and the themes emerged from the students’ written extracts were identified. the process of data analysis gradually changed from mainly inductive to become more deductive. as the thematic analysis is not tied to a particular theoretical framework within a qualitative paradigm, it could be conducted in a critically realist, contextualist and constructionist theoretical perspective. irgin, p. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 10 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com table 2. braun and clarke’s (2006) six-phase inductive thematic analysis phases description of the process 1. familiarizing yourself with your data transcribing data, reading and re-reading the data, noting down the initial ideas. 2. generating initial codes coding interesting features of the data in a systematic fashion across the entire data set, collating data relevant to each code. 3. searching for themes gathering data and collating codes into potential themes. 4. reviewing potential themes checking the themes in relation to the coded extracts and the entire data set, generating a thematic “map” of the analysis. 5. defining and naming themes ongoing analysis to refine each theme and generate clear definitions and names for each theme. 6. producing the report selection of vivid, compelling text extracts relating to the analysis to the research question and literature, producing a scholarly report. the author and one independent researcher having experience in transcribing and analyzing qualitative data including deductive and inductive coding, coded and analyzed the data in order to ensure inter-rater reliability. the data reported in the student reflections were coded by both researchers independently and then compared with the codes of the other researcher. the inter-coding and intra-coding included checking the segmentation and coding of the data. the statistical similarity analysis of coding revealed very high agreement between two coders (.91, p<.001) as over .80 values represent very high agreement (landis & koch, 1977). any disagreements in coding were resolved through discussion. results based on the efl learners’ weekly reports and self-reflections on their out-of-class communication activities, the findings reveal the impacts of elf-oriented pedagogical practices incorporated in the classroom and splashed out-of-class communication on efl learners’ elf perspectives. four main impacts of efl students’ oral communications on the conceptions of english in the global context were identified from the collected data. what the perceived impacts of out-of-class elf-oriented practices were and how they contributed to efl learners were presented as below; (1) raising efl learners’ awareness and perceptions towards cultural and linguistic diversities (2) showing new insights on intelligibility in communication (3) showing willingness to employ communication strategies such as negotiation for meaning, use of non-verbal communication (4) enhancing their intercultural communicative competence. theme 1: awareness on cultural and linguistic diversities one of the four main impacts identified in the efl students’ reflections is awareness on cultural and linguistic diversity of english in elf-oriented communication. the reports of the students reflected that efl students perceived the language and culture variations in irgin, p. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 11 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com their out of class practices with native and non-native speakers of english, and showed an increased tolerance for cultural and linguistic differences. one student in her self-reflection paper, for example, wrote: “rather than alienating people from each, we should be respectful for the differences because we all live in the same world and english is the global language to communicate with people from different cultures.” (st2) another student noted about their increased awareness stating as below: “….…i realize the changes in my thoughts about other non-native speakers of english. i used to judge people when they speak english out of american or british accent. i know this is not nice. i know that i do not have very good accent, but i start to pay attention to correct pronunciation of the words, word stress, intonation, and etc. personally, i am now more respectful for different accents, and i have more acceptance of cultural diversities, as well.” (st5) even though the students seem ready for linguistic differences and cultural diversities in classroom environment, the natural dynamics of oral communication with interlocutors from diverse culture contexts revealed some concerns such as communication breakdowns. however, it was seen that students had disposition to increase their awareness on the cultural and linguistic diversities. for instance, one of the students wrote in her self-reflection paper: “we live in the same world but we have lots of differences. our colors, culture, country, and language differentiate from one another. i know that english is the global language and there are some variations in language, which i appreciate it a lot. i cannot imagine a world where people speak english with the same accent.” (st11) similarly, one another reflected on cultural diversities in his self-reflection paper: “i have always thought that to communicate with native speakers of english are better than the non-natives to improve my english language skills. but, now i think that it is nonsense to categorize people in that way, and even to question which one is better. ….thanks to people from different cultures i could have some ideas about their countries, life, music, food, and i could learn some words in their native language.” (st18) this quotation indicates that students might be aware of both linguistic and cultural diversities when they are presented opportunities to use english out of classroom elf practices. they appear to assess themselves regarding the cultural and linguistic components in both national and global settings, and to enlarge their viewpoints towards variations of english. theme 2: new insights on intelligibility in communication the gradually growing body of this research leads to a better understanding on the nature of elf, more specifically new insight on intelligibility in communication. in language teaching process, linguistic features potentially tend to be for learners in international settings, which are distinguished from the standard features of language (seidlhofer, 2011). thus, the new focus basically can be on intelligible use of language, rather than striving for the nuances of native speaker or native like speakers’ language use. for example, the students indicated their relevance on the intelligible use of language by keeping the native-speaker norms at the center of elf communication, especially with respect to interlocutors’ pronunciation and fluent english, as evidenced in the self-reflection papers of student 13 and student 21: irgin, p. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 12 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com “it is important to me not to restrict myself with the boundaries of native-speakers’ language norms. i started to think that there is no limitation in communication as long as people ensure intelligibility in their conversations.” (st13) “it would be tedious if we all speak with the same accent. i cannot even imagine my international friends start to use english with the same or similar way. it is not necessary to have the same british or american accent. as long as i understand what they mean, there is no problem to have different accents. i like the way they speak.” (st21) it should be highlighted that linguistic descriptions of languages are nor prerequisite for being informed about language, neither enough for purposeful language usage. it provides necessary information just for particular settings but learners might be in need of more productive solutions in lingua franca settings. theme 3: willingness to employ oral-communication strategies the findings of this study is in more agreement with that of borghetti and beaven (2015), who point out the contributions of elf setting on non-native speakers of english such as experiencing lower level of embarrassment, fear of being judged on language skills, and worrying about participating in interaction. also, in a similar vein, the participants of this study claimed that they perceived a higher level of negotiation for meaning and communication strategies in an elf setting, which leads them to engage in more interaction with speakers of other languages and native speakers. also, students indicated their willingness to employ communication strategies such as getting the gist of the speech, the use of body language, filling the gaps in meaning, and adapting to the communicative requirements, as shown in the following extracts from their weekly reports and selfreflection papers: “i feel that i have improved my communication skills…now i know better what to say in the correct time.” (st12) “i use my gestures and mimics while speaking with speakers of other languages. i think it helps me a lot to express my ideas accurately.” (st22) “sometimes, i notice the breakdowns in the communication with native and non-native speakers. native speakers usually speak very fast and they might have very strong accent. when i could not catch what they mean, i kindly request to repeat and slow down to continue our communication.” (st14) as referred from the extracts above, the students have efforts to continue meaningful elf communication by using communication strategies, rather than deterring from the conversation or stopping the conversation. they show willingness to communicate and challenge with the points needed to be improved. of significance is these students reflect some adaptive accommodation strategies in the very natural elf setting. theme 4: enhancing intercultural communicative competence based on the analysis of students’ written reflections, twenty of them were able to participate in international english communication and had self-confidence to communicate with people from other positions. almost all students could demonstrate interactional skills such as negotiating, repairing, opening and closing conversations in their elf-oriented oral communications from different culture contexts. they could use both formal and informal irgin, p. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 13 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com vocabulary including figurative language and idiomatic usage of elf english. they developed rhetorical speaking and critical thinking skills, an understanding of phonetics as one of the core elements in english, and an increased fluency in varieties of elf. they could build confidence in terms of using elf appropriately in the critical analysis of others' speeches and the delivery of group and individual speeches in out-of-class communication. they could speak with sufficient accuracy and fluency to facilitate comprehension in professional and academic genres as they had been informed about the written and spoken genres in their course. they could participate in elf-oriented oral communication by explaining and supporting their opinions with high self-confidence. as evidenced in the written reflections, the students emphasized their efforts to continue elf communication with interlocutors from diverse l1 backgrounds. their reflections show that they start to have a new notion of communicative competence with the social milieu of the native and non-native speakers of english. for example, two students wrote: “out of classroom elf practices contributed me a lot. now i know more about african culture. even i have started to enjoy listening to african music. it is now easy for me to communicate in english with people from abroad. especially, music culture might be a reason for communication.” (st17) “now, interestingly i can adapt to communication with people from different backgrounds. before, i used to hesitate to communicate, and i was a bit shy but now i start to trust myself, and my english…i believe that wherever they come from, i have self-confidence to communicate in any international setting.” (st10) in addition, one student stated the importance of teaching students how to communicate in international and intercultural settings. he stated: “i think teachers should integrate more elf practices into oral communication courses. i improved my communication skills by talking with other speakers of english, and learned a lot from their culture, experience and lifestyle.” as reported here, oral communication courses at language department might be an impulse to increase efl students’ awareness on elf communication and intercultural communicative competence. however, opportunities to interact with speakers of other languages should be presented. in cases the elf context could not be possible in the same learning environment, it is inevitable to enrich courses via technologies for distance communication such as webinars, teleconferencing or videoconferencing and so on. the students increased their awareness on elf communication and internalized the importance of employing effective intercultural communication strategies in english. they improved their both listening and speaking (oral communication) skills and strategies. they also improved their pronunciation skills with special emphasis on the effective analysis of language input. they employed an appropriate and effective range of verbal and non-verbal skills in a variety of elf practices. discussion it has been established in the findings of the research that the elf-oriented practices out-ofclassroom communication have impact on efl learners’ raising awareness towards cultural and linguistic diversities, getting new insights on intelligibility in communication, showing willingness to employ communication strategies, and enhancing international communicative competence. as a result of the out-of-classroom activities, the students irgin, p. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 14 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com experienced and assessed their own performance in using english in a real setting enriched and associated with elf. as evidenced in the students’ reflections, the findings of this research suggest that there is a connection between engaging in elf oriented practices out of classroom communication and raising awareness of elf, which was perceived to be beneficial personally and pedagogically. this is most probably because of the positive outcomes rising from the pedagogical concept of elf. in the light of the out-of-classroom communication practices, the students increased their willingness to communicate and their awareness on the role of world english. besides the explicit instruction of elf in the classroom, the outof-classroom practices might have high potential to increase awareness of students on elf as they have direct and very active exposure to the authentic elf communication in their natural setting. the elf scenarios created for the students from the same or very similar cultural and linguistic backgrounds might be a limitation to experience linguistic and cultural diversities. thus, the out-of-classroom elf dynamics might present new opportunities and dimensions, and foster the understanding upon elf communication. in that sense, it is important to implement out-of-classroom elf communication for the classroom settings where opportunities to communicate with speakers of other languages is very rare. similarly, the findings of this research support martin-rubio and cots (2018)’ s study that students not only gain fluency with their english in an elf setting which seems to be connected with the participation to the in and out of class discussions, but they also perceive a greater level of accommodation, cooperation and negotiation strategies in their communication with non-native speakers of english. moreover, it is worth to point out the importance of written reflections to explore students’ critical thinking on elf and communicative practices structured on elf. efl learners in this research appeared to show new insights on intelligibility in communication and willingness to employ communication strategies such as negotiation for meaning, use of non-verbal communication, in order to enhance their international communicative competence. all of these components can be result of having deeper reflections and metacognition on their own elf communication experiences. based on the framed topics on elf communication, students could explore possible options for enhancing their intercultural communicative competences, and develop their decision making on communication breakdowns in an elf setting. at this point, llurda (2016) notes that it has been important to change the students’ mindset on the scope of elf, self-awareness, selfconfidence and identity development. as efl learners in this research explicitly informed and instructed about the different genres, it was seen that the explicit instruction of genres might have influence on the students’ perceptions on elf communication. furthermore, the implementation of pedagogical activities on elf could prompt students to develop deeper insight and awareness on elf. to take a further step from this suggestion, foreign language teachers can be urged for the teaching of english as a lingua franca besides teaching english about grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and a set of skills. while the reflection tasks allowed the students enlarge their viewpoints and awareness on elf, they supplied students some contributions to make decisions on what kind of english they would prefer to use for intercultural communication and how they would cope with the possible problems in elf communication. it is important to note here that written reflections could allow students explore the notion of elf framed on their own communication experiences (cogo, 2012). the students in this study could appreciate what communication means in an elf setting and how students structure their intercultural communicative competences via their elf practices. this study reporting the effective irgin, p. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 15 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com outcomes of out-of-classroom elf communication component implies for further research to compare students’ critical thinking on elf. therefore, further research could be effective for non-native speakers of english to raise their awareness and understanding on elf communication. conclusion in this study, it is examined to explore the perceived contributions and impacts of out-ofclass elf-oriented practices on efl learners’ perspectives for communication. it seems clear from the results of this study that the implementation of out-of-classroom elf practices in an elt course such as oral communication could be motivating to create awareness on elf and to encourage engagement in elf communication. particularly, this experiential elf-oriented study not only implies the positive effects of implementation outof-classroom communication component as practical implications, but it also suggests explicit teaching of elf in the classroom as a part of course content as it was confirmed in bayyurt and akcan’s (2015) study. hence, this study has presented methodological contributions and practical implications to understand impacts of out of classroom practices on students’ perceptions for elf communication. this study is just for a starting point for further exploration of out of classroom elf practices and elf awareness in an elt context. in turkish context, the elf environment which was very welcoming for international students from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds, offered valuable opportunities to view english in the global context rather than limiting the use of english merely in an oral communication course. therefore, it is important to conduct further studies in efl contexts to accommodate the case of english as a means of intercultural and international communication. language teachers should develop target language communicative competence in efl learners by integrating out of classroom elf tasks into their courses. the intercultural communicative competence of the efl learners should be developed by equipping them cultural and linguistic behaviors to have effective elf communication. elf-oriented pedagogical out of classroom practices should involve both national and international norms which are relevant to learners’ lives. instructional materials and activities should have suitable discourse samples pertaining to native and nonnative speaker interactions, as well as nonnative and nonnative speaker interactions. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. references bayyurt, y., & akcan, s. 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(2015). language teaching: linguistic theory in practice. edinburgh university press. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 3, issue 1, 2021 issn: 2687-5381 corresponding author: mehmetsarac@uludag.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. cross-linguistic influence in learning english as a third language: the case of l1 arabic, l2 turkish learners and their attitudes towards learning foreign languages amehmet saraç and bderin atay a lecturer, bursa uludağ university, turkey, mehmetsarac@uludag.edu.tr b prof. dr., bahçeşehir university, turkey, dyatay@yahoo.com apa citation : sarac, m., & atay, d. (2021). cross-linguistic influence in learning english as a third language: the case of l1 arabic, l2 turkish learners and their attitudes towards learning foreign languages. focus on elt journal, 3(1), 5-17. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00026 abstract this study aims to reveal the attitudes of the third language (l3) learners of english towards learning foreign languages and to investigate the source of syntactic and lexical transfer in their writing assignments at a turkish university. for this purpose, a mixed study method was chosen by using a questionnaire consisting of 30 questions and think aloud protocols (tap). being analyzed descriptively, the quantitative data revealed that l1 arabic, l2 turkish, l3 learners of english from different backgrounds largely have positive attitudes towards learning foreign languages. when the quantitative data was analyzed according to the group dynamics in detail, the results showed that l3 learners of english with l1 arabic, l2 turkish backgrounds showed statistically significant differences in terms of their attitudes towards foreign language learning. the participants who were in the l2 dominant group have more positive attitudes than the ones in the l1 dominant group. as for the source of transfer, the results showed that the participants displayed some syntactic transfers in their writing productions, but they could not be clearly defined as resulting from whether turkish or arabic because the transferred forms (for example, absence of verb to be) were similar in both l1 and l2 of the participants. however, when they are observed during the production process, regardless of the dominance of l1 or l2 in their everyday life, they thought aloud in arabic. keywords cross-linguistic influence, syntactic transfer, lexical transfer article history received : 12.10.2021 revised : 21.04.2021 accepted : 06.06.2021 published : 25.06.2021 type research article introduction in recent years there has been a growing interest in third language (l3) acquisition. as a result of this interest, a significant number of language groups are under investigation. the research studies about l3 acquisition have become an independent focus of research in recent years (e.g. cenoz, 2003). according to the scholars, more complex factors are at work in l3 acquisition than the second language (l2) acquisition, and most of these complex interactions are not apparent in the l2 acquisition process. as mentioned in the studies in the related literature (e.g. bardel & falk, 2007; falk & bardel, 2011; ringbom, 2007; rothman, 2015, 2011; williams & hammarberg, 1998), one of the main differences between these two language learning processes is the potential source of transfer because for the l2 the only source is (l1); however, mailto:mehmetsarac@uludag.edu.tr mailto:mehmetsarac@uludag.edu.tr mailto:dyatay@yahoo.com https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00026 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6639-9726 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4147-7177 saraç, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 6 there are two existing languages to serve as potential sources in l3 acquisition. therefore, examining the interplay among l1, l2, and l3 may help researchers discover the key determinant of the transfer. full transfer, partial transfer or no transfer issues are also valid for the l3 acquisition: however, there is a fundamental difference between the acquisition of a second and third language as the l3 acquisition happens in the presence of two potential sources for crosslinguistic influence. in the context of l3 acquisition, the key question is whether the first language or the second one or both of the previous languages serve as a source. in the related literature, a number of factors have been stated as affective for cross-linguistic influence, such as the order of acquisition, typological proximity of the languages and similarity in the structural levels. with the growing number of refugees in europe and especially in turkey, the number of students for whom english is the third language is growing rapidly. at the research site of the current study, these students take a turkish proficiency exam, and if they can pass it, they can pursue their education in their departments, if not so they are required to get one year of turkish preparatory class prior to the english preparatory class. as a result of this regulation of the university, english becomes the third language for these students. taking the number of these learners into consideration and the differences between the acquisition of the second and third languages, the attitudes and source of transfer of these students deserve further investigation. with these in mind, the present study aims to reveal the attitudes of the participants (from l1 dominant setting and l2 dominant setting) towards learning foreign languages (in this case learning english). after revealing the attitudes of the l3 learners, the study also aims at investigating the source of syntactic and lexical transfer: whether l1 or l2 in their writing assignments. the impetus behind the current research is to make the implicit production process explicit through taps and, by doing so, to develop the quality of materials, to arrange the curriculum and content accordingly and in general to develop the quality of the language teaching to these l3 learners of english. literature review cross-linguistic influences the literature on cross-linguistic influence (cli) has identified a variety of factors that determine the influence on the acquisition of the third language, such as (psycho) typological similarity (cenoz et al., 2001; kellerman, 1986; ringbom, 2001), the learner's level of proficiency (de angelis & selinker, 2001; hammarberg, 2001), language exposure to l2 and l3 (dewaele, 2001; ringbom, 1986), the frequency of use (hammarberg, 2001; magiste, 1986), the relative status of l2 (williams & hammarberg, 1998), source and target language proficiency, and formality of context, educational factors (course, teacher), parental encouragement. another factor regarding l2 lexical transfer during third language acquisition is the amount of l2 exposure in the learner's environment, as williams and hammarberg (1998) show. increased l2 exposure leads to less language transfer (dewaele, 1998). this is because the students often notice an improvement in their l2, such as an increase in their vocabulary, which in turn leads them to use their l1. saraç, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 7 transfer source in l3 the studies in the literature are not conclusive in terms of the role of the previously learned/acquired languages in the process of the third language. as a result, it is not possible to state one single determiner for cross-linguistic interference. a case study conducted by williams and hammarberg (1998) pinpoints three potential determiners of cross-linguistic influence, which are; recency of use, status of the second language, and typology. according to the researchers, the language (l1 or l2) which scores the highest on these mentioned determiners can be accepted as the most influential factor. according to de angelis (2007, p. 35), the recency of use is related to "how recently a language was last used". this issue was also highlighted in some other studies as it is assumed that the more recently a language is used, the easier it will be activated in the learner's mind. according to dewaele (2001), the more recent source will potentially serve as the supplier of transfer in learning the third language. the researcher also states that the recency is the main factor for the lexical source of transfer as the more recent one is also activated and assessed more recently. on the other hand, some other studies such as (de angelis & selinker, 2001; herwig, 2001; rivers, 1979) show that the last language is not always the first source to rely on. in these studies, it is asserted that in addition to recency, there are some other higher-order psycholinguistic factors such as the country of origin, target culture and the personal experience of the learners with the target languages. typology, on the other hand, is related to the distance among languages. in the related literature, there are studies focusing on this distance issue, such as cenoz et al. (2001). this study reports that if the typology of the languages relates to one another, then the connection and transfer between those languages would be more robust. in the same study, typological closeness has been found to be one of the most influential factors in the l3 acquisition of lexis (cenoz et al., 2001). within the scope of typology, another aspect is proposed by de angelis (2007), that is the "perceived language distance", which can be explained as the distance that the learners perceive but may or may not be present between the compared languages. a typologically closer language might be perceived as far by the learners, or it might be the other way around. one more potential determiner is stated as the role of the second language. this perspective might have an influential role in the current study as the role of the second language is the main distinction between the two groups of participants. for one of the participant group, the second language is the primary language of daily communication and education because they are living in the dormitories with their turkish friends and they are also using the second language actively at school, on the other hand, the other group members are living with their families, and their family members have little or no knowledge in turkish. these participants stated in their form at the beginning that they use their l1 dominantly in their daily lives. for the effect of the role of l2, williams and hammarberg (1998) suggest that especially at the initial stages of acquisition, the l2 and l3 interlanguages are activated simultaneously, but over time this role is taken over by the third language itself. bardel and falk (2007) assert that the role of l2 in l3 is more like a filter, and it blocks the transfer from the first language. according to flynn et al. (2004), vocabulary is the main area where the status of l2 can be determined as the effect of l2 is accepted as more influential than the l1 in terms of vocabulary. some other studies discussed the issue of transfer from a syntactic perspective. some of those studies discovered that syntactic transfer was not proved to be effective on l3 acquisition saraç, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 8 (bouvy, 2000; håkansson et al., 2002). the findings and discussions of these studies are related to the present study; although they are working on different languages, they present a theoretical background for the cross-linguistic issue. the current study the purpose and significance of the study one of the aims of the study is to reveal the attitudes of the participants (from l1 dominant setting and l2 dominant setting) towards learning foreign languages. after revealing the attitudes of the l3 learners, the study also aims at investigating the source of syntactic and lexical transfer: whether l1 or l2 in their writing assignments. the study is worth conducting because in our language teaching contexts, there is a growing number of students from varying language backgrounds. l1 arabic l2 turkish situation is the most frequent situation as a result of the number of students coming from arabic language background countries. revealing their attitudes towards learning a foreign language and investigating the source of transfer while they are learning languages could enable us to create more effective courses. what is more, the results of this research might have implications for designing the contents of l2 turkish or l3 english prep classes. the current study was designed to answer the following research questions specifically; 1. what is the difference between the attitudes of l3 english learners with l1 (arabic) dominant setting and l2 (turkish) dominant setting towards learning foreign languages? 2. which language (l1 arabic or l2 turkish) is the source of syntactic and lexical transfer for l3 learners of english at the elementary level? methodology research design a mixed research approach was used in the current study to investigate attitudes and origins of syntactic and lexical transition of l1 arabic l2 turkish l3 to english language learners at the uludağ university school of foreign languages. in order to gain accurate information about the central phenomenon, a hybrid (quantitative and qualitative) approach was found to be beneficial, which was difficult to find by more traditional research methods (strauss & corbin, 1998). this research incorporated a case study method to "see the case from the inside out" and to see the core phenomenon from the point of view of english l3 learners (gillham, 2000, p.11). an attitude questionnaire (appendix a) was implemented to get the quantitative data concerning the behavioral, cognitive, and emotional aspects of the attitude of the learners towards foreign language learning. this research tool was adopted from eshghinejad (2016). this attitude questionnaire was constituted by the researcher in the light of the attitude questionnaire test employed by boonrangsri et al. (2004 as cited in eshghinejad, 2016), the attitude and motivation test battery (amtb) designed by gardner (1985), and a behavioral, cognitive, emotional attitude (bcea) questionnaire. the questionnaire consisted of 30 individual items. a five-point likert scale from level 1: strongly disagree to level 5: strongly saraç, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 9 agree was used. at the end of the questionnaire, the participants were asked an optional openended question about the effective factors on their attitudes towards learning a foreign language. in addition to the attitude questionnaire, think aloud protocols (taps) was administered in order to make the cognitive process observable. in the processes of language learning, whether l1 or l2, it is not possible to observe the cognitive and individual processes; with this in mind, the present study tried to make it as straightforward as possible what the students think while they are writing in l3, and more specifically which language is the source of syntactic and lexical transfer. to this end, the data were collected through the think-aloud protocols (taps or concurrent verbalizations) as the main verbalization methods (ericsson & simon, 1993). think-aloud protocols which are also known as concurrent reports is one of the effective tools of data collection for the researchers of sla who try to discover the insights. taps enable the researchers to explain the phenomenon which cannot be addressed with the products alone by visualizing the cognitive process, thought process and strategies (bowles, 2010). in the l2 writing literature, with the aim of revealing the cognitive process, taps are employed in many studies such as (cohen, 1989; faerch & kasper, 1987; green, 1998). the most significant advantage of the taps is that it provides the researchers with understandings into the learners' cognitive processes. sachs and polio (2007) used taps to examine the l2 writers' thinking process, barkaouni (2010) implemented that to get a deeper insight of rater performance during grading, some other researchers such as yanguas and lado (2012) used the protocols to see whether thinking was being in the first or second language. the research questions and data collection and analysis details for each research questions are displayed in table 1. table 1. research questions, data collection and analysis research question data collection tool data analysis rq1.what is the difference between the attitudes of l3 english learners with l1 (arabic) dominant setting and l2 (turkish) dominant setting towards learning foreign languages? attitude questionnaire descriptive statistics of spss. rq2. which language (l1 arabic or l2 turkish) is the source of syntactic and lexical transfer for l3 learners of english at the elementary level? tap analysis of tap setting and participants the participants of the current study consist of twenty-three l3 learners of english. the demographic data of the participants was at hand before the implementation because they are accepted to our school after one year of turkish preparatory class, and at the beginning of the term, they were asked to fill in a form about where and with whom they live, whether they had english instruction before or not, and the results of the turkish level exams. english is the third language for them because most of these students are refugee students from arabic countries, mostly from syria whose l1 is arabic. at the beginning of their university education, they had one year of preparatory class for learning turkish. this turkish preparatory program is required and is given by the turkish teaching practice and research centre (ulutömer). the primary purpose of this establishment in the university is to teach turkish to the foreign students saraç, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 10 prior to their undergraduate program for academic purposes. turkish teaching course at uludağ university for international students is structured in five levels, a1-a2 (beginner level), b1b2 (intermediate level) and c1 (advanced level), taking into consideration language levels in the framework of the common european framework of reference for languages. a student who achieves b2 level in reading, speaking, listening and writing skills is entitled to complete the program successfully. a placement is given before starting the courses. all of the participants in this study completed this program last year, and currently, they are studying at english prep classes at the elementary level. their current level was determined according to the results of the general proficiency exam applied by the language school of uludağ university. the participants had no or very little english instruction during their prior education life. in terms of their general characteristics, they are divided into two groups: (a) l2 dominant group and (b) l1 dominant group. in the l1 dominant group, there are 12 participants who are living with their parents, and in their daily life and at home, they are actively and more dominantly using their first language. on the other hand, in the l2 dominant group, the participant students are living at the dormitories of the university with their turkish friends, and there are 11 students in this group. as they have to pursue their daily life with l2 (turkish), this group is characterized as being l2 dominant group. prior to grouping the demographic data which was gathered at the beginning of the term regarding the students' living conditions, the intensity of using l1 and l2 and their prior education especially on learning foreign languages, were thoroughly analyzed. the participants are 15 females and 8 males. their age ranges between 18-22. after completing the turkish preparatory class for two terms successfully, they started their english prep class, and they have 26 hours of english classes in a week. a skillsbased approach is adopted at the language school, and they have 7 hours listening and speaking, 7 hours grammar, 6 hours reading, 5 hours writing and 2 hours of vocabulary lessons. in the beginning, there were 26 participants, but 3 of them stated that they had b1 level english course at their previous schools and english is not really the third language for them. so, these participants were excluded from the participant groups. data collection and analysis for the first research question, an attitude questionnaire was applied to the participants, and the results of the questionnaire were analyzed according to the group variables (l1 dominant or l2 dominant learners) were analyzed via spss and the relation between the group dynamics and attitudes of the learners was compared. the researcher performed a training session with the students individually to make the students acquainted with the tap process and feel relaxed during the operation, as the students were not acquainted with the tap. in order to perform an efficient think-aloud protocol (tap), a collection of instructions should be provided to the participants, according to bowles (2010). these guidelines are described as "(1) a summary of what is meant by" thinking aloud, "(2) participants are permitted to use the language(s) to verbalize their thoughts, and (3) the degree of detail and reflection needed in the think-aloud" (bowles, 2010, p. 115). the participants were informed about the aims of the study, participation was voluntary based, and a consent from was taken from each participant. apart from the participants, the necessary permission from the institution was also taken. for the second research question, think-aloud protocols were introduced to consider the cognitive process of the learners during writing. in order to reveal saraç, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 11 the lexical and syntactic source of transfer (l1 or l2), the cognitive mechanism at work during writing has been studied. a lecturer at the same university, who is a native speaker of arabic and whose english is fluent, aided the researcher in evaluating the think-aloud session. as this independent rater was a native speaker of arabic, he translated the arabic expressions of the students in the tap recordings. individual tap sessions of the students were transcribed and translated into english. the data gathered through the transcriptions of taps were analyzed in a qualitative manner by content analysis. the data coming from the tap were grouped into four categories, depending on the source (l1 or l2) and lexical or syntactic. at this phase of the analysis, a native speaker of arabic whose english is at an advanced level participated in the analysis process. the writing task that the participants produced was one of the extra evaluation tasks for their regular writing evaluation process. within a term, the students are required to take part in 2 mid-term exams and in addition to mid-terms, they write three writing evaluation tasks. the task used for the research purpose was the third task. the students were asked to write about their experiences in the language learning process, the difficulties they faced, the type of lessons that they enjoy the most and they were also asked to write about the most effective teacher in their education life. the third task was chosen for research purpose as it was considered that the students had become familiar with the procedures in writing tasks. results and discussion attitudes of learners towards foreign language learning the analysis of the quantitative data has revealed that l1 arabic l2 turkish l3 learners of english from different backgrounds largely have positive attitudes towards learning foreign languages, which is also in line with the research evidence in the related literature (e.g., grannet & williams, 2003; özönder, 2015; tsuda, 2002). when the quantitative data is analyzed according to the group dynamics in detail, the results show that l3 learners of english with l1 arabic, l2 turkish backgrounds showed statistically significant differences in terms of their attitudes towards foreign language learning. the participants who were in the l2 dominant group have more positive attitudes than the ones in the l1 dominant group. table 2. attitudes of the participants towards learning foreign languages. group n mean sd df sig. l1 dominant 12 3.25 .500 21 .001 l2 dominant 11 4.13 .636 as it is displayed in table 2, the participants who are in the l2 dominant group have more positive attitudes than the l1 dominant group. the difference between the two groups was statistically significant at p = 0.05 level. the mean score of the participants in the l1 dominant group is 3,25, whereas the l2 dominant group has 4.13 mean score. this finding is in parallel with eshghinejad (2016). the participants in those studies also showed significant differences in terms of their attitudes toward learning foreign languages. on the other hand, the analysis of the quantitative data in the current study reveals contradicting results with some studies in the related literature, such as zuniarti (2016). in those studies, the group dynamics, such as saraç, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 12 language backgrounds, were not a discriminative factor among the groups in terms of their attitudes. in the current study, the students were asked to write any factor affecting their attitudes towards learning english and some of the participants in the l1 dominant group stated that their families affect their attitudes in a negative way. it might probably be explained by historical, cultural, and to a certain degree, political perspectives of the families as they are in another country as refugees and their community blames english speaking countries for the disorder in their countries. surprisingly, one of the participants wrote in her l1 that it was not a pleasure for her to study english which is the language of soldiers in her country. however, some other participants wrote some factors affecting their attitudes in a positive way. five participants wrote social media as a positive factor because the more fluent they become in english, the more comfortable they feel in their communication in social media. another positive factor was the presence of other nationality students in their groups. in the classes of the participants, there are some students from different countries such as russia, ukraine and georgia. the participants stated that being able to communicate with them in english affects their attitudes positively. the findings of the analysis of the taps through the think-aloud protocols, which were digitally captured separately for each participant while the students wrote their paragraphs, the qualitative data for the current study was collected. following the introduction of the taps, only one question concerning the origins of the switch was posed to the participants in order to explain the issues resulting from the taps. the results obtained from the transcriptions of the tap sessions were divided and will be presented in two main categories: 1.the analysis of students' taps on syntactic items 2.the analysis of students' taps on lexical items the analysis of students' taps relating to syntactic transfer prior to the analysis of taps, the writing performances of the students' writings were analyzed by the researcher, and it was seen that a major part of the grammatical mistakes made by the students were verb form, gender, article mistakes and pronoun mistakes regardless of their dominant foreign language status. the most frequently syntactic error made by the participants was the absence of the verb to be. the students produced sentences such as "they going to bank, he learning french……". according to abu-rabia and siegel (2002) regarding grammar, the learners of english with arabic background often make such mistakes as there is not an equivalence for the verb to be in arabic. this syntactic feature is a complex one, and it is not easy to group the verb to be errors resulting from l1 (arabic) or l2 (turkish) because both languages share the same feature in terms of the verb to be use. however, during the taps, almost all of the participants were observed thinking in arabic while producing these sentences. although it was not one of the concerns of the current study, it was clearly observable that the participants have too many capitalization errors that is because they do not have capital letters in their l1. although they were taught the issue during their l2 and l3 instruction, they seem to transfer this information from their l1. saraç, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 13 in terms of syntactic features, regardless of the dominant language, whether l2 or l1, most of the participants had great difficulty in producing perfect tense sentences. even for specific events in a certain time in the past, they used the present perfect aspect such as "i've seen them at school yesterday afternoon". again, it is not clear here whether this issue is resulting from l1 or l3 because, in both turkish and english, there is not a direct equivalence of the present perfect aspect. another syntactic signal of transfer was the use of pronouns by the students. in english, all of the pronouns are separate words; however, in arabic, they are not always separate words and most of the time, they are dropped, which is not grammatical in english. the participants preferred to drop the pronouns in some cases, especially in long sentences referring to the same subject, such as "ahmad is my cousin, working in i̇stanbul and living with family". in such cases, they preferred not to use pronouns as separate units. this type of errors signals the transfer from their l1 in which this kind of dropping is quite common. during the production, the students were observed to use the article "the" more than necessary. when compared with english, there are not counterparts for a and an in arabic. in arabic, they have an article like the only, so the learners used the english equivalent the even when it is not necessary. during the production process, they were observed thinking aloud in arabic and trying to find english correspondences of their arabic thoughts. the analysis of the taps in terms of syntactic transfer revealed a very limited number of distinctive results, and what is more, the results did not show differences between the groups whether they were in the l1 dominant group or l2 dominant group. even though the students in l2 dominant group and l1 dominant groups have different language atmospheres in their daily lives, most of the time, they transferred from their l1 during the production phase of their writing evaluations. one of the possible reasons for this finding might be the features focused. for example, the case of verb to be use, perfect aspect and dropping the pronouns are the most frequently repeated syntactic errors, but these problems are not clearly distinguishable because both arabic and turkish share similar aspects in terms of these features. some other aspects for possible cross-linguistic transfer might be investigated, such as morphological structure, pronunciation in order to be able to reach more precise results. the analysis of students' taps relating to lexical transfer in terms of lexical transfer, the taps were analyzed in order to find some signals for the source of transfer. the analysis revealed that the lexical transfer of the learners was very limited, and it was like trying to remember the right word in english rather than transferring from l1 or l2. in arabic, there are some nouns and verbs that are identical to their english counterparts, but only a few participants used such common words. when taps were analyzed, most of the participants were observed thinking aloud in their l1 (arabic), which means that they try to control the production process in their l1 even though they do not transfer lexical items directly from a specific source, the mental process is conducted in their mother language. a retrospective interview was performed following the application. following the performances of the participants in taps, retrospective interviews are also performed to learn about their impressions about their own performances (gass & mackey, 2000). the interviewer asks questions in this type of interview a short time after the performance, which helps participants to recall their processes of reasoning. the source of linguistic assistance and transition during development in l3 was questioned by all the participants. 17 out of 23 saraç, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 14 respondents showed that when they were evaluating and producing in l3, they were speaking in their mother tongue rather than in turkish, which is their second language. conclusions the present study was set out to reveal the attitudes of participants from l1 dominant setting and l2 dominant setting towards learning foreign languages. the findings of the quantitative analyses showed statistically significant differences between the two groups' attitudes. the students who are living in the dormitories of the university with their friends and using l2 dominantly in their daily lives showed significantly more positive attitudes than the other group. in the related literature, there are numerous studies relating the attitudes of foreign language learners; however, with such grouping dynamics, no other study was found to the best knowledge of the researcher. as for the source of transfer, the results showed that the participants displayed some syntactic transfers in their writing productions, but they could not be clearly defined as resulting from turkish or arabic because the transferred forms (for example, absence of verb to be) were similar in both l1 and l2 of the participants. however, when they are observed during the production process, regardless of the dominance of l1 or l2 in their everyday life, they thought aloud in arabic. only a few participants used turkish during the think-aloud protocols. in addition to this observation, they were also asked about the source of linguistic assistance and transfer for third language production, and 17 of the participants stated that they were controlling all the process in their l1 as they feel more secure and confident while doing so. over recent years, transfer from the l2 of learners has attracted increasing attention (de angelis & selinker, 2001; jessner, 2006), and research has indicated numerous possible causes for facilitative and negative l2 transfer, as well as showing mixed results on the individual aspects of language that may be susceptible to transfer from the l2 of a learner. however, there is a need for such studies for more comprehensive discussions. the current study might be conducted in different settings with different languages. the compared languages in the present study share some common aspects, which makes it more complex to identify the exact source of transfer. if conducted with different language combinations, it may result in more tangible results. furthermore, conducting longitudinal studies focusing on different potential sources might be more effective. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references abu-rabia, s., & siegel, l. s. 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(2012). is thinking aloud reactive when writing in the heritage language? foreign language annals, 45(3), 380–399. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2012.01198.x zuniarti, n., salam, u., & arifin, z. (2016). students' motivation in learning english. jurnal pendidikan dan pembelajaran, 5(10). 1-10. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) appendix a attitude questionnaire the following items ask about your attitudes toward learning the english language. remember, there are no right or wrong answers; answer as accurately as possible. please read the statements below carefully and tick the appropriate choices that reflect your attitudes toward the english language. use the scale below to answer the questionnaire items: 1 = strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree. 1 2 3 4 5 s d d n a s a 1 speaking english anywhere makes me feel worried 2 studying english helps me to have good relationships with friends 3 when i hear a student in my class speaking english well, i like to practice speaking with him/her 4 studying english helps me to improve my personality 5 i put off my english homework as much as possible 6 i am not relaxed whenever i have to speak in my english class 7 i feel embarrassed to speak english in front of other students 8 i like to practice english the way native speakers do 9 when i miss the class, i never ask my friends or teachers for the homework on what has been taught 10 i do not feel enthusiastic to come to class when english is being thought 11 being good at english will help me study other subjects well 12 i have more knowledge and more understanding when studying english https://doi.org/10.1177/0267658310386439 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0272263107070039 https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/19.3.295 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2012.01198.x saraç, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 17 13 frankly, i study english just to pass the exams 14 in my opinion, people who speak more than one language are very knowledgeable 15 studying english helps me communicate in english effectively 16 i cannot apply the knowledge from english subject in my real life 17 studying english makes me able to create new thoughts 18 i am not satisfied with my performance in english subject 19 in my opinion, english language is difficult and complicated to learn 20 english subject has the content that covers many fields of knowledge 21 i prefer studying in my mother tongue rather than any other foreign language 22 to be honest, i really have little interest in my english class 23 i don't get anxious when i have to answer a question in my english class 24 studying foreign languages like english is enjoyable 25 i feel proud when studying english language 26 studying english subject makes me feel more confident 27 i am interested in studying english 28 knowing english is an important goal in my life 29 i look forward to the time i spend in english class 30 studying english makes me have good emotions (feelings) ejal article template focus on elt journal vol 2, issue 2, 2020 issn: 2687-5381  contact: betulbal@gmail.com copyright for this book review is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. book review abetül bal-gezegin a assist. prof. dr., samsun ondokuz mayıs university, turkey apa citation: bal-gezegin, b. (2020). review of world englishes in english language teaching. focus on elt journal, 2(2), 41-43. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00032 world englishes in english language teaching, alex baratta. palgrave macmillan. cham, switzerland (2019). 326 pp., paperback: $79.99, isbn 978-3-030-13286-6. © 2020 felt and the authors published by felt in an era of questioning to whom english belongs, whose english we should teach, which english we teach as a foreign language and whether plural english can be incorporated in language classrooms, we, as educators, without doubt, need publications that can enlighten our path to better understand the status of english in today’s world as a global village and to find answers to these questions mentioned. alex baratta’s book world englishes in english language teaching is a great contribution to the current discussions on the plurality of mailto:betulbal@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9818-9347 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00032 bal-gezegin, b. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 42 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com english. alex baratta is a lecturer at the university of manchester who specialized in the field of language, linguistics and communication. as a researcher who has been awarded prizes for his scholar works, he published several books on academic writing, critical reading, writing, and accents. published in 2019, the book under review frames itself around the claim that “the english language is pluralistic and this needs to be reflected in the classroom, using a top-down approach” (baratta, 2019 p.309). with his clear and straightforward writing style, the author makes it easy for both practitioners as well as students to follow. by providing an in-depth exploration of world englishes, the book not only includes theoretical background and critical discussion of the phenomenon, but it also presents the results of an empirical study which reports the attitudes of language teachers and learners on varieties of english. with this inclusion of a research carried out by the author himself, the book aims to be of particular interest to a wider audience such as teachers, teacher trainers, students, educators and researchers in the field of language studies. each target audience group can utilize from the book in various ways such as teachers to inform their own teaching and learning, learners to acquire elaborate discussion on concepts as english as a lingua franca (elf), global english(es), international english, localized varieties of english, new varieties of english, non-native varieties of english, second-language varieties of english, english world-wide (eww) and new englishes, and researchers to see the niches in the related field. as a book of 315 pages length, it has ten chapters in total, respectively titled as; 1) introduction, 2) variety within inner circle englishes, 3) the reality of world englishes, 4) non-inner circle englishes versus language errors, 5) three varieties of non-inner circle english, 6) non-inner circle englishes in the classroom, 7) methodology, 8) results and discussion, 9) how world englishes can be used in the efl classroom, and 10) conclusion. the book starts with an introduction chapter with its three subsections as overview of varieties of english, key issues regarding world englishes, and approach of the book. as can be understood from the titles, this first chapter provides the readers with fundamental and initial information on the historical development of world englishes, presenting key concepts such as pluralism, ‘native’ speaker, errors vs. innovations, glocal, and intelligibility. in this chapter, the author successfully positions the concept of world englishes within the broader field and underscores its significance and role in the english as a foreign language (efl) classroom. in addition, in this chapter, the author explicitly situates himself in the overall discussion on world englishes and openly states that “i believe that just as there are many varieties of english around the world, we need to recognise them not merely in textbooks, or as a point of discussion in conferences; we need to recognise them within the classroom” (baratta, 2019 p.6). chapter 2, titled as variety within inner circle englishes, unpacks varieties of british english, which is in the inner circle. the author exemplifies dialects (i.e yorkshire dialect) and sociolects (i.e multicultural london english). the discussions on varieties of english with real exchanges as language samples and comparisons of certain linguistics features in different dialects of english, make this section appealing to the readers and help readers better understand the richness of english. bal-gezegin, b. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 43 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com chapter 3, the reality of world englishes, begins with a critical review of attitudes toward world englishes. the opposing viewpoints on the matter, advocating the inner circle englishes in education (namely british and american englishes) and supporting non-native varieties in education, are presented within this chapter. chapter 4, focusing on the issue of errors, aims to reveal what an error versus an innovation is. this section is quite practical for teachers in particular because it fosters educators to question what an error is and whether it can be regarded as a deviation from standard english and an innovation instead of an incorrect usage. while summing his discussions at the end of the chapter, the author makes an open call to researchers that topic of errors needs further investigations. following the in-depth examination and argumentations on errors, the following chapter, hapter 5, exemplifies three varieties of non-inner circle english (nice). these are konglish (spoken in south korea), indian english (spoken in india) and singlish (spoken in singapore). although lacking the reason why these particular varieties of englishes were chosen to be dwelt on, the chapter offers practical insights for educational goals as “a comparison between the standard variety and singlish can be used to help students approach language in a more objective manner” (baratta, 2019, p. 131). chapter 6 focuses on two types of needs: the need for revised pedagogy and the need for cultural understanding. by offering sound advice for efl teachers, the author underscores concepts like multicultural perspective, balanced approach, raising awareness, promoting international understanding, local culture, cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity, bidialectalism and/or multidialectalism, unified approach, active students, international diversity etc. as a thought-provoking chapter, this section offers a wide range of insightful ideas not only for teachers but also for curriculum developers. chapter 7 and 8 present baratta’s empirical study on the perspectives of language teachers and learners concerning several varieties of english. through close reading of these chapters, readers can gain detailed information on how the study was carried out, who the participants were and what their responses to the survey questions were. the thoroughness of baratta's research and analysis is impressive, and he presents his evidence in a remarkably accessible fashion; however, it could have been better if these two chapters were united and presented in a more compact way without too many details which hinders the flow of reading. chapter 9 is a highly valuable section outlining practical ideas for classroom teaching which incorporates variety of englishes within efl pedagogy. the chapter includes sample exercises which aim to develop students’ various language skills as academic writing, speaking, and pragmatic competence etc. by delivering these sample lessons, the author provides teachers as potential readers with relevant, practical, pragmatic and useful messages on the subject. the last chapter of the book is a brief summary of all the aforementioned issues with the author’s personal reflections, viewpoints and further suggestions to educators. in conclusion, the reviewed book is successful in its attempt to directly engaging the major issues in the field of world englishes. overall, i see the book as a valuable contribution to the literature, filling an important need. the content of the book and the writing is of a high-quality and is written authoritatively by one of the experts in the field. without having overly ambitious aims, the author successfully presents the reasons why bal-gezegin, b. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(2) 44 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com world englishes need to be taken into consideration in educational programs. while doing so, the author refers to both recent and seminal works in the field and this keeps the book updated and appealing to the readers. the contemporary ideas suggested throughout the book are actually reflecting the current discussion on the target issue. although there is not much to criticize in the book, my humble suggestions include a better organization of chapters, smooth transitions between chapters so that the coherence and unity are achieved. also, although personal anecdotes and language samples make it friendly to read, it could have been better to see references to corpus findings and samples. as well-known, corpus studies have helped to shape the overall field of world englishes by providing real language samples from nice speakers. it is one of the major weakness of the book that it lacks references to related corpora. integration of corpus-based data (language samples, excerpts) could have worked as a cement in the book. as a final note, i think the book serves as both a useful resource on current research, a significant contribution to the field and a compelling model for future studies. i hope the book will reach its potential readers who can benefit from it and i eagerly look forward to baratta’s future work in this area. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). ejal article template focus on elt journal (felt) vol 1, issue 1, 2019 issn: 2687-5381  contact: emrahcinkara@gmail.com effects of writing portfolio assessment at tertiary level intensive english program: an action research aemrah cinkara and bhong yu connie au a associate. prof. dr., gaziantep university, gaziantep, turkey, emrahcinkara@gmail.com b instructor, gaziantep university, gaziantep, turkey, connieau@gantep.edu.tr to cite this article: cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. (2019). effects of writing portfolio assessment at tertiary level intensive english program. focus on elt journal (felt), 1(1), 53-69. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2019.00006 abstract evaluation is essential to any learning and teaching process. writing portfolio assessment has become increasingly used for evaluating learners’ writing processes. several scholars have proved that portfolio assessments have a positive impact on learners’ learning process, especially on enhancing students’ involvement and providing learners opportunities to learn from their own errors in writing. this study determined students’ attitudes toward the use of writing portfolio assessment and examined the effects of writing portfolio in a module course. students’ opinions of portfolio assessment in the school of foreign languages of a south-eastern state university in turkey were also studied to determine whether the portfolio assessment model was successful in helping learners to improve their writing abilities. the results revealed that most students generally possessed positive attitudes toward the use of portfolio. they claimed that portfolio assessments were very useful in assisting them in developing their writing skills, as well as positively affected their writing performances in quizzes and exams. in addition, a positive correlation was also identified among the scores of the portfolio, quizzes, and exams. this suggested that students with high scores on portfolio tended to achieve higher or similar scores on their writing quizzes and exams, and vice versa. this also indicated that performances on writing portfolio assessments may be predictive of students’ writing performance on writing exams. keywords: evaluation writing portfolio assessment writing performance introduction assessment is significant for the learning and teaching process, and there are different types of assessments for evaluating the knowledge and skills acquired by learners, for example formative assessments and summative assessments (dixson & worrel, 2016). among all skills, writing is regarded as the most difficult one to assess since it involves subjectivity (nezakatgoo, 2011). traditional ways such as large-scale standardized tests, impromptu writing samples and multiple-choice tests are not effective, as they do not match with the objectives and purposes of writing assessment (nezakatgoo, 2011). therefore, a new alternative is needed for evaluating writing. it is a well-known fact that writing is a time-consuming process which involves much drafting and editing before possessing a final product. porfolio assessment, an alternative assessment method for evaluating learners’ writing processes is viable method of evaluation. indeed, it has become increasingly used in assessing writing. it is ‘a selection mailto:emrahcinkara@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4327-7061 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3681-1510 mailto:emrahcinkara@gmail.com mailto:connieau@gantep.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2019.00006 cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 54 focus on elt journal (felt) of assignments’ that a student has consciously assembled from a number of pieces produced over a certain period of time (crouch & fontaine, 1994). portfolio have been suggested by many researchers to be a more authentic way of viewing learners’ writing capabilities and improvement over time. while examining portfolio, teachers consider various language contexts and skills over a certain period of time rather than relying on one or two pieces of writing (chung, 2012). on the other hand, learners have to complete drafts of portfolio and keep records of their writing processes. it has been claimed that portfolio are valid and reliable testing tools, as they utilize a combination of assessment instruments (chung, 2012). portfolio also provide learners opportunities to learn from their own errors in writing. learners are involved in the revision process, which facilitates their thinking and organizational skills. reflection is very crucial here as it contributes to students’ ‘real’ learning. learners can reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of their writing with the use of portfolio assessments. in this respect, portfolio assessments serve as a learning tool as well as an assessment tool. many scholars have proven that portfolio assessments have a postive impact on students’ learning processes. genesse and upshur (1996) state that the revision process of portfolio can enhance students’ involvement in their assessment and learning and as well as assist them in becoming autonomous learners. many learners have expressed favourable attitudes towards the use of portfolio assessments. they believe that portfolio are more effective than traditional assessment methods in terms of reducing their anxiety and enhancing their performance. in this study, the primary goal is to determine students’ attitudes toward the use of writing portfolio assessment and to examine the effects of writing portfolio assessment in a module course. students’ opinions of portfolio assessment in the school of foreign languages were also studied in order to determine whether the portfolio assessment model was successful in helping learners to improve their writing abilities. literature review portfolio assessment according to genesee and upshur (1996, p.99), a portfolio is ‘a collection of students’ work’ from a course which is useful for demonstrating their development. in other words, portfolio involve the consciously assembly of a selection of assignments from a number of pieces produced over a semester or some other period of time (crouch & fontaine,1994). using portfolio as a tool in performance-based assessment is not a new concept (goctu, 2016, p.10). portfolio are most commonly associated with writing, but can be used to assess speaking as well (carr, 2008, p.42). compared to traditional evaluation, writing portfolio assessments provide a more comprehensive portrait of a student’s writing ability. writing portfolio usually consist of three stages: pre-writing (outline), first draft and final draft. whereas traditional evaluation limits the performance of learners to single timed occasions, portfolio assessments offer learners more time to engage in their drafting and editing processes. as a consequence, the development of a student’s writing ability, strength and depth can be represented gradually through the collection of his or her work. as indicated above, several researches have examined the effects of writing portfolio. moreover, many benefits as well as drawbacks have been found. regarding the advantages of writing portfolio use, it has been concluded that portfolio accomplish the following: 1. facilitate critical thinking, self-assessment, and revision (goctu, 2016, p.109), cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 55 focus on elt journal (felt) 2. promote leaners to act and learn autonomously (elango, jutti & lee, 2005, p.1), 3. allows learners to assess their strengths and weaknesses (elango, et al., 2005, p.1), 4. enable learners to avoid plagarism (nezakatgoo, 2011), 5. reduce learners’ anxiety levels, and (öztürk & çeçen, 2007) 6. provide more tangible evidence of a student’s work (goctu, 2016, p.109). on the other hand, the following disadvantages have been determined: 1. evaluating writing portfolio can be time-consuming, and (elango, et al, 2005, p.1) 2. writing portfolio do not reveal anything about how well a student performs within a limited time (carr, 2008, p.42). to understand the effectiveness of portfolio assessment, it is important to take students’ attitude towards the use of portfolio assessment into consideration. for instance, elango et al.’s (2005) study concerning students’ perceptions of portfolio as a learning tool, a great number of students expressed favourable attitudes towards the use of portfolio and believed them to be a good learning tool. several other studies have also examined the effects of portfolio assessment (goctu, 2016; nezakatgoo, 2011; and taki & heidari, 2011). goctu’s study (2016) involving a group of prep-school students at international black sea university evaluated students’ perceptions of writing portfolio assessment. the results revealed that students were more favourable to portfolio assessment than traditional forms of assessment. students tended to be less anxious and were able to perform better on their writing portfolio assessments. the participants concluded that portfolio helped them improve their writing skills gradually. nezakatgoo (2011) conducted a study to determine whether portfolio-based writing assessment had any impact on the final writing examination scores of efl students. two conditions were established in this study to assess students’ work: (1) a traditional evaluation system and (2) a portfolio system. the findings suggested that portfolio had improved students’ writing, who were able to gain higher scores on final exams following portfolio assessment than on exams within a traditional evaluation system. taki & heidari (2011) investigated the effectiveness of writing portfolio assessment in an iranian efl context. they found that portfolio-based writing assessment had positively affected language learning and self-assessment. moreover, it facilitates students’ self-assessment, and the majority of the students stated their preferences toward portfolio assessment. the above studies have proven that portfolio assessment has a positive effect on learners. researchers have found that portfolio improve students’ writing skills, yet few of them have dealt with the preparatory school level. hence, it is necessary for further research at this level. this necessity motivated the action research of the present study, which investigated the writing portfolio assessments in a turkish context as well as students’ attitudes and opinions regarding the use of portfolio assessment in school of foreign languages of a south-eastern state university. more specifically, this study aimed to answer the following research questions: 1. what are students’ attitudes towards the use of writing portfolio assessment at the school of foreign languages? cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 56 focus on elt journal (felt) 2. does portfolio assessment have an impact on students’ writing performance and the means of the first and second drafts of first, second and third writing portfolio? 3. is there any correlation between the scores on portfolio assessment, writing quiz and writing exam? method for this study action research, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used for data collection. the data were gathered over a two-month period and accompanied by three writing portfolio assessments as well as one writing quiz. this process was followed by the administration of variety of quizzes and a final writing exam. context the school of foreign languages where this study was conducted employ portfolio as a means for assessing students’ writing abilities. students learn to write in different styles of writing. in each module, students are required to complete three writing tasks for their portfolio together with a writing quiz and a writing exam. the use of portfolio and a writing quiz aim to assess students’ writing ability over a period of time. students are required to write a paragraph or an essay in accordance with the relevant objectives in each level. at the end of each module, students earn a grade equivalent to one quiz grade when they submit all three writing portfolio tasks. in addition, portfolio assessment does not abruptly end after each writing piece, as progress is continuously monitored and final assessment involves a writing quiz and an exit writing exam based on what students have learnt throughout each level of writing. participants and sampling this study was conducted among a total of fifteen students at the school of foreign languages of a state university in the south-eastern part of turkey. five participants (33.3%) were male and ten (66.7%) were female. the ages of the participants ranged between 18-24 years. the english proficiency level of the sample group was b2 (upper intermediate). the participants were enrolled in a mandatory preparatory course offered by the school of foreign languages prior to beginning their respective undergraduate programs at the university. a convenience sampling method was used because b2-level students were more sufficient in writing abilities and could better demonstrate writing texts. the participants had an intensive english program (5 days a week, 4 hours a day, so a total of 20 hours). the hours of instruction were distributed as follows: eleven hours as a main course, four hours as a reading course, three hours as a writing course and two hours as speaking. the duration of the module was almost 2 months (from 9th april to 1st june). data collection tools 1) a student portfolio was employed. the content of the portfolio included 5 items. the items consisted of 3 writing portfolio tasks, together with one writing quiz and a writing exam. each writing portfolio task consisted of two drafts (first and final drafts) of 3 writing portfolio tasks, so 6 portfolio writings in total. both drafts were scored. the types of text were cause and effect essay, compare and contrast essay, and problem solution essay. cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 57 focus on elt journal (felt) 2) an analytical scoring rubric used by the school of foreign languages of the university for assessing essays was employed (see appendix 1). it consisted of descriptions along an ordinal scale consisting of five individual criteria: task achievement (30 pts), organization (20 pts), use of english (20 pts), vocabulary (20 pts) and punctuation, and spelling and mechanics (10 pts). for each category, score bands and a set of descriptors of student performance were listed and could be used to assign scores to an individual student’s performance in a systematic way. all writing portfolio and portfolio quizzes were scored by using the same rubric and results were recorded. 3) survey on the effect of writing portfolio assessment (sewpa): the sewpa consisted of three parts. the first part was adopted from huang (2012). it aimed to assess students’ attitudes toward the use of portfolio assessment. there were six items rated on a five-point likert scale from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. the second part of the survey was adapted from aydin (2010). the reliability of was calculated as. 77 in this study. this part considered the effects of writing portfolio assessments on the students. in this part, there were a total of 28 items rated on a four-point likert scale from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. the last part of the survey was adapted from an action research by goctu (2016). this part consisted of seven open-ended questions determine students’ opinions of writing portfolio assessments and to determine whether the implementation of writing portfolio assessments had benefitted them (see appendix 2). procedure the study was conducted for approximately 8 weeks during the last module of 2017-2018 spring semester. before the action research, the consent of the administration and students were obtained. the purposes of the study, how to prepare the writing portfolio, how the portfolio were structured and their duration were all explained to the students. meanwhile, a writing process checklist was also used in observing the students’ processes and improvement in the writing tasks. the following six steps were involved in data collection: step 1: the implementation of the first writing portfolio students were taught how to construct cause-and-effect essay during first and second weeks of the module. then, on april 17th, participants created their first drafts of a cause and effect essay on one of the following topics: a) “what are the effects of unemployment?” and b) “what are the reasons of sharing a flat with a roommate?”. then, the participants received their first marked drafts with correction codes. having received the oral feedback of their instructors, they independently had to correct all the mistakes they had made by themselves. they write their second drafts on april 20th. step 2: the implementation of the second writing portfolio a compare-and-contrast essay was taught to students during the third and fourth weeks. then, on april 30th, participants had to create their first drafts on one of the following topics: a) “compare or contrast two cities,” and b) “compare or contrast two sports”. after that, the participants received their first marked drafts with cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 58 focus on elt journal (felt) correction codes. they needed to correct the mistakes and write their second drafts on may 4th after receiving their teachers’ oral feedback. step 3: the implementation of the third writing portfolio students were taught a problem-solution essay during the fifth and sixth weeks. then, on may 15th, they wrote their first drafts on one of the following topics: a) “what solutions can you think of reducing crime in big cities?” and b) “what are the solutions to the world energy crisis?”. first marked drafts with correction codes were given to the participants, who corrected their errors and completed their second drafts on may 18th after receiving oral feedback from teachers. step 4: the implementation of a writing quiz a writing quiz took place on may 17th. participants had to write an essay based on the essay types they had learned. for the quiz, students were required to write either a) a comparison and/ or contrast essay on two social networking sites or b) an essay giving the causes of living in a big city. step 5: the administration of the sewpa the sewpa was conducted on may 21st to determine students’ attitudes toward writing portfolio, the effectiveness of writing portfolio, and their opinions on writing portfolio at the school of foreign languages. step 6: the facilitation of a writing exam via a module writing exam administered on may 28th, participants performed a writing task based on one of the essay types they had learned. they had to write one of the following topics: a) a compare and contrast essay on two countries or b) a problem-solution essay giving the solutions to the problem of overpopulation in the big cities. the scores of the writing exam were recorded in order to check the inter-rater reliability and to determine whether there had been steady improvement in students’ writing performance. data analysis both quantitative and qualitative method in data analysis were employed, and the data were collected from three portfolio tasks, writing quizzes, writing exams, and the sewpa then subsequently analyzed in terms of descriptive and inferential statistics. the statistics were computed via spss version 21.0 software, and means as well as standard deviation were calculated from the data. a bivariate pearson correlation was then conducted among the scores of the portfolio tasks, writing quizzes and writing exams. while for the qualitative data, content analysis was employed to analyze the quanlitative data obtained from the third part of the sewpa. in this research, themes and codes were achieved via content analysis. furthermore, participants’ statements or explanations were coded by highlighting the statements with similar topics. and then while coding the researchers chose some representational phrases among those highlighted sentences. then, they clustered these codes for the purpose of identifying the relevant information effectively. cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 59 focus on elt journal (felt) research findings results for research question #1 what are students’ attitudes, opinion and the effectiveness on the use of writing portfolio assessments at the school of foreign language? research question 1 intends to examine students’ attitudes and opinion toward portfolio assessment and the effects on writing performance. the first and third part of the sewpa (see appendix 2) were analyzed to determine students’ attitude and opinion toward portfolio assessment. table 1. below displays the mean and standard deviation of the data collected from the sewpa. the mean was found to be 22.0667 (sd=2.89005). moreover, findings indicated that 66.7 % of the participants considered that portfolio to be a more effective type of assessment compared to traditional assessment methods. a vast majority (86.6%) of the participants perceived portfolio creation as very beneficial to their learning experience, and 60% claimed that portfolio was very important. only 40% wanted to continue with portfolio assessment in the future, while 60% regarded portfolio as a significant part of their learning experience. finally, 60 % of students expressed that they were confident while completing the portfolio tasks. table 1. students’ attitudes toward portfolio assessment (a-total) & the effectiveness of portfolio assessment (e-total) descriptive statistics mean std. deviation n a-total 22,0667 2,89005 15 e-total 86,3333 10,01903 15 the results indicated that students generally possessed positive attitudes toward the use of portfolio. nevertheless, this was not an overwhelming rate, and still some students expressed their concerns and indecisiveness regarding portfolio assessment. the results also showed that students generally favored writing portfolio and found them to be beneficial. however, it should be noted that portfolio assessment was a mandatory component of these students’ learning programs, which might have influenced negative attitudes toward it. compared to traditional forms of assessment, portfolio writing enabled students to feel more free and more confident. they regarded portfolio as an important part of their learning experience. in addition, the findings of the third part of the sewpa (see appendix 2) was also analyzed to examine participants’ opinions of the portfolio assessment at the school of foreign languages and to determine whether they felt the implementation of writing portfolio assessments had benefitted them. findings to the first question indicated that less than half of the students (46.67%) liked keeping portfolio and found them useful. slightly over half of the students (53.33%) expressed their negative feelings about keeping portfolio. they claimed that portfolio assessments were very difficult but mandatory at the school of foreign languages. the second question revealed that a majority (80%) of the students thought that portfolio had achieved these objectives. they also felt that the high number and frequency of cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 60 focus on elt journal (felt) portfolio writings and quizzes improved their writing ability. about 13.33% of the students expressed their uncertainty about the writing portfolio, while only 6.67% stated that portfolio was not beneficial. various opinions were expressed in response to the question investigating what students like most about portfolio. of the fifteen participants, seven (46.67%) claimed that they learned new words and bolstered their english writing skills, five (33.33%) did not like anything from the portfolio, two (13.33%) said that they gained more information about topics and one (6.67%) enjoyed receiving teacher feedback. again, various opinions were expressed to the fourth question. of the fifteen participants, five (33.33%) stated that they could learn more vocabularies terms via portfolio than with other traditional assessment methods. two participants pointed out that organizational skills were required in portfolio and another two participants expressed that they could see their mistakes as well as improvement during the process of writing portfolio. two claimed that the format of portfolio is quite different than those of other traditional assessments like multiple-choice tests, while one claimed that she could receive feedback from portfolio and another stated that writing portfolio increased her creativity. an interesting fact is that two participants did not perceive any difference between portfolio assessment and other traditional assessment methods. the fifth question assessed the difficulties participants encountered when writing portfolio. 26.67% of the students found that organization was the most challenging part for them, while 20% found the most difficult part to be the use of suitable words for the writing topic context. another 20% claimed that writing long paragraphs was the most difficult part, 20% stated that portfolio was very time-consuming, and 6.67% expressed that forming new ideas and writing in the suitable style of writing (e.g. compare/ contrast, problem-solution, cause/ effect, etc.) challenged them throughout the portfolio process. did portfolio help you to take more responsibility for your study? interestingly, responses to the sixth question were overwhelmingly in agreeance that portfolio had, indeed, encouraged them to become more responsible for their learning. for the last question, most participants (n=12) felt prepared to present their portfolio to their parents, friends, and other teachers even though their writing performances were not the best. only two participants were not ready and one remained indecisive. these findings were surprising because it was assumed that students would not feel confident in sharing writings that had received low mark. apart from students’ attitudes, the second part of the sewpa (see appendix 2) was analyzed to examine the effects of portfolio assessments. table 1 displays the mean and standard deviation of the collected data. the mean was found to be 86.3333 (sd= 10.01903). the findings revealed that the majority of students agreed that portfolio assessment had contributed to their improvement in vocabulary and grammar knowledge, reading and research skills, organization of paragraphs and compositions, and punctuation and capitalization. portfolio also assisted the participants in giving and receiving feedback. based on these findings, the effectiveness of writing portfolios can be summarized in the following six ways: vocabulary: participants improved their vocabulary knowledge (93.3%) as a result of portfolio writing. they could utilize suitable words in context (100%) and cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 61 focus on elt journal (felt) employ a dictionary to find appropriate words for their writings (93.3%) . they were also able to use a wider range of words in correct form and usage (93.4%). grammar: participants’ grammar knowledge improved (80%) as a result of portfolio assessment. they were able to use grammar structures accurately in terms of forming more complex and compound sentences (93.3%) and in terms of using conjunctions as well as signal words when necessary (93.3%). reading skills: portfolio writing promoted learners’ reading skills. participants had to read some texts in english given by their teachers in order to glean the main ideas and details of content which they subsequently utilized in their writings. they also gained information about the writing topics (93.3%). research skills: portfolio also improved participants’ research skills. as students needed to gather information about their writing topics, portfolio required them to discover reading texts related to their portfolio topics. most participants were able to present a variety of ideas and related to their writing topics, and as a result, they were able to compose more coherent sentences (86.6%) and improve their writing skills (93.4%). organization of paragraphs and compositions: portfolio assisted participants in organizing a paragraph and composition (86.7%). before starting to write, portfolio helped students acquire information about paragraphs and compositions and some pre-writing strategies such as brainstorming, clustering, outlining, and planning (86.7%) (aydın, 2010). portfolio also helped participants to use punctuation and capitalization in correct usage (93.4%) via reading teacher feedback regarding correct or incorrect punctuation. portfolio writing contributed to learners’ understanding of paragraph and essay development methods (93.3%) such as organizing and outlining. they also learned the components of a paragraph and essay (100%). in addition, portfolio were an effective way for students to learn the features of a paragraph and essay (86.7%). participants learned how to produce coherent paragraphs and essays (93.3%) as well as how to write a paragraph and essay in unity (100%). participants also learned how to produce original papers (86.6%) and began to write creatively (80%). they also began to write in english without translating from turkish (53.4%) and reflected their ideas, feelings and thoughts in their papers (86.7%). giving and receiving feedback: as a result of portfolio assessment, participants learned how to give feedbacks to their peers via identifying correction codes given by their teachers (80%). yet, they encountered some difficulties in finding errors in a paper (60%). most participants were able to classify mistakes in a paper (73.3%) after their mistakes had been identified by their teachers. they also learned how to use a scoring rubric when examining a paper (73.3%). in addition, they agreed that peer and teacher feedback helped them to notice and correct their errors (100%) as well as revise their papers (100%). cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 62 focus on elt journal (felt) results for research question #2. does portfolio assessment have an impact on students’ writing performance and the means of the first and second drafts of first, second and third writing portfolio tasks? based on the scores of participants in portfolio, findings revealed that an overwhelming number of students demonstrated steady improvement in the second drafts of portfolio after receiving teachers’ oral feedback. students were able to identify the errors they made in portfolio. since students’ performances were evaluated in an analytical way based on a scoring rubric for assessing essay, examining their scores was sufficient in rather than looking at other components such as types of mistakes, frequencies of mistakes, and frequencies of repeated mistakes. this suggested that when the scores improved, students’ performance also improved. table 2. results of three writing portfolio tasks descriptive statistics mean std. deviation n p11 77,3333 4,05615 15 p12 88,9333 3,45309 15 p21 85,8333 3,99851 15 p22 92,8333 3,21640 15 p31 85,4667 7,83642 15 p32 90,9333 6,09996 15 meanwhile, the mean scores of students on the second portfolio were significantly higher than those on the first portfolio (see table 2). for the first portfolio, the mean score of the first draft was 77.3333 (sd= 4.05615) and the mean for the second draft was 88.9333 (sd= 3.45309). for the second portfolio, the mean of the first draft was 85.8333 (sd= 3.99851), while the mean of the second draft was 92.83333 (sd=3.21640). for the third portfolio, the mean of the first draft was 85.4667 (sd=7.83642) and that of the second draft was 90.9333 (sd= 6.09996). the above findings suggested that students were able to continually improve their writing skills and performances throughout the portfolio process. however, while there was an increase in the mean scores of first and second drafts between the first and second writing portfolio, the means of first and second drafts between the second and third writing portfolio were not maintained. of fifteen participants, only seven students were able to maintain their improvement. another seven students actually regressed in terms of improvement during the third writing portfolio, while one participant did not experience any improvement between the second and third writing portfolio. results for research question #3. is there any correlation between the scores on portfolio, writing quiz and writing exam? as indicated by table 3, pearson product-moment correlation of the collected data revealed a positive correlation among the scores of portfolio, portfolio quizzes, and writing exam (.102<|r| <.969, p>.001). the correlation between portfolio tasks (p1.1, p1.2, p2.1, p2.2, p3.1 and p3.2) and portfolio quiz (pq) (.506< |r| <.730) was stronger than that between portfolio and writing exam (we) (.347<|r| <.606). these results imply that students performed better on writing quiz following portfolio completion, receiving higher cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 63 focus on elt journal (felt) or similar scores on the quiz. the correlation between writing quiz and writing exam was found to be the strongest (r =.826), which implies that performance on writing quiz may be a predictor of performances on writing exam. table 3. correlations among scores on three portfolio tasks, writing quiz and a final writing exam p1.1 p1.2 p2.1 p2.2 p3.1 p3.2 wq we p1.1 pearson correlation 1 ,603* ,102 ,347 ,544* ,525* ,506 ,347 sig. (2-tailed) ,017 ,718 ,205 ,036 ,045 ,054 ,205 n 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 p1.2 pearson correlation ,603* 1 ,328 ,652** ,434 ,468 ,633* ,546* sig. (2-tailed) ,017 ,233 ,008 ,106 ,079 ,011 ,035 n 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 p2.1 pearson correlation ,102 ,328 1 ,856** ,236 ,278 ,541* ,423 sig. (2-tailed) ,718 ,233 ,000 ,396 ,316 ,037 ,116 n 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 p2.2 pearson correlation ,347 ,652** ,856** 1 ,460 ,516* ,727** ,606* sig. (2-tailed) ,205 ,008 ,000 ,085 ,049 ,002 ,017 n 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 p3.1 pearson correlation ,544* ,434 ,236 ,460 1 ,969** ,730** ,369 sig. (2-tailed) ,036 ,106 ,396 ,085 ,000 ,002 ,176 n 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 p3.2 pearson correlation ,525* ,468 ,278 ,516* ,969** 1 ,701** ,324 sig. (2-tailed) ,045 ,079 ,316 ,049 ,000 ,004 ,239 n 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 pq pearson correlation ,506 ,633* ,541* ,727** ,730** ,701** 1 ,826** sig. (2-tailed) ,054 ,011 ,037 ,002 ,002 ,004 ,000 n 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 we pearson correlation ,347 ,546* ,423 ,606* ,369 ,324 ,826** 1 sig. (2-tailed) ,205 ,035 ,116 ,017 ,176 ,239 ,000 n 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 *. correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). discussion and conclusion the primary purpose of this study was the exploration of students’ attitudes, and opinions toward the use of portfolio assessment as well as the effectiveness of portfolio on students’ language improvement. the findings for the first research question have disclosed that portfolio assessment is essential to foreign-language teaching and learning. the analysis revealed that students at the school of foreign languages generally demonstrated favorable attitudes toward the use of portfolio assessment, perceiving it to be a useful cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 64 focus on elt journal (felt) learning and assessment tool. this further gave support to goctu’s study (2016) involving a group of prep-school students at international black sea university, which also revealed that students were more favourable to portfolio assessment and concluded that portfolio helped them improve their writing skills gradually. moreover, the findings of this study are also consistent to the study conducted by yurdabakan & erdogan (2009). the results of this study indicated that portfolio assessment had a significant effect on writing skills. meanwhile, this study is similar to the results as that of fahed alserhani (2007), demonstrating that portfolio assessment had a significant positive impact on students’ writing performance in general and subskills of purpose, content, organization, vocabulary, sentence structures and mechanics. the second research question in this study aimed to determine whether portfolio assessments have an impact on students’ writing performance and the means of the first and second drafts of first, second and third writing portfolio. the results of this analysis suggested that there was a significant increase in their writing performances, and the analyses confirmed that there was a significant improvement in students’ writing performances. findings of this study corroborated those of nezakatgoo (2011) and ruetten (1994), which found that portfolio assessment was, indeed, very useful for efl students and assisted them in developing their writing skills. students were also aware of the differences between portfolio assessment and other traditional forms of assessment. lucas (2007) and nezakatgoo (2011) similarly claimed that portfolio assessment benefitted efl students’ writing skills. in the current study, it was determined that writing portfolio had positively affected students’ performance on writing quizzes and exams and had benefitted them in numerous ways. for example, portfolio improved students’ grammar and vocabulary knowledge, developed their writing skills, and encouraged a sense of responsibility for their learning. they also provided an accurate means of assessing improvement over a period of time, and enabled students to engage with their knowledge via identifying and self-correcting their mistakes. what is more, portfolio enhanced their independent research skills and improved their skills in other language domains such as reading. these findings are also echoed by those of karatas, alci, yurtseven and yuksel (2005), who observed that providing feedback helped students to identify their mistakes and become more autonomous in their learning. nevertheless, despite these benefits, some students still encountered some difficulties in finding their own mistakes and correcting them accordingly. in addition to evaluating the effectiveness of portfolio assessment on students’ languagelearning, the third research question of this study investigated whether there was a correlation among students’ performance on portfolio, portfolio quizzes and writing exams. a pearson bivariate correlation was employed to determine the existence of such a relationship. according to the results, most students demonstrated gradual improvement in their portfolio on their second drafts. based on the results of portfolio quizzes and writing exams, a positive correlation was identified among the scores of the portfolio, quizzes, and exams. the correlation between portfolio-quiz scores and writing-exam scores was found to be the strongest. this demonstrates that performances on portfolio quizzes may be predictive of performance on writing exams. this means that students with high scores on portfolio quizzes tend to achieve higher or similar scores on their writing exams, and vice versa. in short, this study underlines several pedagogical important implications. first, this study suggests that portfolio may be an effective learning tool among efl students, as many cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 65 focus on elt journal (felt) benefits have been observed. the implementation of portfolio assessment within the school of foreign languages has proven quite effective, and most participants have expressed positive opinions towards its use as a learning tool; and a positive correlation was also found in this regard. hence, instructors in efl classes can utilize writing portfolios in order to promote overall writing performance as well as sub skills of writing. second, the fact that students at the school of foreign languages favoured portfolio assessments may suggest that portfolio can be used as a model for other types of more interactive assessment such as eportfolio and speaking portfolio, which give students greater responsibility for their learning. in addition, other opportunities for students to selfcorrect and give self as well as peer-feedback via the use of the mahara eportfolio system can be employed. yet, the present study has a number of limitations. first, the time of the study was short as the length of this study was approximately eight weeks. this might have affected the learners’ writing performances though it was impressive to observe students’ improvement within such a short period of time. had the study extended a longer period of time, more statistically significant results might have been obtained regarding the improvements in students’ writing performances. also, students can be more aware of their types of errors they had made in order to avoid repeating them on future portfolio and, thus, improve their writing scores. this may also suggest that a higher number and frequency of portfolio may be able to improve students’ writing performances within a shorter period of time. second, in this study, the participants were chosen on the basis of convenience sampling at only one proficiency level, which might have affected the results. in future studies, a random sampling method consisting of different proficiency groups could be employed. moreover, the sample size was small, with only fifteen participants; hence cannot be a generalization for the school of foreign languages. future studies might employ a larger scale of sample consisting of preparatory schools in different parts of turkey for more accurate results. in the light of research findings, the following recommendations and suggestions could be considered. though the current study has proven portfolio to be an effective assessment method among efl learners, future studies might examine the precise differences between portfolio and other types of writing assessment to determine if one is more effective than the other in enhancing students’ writing skills. moreover, future studies might need to be experimental in nature in order to examine more closely the type of improvment in student performance among portfolio, quizzes, writing exams. in order to improve students’ writing performance and to sustain this improvement throughout their language learning, more efforts should be made to encourage both students and teachers to take advantage of the portfolio, as well as other types of more interactive assessment such 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(2010). efl writers’ perceptions of portfolio keeping. assessing writing, 1(3), 194-203. aydin, s. (2010). a qualitative research on portfolio keeping in english as a foreign language writing. the qualitative report, 15(3), 475-488. carr, n. t. (2008). designing and analyzing language tests. oxford, oxford university press. cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 66 focus on elt journal (felt) chung, s. j. (2012). portfolio assessment in esl academic writing: examining the effects of reflection in the writing process. master thesis, university of illinois, urbana illinois. crouch, m. k., & fontaine, s. i. (1994). student portfolio as an assessment tool. in d. f. halpern (ed.), changing college classrooms: new teaching and learning strategies for an increasingly complex world, 306-328. new york: jossey-bass. dixson, d. d. & worrell, f.c. (2016). formative and summative assessment in the classroom. theory into practice, 55(2), 153-159. elango, s., jutti, rc., lee, l. k. (2005). portfolio as a learning tool. students’ perspective. annals academy of medicine, 34(8), 1-4. fahed al-serhani, w. (2007). the effect of portfolio assessment on the wiritng performance of efl secondary school students in saudi arabia. unpublished ma thesis, taibah university, saudi arabia. genesee, f., & upshur, j. classroom-based evaluation in second language education. cambridge: cambridge university press. goctu, r. (2016). action research of portfolio assessment in writing in english as a foreign language while teaching preparatory school students in georgia. journal of education in black sea region, 2(1), 107115. huang, j. (2012). the implementation of portfolio assessment in integrated english course. canadian center of science and education. english language and literature studies, 2(4), 15-21. karatas, h., alci, b., yurtseven, n., & yuksel, h. g. (2015). prediction of elt students’ academic (language) achievement: language learning orientation and autonomous learning. international online journal of educational sciences, 7(1). doi: 10.15345/iojes.2015.01.014 lucas, r. i. g. (2007). a study on portfolio assessment as an effective student self-evaluation scheme. the asia pacific education researcher, 16(1), 23-32. nezakatgoo, b. (2011). the effects of portfolio assessment on writing of efl students. english lanaguage teaching, 4(2), 231-241. öztürk, h. & çeçen, s. (2007). the effects of porfolio keeping on writing anxiety of efl students. journal of language and linguistics studies, 2(2), 218-236. ruetten, m. k. (1994). evaluating esl students’ performance on proficiency exams. journal of second language writing, 3, 85-96. taki, s., & heidari, m. (2011). the effects of using portfolio-based writing assessment on language learning: the case of young iranian efl learners. english language teaching, 4(3), 192-199. wambuguh, o. & yonn-brown, t. (2013). regular lecture quizzes scores as predictors of final examination performance. a test of hypothesis using logistic regression analysis. international journal for the scholarship of teaching and learning, 7(1), article 7. doi: https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2013.070107 yurdabakan, i., & erdogan, t. (2009). the effects of portfolio assessment on reading, listening, and writing skills of secondary prep class students. the journal of international social research, 2(9), 526-538. https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2013.070107 cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 67 focus on elt journal (felt) appendix 1. scoring rubrics for assessing essay cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 68 focus on elt journal (felt) appendix 2. survey on the effect of writing portfolio assessment at school of foreign languages part 1 background 1. name:_____________________________ 2. student no.:________________________ 3. gender : male/ female 4. age : _______ part 2 student’s attitude toward portfolio assessment statement strongly agree agree undecided disagree strongly disagree 1. portfolio as a more effective assessment compared to traditional assessment 2. creating portfolio is very helpful beneficial learning experience 3. creating portfolio is very important to me 4. i like to keep portfolio in the future 5. i like to regard portfolio as a part of my learning experience 6. i have confidence in completing the portfolio tasks *taken from huang, j. (2012). the implementation of portfolio assessment in integrated english course. canadian center of science and education. english language and literature studies, 2 (4), 18. part 3. the effect of writing portfolio assessment statement strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 1. i improved my vocabulary knowledge. 2. i learned to use words in context. 3. i learned how to use a dictionary to find appropriate words. 4. i learned to use a variety of words. 5. i improved my grammar knowledge. 6. i learned to produce complex and compound sentences. 7. i learned to use linking and signal words when i combine the sentences. 8. i learned to write more fluent sentences. 9. i improved my reading skills. 10. i gained information about the topics i wrote about. 11. i learned how to organize a paragraph and composition. 12. i learned brainstorming and clustering before starting to write. cinkara, e. & au, h. y. c. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 69 focus on elt journal (felt) 13. i learned how to use punctuation and capitalization. 14. i learned how to give feedback. 15. i learned to find the mistakes in a paper. 16. i learned to classify mistakes in a paper. 17. i learned to use a checklist when i examine a paper. 18. peer and teacher feedback helped me to notice and correct my mistakes. 19. peer and teacher feedback helped me to revise my papers. 20. i had information about paragraph and essay development methods and techniques. 21. i learned the parts of a paragraph and essay. 22. i learned the characteristics of a paragraph and essay. 23. i learned how to produce coherent paragraphs and essay. 24. i learned how to write a paragraph and essay in unity. 25. i learned how to produce original papers. 26. i began to write creatively. 27. i began to write in english without translating from turkish. 28. i learned to reflect my ideas’ feelings and thoughts in my papers. *taken from aydin, s. (2010). a qualitative research on portfolio keeping in english as a foreign language writing. the qualitative report, 15(3), 483. part c. students’ opinion towards the use of portfolio at school of foreign languages 1. what do you think about keeping portfolio? do you like it or not? 2. did the portfolio application help you to write better and get better organized? 3. what do you like most about portfolio? 4. how is portfolio assessment different from other traditional assessments (e.g. tests and exams)? 5. what challenged you during the portfolio study? 6. did portfolio help you to take more responsibility for your study? 7. are you ready to present your portfolio other than teacher? why (not)? taken from goctu, r. (2016). action research of portfolio assessment in writing in english as a foreign language while teaching preparatory school in georgia. journal of education in black sea region, 2(1), 111112. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). focus on elt journal vol 5, issue 1, 2023 issn: 2687-5381 🖂 corresponding author: jessicavega@unach.cl copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. information and communication technologies in the chilean english as a foreign language classroom: a systematic review of the literature ajessica vega abarzua bfanny vezzoli lara cfrancisco villegas ramirez ainst. prof., faculty of education, universidad adventista de chile, chile, jessicavega@unach.cl bteacher candidate, universidad adventista de chile, chile, fannyvezzoli@alu.unach.cl c teacher candidate, universidad adventista de chile, chile, franciscovillegas@alu.unach.cl apa citation : vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. (2023). information and communication technologies in the chilean english as a foreign language classroom. focus on elt journal, 5(1), 39-55. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2023.5.1.3 abstract information and communication technologies (icts) permeated chilean schools in the late 1990s with the implementation of enlaces, a national program including training and technological equipment for supplying school education. since then, the curricular relevance of icts has increased in chile. particularly, english as a foreign language (efl) teaching has benefited from icts in adding interaction and using various resources in the classroom. such importance motivated the researchers of this study to find out what has been researched about ict in the english classroom in a chilean context. to attain this, a systematic review of the literature from 2006 to 2022 was conducted. data was drawn from the electronic databases scopus, ebsco, scielo, eric, dialnet, wos, and complemented with google scholar. the selected studies, 13, were analyzed using a six-dimensional framework, focusing on research purpose and focus, outcomes, design and methods, publication frequency, and limitations. our review has established that qualitative design and methods have been the most predominant approaches, focusing mainly on exploring the implementation and integration of icts in the english classroom, as well as examining the effectiveness of applications, websites, and icts tools on the linguistic attainment of chilean school learners. this systematic review has also identified that after 2016 publications have been steady, yet the number of empirical studies exploring the topic is still limited, which constitutes a research gap that future studies could examine. it is also expected that researchers interested in the topic could try out this review in similar efl contexts. keywords icts, efl classroom, systematic review, enlaces, chile article history received : 22.12.2022 revised : 13.04.2023 accepted : 27.04.2023 published : 30.06.2023 type systematic review introduction after the widespread use of technology and the internet in the 1990s, information and communication technologies (icts) were the major focus and challenge of chilean education. in 1992 the program enlaces emerged from a piloting project conducted by a group of chilean researchers and the ministry of education (mineduc) whose purpose was to incorporate icts in chilean school education to provide equal opportunities for media literacy (mineduc, 2022). the initiative involved an improvement in all chilean subsidized schools in terms of infrastructure, training and pedagogical resources (mineduc, 2022). jaramillo (2015), who conducted a systematic review about icts and education in chile, highlights the sustained mailto:jessicavega@unach.cl mailto:jessicavega@unach.cl mailto:fannyvezzoli@alu.unach.cl mailto:franciscovillegas@alu.unach.cl https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2023.5.1.3 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5260-5584 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5750-9017 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3523-1493 vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 40 implementation of enlaces, reaching a consolidation and almost complete coverage of chilean schools in 2006. given the advance in infrastructure and training, the ministry of education in 2011 aimed at gauging the effectiveness of enlaces through the application of a national test called simce tic. this test focused on evaluating high school learners’ icts abilities (information, communication, ethics and social impact, functional use of icts) to solve authentic problems and school tasks in a virtual environment, using the different computer and internet tools (mineduc, 2011). it is worth mentioning that simce tic also collected contextual data using two questionnaires for the students and parents to examine particularities that could be involved in the participants’ achievement (basic, intermediate, advanced). the results of this pilot test, applied to 10.321 students, revealed that 46,2% of the participants were basic icts users, 50,5% displayed intermediate abilities whereas 3,3% reached an advanced level (mineduc, 2011). the contextual data helped to visualize the social gap between private subsidized or fully private education where icts access and use was richer. enlaces, therefore, concentrated on providing technological nourishment to public education, equipping schools with tablets and offering more training (mineduc, 2022). to assess these initiatives and improvements of the pilot test, a second testing was implemented in 2013. nevertheless, the results of the examination, administered to 11.185 students, did not reveal much progress, for basic users comprised 51,3%, intermediate users 46,9% and advanced users 1,8% (mineduc, 2014). after 2014 and thereafter, enlaces continued injecting resources, training and integrating icts in the national curriculum so as to shorten access and use gaps. in 2018, the creation of a larger governmental institution, centro de innovación, calls to end enlaces' twenty-five-year implementation. hereafter, icts permeated all educational levels preschool and higher education where icts are handled as abilities for the 21st century, being relevant in all subject areas. icts in the chilean context it must be noted that for the scope of this study the concept of icts is framed on the curricular orientations of the chilean english curriculum. therefore, icts and their use will be understood as a broad term that encompasses a variety of classroom technologies and tools including “digital boards, computers, software, web sites, applications, social media, electronic, etc” (mineduc, 2016, p. 62). furthermore, it is also relevant to point out that icts have a crosscurricular role in the current chilean school system where every subject area must develop icts competencies addressing the following purposes: i) manage information, ii) create and share information, iii) use icts as a learning tool, and iv) use icts responsibly (mineduc, 2016). by the same token, it is necessary to point out that this study is framed on school education including primary (comprising six grades) and secondary education (comprising six grades); yet, our focus on primary education covers 5th grade onwards, the moment when english is compulsory in chile. during these years of education, the role of english language teachers in the incorporation of icts in the classroom is paramount as icts help educators to establish connections between students’ interests, opportunities and curricular contents. consequently, efl teachers have an important bearing in using icts pedagogically and diversely. table 1, below, summarizes the various classroom activities suggested by the english curriculum for english language teachers (mineduc, 2016). vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 41 table 1. suggested ict activities english curriculum 1. webquests 2. presentations using digital aid ppt/prezi 3. blogs 4. recording audio and correcting punctuation using smartphones 5. chats 6. wikis 7. posting or sharing information on digital spaces 8. audiovisual aids (videos and images) 9. online dictionaries 10. importance of plagiarism/reference sources 11. podcasts 12. online literary and non-literary texts 13. e-reading 14. websites 15. word processor 16. interacting with native speakers 17. using concordancing programs *source: adapted from programas de estudio, mineduc (2016) all these potential activities for enhancing the efl classroom are believed to have an important role for developing skills and attitudes toward information (mineduc, 2021). in the latest curricular update of 2021, icts are described under the umbrella of 21st century skills, known as the abilities to thrive in life (binkley et al., 2012). under this lens, ict use is conceived as embracing digital literacy skills that promote “collaboration, communication, creation and innovation” (mineduc, 2021, p.24). the newest curricular revision expresses that ict use for english language teaching is directly connected to the incorporation of multimodality; in other words, the different modalities used in combination such as sound, image and animation to express something (anderson et al, 2006). this enriched modality is intended to be more authentic for the students as they use icts to solve everyday problems, and allows them to spark their imagination (mineduc, 2021). the latest orientations also highlight that ict use can be exploited in english language teachers as they can use learners’ native knowledge and skills in technology to facilitate english language learning (mineduc, 2021). considering this curricular relevance of icts for english language teaching and learning as well as the initiatives of enlaces and the current centro de innovación, this study aims at providing educators and the research community with a synthesis and analysis of what has been researched about icts in the chilean efl classroom from 2006 to 2022. the range of years is marked by the consolidation of the program enlaces in 2006. to conduct our synthesis and systematic analysis, the following subsequent review questions are posed: 1) what is the research purpose and focus of those studies? 2) what are the outcomes of those studies? 3) what research design and methods are used in those studies? 4) what is the publication frequency of those studies? 5) what limitations, encountered in those studies, should future studies consider? vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 42 methodology based on a method to synthesize data drawn from primary research, this study has conducted a systematic review to answer the research questions introduced above. systematic reviews can be defined as “a review of existing research using explicit, accountable rigorous research methods” (gough et al. 2017, p.4). as part of a scientific and rigorous process, specifically applied to an educational field, we adhered to the systematic review protocol and stages from newman and gough (2020), which are further explained in the following subsections. 1) developing a research question 2) designing a conceptual framework 3) constructing a selection criteria 4) developing a search strategy 5) selecting studies using selection criteria 6) coding studies 7) assessing the quality of studies 8) synthesizing 9) reporting findings developing a research question the research question was elaborated by a research team of three preservice teachers and one mentor professor who grouped to conduct this systematic review. the topic emerged from examining the national curriculum for school education where icts gained our attention for the important role they pose for the english as a foreign language (efl) classroom. additionally, after dealing with a prolonged period of remote learning as a result of the pandemic covid-19, it was also of greater interest to know how icts were researched in a classroom context. we conducted a preliminary search to determine whether other studies have synthesized the contribution of icts to the english classroom. from this exercise, a research gap emerged since no similar studies had been conducted at the moment of carrying out this study. therefore, we set out to investigate what was researched about icts in the efl classroom of chilean schools between 2006 and 2022. given that the question is broad, we elaborated subsequent questions aiming at the purpose, focus, outcomes, design and methods, research trends and limitations of the studies which were treated as the leading dimensions of this systematic review. conceptual framework our conceptual framework emerged from the revision of the history of icts and icts research in chile, and the chilean school curriculum. the researchers started looking into the different actions of enlaces that began in 1992 and the investigations related to those initiatives to start identifying key terms. subsequently, we focused on ict research specifically carried out in chilean efl contexts. furthermore, the english school curriculum was also examined to understand how icts were addressed in the efl classroom. as a result, we learnt that the framing terms that would mark our study were: ict implementation, ict integration, ict tools and ict strategies, being all under the umbrella of an efl chilean context. vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 43 inclusion and exclusion criteria following newman and gough’s (2020) recommendations for systematics reviews, an inclusion and exclusion criteria was established prior to the search strategy. consequently, and by examining other systematics reviews (crompton & burke, 2018; jaramillo, 2015; macaro et al. 2012, 2018; mahbub & hadina, 2021), we established a list of parameters for our own study. table 2 describes how the inclusion and exclusion criteria were arranged. table 2. inclusion and exclusion criteria the studies were included if… the studies were excluded if… they were published between 2006 and 2022 they were from chile they were empirical and published as a peer-reviewed articles in the journals they were researched in the english classroom they were based on efl they had school (primary and secondary) education as aim they had school (primary and secondary) education as context they were duplicates they were theses/dissertations they were in published in books they were from international contexts they were published before 2006 they were based on esl they were based on eap they were based on esp they had tertiary education as context search strategy to ensure accuracy and reliability, we tested different search strategies. we started by unpacking the concept of ict addressed in the english curriculum, and we used eric thesaurus to have all the possible elements embedded in the concept (i.e. ict, technology, software, tools, media, smartphone, etc). these terms allowed us to create a search string and use it in the different databases selected for this study. it is worth noting that the extended search string was not used in all the databases given that it was not compatible. therefore, in some databases we just employed the main terms (see table 3). we conducted two parallel electronic searches for english and spanish in electronic databases including scopus, ebsco, scielo, eric, dialnet and wos. we conducted both electronic and manual searches using three major concepts and their possible variations as described in table 3. table 3. search strategy sample using key concepts and terms english search spanish search concepts search terms topic search terms ict ict* or technology or software or tool* or media or smartphone or internet or podcast or computer or video or online or digital or platform or digital or apps tic tic* o tecnología o herramienta* o medios de comunicación o teléfonos inteligentes o internet o computador o plataforma digital o aplicaciones english and english or efl or english classroom inglés inglés o inglés como lengua extranjera o clase de inglés chile and chile or chilean chile chile o chileno/a vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 44 studies selection for reporting the process of the studies selected for the review, a tailored diagram following the transition from the identification of the studies to the selected studies was used. as seen in figure 1, our initial search started in 119 studies. these 119 were filtered by peer-reviewed, english and education, resulting in 90 studies. those 90 studies were downloaded to a matrix consisting of an excel spreadsheet to identify the duplicates, 35, that were also removed. after this process, the researchers removed the studies focusing on exclusion and inclusion criteria elements. it deserves to be noted that at this stage, the titles, abstracts, and full texts, were read multiple times to ensure an accurate selection. 47 studies were removed as they did not match the established inclusion/exclusion criteria, resulting in 8 studies. the whole process was repeated many times to guarantee a rigorous process. although google scholar was not considered as a main search source, it was used to complement the search and ensure that relevant articles were not dismissed. a total of 5 articles meeting the selection criteria were identified in google scholar and were added to the 8 studies of the first stage, leading us to a total of 13 studies selected for the systematic review. figure 1. diagram of studies selected for review vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 45 coding and assessing the quality of studies for coding the characteristics of the studies selected, the research team of this review developed a matrix on an excel spreadsheet. a six-dimensional framework was used to draw on the details of the studies that were likely to answer our research questions. we constructed this analysis framework based on crompton and burke’s (2018) systematic review. this framework facilitated the creation of research questions and dimensions, which, in this study, were made up of six: research purpose, focus, outcomes, design and methods, publication frequency, and limitations. it is worth noting that each dimension was coded with the emergent themes or subcategories which are explained in the results section. in terms of the quality of the studies selected for the review, and considering that the quality is shaped to a great extent by the research aim and question, in our study the quality was determined by selecting scientific studies published in peer-reviewed journals, using studies that directly related to our research aim and selecting studies that have used appropriate research methods relevant to our study. results based on the final steps of the research protocol learnt from newman and gough (2020), the section below provides a synthesis and analysis of the studies that were reviewed. likewise, the main findings are described in relation to each subsequent research question, and therefore, dimension. research purpose to report the research purpose of the 13 studies that were examined, we grouped the studies that contributed to the same purpose. these purposes resulted into three main areas as seen in figure 2. therefore, and in relation to our first subsequent research question, it can be stated that the research purpose of studies exploring icts in the chilean efl classroom has been placed on i) perceptions, ii) effectiveness, iii) implementation and integration. the first area, perceptions, makes 4 out of 13 studies which is divided into 2 studies exploring students perceptions of icts (e.g. lizasoain, et al., 2018) and other 2 studies focusing on teachers and students’ perceptions of icts in the efl classroom (e.g. larenas, 2011 . the effectiveness icts is another area that comprises a total of 5 studies delving into apps, ict tools and website resources (e.g. quiroz et al., 2021). finally, it was found out that 4 out of the 13 studies had the purpose of investigating icts implementation and/or integration for english language teaching and learning (see figure 2) such as in the studies presented by bentes et a. (2017) and ortiz et añ. (2017). vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 46 figure 2. research purpose focus considering that the concept of icts is broad and may imply different classroom technologies and tools, this section is connected with the section, yet this one unpacks the specific focus of the studies comprising our review. regarding the subsequent question related to this dimension, it was found out that the 13 studies of our review have focused on i) technology, ii) applications, web resources and ict tools, and iii) icts in general. as portrayed in figure 3, studies focusing on investigating technology, in a broad sense, comprise 3. these have explored how technology, from the perceptions of teachers and students, has been used in the english classroom (e.g. diaz, et al., 2011; diaz & bruce, 2011) and what the role of technology was classroom during covid-19 (e.g. morrison & sepúlveda, 2021). in relation to the second category, which also makes most of the data, we were able to identify more specific ict resources, resulting in apps and web resources and ict tools. thus, 4 studies that have focused on the impact of apps and web resources such as kahoot! (e.g. quiroz et al., 2021), smartphone recording apps (e.g. cisterna & pardo, 2019), windows movie maker (e.g otárola, et al. 2020), and virtual english corner (e.g. gonzalez & parra, 2018) on learners’ linguistic skills. we are also able to determine that 2 out of the 13 studies focused on the use (e.g. lizasoain, et al., 2018) and evaluation (e.g. lizasoain, et al., 2016) of the ict tool ‘it is my turn’ for english language teaching and learning in rural school contexts. the last identified category comprises 4 out of the 13 studies, which yields investigations focusing ict and their general implementation the english classroom as described in the investigations of ortiz and aravena (2017) and bentes et al. (2017), as well as icts implicit theories (e.g. cárdenas & oyanedel, 2016), and the challenges and opportunities of online teaching during covid-19 (e.g. sepúlveda & morrison). vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 47 figure 3. ict focus research outcomes this dimension sought to determine the overall results of the studies that we reviewed. the analysis consisted of grouping the studies into three simple constructs positive, neutral, and negative. therefore, as shown in figure 3, the 13 studies exploring icts in the efl classroom yielded polarized results, basically grouped into positive and negative. from this standpoint, it must be highlighted that ‘positive’ was appraised as a benefit for both student and teacher participants. it can be seen that 7 out of the 13 studies are embedded in the positive construct. a case in point is the study conducted by quiroz, et al. (2021), in which students’ vocabulary knowledge was enhanced by the use of the application kahoot!. students’ motivation was boosted as they were familiar with the platform. the enjoyment in the use of softwares and online tools for learning is also connected to the immediate feedback that technology can provide which diminishes doubts and boredom in learners (chen et al., 2018). the 7 positive studies also refer to the english learning improvement and/or perceptions of the participants in which digital acquaintance and literacy was crucial. said process is fostered by students’ ability and confidence to use the numerous platforms they are familiar with, being social media a paramount learning support as seen in cisterna and pardo’s study (2019). this positive domain also accounts for the role of icts in boosting the different styles of learning of the students participants as evidenced in the study conducted by otárola et al. (2020) where learners were motivated to engage in writing activities after trying tools to write digital stories. these positive results also permeated teachers who showed satisfaction towards a variety of methodologies in the exploration and use of e-based learning, app-based learning, web-based learning which supply them with new strategies to plan and deliver effective lessons in the efl classroom as seen in the studies by diaz, et al. (2011) and otárola et al. (2020). vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 48 regarding the negative results which comprised 6 out of 13, it could be established that there are two main areas triggering these results. the first one is teachers’ ict competencies. ict training has been one of the main targets initiated with the implementation of enlaces (cide et al.,2004), yet some studies reveal that the training seems not to provoke significant changes because the expected ict operation ability is lower than the governmental threshold established by the minister of education. another recurrent area is the limited pedagogical knowledge and use of icts possessed by teachers and learners. the studies depict a necessity of improvements in the pedagogical implementation of icts in the classroom. in the analysis of these 6 studies resulted in negative, it could be seen that in some cases, as in ortíz and aravena’s (2017) study, teachers possess proficient icts knowledge; yet, the educators do not go beyond icts as repositories of information such as in cárdenas and oyanedel’s study (2016). figure 4. research outcomes research design and methods given that some of the selected studies reported more than one research method, it was decided to arrange this dimension in terms of the frequency of research design and methods declared in the records. table 4 shows a list of 13 elements of research design and methods found in the studies we reviewed. the list allowed us to determine that most of the studies exploring icts in the efl classroom have employed qualitative research designs. on the other hand, the most frequently used methods have been case studies and interviews, and a second majority have employed questionnaires, observations, pre and post-tests, and surveys. the least used designs have been quantitative, quasi-experimental and action research whereas the least used methods have been documental analysis, and performance test. vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 49 table 4. research design and methods research design and methods frequency case study 6 questionnaires 3 observations 3 pre and post test 3 documental analysis (lesson plans) 1 mixed-methods 2 action research 1 performance test 1 quasi-experimental 1 qualitative 4 interview 6 quantitative 1 survey 3 publication frequency figure 5, below, illustrates the years of our revision from 2006 to 2022, making a total of a seventeen-year duration. it can be appreciated that from 2006 to 2010 no studies exploring ict in the efl classroom were identified. at this point, it is necessary to emphasize that by 2006 the program enlaces was already consolidated in chilean school education. therefore, during a four-year period ict research, contextualized to english language teaching and learning was rather scarce. our results indicate that in 2011 there were two publications although followed by a non-publishing period of four years, from 2012 to 2015. in 2016 onward a change in the frequency of publications is seen, yielding two publications per year from 2016 to 2021 with the exception of 2019 that presented a drop. it was worth noting that we did not find any publications at the moment of conducting the review in 2022. although there were periods without investigation, implying a lack of attention to our research topic icts in the efl classroom, our results reveal that for the past seven years there has been a steady interest in investigating icts in the context of english language teaching and learning. vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 50 figure 5. ict studies published per year limitations crompton and burke’s (2018) analysis framework did not include the dimension of limitations. we decided to incorporate limitations in the research question and analysis as it is essential for conducting high-quality research that can contribute to the advancement of knowledge of ict contextualized to efl education. a total of 11 limitations emerged from coding the 13 studies that we reviewed. since some studies presented more than one limitation, this dimension was arranged in terms of the repetition or frequency of the issues. in this sense, it can be appreciated that the most frequent limitation has been icts use and literacy, repeated 7 times. the studies that encountered these constraints reveal, for instance, that educators lacked ict training and/or competences which hindered the further integration and use of icts in the efl classroom (e.g. cárdenas & oyanedel, 2016; morrison & sepulveda, 2021). additionally, there were studies in which educators’ knowledge and use of icts was described as optimum, yet when it came to use them, teachers opted for using the traditional tools, word processors, as repositories of information only (e.g. ortiz & aravena, 2017). a number of studies also found out that learners, and in one case teachers, did not invest time in using icts for learning or communication purposes outside the classroom as exposed by diaz et al. (2011) but for recreational ones (e.g. diaz, et al., 2011). another limitation that was repeated 4 times is access to resources. in this category, for example, we observed studies that were hindered by connectivity difficulties as seen in sepulveda and morrison’s study (2020), where stable internet connection and laptop accessibility were poor. what is more, the authors explained that the outdated technological equipment of the research site did not allow the use of basic software such as microsoft teams and zoom. the rest of the limitations, including two articles that did not report limitations, have not been repeated or shared by the articles that we examined. vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 51 table 5. limitations limitations frequency methodological 1 access to resources 4 large/small sample size 1 issues with the research sample participants 1 linguistic skills issues 1 icts use and literacy 7 educational policies 1 ict school leadership and management 1 no limitations found 2 teachers' training 1 ict scope 1 it is worth pointing out that our systematic review encountered some limitations. in particular, the limited number of studies exploring ict might have not been sufficient to provide a more grounded synthesis. a possible explanation of the reduced number of studies might also respond to the scope of our review. we decided to focus on what has been studied just in the english school classroom of school education. this delimitation at the same time leads us to a dichotomy since icts have been present in chilean school education for thirty years, where the english classroom is not the exception. furthermore, the english curriculum places a great emphasis on icts to facilitate the learning process, and provides varied suggestions to their integration, yet current empirical knowledge is still scarce in the field. another limitation, though to a lesser extent, was the lack of clear methodological and contextual details found in the reviewed studies. for instance, some studies failed in declaring their research designs and implementation levels (e.g. school, university). it must be highlighted that because of this reason, during the inclusion and exclusion process, a number of studies had to be dismissed since the educational level was not mentioned. discussion this systematic review has synthesized and analyzed 13 studies arranged into a six-dimensional analysis framework, including research purpose, focus, outcomes, research design and methods, publication frequency and limitations. at this point, it is worth reminding that the reduced number of studies retrieved for revision is due to the specific context and field of our systematic review which is based on a chilean context regarding efl education in school settings. based on our research questions and findings, we would like to discuss the most salient aspects of our systematic review. the first dimension that deserves observation is the one of research outcomes since our results yield polarized results ranging in positive and negative outcomes. we did not anticipate that almost 50% of the studies would address challenges and limitations in the use of icts in the efl classroom, including technical difficulties, lack of training, and the need for adaptation to different contexts which are elements that constitute the ‘negative outcome’ category. another striking result has to do with the limitations of the 13 studies, being ict literacy and use, and access to icts among the most frequent problems. we can conclude that these limitations are directly related to the negative outcomes since icts have the potential vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 52 to benefit english language teaching and learning in chilean efl classrooms, but their successful integration and implementation requires careful planning, training, and adaptation to local contexts. moreover, and probably the most significant finding is the lack of publications conducted on icts in the field of english language teaching; our synthesis revealed that in seventeen years there has just been 13 publications relevant to the discussed topic. prior to this systematic review, we thought that the past three years would be considerably marked by investigations on icts in facilitating english language learning. nonetheless, our synthesis shows that after 2016 publications have just been steady, and surprisingly in 2022, after the global pandemic covid-19 no publications exploring icts were found. therefore, it is worth asking what influenced the interest towards icts after 2016 and whether that influence has been maintained or increased up to today. it is hoped that further research can tap on these concerns. conclusions to conclude, our work shows that the studies exploring icts in a school context have yielded mostly positive and negative outcomes. the in-depth examination of the reviewed studies allowed to establish that the negative outcomes are the result of inefficient ict training and/or poor ict knowledge of the educators which obstacles their integration in the efl classroom. nonetheless, our analysis falls short to explain the reasons behind the lack of knowledge and competencies to use icts in favor of english language teaching and learning. we believe this area may require further exploration since the chilean government's efforts have been mainly directed to target educators’ training for the past two decades. regarding the research purpose of the 13 studies researching icts, it was possible to conclude that most of these studies have focused on exploring the effectiveness of apps, ict tools and website of icts in the efl classroom and, to a lesser extent, icts implementation and integration. in terms of research design and methods, this systematic review revealed that research conducted on icts between 2006 to 2022 have been mostly qualitative where case studies and interviews have been the most frequently used methods. as far as ict focus is concerned, a great number of the reviewed studies have explored the implementation and integration of icts, from a general perspective, as well as examining the efficacy of apps and web resources on the improvement of learners’ linguistic skills. furthermore, the frequency of publications, it was possible to visualize the scarcity of publications on icts, contextualized to a school efl context, within a period of seventeen years. not even the unexpected scenario caused by covid-19, reported a significant increase in the number of publications considering the fact that covid-19 obliged the educational community to use virtual environments and display icts skills for a period of three semesters, in the best case scenarios. likewise, our revision of the limitations of the studies allowed us to find two major hindering factors. on the one hand, teachers' knowledge and training on ict use was not optimal, and when it was, educators failed in integrating icts in their lessons. on the other hand, some of the reviewed studies were limited by the technological equipment and internet access to integrate the icts in the english curriculum. although our systematic review corpus was not sufficiently large, the revision of 13 studies allowed a more in-depth examination. in this process, we detected some clear research gaps that future research and educational communities may further explore. thus, it can be stated that more research should be conducted on what is occurring in the school classroom regarding the use, implementation, and perceptions of ict in teaching and learning the english vega abarzua, j., vezzoli lara, n., & villegas ramirez, f. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 53 language. it is also worth investigating whether the forceful change to distant learning had any impact on improving students’ learning and linguistic skills. another area that future research may examine is the integration and relevance of icts in teachers’ education since apart from the standards for preservice teachers that regulate the inclusion of ict in the curriculum of preservice teachers, research has failed in providing empirical evidence on the ict competencies of teacher candidates. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references anderson, d., atkins, a., ball, c., & millar, k. 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(2022). mindfulness-based practices for efl teachers: sample tasks and insights to cultivate mindfulness. focus on elt journal, 4(3), 78-93. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.3.6 abstract there has been a growing interest in the concept of mindfulness and how it can be used in foreign language (fl) teaching to promote the well-being of both teachers and learners. in fl education, mindfulness is a novel practice, and it can be used as a tool to positively transform negative arousal in the language classroom to create enhanced learning environments. thus, implementing mindfulness into fl teaching and learning may affect the conscious management of reactions to events happening in a language classroom and establish a less stressful learning atmosphere. however, fl teachers may lack both knowledge and practical realizations of mindfulness; and hence, need guidance in how mindfulness can be incorporated into their own teaching contexts. based on this insight, this paper presents the latest findings from mindfulness research in language teaching and offers ways to promote mindfulness in english as a foreign language (efl) classrooms. for this purpose, several activities, including breathing exercises and meditation practices, to foster a mindful attitude for teachers are suggested along with mindfulness practices for the development of language skills. moreover, this paper proposes insight into mindfulness-based language teaching with notable implications to enrich fl teaching/learning environments and highlights the importance of integrating mindfulness in fl teacher education. keywords mindfulness in fl mindfulness-based classroom practices for fl education, mindfulness techniques in fl. article history received : 22.10.2022 revised : 30.11.2022 accepted : 06.12.2022 published : 30.12.2022 type article introduction mindfulness practices, which have received increasing attention in recent years (e.g., caballero et al., 2019; mortimore, 2017; zeilhofer & sasao, 2022), are generally defined as directing one's attention to instantly emerging inner and environmental experiences without judgment (kabatzinn, 2009). mindfulness musters a form of awareness that encompasses emotions, thoughts, and bodily sensations, as well as external stimuli such as sight, hearing, and smell, in a nonjudgmental and non-reactive way to the experiences of the present moment. thus, it requires a holistic attitude towards the self. that is, not only the emotions or thoughts but also an individual’s all sensations (i.e., hearing, touching, seeing, tasting, etc.) are attentively considered. mindfulness was first developed as a psychotherapy practice by dr. john kabatzinn in the late 70s and was used to reduce the symptoms of stress-based chronic diseases mailto:ipekkuru@anadolu.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.4.3.6 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7374-8269 kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 79 experienced in daily life (fulwiler & de torrijos, 2011). since then, mindfulness has been used widely in health-related fields in the last three decades and numerous benefits of it have been reported such as decreased stress levels, improved brain activity, and promoted general wellbeing in physical and mental indicators (williams et al., 2015). mindfulness practices have gained extraordinary momentum in the last ten years, and the application of these practices to the field of education has just recently attracted attention (e.g., hooker & fodor, 2008; meiklejohn et al., 2012; moafian et. al, 2019). the integration of mindfulness-based interventions in education environments is a new area of interest, and there is a need for research and practices on teaching and disseminating mindfulness practices, especially in efl education (fallah, 2017; zeilhofer; 2020; zeilhofer & sasao, 2022). the use of mindfulness practices in general provides a positive personal transformation for learners, and it supports noticing and acceptance instead of avoiding negative feelings, thoughts, and experiences (caballero et al., 2019). moreover, a mindfulness attitude towards learning increases readiness for the learning experience, helps to gain awareness about the learning process, and provides a holistic approach to learning comprising feelings and thoughts (mortimore, 2017). therefore, the implementation of mindfulness practices may have a transformational effect on the conscious choice of reactions given to mental and physical actions and situations in learning and teaching environments that would have a direct impact on learning. thus, it may be possible to make learning-teaching environments more effective through the integration of mindfulness practices. mindfulness-based practices (mbps) provide various benefits for both teachers and students. according to langer (2000), mindfulness promotes an increase in memory, creativity, and positive emotions, while reducing stress and supporting general vitality. considering that teaching is a very intense, demanding, and elaborate profession, the importance of stress, anxiety, and professional burnout felt by teachers and the effects of teachers' behaviors and feelings on their general well-being and vitality can be understood. according to hooker and fodor (2008), students' motivation may also be related to their well-being and vitality levels. that is, when students’ self-acceptance, selfunderstanding, and self-management skills are taken into consideration and training on mindfulness is provided, students become more motivated towards learning. accordingly, mbps are recommended to increase the general well-being of learners (meiklejohn et al., 2012). it is assumed that mbps contribute positively to academic achievement, as well as lead to an increase in learners' reading comprehension grades and improvement in their concentration skills and resistance to stimuli (mrazek et al., 2013; shao & skarlicki, 2009). several studies have emphasized that mbps have positive effects on reducing anxiety levels and the importance of using them at all levels of education such as k12 education, higher education, and adult education are recommended (e.g., capel, 2012; hjeltnes et al., 2015; mrazek et al., 2013). in general, mbps involve various types of techniques to direct learners’ conscious attention to the present moment of learning, freeing their learning channels from anxiety related to negative past learning experiences and future projections of failure. among these techniques, there are breathing exercises (i.e., body scanning, square breathing, mindful breathing to increase readiness for the learning of a new topic), simple body exercises rooted in yoga, meditation practices (i.e., guided sitting meditations, visualization meditations), and creating mindful learning experiences through journaling and gratitude practices. implementation of mindfulness into fl instruction is quite a new tendency and there are no published materials and activities, to the author’s best knowledge, available for fl teachers to integrate mindfulness-based practices into their lessons. the focus of this paper is to introduce mindfulness as a novel approach to english language teaching (elt). to this end, this paper kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 80 first clarifies the features of mindfulness and how they can be adapted to efl environments. it also suggests various practices and activities that can be implemented into various stages of english lessons. in this regard, this paper offers practical insight into how to cater for positive transformation in elt via mbps. mindfulness and foreign language teaching mindfulness and fl teaching have been an expanding area of research recently and it can be considered as an area open to investigation (zeilhofer & sasao, 2022). in the field of fl education, the effects of guided meditation practices as part of mindfulness have been investigated. jenkins (2015) revealed that three minutes of mindfulness-based meditation practices in language teaching are useful as a classroom management technique, support new vocabulary learning, and foster calmer and more careful learning by lowering the sensory filter. it echoes krashen’s (1986) affective filter hypothesis. accordingly, there is an imaginary filter in the mind that prevents input and blocks cognition when negative arousals such as anxiety and fear are experienced. when this filter is lowered, the feeling of safety is elevated which supports language acquisition. in this case, mindfulness practices can help to lower the affective filter inviting learners to feel safer and more relaxed in the learning environment. mortimore (2017) emphasizes the contribution of different mindfulness-oriented meditation practices to create a more effective classroom atmosphere by positively affecting fl learning and attention orientation. zeilhofer (2020) asserts that due to its repetitive nature, meditation practices can support better vocabulary learning in the fl class along with their positive effects on academic achievement in general and focused attention that supports fl learning. it is further pinpointed that guided meditation exercises in the fl classroom can result in better grades and increased mindfulness towards fl learning (zeilhofer, 2020). one vein of research that has gained recent momentum is the relationship between mindfulness practices and fl anxiety. önem (2015) found that guided meditation practices helped lower fl anxiety in addition to gains in vocabulary learning. likewise, fallah’s (2017) study yielded a negative relationship between mindfulness and fl anxiety. mortimore (2017) investigated the effects of mindfulness-based interventions in an fl context and highlighted the effects of mindfulness-based interventions for creating a calmer learning environment even though its effects on decreasing fl anxiety were inconclusive. in the thai context, charoensukmongkol (2016) found a decrease in fl anxiety levels of students with higher mindfulness states. morgan and katz (2021) investigated the effects of mindfulness on fl classroom anxiety (flca) and found that although mindfulness did not reduce flca, it helped students understand students' flca from a different perspective. apart from fl anxiety, moghadam et al. (2020) investigated the relationship between mindfulness and fl learners’ burnout levels, and they reported a decrease in the overall burnout levels and an improvement in receptive language skills. engaging in mindful strategies while learning an fl was also found to help learners take the responsibility of their own learning, generate new thoughts, facilitate the fl learning process, and cultivate creativity and intelligence (wang & liu, 2016). all in all, recent studies in general highlight a conspicuous need to integrate mindfulness into fl learning and teaching and explore its effects as mindfulness practices have the potential to support creativity, increase attention, lower anxiety, and promote engagement in language practice (moafian et al., 2019). kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 81 mindfulness in the efl classrooms derived from the reported benefits of mindfulness practices in teaching and learning contexts, their effects on fl vocabulary learning, academic achievement, increased attention, and lowering fl anxiety, incorporating mindfulness in efl contexts is a promising area of research. however, language practitioners and teachers in efl contexts may lack awareness of how mindfulness can be integrated into their classrooms due to the lack of sufficient background information on mindfulness, its features and techniques, scarcity of published studies on how mindfulness can be used in efl contexts, and lack of available and accessible materials that can be used in actual teaching contexts. the preliminary findings of a needs analysis conducted recently as part of an erasmus+ strategic partnership project with 245 efl teachers in turkey revealed that teachers, in general, are not familiar with mindfulness practices albeit their willingness to implement such practices and that there is a need to provide training and materials they can use with their learners. in efl teaching and learning contexts, the features inherent in mindfulness can be used to enrich language learning experiences and to create effective environments. table 1 displays nine attitudes of mindfulness (non-judgement, acceptance, beginner’s mind, patience, nonstriving, trust, letting go, compassion, gratitude) adapted from kabat-zinn (2013) and the section following it highlights how these features are of use in fl teaching and learning with a specific focus on efl. table 1. nine attitudes of mindfulness and their implications for efl classroom attitudes features implications for efl classroom non-judgement not labeling or categorizing the events, situations as good, bad, nice, awful, etc. cultivating an ability to understand. approaching english language learning by leaving the judgments about learning fl and adopting an objective perspective. acceptance accepting fear, anxiety, and sorrow as they are and not running away from them. accepting negative arousals related to fl learning and going through all with an open perspective. being able to see solutions to language learning problems. beginner’s mind experiencing things like a child as if they are happening for the first time. going through everything as they are related to fl learning with curiosity regardless of the concerns of the past and future. patience trying to control the plans of expectations of the future. making negative consequences out of the things and situations that have not happened yet. being stuck in negative past experiences of learning english and jumping into conclusions. language learning takes time, and it can only happen in the present moment. non-striving observing the feelings and sensations as they rise and fall and being in full awareness of the experience. avoiding difficult situations and topics related to english, and expecting to learn everything at the end of a single lesson bring disappointment. trust taking your own responsibility. trusting in yourself and what the present moment offers. accepting everything as they are, awareness of one’s capacity and limits related to fl learning and directing attention to fl learning consciously. kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 82 table 2 continued letting go having an awareness of ‘everything shall pass’ by conscious observation of the internal states. letting go of negative fl learning experiences, choosing to focus on the present moment instead of living in the same worrisome story repeatedly. compassion having a friendly attitude towards feelings, thoughts, and all internal states. building emotional resilience for learning fl by acknowledging the reasons for failure and downfalls. gratitude not taking everything for granted. appreciating even the simplest things. being able to say ‘i am here, i am healthy, and i am in the class. i am here for language learning, and i am putting my effort into this.’ when you overview all nine attitudes and their implications for efl in table 1, you may find out that all these attitudes are connected with and complementary to each other. teachers in efl contexts would help their learners build mindfulness attitudes towards fl learning once they understand what each attitude entails for their learners. having a non-judgmental attitude is the key to effective mindfulness practice. fl learners often tend to think much about negative past language learning experiences; and thus, may have problems in concentrating on and realizing the new learning opportunities that arise in the moment of learning. learners may have been occupied by thoughts like ‘i don’t need english; why would i learn english? other people should learn my native language, etc.’ a non-judgmental attitude here does not encompass a passive state of denial; on the contrary, it promotes less self-criticism and more self-understanding about how one learns a foreign language. it requires observing the momentarily rising sensations and thoughts (e.g., ‘i feel anxious when i have to speak in english’, ‘i can’t write in english’, ‘i have an awful pronunciation’, etc.) and being able to pass through them to open up oneself to the language learning experience. acceptance is building courage to face problems in language learning situations especially when there are formidable difficulties. for instance, there may be obstacles stemming from l1 and l2 differences, inaccessibility to fl input in the social context of learning, lack of practice opportunities, and some affective negative arousals due to stress, anxiety, and lack of motivation. in such cases, accepting such problems as they are and trying to find solutions for more learning and practice opportunities would help to realize one’s potential abilities. having a beginner’s mind in fl experiences would also help to become fully aware of the richness of the present moment in the language classroom for utilizing the learning opportunities. that is, seeing each language lesson from a fresh lens full of new experiences would help to increase concentration and motivation. the attitude of patience reminds us that learning a foreign language is a complex system and there are many stages to go through. it echoes the importance of learners’ readiness for learning certain structures and the developmental stages a learner goes through in second/foreign language acquisition (i.e., question order) (meisel et al., 1981; spada & lightbown, 2002). learning a foreign language takes time and language learning is a complex system emerging from learners’ dynamic encounters with language highlighting that each learner’s developmental trajectory is unique and is influenced by various factors such as past experiences and the social ambient of the language they are exposed to (larsen-freeman, 2012; ortega & han, 2017). thus, helping learners to be patient would help them to understand their emerging experiences and view language learning as a dynamic process. a non-striving attitude within mindfulness is crucial in understanding learners’ struggles with projected expectations (i.e., of the society, the statewide exams). the constant kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 83 pressure of always ‘doing’ is then replaced by just ‘being’ which features being present for learning with all the necessary attentional resources. then, noticing can take place which is considered as crucial for second/foreign language acquisition (schmidt, 1990, 2001). such an openness for fl learning would also foster building trust on learners’ behalf. trusting the language learning process, and experiencing it with all the difficulties and improvement it comprises would enhance increased inner confidence which in turn would provoke motivation and willingness to experience. another attitude of mindfulness is letting go. that is, not being stuck in ruminative thoughts and feelings repeatedly, but rather trying to create new stories out of emerging experiences. in this respect, fl learners may need to develop compassion for showing self-care and kindness in difficult situations. instead of blaming others and oneself for failures and negative reactions towards fl, learners may approach the experienced difficulties as they rise and fall with compassion. the last attitude of mindfulness is having gratitude. such an attitude would help to know the value of learning, being in an fl class for new experiences, and making the best out of them. reminding learners that they are capable of language learning and there are many moments of success even in simple language tasks would help them to transform any fl learning experience into a memorable one. in the following section, mindfulness-based practices that can be implemented in efl contexts are presented within sample practices and tasks. mindfulness-based practices for efl classes mindfulness-based practices (mbps) can offer crucial insight into fostering awareness for better classroom practices. a mindful attitude can help teachers to create a positive teaching experience as it is based on the idea of increasing kind attention that is non-reactive and nonjudgmental which involves all emotions, thoughts, and bodily sensations (baer et al., 2006). one simple mbp task is given below, and it can be adapted to any part of a foreign language lesson when the teacher feels a need to increase attention, awareness, and willingness. such a practice can be used to concentrate on the lesson, switch between activities, increase students' motivation, and prepare them for the subject to be taught. a sample mbp task focus on your breath and observe the breath in and out of your body. invite yourself to a calm and serene space and ask yourself these questions:  what am i thinking?  what's on my mind today about learning english? which of these are real and which are the recording/story?  what are my concerns/anxieties/fears about the past and the future related to learning english right now?  how do i feel?  how is my breathing?  am i here?  am i ready to learn english? with the help of the mbp presented here, teachers would be provided with an insight to create an awareness of how mindfulness can be used in the fl classrooms. in the following section, sample breathing exercises, meditation practices, and a language skill task will be kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 84 presented for efl teachers to integrate mindfulness practices into fl education based on the features of mindfulness attitudes. all the sample practices given here are designed originally by the author for the efl classrooms and teachers can use them in their own teaching contexts either in print out or in digital copies with appropriate citation of this paper. all rights of the practices presented here are reserved considering the amount of work to create these practices. teachers who would like to use multiple copies can contact the author. sample breathing exercises breathing exercises lie at the heart of mbp, and when used as part of instruction, such exercises may have positive effects on fl language learning (tasan et al., 2021). breathing techniques presented here within mbps are applied through the guided visualization technique since it is important for efl learners to follow how breathing can be used to create a mindful attitude rather than a taken-for-granted physical activity. when used effectively, breathing exercises lower stress levels, help to concentrate on the task, calms down the nervous system, and increase motivation for learning (jenkins, 2015). in the efl classroom, the sample breathing exercises given here can be used at the beginning of a lesson to prepare and warm the learners for the upcoming topics and tasks, at the end of a lesson to wrap up the day’s language activity, during the transition from one part of a lesson to another to increase attention, when there is a need to help learners focus on a task at hand, and simply to create a positive and calming environment for effective fl learning. moreover, such exercises can be useful to strengthen the rapport between teachers and students by increasing trust in the teacher. these exercises are also a source of language input as they include simple instructions and guidance in english, involve an array of everyday vocabulary, and would help to create a shared classroom language repertoire. figure 1 below is a sample breathing exercise called rainbow breathing. kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 85 figure 1. rainbow breathing rainbow breathing-this breathing technique, given in figure 1, within the shape of a rainbow is appropriate for learners who are new to breathing exercises. this exercise is useful to focus on inhaling and exhaling and how breath can be deepened with expanding inhales and exhales within each ring of the rainbow. thus, it is important to start with the purple ring, following the colours one by one, and expanding inhales and exhales as the rings become longer in each colour upwards. rainbow is also useful for colour visualization of the breath helping learners to focus more on their breathing which in turn will help to focus attention on the present moment. learners can follow the arrows specifically placed on the rings referring to breathing in and breathing out. this will also help to avoid the mind’s wandering around the thoughts, past experiences, or future projections, and concentrate only on the given shape. the last ring kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 86 of the rainbow includes a free-breathing practice and learners can close their eyes to become aware of their own breathing after following the previous rings. this will also create an individual space for each learner to focus on the changes in breath and realize any change in body sensations as well. at the end of the rainbow breathing exercise, teachers can ask their learners how they are feeling, whether they observe any change in their body and breath, and whether they are ready for learning. such a stance would likely increase focused attention on getting ready for the learning experience. rainbow breathing can also be used when learners experience a negative feeling in the fl class or just before the introduction of a topic. another sample breathing technique presented here is worm breathing given in figure 2 below. figure 2. worm breathing worm breathingthis breathing technique is designed to prepare efl learners ready for the learning experience and help them to focus on the present moment which is full of learning opportunities. different from rainbow breathing, the worm breathing technique involves breathholding instances which would assist learners to gather their attention more on their breathing and relax. the shape of the worm guides the learner in inhaling and exhaling and holding the breath in between. the curves of the worm shape are specifically designed to help learners feel kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 87 the ups and downs of the breath by visualizing it. the worm is a tiny creature yet is an indispensable part of nature. once the students practice worm breathing for a few minutes they can close their eyes and can be guided to imagine themselves as a tiny worm in the huge forest exploring around and being part of it in harmony. the journey of the worm is emphasized while directing attention to its progress in each breath as the worm continues its journey with all the ups and downs in the curves of its body. holding their breath just a second between inhalation and exhalation will also create a space for learners to stay with their breaths without taking any action. this is helpful to find stillness and resilience in the given moment and get ready for learning without rushing with a mind full of thoughts and projections. worm breathing can be useful in the efl class when learners struggle with a language area or unfamiliar exercises, especially before communicative practices, when they lack self-confidence, and when they need motivation. simple visuals such as the rainbow and worm are selected here as these shapes are quite appropriate to follow the path of the breath and are simple and easy to imagine for all learners. colourful, high-quality, and attractive visuals are used for the guided breathing exercises along with clear and simple instructions. teachers can project these exercises on the interactive whiteboard or use a printout version. the visuals can also help to elicit language output and direct learners’ attention (i.e., rainbow breathing-how many colours are there on the rainbow, what colours do you see, when do we see rainbows etc.) it is suggested that teachers give instructions for these exercises in a calming voice with a steady flow. once the instructions on the breathing cards are followed with the visuals, learners can close their eyes and continue doing the breathing exercise on their own at their own pace. a few minutes reserved for a breathing exercise would help to focus learners’ attention on the present moment, on their bodily sensations, and their own breathing in specific. such a mindful space would likely create a positive learning environment echoing the reported benefits of mbps in fl learning (i.e., increased attention, and lowering of fl anxiety). a sample guided meditation practice mediation is a crucial aspect of mindfulness and guided meditation has been used widely as an intervention in many studies conducted in fl learning contexts (e.g., jenkins, 2015, mortimore, 2017; zeilhofer, 2020). mediation is a technique that is used to direct attention to inner states for observing thoughts and feelings and focusing on the mind to create a space to bring attention to the present moment. there are several misconceptions, such as meditation is a spiritual technique practised by a certain group of spiritual people, it is difficult and one must spend long years to benefit from it, it is about stopping the thoughts and quieting the mind, and about escaping from the reality (chopra, 2003). however, meditation practice is the opposite of these misconceptions that it can be practised by anyone who wants to, even a minute of meditation practice can be transformational, and it is not about stopping the thoughts or feelings; rather, it is about becoming aware of all thoughts and emotions as they rise and fall and observing and accepting them without judgement. in this respect, meditation can be practised by all students if they don’t have any physical or mental restrictions. in the efl classroom, meditation can be practised a few minutes or longer before starting the lesson to help learners concentrate, increase motivation and self-confidence; during the lesson when needed; and at the end of the lesson to help them become aware of their thoughts and feelings related to that lesson. guided meditation practices may involve gathering attention to all bodily sensations such as hearing, kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 88 smelling, tasting, seeing, and feeling. in this way, all attentional resources required to concentrate on language study are directed at momentary sensations rather than lingering around many unattended thoughts and feelings occupying the attentional resources. this moment of simple sitting, observing, awareness, acceptance, and concentration potentially would help to create a space for realizing the learning opportunities inherent regardless of the difficulties and negative experiences. the following sample guided meditation exercise given in figure 3 below with a visual can be practised in the fl classroom. figure 3. a sample meditation practice kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 89 in this meditation practice, learners are invited to focus on the present moment while they are in the classroom. this practice intends to guide learners to focus on their immediate environment and that meditation is possible anywhere. in this guided practice, learners are asked to feel their presence in the classroom along with the presence of others. with the imagined concentration on all the sensations of their body and the sounds around them, learners’ momentary attention is drawn to the observation of everything around them and the classroom itself; thus, it helps them to relax and align themselves with the learning practice that will take place in the classroom. this guided meditation practice can help to focus on what is happening within their bodies and the actual classroom environment rather than wandering around the thoughts of plans, past experiences, and future projections showing them that none of these thoughts defines their momentarily experience at that particular moment. in the efl classroom, this practice can also assist language practice since the instructions are clear and to the point, and they guide the learners to have a certain action mentally without even any physical movement. hence, it is likely to promote security, create a self-space, and raise self-awareness which in turn will prepare learners for language learning. a sample mindfulness-based language practice the breathing exercises and the guided meditation practices can be used at various parts of the fl lesson depending on the need (i.e., before the start of the lesson, during the transition of the parts of the lesson, when an unexpected negative experience happens, at the end of a lesson, before language tests, etc.). they can also be useful to focus learners’ attention to upcoming tasks. apart from these practices, mindfulness-based language tasks can be used to practice various language skills (reading, listening, speaking, writing) and areas (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation). a mindfulness attitude proposes a holistic approach to fl teaching and learning; hence a skills-integrated approach within mbps would likely increase language awareness, foster confidence, promote self-expression abilities in english, and activate the existing schema while at the same time creating a space for self-awareness of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. the following integrated skills language task given in figure 4 can be used in the efl classroom. this sample task is given here to highlight the rationale of mbps and how they can be incorporated into efl teaching/learning. teachers can also adapt existing tasks in the course books or create their own tasks following the rationale given here. kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 90 look at the picture. this is melisa. what does she do in her room? look at the bubble over her head. what does she think? how do you think she feels? have you ever felt the same? do you sometimes find yourself at your desk like that? are you aware of how long you sit like that? now, think about a similar moment in which you experience intense thoughts or emotions (joy, sadness, pride, etc.). you can also think about a specific problem that bothers you. close your eyes and imagine yourself in your room thinking about that thought(s). how do you feel? just observe yourself. what kind of feelings arise? can you locate these feelings in any part of your body (head, stomach, legs, etc.)? now focus on your breath. inhale and exhale deeply for a few times. open your eyes, now. write down several adjectives that express your feelings. are these feelings present right now? write a short paragraph using the adjectives above and describe the event(s) and intense emotions. tell the event, when it happened, and why it is intense. follow-up: do you think thinking about an intense emotion, an event, or a situation so much repeatedly helps? what else can you think of doing in those moments when you find your mind occupied with so many thoughts? figure 4. a sample mindfulness-based language practice in the sample language task above, learners are guided to practice a mindful attitude during a language practice activity. they are also involved in speaking, writing, reading, and listening as well as practising grammar and vocabulary. in this task, guided by the visual, fl learners think about an experience in which they ruminated; and a mindful space is created to help them reflect on that experience, become aware of how they feel and think, and express themselves in english. in the follow-up, a reflection and discussion ground is created to share their thoughts about experiences of rumination and in this way, a shared community is supported. learners may become aware that experiencing such instances and feelings is all right and anyone can experience them. this also brings forward the mindfulness attitudes of non-judgement, acceptance, patience, trust, non-striving, and letting go. kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 91 all in all, the practices presented here are samples of mbp tasks that can be integrated into english language teaching. a plethora of activities and materials can be designed and incorporated into efl classrooms. the focus of this paper is to support and guide efl teachers on the fundamentals and ideals of mindfulness and help them enrich their classrooms with such novel practices. conclusion mindfulness can offer insights into efl teaching and learning contexts. that is, mbps in the language classroom target increasing well-being, decreasing stress and anxiety that may block learning, and fostering a mindful attitude that would help to focus attention on the learning opportunities that are only available in the present moment of learning. current studies also put forward that mindfulness practices, such as breathing and meditation exercises, have numerous benefits for fl learning and studies rigorously stress that mindfulness and fl learning/teaching is a novel territory open to investigation (e.g., mortimore, 2017; zeilhofer & sasao, 2022). in this paper, sample tasks and exercises are presented to inform the efl teachers what mindfulness can offer for an effective fl experience and how the ideas of mindfulness can be adapted to english language teaching. the merit of this paper is to create awareness of mindfulness as a new approach to enhancing fl teaching environments. the sample tasks and exercises given here (i.e. breathing exercises, meditation practices, mindfulness-based language practice) can be used in k-12 classrooms with young learners and adolescents; however, they can easily be adapted to various age groups studying at english-medium schools and higher education institutions. the educational contexts have been under constructive change recently. the profile of fl classrooms involves learners who immigrated from the war zones adapting to new school environments and do not share the mother tongue of the other learners. additionally, learners, in general, are now adapting to the covid-19 aftermath following an emergency remote teaching period which altered previous learning experiences. according to world health organization report (2020), there has been an increase in the stress levels of adolescents and young adults, and mental health disorders in school children are at high stake. in this regard, teachers have an indispensable role in guiding their learners to pay attention to their well-being and mental health. with the help of mbps, they can guide learners to become aware of their states of mind, emotions, and prejudices, give their attention to fully accept what they are experiencing, and create a space for enhanced learning experiences. however, there are no published materials or tasks that can be used by teachers, and mindfulness practices are mainly used in educational contexts through personal efforts. there is a need for conducting studies on the integration of mindfulness into english language teaching, designing materials and tasks, and making them accessible to teachers. i hope future endeavours of adapting mindfulness into language teaching/learning environments will provide fruitful results. a mindful class is possible both for the teachers and the learners. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. kuru gönen/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 92 references baer, r. a., smith, g.t., hopkins, j., krietemeyer, j., & toney, l. 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(2020). mindfulness in the foreign language classroom: influence on academic achievement and awareness. language teaching research, 13, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168820934624 zeilhofer, l., & sasao, y. (2022). mindful language learning: the effects of college students’ mindfulness on short-term vocabulary retention. system, 110(6). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2022.102909 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). focus on elt www.focusonelt.com focus on elt journal volume 2 issue 2 december 2020 editors-in-chief dr. ahmet başal yıldız technical university dr. ceyhun yükselir osmaniye korkut ata university dr. erdem akbaş erciyes university issn: 2687-5381 www.focusonelt.com copyright © 2020 by focus on elt journal https://focusonelt.com/index.php/foe/index https://focusonelt.com/index.php/foe/index focus on elt www.focusonelt.com copyright policy all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, 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editor-in-chief, focus on elt journal phone: +90 05055723380 email: ahmetbasal@gmail.com support contact fatih ercan phone: +90 05355159496 email: fatihercan@osmaniye.edu.tr mailto:fatihercan@osmaniye.edu.tr focus on elt www.focusonelt.com about the journal editors-in-chief dr. ahmet başal yıldız technical university dr. ceyhun yükselir osmaniye korkut ata university dr. erdem akbaş erciyes university book review editor dr. betül bal-gezegin ondokuz mayıs university editorial assistant mustafa özer abdullah gul university editorial advisory board abdurrazzag alghammas qassim university ali erarslan alanya alaaddin keykubat university ali sorayyaei azar management and science university arda arıkan akdeniz university arif bakla ankara yıldırım beyazıt university arif sarıçoban selçuk university begüm saçak ohio university buğra zengin namık kemal university cihat atar sakarya university emrah cinkara gaziantep university emrah ekmekçi 19 mayıs university erdoğan bada çukurova university fatma yuvayapan kahramanmaraş i̇stiklal university gökhan öztürk anadolu university greg kesler ohio university gölge seferoğlu california state university i̇rem çomoğlu dokuz eylül university isabel herrando university of zaragoza i̇smail hakkı mirici near east university jan hardman university of york kenan dikilitaş university of stavanger leyla harputlu alanya alaaddin keykubat university martha nyikos indiana university mehmet takkaç atatürk university mehmet bardakçı gaziantep university nemira mačianskienė vytautas magnus university neslihan önder özdemir uludağ university ömer özeradana alparslan türkeş bilim ve teknoloji university rana yıldırım çukurova university reyhan ağçam kahramanmaraş sütçü i̇mam university richard smith university of warwick saadet korucu kış necmettin erbakan university selami aydın i̇stanbul medeniyet university servet çelik trabzon university şevki kömür muğla sıtkı koçman university turan paker pamukkale university turgay han ordu university vilma bijeikienė vytautas magnus university yasemin kırkgöz çukurova university editorial & technical office instructor fatih ercan osmaniye korkut ata university instructor muhammet toraman yıldız technical university focus on elt www.focusonelt.com reviewers of the current issue dr. ali dinçer dr. ali şükrü özbay dr. asuman aşık dr. cihat atar dr. eser ördem dr. ferit kılıçkaya dr. handan çelik dr. hasan çağlar başol dr. hatice i̇rem çomoğlu dr. orhan kocaman dr. oya tunaboylu dr. özgehan uştuk dr. savaş yeşilyurt dr. semin kazazoğlu dr. yunus emre akbana focus on elt journal is currently abstracted/indexed by: https://journals.indexcopernicus.com/search/journal/issue?issueid=all&journalid=64195 https://search.crossref.org/?q=2687-5381&container-title=focus+on+elt+journal https://portal.issn.org/resource/issn/2687-5381 http://www.idealonline.com.tr/idealonline/lookatpublications/journaldetail.xhtml?uid=815 http://journalseeker.researchbib.com/view/issn/2687-5381 http://esjindex.org/search.php?id=3948 https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1123627827?and_facet_journal=jour.1145432 https://asosindex.com.tr/index.jsp?modul=journals&keyword=focus+on+elt+journal&secenekler=dergi_adi&page=1 http://www.linguistlist.org/pubs/journals/get-journals.cfm?journalid=69542 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com table of contents volume 2 issue 2 (2020) editorial note: letter from editors-in-chief ahmet başal, ceyhun yükselir, erdem akbas 1-3 english as a lingua franca: from classroom to out-of-class communication pelin irgin 4-16 content-based instruction (cbi) challenges in turkey: voices of high school students ferhat karanfil 17-29 handling with efl learners’ negative attitudes towards speaking english seda banli 30-40 review of world englishes in english language teaching betül bal-gezegin 41-43 focus on elt journal vol 2, issue 2, 2020 issn: 2687-5381 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com editorial note: letter from editors-in-chief https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00033 aahmet başal b ceyhun yükselir and c erdem akbaş a assoc. prof. dr., yıldız technical university, turkey, abasal@yildiz.edu.tr b assoc. prof. dr., osmaniye korkut ata university, turkey, ceyhunyukselir@osmaniye.edu.tr c asst. prof. dr., erciyes university, turkey, erdemakbas@erciyes.edu.tr dear focus on elt journal readers, on behalf of the editorial board, it is our privilege and great pride to announce the release of the second issue of the second volume of ‘focus on elt journal’. although we have been facing great challenges in academia due to the covid-19 pandemic triggering health issues, anxiety and stress across the world in 2020, we are happy to be able to continue contributing to the field as an outlet for the research studies focusing on english language teaching and learning. thus, despite many contingencies stemming from the covid-19 chaos, it is our primary source of professional gratification to make the second issue in 2020. we feel obliged to accept that as a recently established international journal in the field, our journal is now considered to be one of the resourceful and reliable venues for people of academic interest. by following stringent publication ethics and rigorous plagiarism check, so far in our issues, we have been able to showcase thirteen contributions from various contexts exploring issues with a theoretical or applied perspective aiming possible applications in the field of english language teaching and learning. this has provided us an acceptance rate of 48.1% before publishing our third issue since december 2019. in line with this, despite a relatively higher number of submissions for the current issue, we have only been able to host three research articles and one book review following the external as well as our internal review cycles. we cordially would like to express our gratitude to our esteemed editorial board members and fifteen respected reviewers of this issue as featured above, without whom we would not have decided the selection of the research articles. we are therefore grateful to the members of our community for their https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00033 mailto:abasal@yildiz.edu.tr mailto:ceyhunyukselir@osmaniye.edu.tr mailto:erdemakbas@erciyes.edu.tr https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4295-4577 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4781-3183 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2204-3119 başal, a., yükselir c., & akbaş, e. / focus on elt journal, 2(2) (2020) 2 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com encouragement, continuous support and interest. with this in mind, once again, we are truly confident that the future of our journal is promising we will continue to reach a wider international audience for disseminating academic knowledge. with the articles included in the second issue of 2020, we place confidence in that our community, specifically practitioners, researchers and academicians in the field of english language teaching and learning shall greatly benefit from them. the second issue of our second volume in 2020 features three articles investigating various topics with respect to the field and shares detailed findings for particular cases and a book review on world englishes. the first paper of the issue, titled ‘‘english as a lingua franca: from classroom to out-of-class communication’’ and authored by pelin irgin, explores the out-of-class elforiented practices at tertiary level education. relying on the data coming from twenty-two l2 english students, the author designed a class on oral communication that could promote and encourage out-of-class elf communication throughout a term of fourteen weeks. the participants were expected to write weekly reports and self-reflection papers to find out perceived contributions and impacts of out-of-class elf-oriented practices on efl learners’ perspectives for communication. the particular results of the study indicate that the elf-oriented practices motivated learners and engaged them in elf communication. the second paper of the issue, titled ‘‘content-based instruction (cbi) challenges in turkey: voices of high school students’’ by ferhat karanfil, addresses the issue of content-based instruction (cbi) challenges faced by high school students in a turkish context. adopting a mixed-method research design, the author collected data through a survey and interviews. based on the findings of the study, the author concluded that the integration of content in efl classes can foster content learning, thereby improving the familiarity with different topics and raising awareness. the study also suggests that cbi programs should be included in teacher education programs in turkey. the third paper of the issue, titled ‘‘handling with efl learners’ negative attitudes towards speaking english” and authored by seda banli, adopts an action research design addressing the issue of negative attitudes towards speaking english in turkish context. the results reveal that negative attitudes of young adults towards speaking english may arise from various reasons such as their previous learning experiences and their lack of knowledge in their l1 and l2, their personal characteristics. the author also employed an action plan to help students overcome their speaking problems in english and offered some suggestions on the issue. the fourth paper of the issue is an invited book review by betül bal-gezegin on the book titled ‘‘world englishes in english language teaching’’ which is authored by alex baratta and published in 2019 by palgrave macmillan. the book is a comprehensive source helping researchers, educators and practitioners understand the status of english across the world. the reviewer of the book touches upon a range of important points in the book by foregrounding theoretical issues and critical discussions by the author in each chapter. balgezegin concludes that the book is a significant contribution to the field paving the way for current research on world englishes. başal, a., yükselir c., & akbaş, e. / focus on elt journal, 2(2) (2020) 3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com before we finalize our editorial for the current issue, we would like to announce that two great colleagues from elt have recently joined our editorial team. let us first introduce dr. betül bal-gezegin, who will be our book review editor following her contribution to our journal with her invited book review since she is known to have researched on genre analysis of book reviews. dr. bal-gezegin works as an assistant professor in the department of english language teaching at ondokuz mayıs university in turkey. she holds a phd in foreign language education at middle east technical university. she obtained her ma degree in the field of applied linguistics at georgia state university in the usa as a fulbright scholar. her academic interests mainly lie within the domains of corpus linguistics, call and esp/eap with her publications on corpus-based investigation of academic writing, metadiscourse markers in writing, teaching writing, and corpora and language teaching. the second member joining focus on elt is mustafa özer, who is now our editorial assistant. being an english language instructor for 14 years, mr. özer holds an ma degree in applied linguistics and is pursuing his doctoral degree in the same field at erciyes university, turkey. with him being mainly interested in data-driven learning, he carries out studies in a network of fields such as autonomous learning, corpus linguistics, classroom discourse, learner motivation, and the use of technology in elt classrooms. he currently works as an english language instructor at abdullah gul university, turkey. we therefore would like to welcome submissions to discuss the latest developments in the field of english language teaching and learning for the future issues of focus on elt journal. lastly, we are also pleased to announce that focus on elt will accept book reviews of the key books in the field in the forthcoming issues. we look forward to welcoming you once again in the first issue of volume 3 in june 2021. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 4, issue 2, 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: eda.ozcan@btu.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. turkish instructors’ beliefs and efl learners’ realization of speech act of requests: a descriptive case study eda nur özcan english instructor, school of foreign languages, bursa technical university, bursa, türkiye, eda.ozcan@btu.edu.tr apa citation: özcan, e. n. (2022). turkish instructors’ beliefs and efl learners’ realization of speech act of requests: a descriptive case study. focus on elt journal, 4(2), 87-100. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.6 abstract although learners of english as a foreign language (efl) receive language education according to the principles of the communicative approach, they lack pragmatics knowledge. as one of the main issues of pragmatics, speech act of requests has been investigated in the current study. more specifically, efl instructors' beliefs about teaching requests have been examined as well as learners' realization of speech act of requests. the study was conducted with 20 students and six instructors at an english preparatory program of a state university in türkiye. students' data were collected through a discourse completion task while instructors were interviewed. the results suggest that turkish efl learners commonly use conventionally direct strategies for making requests and their requests do not show pragma-linguistic diversity. furthermore, the rank of imposition and social distance seems to be disregarded while making requests. also based on the interviews with efl instructors, it was found that they do not have adequate knowledge of teaching pragmatics, and thus, their classroom practices in speech acts of requests are limited. therefore, this study implies the importance of teaching pragmatics to students at english preparatory programs and the need for enhancing instructors’ knowledge of teaching pragmatics. keywords speech act theory, requests, interlanguage pragmatics, second language acquisition, language teaching article history received : 09.10.2021 revised : 23.01.2022 accepted : 02.04.2022 published : 30.06.2022 type research article introduction with the emergence of communicative competence models (see canale & swain, 1980; hymes, 1972), different aspects of language teaching and learning were highlighted. knowing a language was previously thought to know grammatical forms, but the emerged competence models implied that knowing a language was not only about being a master of grammar but also about being a language user who can perform language functionally and socially in appropriate contexts. however, half a century of understanding of what constitutes communicative competence seems to remain mainly in theory as teaching pragmatics is often taken for granted in language classrooms, and as stated by bardovi-harlig and mahan-taylor (2003), it has not been a traditional part of language curricula since they are regarded as secret rules of the language. even though classrooms offer plenty of language input, equipping learners with pragmatics knowledge might be a problematic issue for several reasons. the main mailto:eda.ozcan@btu.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.6 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4825-6067 özcan, e. n. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 88 reason lies behind the nature of pragmatics since certain functions of language (apologizing, refusals, complaints, etc.) tend to occur at an individual level, which leaves no room for students to observe some functions of the target language. another reason concerns language instruction due to the nuances of language features. since the appropriateness of language use depends on context, awareness-raising on how and when the particular structure of language is used and the relation between speakers are necessary for language classrooms. as well as these main reasons, sykes (2013) mentions eight challenges for teaching pragmatics, limitations of theoretical knowledge while designing curricula, a small amount of authentic input in materials, teachers' knowledge and competence, immerse attention to micro-features of language, time constraints, student-related reasons like individual differences and variety of dialects, which needs to be addressed. the current study investigates teaching pragmatics within the scope of speech acts, and specifically, it will focus on the speech act of requests. the theory of speech acts goes back to the 1960s when j.l. austin published how to do things with words. according to austin (1962), when people utter something, they do not do it for the sake of describing, rather utterances make them achieve communicative goals. additionally, yule (1996) states that when people utter something, they have an intention and a force behind their words, which might influence the hearers' behaviors. the relevant literature examines speech acts in three categories: locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts. locutionary acts refer to the utterances performed through the correct use of vocabulary and grammar, illocutionary acts refer to the intention and force behind the utterance, and perlocutionary acts refer to the effect that the utterance has on the interlocutor. among these three categories, illocutionary acts are associated with speech acts more when pragmatics are framed into second language instruction. searle (1975) identified five types of illocutionary forces: declarative, assertive, expressive, directive, and commissive forces. speech act of requests is categorized under directive forces since the directive force of an utterance refers to the speaker’s intention to get the interlocutor to do something, and the utterance with a directive force is shaped based on the context and the power relations between speakers. it is stated in the literature that there are a variety of strategies employed by speakers to perform speech act of requests. table 1 below displays the request strategies proposed by blum-kulka and olshtain (1984) as the result of the cross-cultural speech act realization project (ccsarp) that was created in reference to eight languages and varieties. table 1. blum-kulka and olshtain’s (1984) classification of request strategies (p. 202) directness strategy types tokens direct mood derivable leave me alone explicit performative i am asking you not to park the car here hedged performative i would like you to give your lecture a week earlier locution derivable madam, you’ll have to move your car scope stating i really wish you’d stop bothering me conventionally indirect suggestory formula how about cleaning up? query preparatory could you clear up the kitchen, please? non-conventionally indirect strong hint you’ve left this kitchen in a right mess mild hint i’m a nun (in response to the persistent boy) özcan, e. n. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 89 since this joint project gave rise to a growing body of studies adopting this classification while analyzing data, the present study will use this classification while discussing the findings obtained from efl students at the preparatory level to contribute to the findings of previous studies for a better understanding of the issue in different contexts. the current study mainly aims to understand english teachers’ beliefs regarding their teaching of speech act of requests in language classrooms. to present the issue from different perspectives, the data have been collected from both students and teachers. the data regarding students’ realization of requests were collected to have an overview of students’ sociopragmatic and pragma-linguistic abilities while teachers' data aim to constitute the main part of the study by probing teachers' beliefs regarding teaching pragmatics, specifically teaching speech act of requests. however, the relevant literature mainly focuses on students’ realization of requests by adopting cross-cultural analysis whereas very few studies have empirically investigated pragmatic instruction on speech acts of requests until now. deveci and hmida (2017) investigated the use of request strategies of arab students of english and native speakers of english in emails by using a discourse completion task (dct hereafter) and pointed out that the two groups significantly differed in terms of discourse structures, strategy type and modifiers used. in the second step of the study, pragmatic instruction was given to one group of arab students and it was revealed that pragmatic instruction led students to go over their emails again. similarly, danielewicz-betz (2013) pointed out the effectiveness of formal instruction in email writing in academic contexts, as academic emails generally include requests, by highlighting the teachability of e-mail pragmatics. furthermore, martinez-flor’s (2012) study indicated that pragmatic instruction on requests could sustain its positive effects even over four months as the result of three distributed tests throughout the study. another study administering pre-test and post-test design belongs to masouleh et al. (2014). the study aimed to improve students' awareness of the use of speech act of requests by using role-plays, discussions, and group tasks. the tasks and materials were pragmatically oriented. dct was used to measure the effectiveness of the pragmatic instruction, and it was revealed that the experimental group significantly differed from the control group. therefore, the aforementioned studies imply the effectiveness of pragmatic instruction on requests, which should be taken into consideration in language classrooms since requesting is a type of speech act that is frequently used in the daily, professional and academic life of learners. unfortunately, pragmatic instruction is often blurred in language classrooms. the vague nature of pragmatic instruction in language classrooms brings about contextual and empirical gaps in the literature. even though requests strategies used by turkish efl learners have been investigated so far (see burgucu-tazegül et al., 2016; güneş & ortaçtepe, 2019; kılıçkaya, 2010), no research has aimed to investigate turkish efl teachers’ beliefs regarding teaching the speech act of request. therefore, the present study aims to fill this empirical and contextual gap by adopting a descriptive case study design and intends to answer the following questions. 1. which request strategy types are used by turkish efl learners at the preparatory level? 2. what are efl instructors' beliefs concerning their students' use of speech act of request and their pragmatic instruction on requests? özcan, e. n. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 90 methodology this study adopts a descriptive case study design that aims to describe which request strategies are used by turkish efl learners studying at the prep school of a state university in given situations varying in rank of imposition, power, and distance, and what turkish efl instructors believe regarding students’ use of requests and their pragmatic instruction in language classrooms. based on the aim of the study, the rationale behind adopting a case study design is that the particular context of the study and the phenomenon in question provide clear boundaries and enable the researcher to do an empirical inquiry in depth (yin, 1984). research setting the study takes place at a preparatory department of a state university in one of the metropolitan cities of türkiye. the preparatory school offers students four terms in a year, and each term aims at covering one level specified by cefr (a2, b1, b1+, and b2). the curriculum of the school is shaped by cefr objectives for each level, and a coursebook series aligned with cefr is used at all levels. each level focuses on four skills and all skills are evaluated with assignments and exams online due to covid-19. unlike the first three levels, the b2 level, which is the expected level of participants in this study, is slightly different in that the level instructs students academically and includes more assignments than the other levels. b2 level consists of seven weeks and students take 14 hours of synchronous lessons on microsoft teams and 12 hours of asynchronous lessons on the school’s learning management system (lms). for seven weeks, students are responsible for three core assignments: a graph/chart description report, advantage, and disadvantage essay, and an online debate on a given topic. additionally, six assignments on the school’s lms forum are compulsory, these assignments include three multimodal assignments, which require students to watch videos and answer related questions, four weekly writing assignments, which require students to write a graph description report, a process description writing, an opinion essay, and a discussion essay, and five weekly speaking assignments, which requires them to send voice-records on various subjects. finally, in the end of the course, students have to send a voice record about their reflection on b2 levels and have to take the reading, vocabulary, listening, and speaking exams. participants twenty students and six instructors took part in the present study. convenience sampling was used in the selection of the participants. as this type of sampling is based on the availability of the participants, willingness and motivation in participation are expected (mackey & gass, 2005). at the beginning of the 2020-2021 fall term, students took a placement test administered by the university, and according to the results of the exam, they were placed into a2-level classes. when the data were collected in the spring term of the year, students were studying at b2 level classes. throughout the whole academic year, students received both synchronous and asynchronous language instruction due to the outbreak of covid-19. the instructor-participants (three males and three females) of the study work at the same preparatory department where özcan, e. n. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 91 students’ data were collected. two of the instructors hold a ph.d. degree, one of them in elt and the other is in ell, and others hold a master's degree in elt. instruments the data have been collected by using two different data collection tools to describe the issue in question from different perspectives. the first instrument is a discourse completion task (dct) that was originally used by nugroho (2019). as nugroho (2019) used the original version to collect data from lecturers, the present study used the adapted version of the same dct by nugroho and rekha (2020) who used the dct on efl learners. the instrument includes 12 items employing different situational variables: distance, rank of imposition, and power. since the original study does not display situation-based social variables, except for social power, and the interpretation of situations bases on one’s heritage culture, the researcher proposes the following distribution of the situational variables for the dct in use for turkish efl learners. the labels of the variables were adopted from brown and levinson’s (1987) study on sociological variables in face-threatening acts. the suggested distribution was revised with the help of an expert in elt. table 2. the distribution of the situational variables in the dct situation social power social distance rank of imposition 1 s = h* unacquainted very significant 2 s = h unacquainted somewhat significant 3 s < h well acquainted very significant 4 s > h unacquainted not significant 5 s = h unacquainted somewhat significant 6 s = h well acquainted not significant 7 s > h unacquainted not significant 8 s < h somewhat acquainted somewhat significant 9 s = h somewhat acquainted somewhat significant 10 s < h somewhat acquainted very significant 11 s = h / s > h unacquainted not significant 12 s = h somewhat acquainted very significant *s = h refers to the equal social power between the speaker and the hearer. as the second data collection tool, semi-structured interviews were held with instructorparticipants, and the interviews were conducted in the instructors’ first language, turkish so that more comprehensive data can be collected. the following questions were used as prompts to collect data: 1. have you received any in-service and pre-service training on teaching pragmatics before? 2. do you believe that teaching “making requests” is an important subject in your language course? why? 3. how do you teach “making requests” in your language classrooms? 4. do you believe that your students use appropriate requests in english? have you observed anything during the lesson, in their emails, or assignments? özcan, e. n. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 92 procedure in the first phase of the data collection, the dct questionnaire (see appendix) was created by using an online form and sent to the students through microsoft teams. participation was voluntary, and students were not asked to fill in their names on the form. students were given a week to complete the questionnaire, and twenty students completed the questionnaire within a week. after the analysis of student data, the interview questions were formulated. as the researcher believed that semi-structured would benefit the nature of this descriptive study, the first set of questions was prepared by considering students' dtc findings. during the interviews, related questions about instructors' beliefs regarding the teaching speech act of request emerged. the interviews with each instructor took between 20-30 minutes. data analysis the data that was collected through dct on the speech act of request were exported to an excel file, and students’ responses in given situations were analyzed according to blum-kulka and olshtain’s (1984) classification of request strategies. deductive coding was applied to the raw data. request strategies were coded, and accordingly directness of strategies was revealed. after the coding, the qualitative data coming from dct were quantified to display frequencies and percentages. the interview data were also stored in an excel file after being transcribed non-verbatim. thematic content analysis was conducted according to the steps proposed by anderson (2007); relevant descriptions were highlighted, meaningful units were separated, and put together in piles, and labels were assigned to represent the whole data in each pile. findings efl learners’ realization of speech act of requests the qualitative data quantified from dct have shown that conventionally indirect requests are frequently used by turkish efl learners. the total number of requests can be seen in table 3 below. table 3. turkish efl students’ directness of requests in dct directness of requests frequency (f) percentage (%) conventionally indirect 198 86.8 direct 19 8.3 non-conventionally indirect 11 4.8 regardless of the situation varying in the rank of imposition, power, and distance, learners use "could, can, would you mind, do you mind if..." structures while making requests. conventionally indirect requests are followed by direct requests and non-conventionally indirect requests. however, they constitute a small part of the percentage. apart from examining the directness of requests, directness strategies have been investigated. table 4 below displays the number of strategies that were used in each situation. table 4. turkish efl students’ use of directness strategies in dct özcan, e. n. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 93 direct conventionally indirect non-conventionally indirect mood derivable explicit performative query preparatory strong hint mild hint situation 1 1 2 16 1 situation 2 1 18 1 situation 3 5 4 7 2 1 situation 4 18 1 situation 5 1 19 situation 6 3 1 16 1 situation 7 20 situation 8 20 situation 9 1 17 situation 10 1 9 2 situation 11 19 situation 12 19 as understood by the table, query preparatory (reference to preparatory conditions) strategies were preferred by the learners in all situations. when direct strategies were used, only mood derivable and explicit performative strategies were preferred. for non-conventionally indirect strategies, strong hints were written more than mild hints. finally, situation 1 and situation 6 seem to slightly differ from others in terms of the strategy use. when situational variables are examined for this difference, both of the situations require efl learners to make requests to well-acquainted people. therefore, it is assumed that the different results from social distance. additionally, the length of learners’ responses was analysed. situations 1, 3, 10, and 12 elicited longer sentences from learners to make requests. even though these situations vary in power and social distance, the common point seems to be the large rank of imposition. in four of these situations, learners' requests are either significant or difficult such as asking the neighbour to lend a car or asking permission from the teacher to attend a family wedding. however, it is important to note that the rank of imposition can be culture-specific. while reporting the findings, turkish efl learners' cultural background is taken into account, and the findings should be evaluated in this regard. efl teachers’ beliefs about teaching speech act of requests the interview data show that all instructors recognized the importance of teaching speech act of requests by asserting that the speech act is used in everyday life very frequently, and also a lot of contexts in real life require students to make requests such as talking with teachers at school, professional life, asking for help, talking to strangers, etc. therefore, instructors believe that the speech act of request should receive attention in efl classrooms. however, when instructors were asked whether they had received any in-service or pre-service training in teaching pragmatics. only one instructor who is a ph.d. candidate stated that they took a related course in the past while other instructors stated to have no previous training in teaching pragmatics except for the linguistics courses they had as an undergraduate or graduate student. for teaching speech acts of requests, each instructor seems to have a different teaching approach. some of the instructors mentioned the easiness of integrating them into lessons: “i don’t believe that i should give an extra effort to teach speech acts of requests. i model the structures in my speech, and i think this is the best way to teach them” (instructor 1), or “not özcan, e. n. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 94 specific to teaching requests, for teaching any speech acts i use videos and show how people use them in real life. the internet has everything now and the best thing about these videos is that they model real life. this is what our students need" (instructor 4). other instructors mentioned certain techniques that they made use of in their classrooms: “i think the best activity to teach any speech acts is to make students do role-playing. i always do it and i believe it works. if we do not push students to practice their knowledge of pragmatics, how can we expect them to use them in real life? sorry, but we can’t” (instructor 2), or “i used to work at a language course, and i was teaching esp there. students were memorizing pragmatic features of language and then doing dialog completions with what they memorized, surprising but this worked there. maybe because they needed to use them at work. but here, it is difficult because students do not use them in real life, they just see and use the language during the lessons” (instructor 3). finally, some of the instructors talked about their explicit instruction on speech acts of requests, “i give my students a table indicating the formality of requests, for example, when you request something from your friend, you can use “can”, but asking something from your teacher, you can use do you mind...? may...?” (instructor 5), and "i talked about formality often when i teach speech acts of requests. when there is a dialog, i explain why speakers use certain structures, but i don't use any other materials but for the coursebook. i know that roleplays can be effective, but based on my experiences, our students do not like role-playing, and it makes sense because they reckon it is fake” (instructor 6). in sum, while some of the instructors encourage students to practice speech act of requests, others prefer making the meaning and use salient by explaining to students. of six instructors, only one instructor believes that no extra time is needed to teach such functions of language since they are already included in lessons and students can learn them subconsciously. as well as their practices, teachers stated some challenges of teaching requests and pragmatics in general. they asserted that their main challenges in teaching speech act of requests are time constraints, absence of opportunities to use language, and lack of knowledge and assessment. the following quotations exemplify these challenges, “i know that most of my colleagues do not like teaching pragmatics. i was the coordinator at my department and the feedback forms about the coursebook revealed that instructors wanted us to take out those parts of the coursebooks. that's why, i think that instructors trouble teaching pragmatics" (instructor 1), "even if we teach them, i don't think we test them. students do not like studying things that are not involved in the assessment. also, there are many ways to request something, but all we hear is "teacher, can i...?", because they use only that structure during the lessons. they should be exposed to authentic language to use them more" (instructor 2), and “i guess we don’t have enough time to teach such aspects of language specifically. the syllabus is dense and full of assignments” (instructor 3). finally, when instructors were asked their beliefs about students' realization of speech act, two of the instructors stated that their students could use them appropriately most of the time while others stated the opposite. additionally, one of the instructors mentioned requests in written genres: “they can’t use them appropriately. for example, e-mail writing is generally problematic. we teach them how to write an e-mail in one of the units, but i think we should provide instruction more” (instructor 1). another instructor believed that students’ inappropriate use of speech acts might be resulting from teachers’ instruction: "now i am özcan, e. n. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 95 thinking that maybe we as teachers do not know exactly how to use them appropriately because no one of us is a native speaker" (instructor 2). therefore, it can be concluded that most of the instructors attributed students’ inappropriate use of requests to instruction-related factors and they admitted that students need more instruction about speech acts and pragmatics in efl classrooms. discussion the findings have suggested that even though they have a high level of proficiency, students' realization of the speech act of requests in dct does not show variations in terms of directness and directness strategies. the most frequently used conventionally direct (query preparatory) strategy also does not show any diversity in terms of pragma-linguistic use. efl learners overuse “can...?” and “could...?” while making requests in situationally different contexts. "would you mind...?”, “do you mind if...?” and “may i” were written in dct, however, they were not used as much as the former requests. unlike güneş and ortaçtepe’s (2019) study, our findings show more diversity, however, the expected quantity is insufficient. concerning the reasons behind students’ preferences of certain realization of speech acts of request, instructors’ beliefs can explain students’ data. seeing that pragmatics does not receive much attention and instructors stated to teach formality of requests most of the time, the findings are expected. it is, therefore, seen that efl learners are relatively better at understanding the situational variable of social power. yet still, the same issue seems problematic while the rank of imposition and social distance are examined. therefore, regardless of situational variables, learners perform the same pragma-linguistic structures. taguchi (2011) claims that there is a relationship between pragmatic development and students’ social experiences. for this reason, based on the interviews and dct data, the current study might suggest that students’ non-diverse use might result from pragmatic instruction in efl classrooms. the findings have also proposed that some situations received longer responses by turkish efl learners. when situations are examined in terms of situational variables, these situations seem to hold a high rank of imposition. brown and levinson (1987) state that requests are likely to threaten the face of hearers; therefore, speakers can use semantic mitigations and explanatory sentences. even though students’ data were not examined in terms of politeness strategies, students’ use of apologies, hedges, and extra explanations, being mostly indirect can suggest that negative politeness strategies were adopted by efl learners while making requests for challenging situations. leech (1983) supports this finding by claiming that indirect strategies give the hearers a choice for rejection. additionally, the role of the heritage culture can be the reason for longer responses. as stated by blum-kulka and olshtain (1984), cultures determine the use of request strategies; while some people request more directly, others express a request less directly. in turkish culture, people tend to be polite in communication especially when they communicate with people having higher social distance. in the literature, similar studies share the same results claiming the effects of culture on request strategies (see fukushima, 1996; nugroho & rekha, 2020; le pair, 1996). with the beginning of the communicative era in elt, one of the main goals of teachers is to equip learners with communicative competence. as an aspect of communicative competence, pragmatic competence is of the greatest importance. however, ortaçtepe (2012) özcan, e. n. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 96 states that efl learners have difficulties in acquiring pragmatic competence due to a lack of linguistic and cultural knowledge. therefore, as well as collecting data from students, instructors' beliefs about teaching speech act of requests have been investigated to be able to make challenges in an efl context. instructors’ interviews help the researcher explain learners’ overuse of certain pragma-linguistic uses and discover their beliefs about their practices of teaching requests. rose (1997) claimed that even though the importance of teaching pragmatics has been recognized, salient theories about the issue are scarce and non-native teachers do not have the advantages that native teachers have in this regard. the result of this present study suggests that instructors lack training in teaching pragmatics, and it might be the source of challenges. according to rose (1997), teacher education programs should raise teachers' awareness of pragmatics in general. regarding speech acts, it is one of the core issues in pragmatics. therefore, a teacher education program should make trainees analyse the speech act in their first language by using the ccsarp coding themes of blum-kulka and olshtain (1984) and when they are familiar with the theory, materials involving authentic language use can be offered for the second analysis. today, thanks to technology, the authentic materials that involve authentic language use are ample. such an analysis cycle can be adapted for any issues in teaching pragmatics to raise the awareness of teachers. additionally, teaching pragmatics should be an obligatory course in elt curricula. by sparing more time and effort to the issue in both pre-service and in-service teacher training programs, the quality of pragmatic instruction can be promoted, and most of the challenges can be handled because the lack of theoretical knowledge seems to be the source of practical challenges. it is believed that the awareness of practitioners can help them go over the way they approach the teaching materials, approaches, techniques, assessment, and curricula. as it is seen, another issue about teaching speech acts of requests is that practitioners do not allocate time for teaching speech acts or pragmatics explicitly. there might be two reasons; practitioners might believe that explicit instruction does not work for pragmatics or they might have never received a pragmatic instruction, and so they do not feel the necessity of it. today, we know that how non-native teachers learn a language constitutes their belief of how language can be learned. therefore, reflective practices and action research are highly suggested in this regard. to highlight, the role of explicit teaching in pragmatics, the related literature suggests a myriad of research that proposes the superiority of explicit pragmatic instruction to implicit instruction (see eslami-rasekh et al., 2004; ghaedrahmat et al., 2016; taguchi et al., 2015) and chalak and abbasi (2015) conclude that combination of both can contribute to efl students’ language learning. finally, as in teacher education programs, consciousness-raising, noticing, and observation tasks for learning pragmatics have been found effective for students (kasper, 1997) and such tasks do not improve students' knowledge, but also can improve students' performance with the help of formal instruction (ishihara, 2011). conclusions the findings of the study have shown that efl learners have a certain degree of pragmalinguistic use while making requests in situations that differ in terms of social power, distance, and rank of imposition. “can” and “could” are frequently used by the learners while “may”, “do you mind if”, and “would” you mind are rarely preferred. based on the frequency of the özcan, e. n. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 97 use of these structures, the study suggests that turkish efl learners mostly use conventionally direct strategies while making requests. whereas they can recognize the formality aspects of requests in relation to social power, social distance, and rank of imposition seem to make no difference for learners. therefore, we can conclude that turkish efl learners' use of requests does not show diversity in terms of socio-pragmatics and pragma-linguistics. besides, the findings obtained from efl instructors support the students' data to a great extent. although instructors recognized the importance of teaching speech acts of requests and their students' appropriate use of requests, they stated that they did not receive training about teaching pragmatics or speech acts in the classroom by adding that they know no more than pragmatics in linguistics. following challenges seem to concern a lack of theoretical and practical knowledge of pragmatic instruction. for example, instructors mentioned time constraints, assessment issues, and exposing students to authentic language use. however, with a certain level of awareness, the challenges can be solvable, and opportunities can be created with the help of the internet for offering students authentic input, even if it would not be the same case for esl learners. finally, about students' overuse of conventionally direct strategies, two reasons might concern the issue. firstly, some of the teachers stated that while they are teaching requests, they generally show students' a table of formality to make the input more concrete. secondly, efl students' heritage culture can have an impact on choosing such strategies. indeed, this research is not without limitations. as this study aimed to describe a particular context for a specific research topic, the case study design was adapted and data from both students and instructors were collected. future research can conduct an in-depth analysis of instructors’ beliefs about teaching speech act of requests in efl classrooms. moreover, future research can also adopt more instruments while collecting data about students’ realization of the speech act of request such as role-play activities as well as dct. this study fell short in this regard because of the covid-19 pandemic. last but not least, this research implies that efl teachers need more training in in-service and pre-service teacher education programs about pragmatic instruction, and more lesson hours should be allocated to teaching pragmatics in language programs for learners, seeing that efl learners have difficulties in making diverse requests. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references anderson, r. 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(1996). pragmatics. oxford university press. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ özcan, e. n. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 100 appendix speech acts of requests: discourse completion task (dct) questionnaire s1 you are working on a homework which should be submitted tomorrow. it’s about 9 p.m. a new neighbor about your age whom you do not already know is playing music very loudly. so you are disturbed because you cannot concentrate on your homework. you want him to turn down the volume of his music. what will you say? …………………………….…………………………….…………………………….………………. s2 when you are reading a book at library, you suddenly realize that you forget to bring a pen. you need it to write some notes. sitting next to you, a person about your age whom you do not already know. you want to borrow a pen from him. what will you say to borrow a pen from him? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… s3 you are very interested in joining a competition held by an overseas university, but you guess that your parents do not permit you to go. however, you want to try to ask your parents’ permission to allow you join the competition. what will you say to your parents to grant you permission? …………………………….…………………………….…………………………….……………… s4 you are in a mall to have a shopping. while walking along the dress showroom, you find a lot of nice t shirts with marked “30% discount”. you want to buy one, but you get difficulty in finding the suitable size. a young (younger than you) shop assistant is approaching you. it is a good chance for you to ask the assistant to find the one that is suitable for you. what will you say to ask the shop assistant to do this favor? ………………………………………….…………………………….……………………………….. s5 a friend of yours from out of town is visiting you. you are showing your friend around the campus and both of you would like to take a photo together to keep memory of this happy moment. so you want to ask nearby student whom you do not already know to do this favor. what will you say to get this student to take your picture? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… s6 when you are joining a class, you realize that you have left your textbook at home. your close friend sitting next to you has the textbook. you want your friend to share his textbook with you. what will you say to him? …………………………….……………………………………………………………………........... s7 you are having dinner at a restaurant. you want a waiter to give some more water. what will you say to the waiter? …………………………….…………………………….…………………………………………….. s8 1. you are wandering around the city, and you are lost. you see a man, whom you recognize that he is your father’s friend, so you think you will ask him for the directions. what will you say to him to ask for direction? …………………………….…………………………….…………………………………………….. s9 2. you are preparing an upcoming final project and finding that one part of the project is really difficult for you. a fellow friend seems to understand the part much better than you. so you need to ask him to help you. what will you say to get your friend to help you? ……………………………………………………... s10 3. you find that the schedule of your class is the same day with your brother’s wedding. you prefer to attend the wedding which is an unforgettable moment of your family. thus, you want to ask permission to your lecturer to not to come to the class. what will you say to your lecturer? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… s11 you just arrive in a big city in which you do not recognize the place well. you want to see a person whose address in the city written on a name card with you. accidentally, you see a teenager walking on the path then you want to ask the teenager to tell you how get to the place. what will you say to ask the teenager to give you direction? ………………………………………………….…………………………….……………………….. s12 you want to visit your cousin who has been in the hospital for a while. you plan to borrow your neighbor car to go to the hospital because your car has been repaired. what will you say to your neighbor to lend his car? …………………………….…………………………….…………………………….………………. focus on elt journal special issue, 4(1), 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: vgokce@metu.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. the impact of teacher e-feedback on students’ writing: a waste of time or a road to success? gökçe erkan instructor, middle east technical university, turkey, vgokce@metu.edu.tr apa citation: erkan, g. (2022). the impact of teacher e-feedback on students’ writing: a waste of time or a road to success? focus on elt journal, 4(1), 46-59. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.4 abstract academic writing is one of the writing skills that has been taught traditionally via face-to-face physical classroom settings. however, with the new advances in educational technologies, online teaching and learning have entered the realms of educational institutions and they are not nowadays considered a foreign aspect. especially in the last two years of great home-confinements due to the covid-19 pandemic, teaching and learning in the online world have turned into an inescapable solution. the implementation of online teaching and learning has brought the teachers to a new avenue of teaching writing especially in the aspect of giving feedback to students’ writing. the purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of electronic feedback (e-feedback) provided by instructors on their students’ writing in an english for academic purposes (eap) class. the learning management system (lms) was used by the students to submit their writings, and the instructors provided online feedback using the system. the results mainly show that the students benefited from receiving different forms of feedback using the system and the instructors found freedom to provide as much feedback as provided for different purposes. the results of this study indicate that e-feedback practices should be implemented more in language classes and teachers must receive training to improve their knowledge and skills in the practice to be able to use different feedback tools and resources to achieve different ends on their students. keywords teacher e-feedback, corrective feedback, audio feedback, oral discussions article history received : 03.11.2021 revised : 17.01.2022 accepted : 11.02.2022 published : 04.04.2022 type research article introduction due to the increasing popularity of english, many tertiary level institutions have chosen english as the medium of instruction to prepare their graduates better for life after graduation. the students in these universities study english for academic purposes (eap) to improve their language skills to be able to survive in their academic life. among all the language skills, writing as a productive skill is crucial for a university student to develop appropriate writing skills to gain academic success; therefore, eap teachers try to find ways to equip students with appropriate writing abilities. despite its being time-consuming and requiring a lot of effort, feedback is still one of the most fundamental aspects of any writing classroom for any writing teacher. with the new technologies integrated into the fields of language teaching and learning, the way mailto:vgokce@metu.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.4 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4248-9257 erkan, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 47 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com teachers can give feedback has changed. this study is research conducted in an englishmedium university during the covid-19 pandemic when all the educational institutions have been confined, and all teaching and learning have had to be switched to the online mode. in the university, all undergraduate students take eap courses to help them about language use in their departmental studies. in the first freshman course, the students basically deal with all language skills with a basic focus on academic reading. the second eap course, in which the research was conducted, the aim is at writing. during the course, while the students are asked to produce written materials based on the teachers’ instruction, the instructors are highly involved in providing constructive feedback for developmental purposes. teacher feedback was always carried out through face-to-face but with the pandemic, it has been carried onto the online world as well. in the research, teachers’ e-feedback practices have been analyzed to search for the perceptions of both the students and the teachers regarding e-feedback in small-scale research. the study employed a mixed-method approach, and the data were collected through both quantitative and qualitative data collection tools recruiting teachers and students. the results shed light on how e-feedback should be used in language classes and what the institutions should be able to equip their instructors with the required skills to help them implement these tools in their classes. feedback in the english language writing classes traditional way of providing feedback traditionally, writing was considered as a controlled mechanical activity following a product approach. the students were given a limited amount of time to complete a piece of writing within predetermined word limits. however, using this approach, the students did not have a chance to see their weaknesses and work on immediate improvements. however, over the years, writing has started to be regarded as a recursive and complex activity requiring care and effort both on the part of the student and the teacher. therefore, teachers have given importance to providing feedback and begun to follow a process approach through which they have the chance to interfere with students’ writing and guide them with their feedback to make them better writers. gagné (1985) and gagné et al. (1992) perceive the importance of feedback for one’s learning and define feedback as an “external learning condition” to improve the effectiveness of learning. such teacher interferences have been frequently valued and students have become familiar to make better use of teacher feedback. giving written feedback to student writing has been a common practice for many years and many studies have already been conducted to search for the effectiveness of teacher feedback (alexeeva, 2012; atieya, 2012; cohen & cavalcanti, 1990; hedgcock & lefkowitz, 1994; lee, 2008; long, 1992; zacharias, 2007). while there have been studies that point to the usefulness of corrective feedback to improve the language level of the papers (fathman & whalley, 1990; ferris, 1995, 1997; lalende, 1982), there have also been others which have been carried out about when, how and by whom the feedback should be provided (enginarlar, 1993; ferris, 2002; lalende, 1982; zamel, 1985). instructors have tried to be guiding the students with their ways of giving feedback. they have sometimes written a lot erkan, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 48 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com of comments and used error-codes to facilitate the students in their revisions. however, while teachers may have spent time and effort identifying student errors using codes, they may have been overestimating their students’ capacity to interpret marking codes. lee (1997) interprets one of these difficulties as teachers’ “using a wider range of metalinguistic terms than students could understand”, which may have confused students more in the short term and impeded their learning in the long run (p. 471). the research in the area of providing teacher feedback has been invaluable and contributed a lot to the area of language writing, but unfortunately, there is no clear consensus about whose feedback or what type of feedback is better. one subtle result of many studies is that feedback is valued by both instructors and students (leki, 1991). an analysis of how teachers’ and students’ perception of feedback differs or resembles may be useful for both teachers and students to understand each other better, which may lead to more fruitful writing sessions for both parties involved. hamp-lyons (2001) advices having a group of teachers who can envision the whole educational context and base their decisions and preferences based on the students’ needs and preferences so that the feedback will mean more for the teachers and will be more constructive for the students. şeker and dinçer (2014) in their study also revealed that “there should be a dynamic interaction between the teacher and learners to communicate the needs and the expectations of both parties” (p. 74). once instructors are clear about what their students expect from them in terms of written feedback, they may adjust their instruction and can have more effective commenting practices, which may lead to more effective learning on part of the learners. with this purpose in mind, a study was conducted in all the academic writing classes in the english-medium university where the present study was also carried out (vanlı, 2012). the study still followed a pen-and-paper type of assignment submission following the process approach to writing. when asked at the end of the study in 2012, both students and teachers shared their views regarding teacher feedback. some of the main results of the study were as follows:  both instructors and students accept that teachers play a key role in improving a student’s writing ability.  the students value teacher feedback.  the students would like their mistakes to be explained by their instructors.  the students wanted their written feedback to be accompanied by oral feedback. the results of vanlı’s study had personal development benefits for individual instructors but basically contributed to the whole department for teacher professional development purposes. no matter how beneficial the results might have seemed though, it might have been hard for instructors to realize some results such as providing oral feedback together with written feedback due to high number of students and tight schedules. erkan, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 49 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com contemporary ways of giving feedback the practice of giving feedback is not a new concept and is still used a lot in language teaching but only the ways of providing feedback have changed with the advances in technology. feedback is structurally grounded on vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory. in his theory, vygotsky views feedback critical and labels it as ‘scaffolding’ for students. in the sociocultural theory, instructional scaffolding provides the ground for expert-novice interaction. the student and the teacher are constantly negotiating meaning through exchanging information. with the teacher’s guidance, the learners can recognize several issues and their errors in their writings. aljaafreh and lantolf (1994) report scaffolding to be offered when needed and removed immediately when the student can perform the task. therefore, the instructor is there to help as a facilitator, but this support is withdrawn when the need for that lessens or disappears. many recent studies conducted by abuseileek and abualsha’r (2014), ene and upton (2014), henderson, ryan and phillips (2019), lunt & curran (2010), chang et al. (2017) have all emphasized the need for e-feedback due to its effectiveness in all schools at different levels. although the e-feedback was uttered as a possibility in these studies, the covid-19 pandemic led to this new form of feedback as a necessity or a must in the last two years. providing e-feedback on student tasks via various electronic devices has particularly become popular among language institutions in universities as well (ene & upton, 2014; hyland & hyland, 2006; saeed & al qunayeer, 2020). while e-feedback could be used in the form of corrective feedback using computer-mediated tools, various technological tools could be used to provide technology-supported feedback. in a study conducted by ab hamid and romly (2020), teachers’ perceptions towards teaching writing online and giving feedback to online writing assignments have been investigated. it was found out that online learning saves time and provides more freedom. as the setting was not limited to the classroom, the students used other options such as email, social media or online conferencing to interactively communicate with their instructors. in another study carried out by abusa’aleek and shariq (2021), instructors also expressed positive impressions on providing e-feedback through interactive modes. they mostly mentioned that the integration of technology in the education system had broadened the way instructors provide e-feedback to their students. a wide range of new ways of developing and providing language learners with efeedback are available and with the use of these tools often, several studies have been conducted to learn about the effectiveness of them. google-docs was suggested to serve as an effective channel for instructor-learner and learner-learner interactions (alharbi, 2019; neumann & kopcha, 2019; saeed & al qunayeer, 2020). some other programs have also been studied recently. blackboard lms by ai (2017) and basabrin (2019); wiki and facebook by demirbilek (2015); blogs by arslan (2013), dippold (2009) and yakut and aydın (2015); whatsapp by susanti and tarmuji (2016); track changes by abuseileek and abualsha’r (2014) mainly reported positive results. in general, e-feedback has been found to be more time-efficient and promoting quality (henderson & phillips, 2015). erkan, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 50 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com using such various platforms, instructors are not only limited to their handwriting or track changes in their feedback. audio feedback has been proven to be commonly favored by both instructors and students as it is more detailed, supportive and personalized compared to written feedback. via recording audio, instructors could deliver e-feedback to their students’ tasks on global issues rather than local concerns “since the audio mode explains macro-level issues more freely compared with written comments” (cavanaugh & song, 2014, p. 127). methodology this study presents the findings of a semester-long investigation of five teachers’ e-feedback on the written assignments of a group of undergraduates and the responses of these students on their teachers’ feedback. the study aimed at following the research questions: 1. what are the teachers’ perceptions regarding teacher e-feedback? 2. what are the students’ perceptions regarding teacher e-feedback? 3. what were the challenges students experienced regarding teacher e-feedback? the study was conducted with a mixed-method design which followed a sequential chronological framework according to creswell's (2013) types of mixed-method research. the quantitative data were collected through a self-developed survey with mostly likert type questions from the students. the survey questions were discussed with two other instructors offering the same course, and the questions were tailored according to some feedback. the survey included 10 likert type items. the last item in the questionnaire was an open-ended response type asking students to provide detailed explanations regarding teacher e-feedback. the questionnaire was administered anonymously and all the participants were ensured that the results would be used for research purposes only and the participation to fill in the questionnaire was voluntary for this purpose. the participants were also informed that the results would be shared if the participants would like to know about the details. to learn about teachers’ perceptions of providing e-feedback, semi-structured interviews were held with five instructors of the writing course. the interviews were recorded upon consent of the instructors and transcribed. the data were thematically-coded by using miles and huberman’s (1994) technique. the researcher asked the help of another instructor who was involved with the focus of the study when there were doubts about which code the content fell under. data collection the department of modern languages (dml) teach eap courses to undergraduate students who successfully pass the proficiency exam. in the semester, the department offers eap courses to the students and in the writing components of the courses follows a process approach to writing. all the instructors in the department ask the students to write their drafts in class after some lead-in activities. the instructors read the student papers and give feedback on the first drafts. students receive their drafts back and revise their drafts by erkan, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 51 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com responding to teacher feedback. when the next draft is revised and it is finalized, students submit their final drafts online. instructors check revisions and grade the second drafts. the participants of the survey were students in 6 different classes whose instructors resorted to the lms of the university to accept student submissions and give feedback on the system. the course where this study was administered was offered by 40 instructors. the teachers had different methods for giving feedback for the essays. for this study, only the instructors and their students who used the lms were purposefully approached as participants for standardization. these instructors followed the same pattern, both verbal and aural feedback, while giving feedback. the other instructors who used mailing, social media platforms or only video-conferencing were excluded as they chose only written feedback. the quantitative data were collected from the online survey prepared on google forms and was administered in the spring semester of 2019-2020 academic year in 6 classes to around 160 students in the dml. the questionnaire was on a voluntary basis so the exact number of questionnaires filled in was 96. the students were from 45 different departments enrolled in the same classes. the last item in the questionnaire was an open-ended question providing details about the e-feedback process. this last item provided the qualitative data part from the students. the qualitative data were gathered from the five instructors of the writing classes that the survey was administered in. all the instructors had more than 15 years of teaching experience and had made use of e-feedback of the lms rigorously in their classes. analysis the self-developed survey was composed of 10 likert type questions asking the students’ perceptions of teacher e-feedback and one open-ended item to give participants the floor to express their feelings, if they have any, regarding the same practice. the questionnaire items were prepared by the researcher, and then feedback was received from two instructors offering the course. some of the questions were refined based on the instructors’ views. the final version of the questionnaire was administered to the participants on google forms. students also provided responses at the end of the survey as an explanation for the 1 openended item about teacher e-feedback. at the end of the semester, the five instructors of the writing classes who all used the turnitin and the lms of the university while giving feedback were engaged in semistructured interviews with the researcher. the interviewer recorded the interviews which were all held on video conferencing tools. below are the semi-structured interview questions that helped gather more in-depth data: ● what tools did you use for providing e-feedback for the students’ pieces of writing? ● what did you find to be effective about giving e-feedback? ● what did you find to be challenging about giving e-feedback? ● what do you think would have worked better? erkan, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 52 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com as the students were considered proficient in the course based on their proficiency exam grades and as they conducted all the interactions in the course in english, all interviews were held in english. the interviews were transcribed and analyzed through coding by using thematic analysis using miles and huberman’s (1994) technique. some of the themes that emerged out of transcriptions included teacher e-feedback to be effective and guiding, timeconsuming but never waste of time. results descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data collected by the survey, and the data obtained from the survey can be seen in table 1 in the form of mean scores and standard deviations. table 1. survey questions on teacher e-feedback likert-type items m sd mode 1. i received useful corrections from my teacher via grammar check. 3.5 1.3 4 2. i found teacher audio feedback useful. 4.1 1.4 4 3. i had difficulty in understanding teacher audio feedback. 3.8 1.4 4 4. i found written teacher feedback useful. 4.1 1.6 4 5. i had difficulty in understanding written teacher feedback. 3.6 1.7 4 6. we had online meetings with my teacher on my paper. 3.8 1.6 4 7. i found online meetings useful before revising my draft. 4.1 1.2 4 8. i felt lost while revising my draft. 3.1 1.6 3 9. i felt demotivated when i checked all my feedback. 3.2 1.7 3 10. i would prefer face-to-face feedback from my teacher. 3.6 1.5 3 in the survey administered, most of the students had positive comments regarding teacher efeedback. for all the responses regarding teacher corrections or comments, the students showed positive criticisms. according to the descriptive analysis of the statistical data, 56% of the students perceived receiving corrective feedback to be positive while 18.7% found it to be neutral. regarding aural feedback, the students were satisfied with the feedback (62.7%), but they stated having difficulty in understanding teacher commentary (59.7%). similarly, for written e-feedback, the students replied that they found it to be useful (62.3%), making sense of the comment seemed a bit problematic (54.6%). this result was also supported by the students’ comments written for the open-ended item where they mainly stated that written feedback helped, but there had been times when the teacher’s written comment sometimes sounded confusing or hard to understand. when students could not figure out how to deal with the feedback, they reported sending an email asking for clarification. the teacher sometimes invited the student(s) to an online meeting for providing more explanations or more detailed feedback. while the majority of the responses in the open-ended item confirmed the students’ expressions in table 1, some students used very remarkable phrases, which highlight some important points about online meetings (all student comments are included as written by the students without any change). erkan, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 53 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com participant 5 said, “i had lots of misunderstandings because i did not understand all comments but when i asked for an online meeting, the teacher explained everything. i felt comfortable then”. participant 11 also stated, “online meetings helped like face-to-face meetings. i will not be able to correct some mistakes without my teacher’s comments.” based on students’ feedback, it can be concluded that students basically feel comfortable if they are given a chance for an online meeting. in the interviews, they usually stated valueing genuine conversations and they would like to be involved in interactive moments where they can ask questions and expect some clarifications. even when listening to teacher commentary on audio recording, students feel relaxed for hearing their instructor talking to them. participant 8 said, “audio feedback was great to hear the teacher as if talking to you”. participant 11 added, “i felt comfortable in audio feedback as i was not facing the teacher. in front of the teacher, i feel bad”. students generally see audio feedback to be more detailed instruction and commentary, which makes it relatively easy for students to understand. written teacher feedback may lead to miscommunications or lack of communication. however, including audio comments together with written comments enabled students to make more sense and just one voice comment may be more enlightening sometimes due to its explanatory nature. as time is also limited both for students and teachers, audio feedback created the dialogic conversation between the teacher and the students in a virtual world, which made the real interaction with the instructor less necessary. in the interviews with the teachers, it was found out that the instructors were basically satisfied with the feedback they have provided and they felt convinced in having to spend so much time for their students when they appreciate the value the teacher put into their writings. teacher 1 reported, “some students really carefully care about what you have written or said and would like to learn about the details or what they can do while revising. such a moment is rewarding for a language teacher.” teacher 4 also emphasized, “their saying, ‘teacher, you wrote more than me’ is precious when you can tell that they want to respond to all the feedback”. the instructors also perceive the lms as a system used with various different formats for providing feedback. such a platform enables the teachers to make use of controlled corrective grammar checks, written, and audio feedback options. teachers may also use online meetings on top of all these types of feedback when such a need is found to be necessary. teacher 3 said, “e-feedback provides the freedom to make use of a variety of resources available on the lms” while teacher 2 mentioned, “i try to adjust my feedback based on my students’ needs and weaknesses.” however, together with common advantages of e-feedback, some challenges have also been stated. one of the complaints that was repeated frequently in the interviews was the low internet bandwidth and the problems associated with it. instructors also mentioned internet connection as impeding students’ understanding. as face-to-face interaction is limited, students have difficulty when they cannot get the message sent by the teacher. some participants in the study also mentioned not being able to follow and act according to the teacher feedback due to lack of internet connections. participant 23 said, “especially when the feedback was audio-recorded, it would be hard to get the gist of the message”. erkan, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 54 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com discussion although quite a number of studies have been conducted on teacher feedback, whether feedback on students’ writing is effective remains an important discussion in applied linguistics. feedback has been considered as the central aspect of l2 writing (hyland & hyland, 2006), learners expect to receive as much feedback as possible and teachers feel the need to offer it (bitchener & ferris, 2012; guénette, 2007). with the new advancements in educational technologies, new tools and ways of providing feedback in new settings have evolved. it is possible today that teachers use the electronic world both in synchronous and asynchronous contexts to guide their students in their writings. the provision of feedback via electronic forms is no longer unusual in the language classrooms (elola & oskoz, 2017) as especially asynchronous forms of providing feedback is time-saving and more effective on the part of the teachers. e-feedback has gained more attention in recent years as the institutions have started to place their classes on the platform to follow registrations and gradebooks. with the help of such a system, students have had the opportunity to submit their papers electronically through the lms, which enables teachers to provide feedback using these classrooms. it is always challenging for teachers of writing to mark sheer volumes of papers. when teacher feedback is attached such an educational value, feedback turns out to be of high importance. students especially ask for more prose type of comments rather than simple and short phrase or sentences to draw students’ attention on some issues. an adequate amount of feedback will be giveaways for students helping them to learn and improve on their current competencies. as teachers expect to provide their learners with more than one aspect on their writing, helping students to reflect on task requirements and focus on all aspects of writing will pave the way for task fulfillment. when instructors perceive feedback not as a ‘proofreading’ session but as a ‘teachable moment’, which will help the students learn, learners will be gained with lifelearning skills. when time is limited or when face-to-face class time is a hope, technologybased solutions may enable teacher feedback in a professional way. in such a way, technology-embedded learning experience may turn feedback sessions into interactive teachable moments. while, for example, asynchronous options may be used for track changes on electronic drafts for improving surface level weaknesses, audio recordings may be used to give detailed feedback on content and organization using various social media platforms or learning management systems. there may be other benefits as well. as mentioned by ab hamid and romly (2020), online learning enables teachers to display information faster apart from saving time. being able to access the internet creates teachers with the opportunity to provide feedback at various times and places. teacher 6 mentioned the “time-efficient” and “faster” positivity of the online feedback and approved of online feedback more for reaching the students. in addition, when possible, visual interaction can be done via online conferencing where learners will have the time to ask questions and clarifications. abusa’aleek and shariq (2021) emphasize that feedback must be given in conversational interaction where both the instructor and the student must be actively involved. in such a way, learners will become erkan, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 55 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com active respondents to feedback rather than mere receivers of it. e-feedback or e-conferences lead to these mutual purposes. writing teachers give feedback to the students with the aim to see the students to become independent and critical learners. the internet, for this purpose, provides an effective medium of interaction to higher education students. it increases interactive communication by question/response to be received any time and feedback to be given anytime (ab hamid & romly, 2020). it is now possible to address the students’ request for both audio and written feedback using educational technologies, which has implications for teacher training programs as prospective teachers of english need to be equipped with such skills to cater for the needs of their students better. conclusion in any language classroom, students’ main audience is always the teacher; therefore, the teacher is seen as the main resource for receiving feedback. although there have been a lot of studies on the effect of peer feedback on students, students still would like to see teachers’ comments or hear their teacher’s voice while receiving feedback. teachers have done their best to be able to help their students in the actual classrooms through organizing office hours as face-to-face environment is good for expressing explanations in detail. with the online classes and home-confinements, these physical meetings have had to be postponed. the teachers resorted to online feedback by making use of email, corrective grammar checks, audio files but none of these have been enough to supplement the face-to-face meetings as students look for positive emotional support. while teachers used the tools of lms to provide language related comments, they still tried to hold online meetings for detailed talk. these meetings may have been in the form of groups or individual sessions but it has been mentioned in the open-ended item of the questionnaire that students found online meetings “useful” making them more “self-conscious” about their mistakes. teachers perceive teacher feedback and precious for students as this feedback is tailored to students’ needs and weaknesses. however, though written feedback takes a lot of time to put in the form of a written document, students need to be pushed to engage with this feedback in the best way possible. this encouragement usually comes in verbal exchanges so online meetings or if possible, face-to-face meetings may help the teachers to create a combination of feedback resources to enhance the writing process in the target language. teacher feedback is important to be taken seriously and it is well-integrated in all pre-service teacher training programs; however, e-feedback has also turned out to be a must in the contemporary world. though some teachers have not preferred to learn about electronic tools for providing feedback, it is inevitable in confinement times. therefore, teacher training, both in pre-service and in-service periods, should be integrated as professional development sessions to equip all the teachers with the necessary skills to provide e-feedback. such programs will familiarize teachers with many forms and types of tools to incorporate their feedback and will make the teacher digitally-mediated instructors. this study contributes to existing research by reinforcing the importance of feedback in any language classroom but emphasizes the necessity of e-feedback in language classes. in e-feedback, instructors should raise their awareness regarding the multimodal nature of e erkan, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 56 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com feedback and address both local and global issues equally. global issues are essential rather than local issues but severe local issues cannot be ignored (alharbi, 2019; cavanaugh & song, 2014; saeed & al qunayeer, 2020). in order to tackle with local issues corrective grammar check or some automatic tools can be used or shown to the students to guide them in this help but e-feedback directed to global issues should also be underlined as such feedback will tend to generate more interaction (saeed & al qunayeer, 2020). rather than using directive statements, asking questions or changing the talk into a dialogical interaction by using expressions or praises may require the learners to react to the feedback, which creates teacher-student interaction online. these virtual dialogic exchanges can also be evaluated more if they have a voice, which can occur by using audio recordings. audio feedback is efficient, practical, and more detailed than written feedback (lunt & curran, 2010). by using intonation and giving more details, teachers may find another way out to reach the students in the best way possible. however, the audio could also be enriched by holding face-to-face or online meetings which will help the students interpret and negotiate teacher feedback by creating interaction. when learners can comprehend the intent of teacher-feedback, they can subsequently use it in the right way while revising their writing (carless et al. 2011; guasch et al. 2019). the limitation of this study was that the data were collected at the end of the pandemic period to provide constructive feedback for the following semesters in the department. therefore, the research was carried out in a hectic time period so the data collection and analysis part lacked some procedural issues that need to be carried out. however, to keep objectivity, the instructor received support from the other instructors to get feedback for the questionnaire or to get help for interview data analysis. it is highly advised that if a similar study is to be conducted in the future, the study will be organized in a limited amount of time in a planned way. the data will then provide better results that will benefit for a larger number of institutions. technology can touch all the aspects of life including education. in language classes, there are a lot of different places where technology can be used but in writing classes, the digital world may create a space for teachers and students to interact over e-feedback. therefore, teachers should be made knowledgeable about educational technologies to be used for giving e-feedback and students should be made aware of how to make use of these tools to decipher teacher’s e-feedback. just like teachers, learners may need to be taught to make use of the tools to promote learner interaction via digital contexts and this interaction can promote engagement with feedback and successful revision. by teaching to make use of different feedback tools and resources, students will be the “knowers” of how to achieve different ends. when internet is required, accessing it may pose problems. students regard technical issues, their lack of skills or weak internet connection (alharbi, 2019) as their main hindrances but opting for asynchronous options or combining synchronous and asynchronous tools may also give all users time and place to work on the feedback. being able to make use of various forms of providing feedback may also increase the alternatives against such limitations. adding multimodality will improve teacher/student collaboration leading to making more use for teacher e-feedback. erkan, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 57 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com in order to determine the impact of e-feedback on both learners or teachers, it might be good for such a study to be conducted with a greater number of participants from different universities so that the results could easily be generalized and would have more meaningful results for the language learning field. interviews could be held to gain more insights from the participants. it is also vital that instructors need to be trained for giving effective and constructive feedback in the online environment in order to get valid results in such largescale research. in addition, it would be guiding to study peer e-feedback which can be explored by making use of blogs or forums for interactive forms. for this study, the teachers made use of the lms of the institution and basically the turnitin to incorporate their feedback but other forms of tools, such as googledocs, blackboard and screencasts, can also be integrated to benefit from their positive effects. the covid-19 pandemic illustrated all the world that education can be transformed to an online world if needed desperately. for such times and cases, it has been learnt that all educational institutions should be equipped to be able to move to the virtual world to continue education. however, no matter what educational institutions are ready for may not be enough if the governments do not embrace the online world in their educational policy. it is highly important that the governments should strengthen their infrastructure for internet connections, maintain the already-held equipment and get the new ones ready in case they are needed. in addition, teacher 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(1985). responding to student writing. tesol quarterly, 19, 79-101. https://doi.org/10.2307/3586773 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1016/1060-3743(94)90012-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/1060-3743(94)90012-4 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1982.tb06973.x https://doi.org/10.1016/s0346-251x(97)00045-6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2007.12.001 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.1991.tb00464.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602930902977772 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2019.102524 https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2020.1786711 http://dx.doi.org/10.20431/2347-%203134.0410005 https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v7n2p73 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2015.1006634 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0033688206076157 https://doi.org/10.2307/3586773 focus on elt focus on elt journal special issue, 4(1), 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: hanife.tasdemir@iuc.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. an efl instructor’s study and teach abroad experiences and complementary views from learners ahanife taşdemir and bfatma gümüşok ares. assist. dr., i̇stanbul university cerrahpaşa, turkey, hanife.tasdemir@iuc.edu.tr bassist. prof. dr., bartın university, turkey, fgumusok@bartin.edu.tr apa citation: taşdemir, h., & gümüşok, f. (2022). an efl instructor’s study and teach abroad experiences and complementary views from learners. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 91-104. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.7 abstract the present qualitative case study aimed to explore the influences of an efl instructor’s study and teach abroad experiences on her classroom implementations. it additionally investigated her students’ responses to the reflections of her study and teach abroad in the classroom. the findings revealed that these experiences contributed to the instructor’s both personal development and professional learning and further had impacts on her teaching practices. an in-depth analysis of multiple data tools; a semi-structured, individual interview with the instructor, her journal entries, and an open-ended questionnaire from 43 language learners, informed that study and teach abroad experiences contributed to the instructor’s world knowledge and intellectual growth through her teaching and other academic endeavors at an abroad university. it was also found that the learners appreciated the instructor’s explicitly referring to her international contacts as a means of providing authentic input, enriching the lesson content, fostering engagement in the class, and raising learners’ intercultural awareness. this study suggests developing teacher interculturality via study and teach abroad programs should be encouraged to better address intercultural topics in the language class. the process of preparing intercultural language teachers could be aided by teacher study and/or teach abroad programs. keywords teacher study abroad, teach abroad, teacher interculturality article history received: 19.10.2021 revised: 05.12.2021 accepted: 06.12.2021 published: 04.04.2022 type research article introduction in foreign language instruction, the development of intercultural competence is one of the key goals. in addition to the development of communicative competence which consists of linguistic, discourse, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic dimensions (canale, 1983; canale & swain, 1980), language learners should also have the sociocultural or the intercultural competence (littlewood, 2011). according to byram (1997), intercultural communicative competence consists of attitudes, knowledge, skills of interpreting and relating, skills of mailto:hanife.tasdemir@iuc.edu.tr mailto:hanife.tasdemir@iuc.edu.tr mailto:fgumusok@bartin.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.7 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4905-3501 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4804-8279 taşdemir, h. & gümüşok, f. / focus on elt journal, 2022 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 92 discovery and interaction, and critical cultural awareness (pp. 50-63). deardorff (2010) similarly discusses that intercultural competence is formed by a set of (i) attitudes (e.g., respect, curiosity, openness, discovery), (ii) knowledge (cultural self-awareness, sociolinguistic awareness, culture-specific knowledge), (iii) skills (e.g., observation, analysis, relation), and (iv) internal and external outcomes of developing an ethno-relative perspective and turning intercultural competence into behaviors. when the intercultural component of language classes is examined, not only language learners but also teachers who bring their personal intercultural backgrounds to the classroom as well should be taken into consideration. in liddicoat (2011), the intercultural element in language learning and teaching is discussed in relation to three perspectives: cultural orientation, intercultural orientation, and cultural knowledge. cultural orientation refers to having some knowledge about a specific culture that is viewed from a modernist point (kramsch, 2009, 2010). it is about the acquisition and accumulation of a certain culture-specific knowledge. on the other hand, intercultural orientation aims at engaging learners with different cultural backgrounds rather than the accumulation of cultural facts so that learners could be more aware of intercultural sensitivity and reconstruct their views on culture, diversity, and interculturality. cultural knowledge focuses on the ways to interact and communicate with different cultures. accordingly, the key goals in english as a foreign language (efl) class regarding intercultural learning arise as “cultural awareness, acceptance of cultural differences, and interest in the specific culture of the language being taught, as well as in intercultural topics in general” (göbel & helmke, 2010, p.1572). since an intercultural perspective has become prominent in language learning and teaching (liddicoat, 2011) with the aim “to prepare language learners for meaningful communication outside their own cultural environment and to develop in language learners a sense of themselves as mediators between languages and cultures” (p.837), the intercultural orientations of language teachers also gained more importance. one of the practical implications of the intercultural orientation in language learning and teaching and language teacher education has become sending pre-service and in-service teachers and learners for longterm or short-term study-abroad programs. while there is a need for further research that reveals positive outcomes and sustainable growth in increasing cultural awareness and improvement of language skills after participation in these programs (gleeson & tait, 2012; harbon, 2007; harvey et al., 2010), teachers’ intercultural experiences and contact to english-speaking countries are found to foster learners’ intercultural competence (göbel & helmke, 2010). byram (1991) has as well argued that teachers’ having intercultural experiences is the prerequisite condition in order to achieve intercultural language teaching. teachers construct their own personal intercultural perspectives that will allow them to integrate relevant intercultural content into their instruction (biraimah & jotia, 2013) after study and teach abroad programs. teacher study and teach abroad in their review of the literature on teacher interculturality, smolcic and katunich (2017) summarize that there are several program types in terms of teacher study abroad such as (i) stand-alone courses or professional development programs, (ii) international study tours, (iii) overseas student teaching, and (iv) immersion programs and field experience. the synthesis of taşdemir, h. & gümüşok, f. / focus on elt journal, 2022 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 93 reported outcomes in their review reveals that participation in such programs leads to the development of (i) culture-general and culture-specific knowledge, (ii) an awareness of the role of culture in teaching, (iii) cultural self-awareness, (iv) sociopolitical awareness and consciousness, (v) skills and attitudes in cross-cultural interactions, and further contributes to (vi) personal growth. it is concluded that it is “a multifaceted and dynamic endeavor” (p.56) to develop teacher intercultural competence. that is to say, teachers continuously engage with different types and sources of cultural knowledge along with a heightened level of awareness of the self and culture in their individual ways. the investigation of teachers’ teaching abroad experiences is an emerging field of research (sahling & de carvalho, 2021) since teachers are getting more internationalized and having experiences to teach in other countries than their own (moorhouse & harfitt, 2021). in the related literature, there are research studies that look into the impacts of study abroad programs when teachers and academics return to their classrooms (jarlais & stein, 2005; kruger et al., 2009; millar, 2006). in this regard, hamza (2010) examines the role of international experiences of american instructors and suggests that the instructors have experienced personal and professional attitude shifts, seen novel learning styles and learner behaviors in class and broadened their intercultural and global insights. it is suggested that teachers transfer the global perspective to their home contexts to share their international experiences and views on global interconnectedness, which, in turn, creates positive changes in students’ learning. likewise, focusing on the impact of study abroad programs on teachers’ content knowledge and professional perspectives, biraimah and jotia’s (2013) findings suggest that teachers go through personal and professional growth, raising their self-cultural and intercultural awareness. it is argued that these make teachers more effective and develop their teaching methodologies accompanied by their better choices of curricular content that addresses cultural diversity. another case study (göbel & helmke, 2010) in germany looks into the connection between efl teachers’ intercultural contacts and their instruction. the teachers with more intercultural contacts are found to integrate cultural topics into their classes in a more explicit manner, focus on topics that allow for cultural comparison and subjective culture, and allow students to build their own ideas and share experiences. having dual perspectives from preservice teachers from hong kong and in-service teachers hosting them during their study abroad in china, moorhouse and harfitt (2021) examine the aspects of professional learning during teach abroad and suggest that teachers benefit from exchanging ideas on pedagogical issues, raise their cultural self-awareness, and add to their professional and contextual knowledge. all in all, the literature suggests that teachers should be encouraged to experience more intercultural contacts (göbel & helmke, 2010) and participate in international study or teach abroad programs (moorhouse & harfitt, 2021). yet, there exists a gap in the literature regarding the effects of study and/or teach abroad experiences from teachers’ standpoint and how teachers actually transfer their sojourns to their teaching practices and classroom implementations (gleeson & tait, 2012; göbel & helmke, 2010). the literature on study and/or teach abroad programs mostly focuses on pre-service teachers’ experiences rather than in-service teachers’ (biraimah & jotia, 2013) with a quite scarce longitudinal focus after the completion of these programs (smolcic & katunich, 2017). thus, how teachers and academicswho have worked in a culturally different country than their ownbenefit personally and professionally from these experiences and how this is reflected in classroom practice require further investigation (hamza, 2010). it should be noted that taşdemir, h. & gümüşok, f. / focus on elt journal, 2022 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 94 preparing “culturally responsive or intercultural teachers” (smolcic & katunich, 2017, p.48) is a challenging task to handle. in line with these, we asked the following research questions:  in what ways do study and teach abroad experiences influence an efl instructor’s teaching?  in what ways do study and teach abroad experiences influence the students’ perceptions on and experiences in language learning? methodology the current study employed a qualitative case study method (creswell, 2013). the influences of study and teach abroad experiences of an efl instructor on her teaching and the students’ perceptions and views regarding language learning are examined through instrumental (stake, 1995) and exploratory (yin, 2009) case approaches. since such a qualitative orientation necessitates an interpretive and a naturalistic perspective acknowledging the multiplicity of reality (denzin & lincoln, 2008), multiple data collection tools and sources were consulted for an intensive bottom-up analysis of the case. context and participants this study was carried out at the civil aviation and cabin services (cacs) program of a private university in turkey in 2015. the students who successfully graduated from the program were to be recruited at a local or foreign airline company as cabin crew personnel. as speaking english would be an urgent and required skill in the aviation industry they were to enter, the students had to take mandatory and elective english language courses as a fundamental part of their curriculum and these courses were stated to teach language skills in an integrated manner. furthermore, there was a specific emphasis on english speaking skills to raise globally competent speakers of the language. in this regard, 43 freshmen-year students who were enrolled in the mandatory eng111 course of ten class hours per week and their instructor, ela, were asked to share their views and experiences on the ways the instructor’s participation in an exchange program influenced her teaching and the students’ perceptions of language learning. the participants were decided on the purposeful sampling strategy (creswell, 2013) and their participation was on a voluntary basis. the students were a mixed-gendered group of ages ranging between 18 and 22. the proficiency level of the participants was acknowledged to be a2 according to the oxford quick placement test (version 1) and the institution's own exams. at the time of the data collection, the instructor, ela, had been teaching english for two years and she was a former fulbright foreign language teaching assistant program grantee teaching turkish for one year and taking non-degree courses at a southern u.s. university. the data was collected during the semester she started teaching english again at the cacs program. she had a ba in english language teaching and was in her first year of her ma in the same field. she did not have any prior living abroad experiences when she went to the u.s. for her study and teach abroad. taşdemir, h. & gümüşok, f. / focus on elt journal, 2022 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 95 data collection the data were collected through teaching journals and a semi-structured interview with the instructor and open-ended questionnaires from the students (see appendix a). at the beginning of the semester, the instructor was asked to keep a teaching journal and take notes of instances in which she related the content of the lesson to her previous abroad experiences. the journal included the cultural contents she elaborated on, related language foci, immediate student feedback upon her sharing, and her comments. she registered five journal entries in total in english. at the end of the semester, the researchers carried out a face-to-face semi-structured interview with the instructor. it lasted nearly 45 minutes. the interview entailed questions about her educational background, the process of going abroad, her educational take-outs of abroad experience and its influence on her teaching, professional development, personal growth, and her opinions about students’ attitudes toward her sharing abroad experiences in teaching. the interview was conducted in english and audio recorded. in order to explore language learners’ perceptions on their instructor’s utilizing her abroad experiences in teaching, an open-ended questionnaire was administered. since they were learners at the a2 level, the questionnaire was designed in turkish in this way the language was not a barrier for them to express their thoughts. the questionnaire and the responses were collaboratively translated and reviewed by both researchers. the learner participants completed the questionnaire through an online platform (survey monkey), to which only the researchers had access. the participants had two weeks to respond to the questions. data analysis the analysis process started with the transcription of the interview. as brinkmann (2013) states, the very act of transcribing is a part of qualitative data analysis. the researchers verbatim transcribed the audio-recorded interview, collated all the data sources (interview transcript, journal entries, and open-ended questionnaire responses) and composed a case study database (yin, 2018). they utilized thematic content analysis (patton, 2015) to reach a conclusion from the data. they assigned descriptive codes to all data sources, combined similar codes to reach categories and themes inductively (saldaña, 2013). in order to ensure credibility of data analysis, the researchers coded and analyzed all sources separately. then, they discussed the emergent codes and categories and reached an agreement. additionally, they utilized member checks in order to remove any misinterpretations generated from the data (maxwell, 2013). they sent their interpretation of the interview to the instructor and received confirmation on its accuracy. all the participants gave their consent at the beginning of the study, and the instructor and students were assigned a pseudonym and numbers so as to ensure their confidentiality. findings in order to answer the first research question “in what ways do the study and teach abroad experiences influence an efl instructor’s teaching?”, the data coming from the interview and the teacher journal were analyzed. as the instructor stated in the interview, her personal development and professional learning out of one-year long study and teach abroad experience taşdemir, h. & gümüşok, f. / focus on elt journal, 2022 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 96 should be expressed firstly since the combination of personal and professional gains constituted the foundations of her classroom teaching in relation to international experiences. personal development and professional learning the instructor data from the interview and the journal entries illustrated elements of her enhanced world knowledge, intellectual growth and international networking which all contributed to her intercultural competence. the study and teach abroad experiences were further found to be conducive to the instructor’s professional learning through her classroom teaching and academic endeavors. in addition to overcoming personal challenges about living in a dorm “that was the first time that i stayed in a dorm” and surviving the us food “the us diet was not for me, that was quite challenging both to observe my health and eating routines”, she mainly talked about the expansion of her world knowledge and intellectual growth thanks to meeting people from different parts of the world. via making friends from different cultures with different backgrounds, she expanded her intercultural knowledge: “i had a close chinese friend, she told me about their cuisine when we celebrated chinese new year” and “i had an indian american friend. she was thinking about changing her major philosophy from accounting. when we had meals together, we were chatting even about abstract issues like how philosophy makes us think this way or that way”. additively, she put particular emphasis on her improved communication skills in english; inclusive of attentive and sympathetic listening and oral debating skills: “i had an armenian friend who had a great knowledge in history. at the end of the year, both he and i learned a lot from each other on, say, wars, its long-lasting impacts on nations etc.”. she also added that despite diversity among her newly formed relationships, she was able to focus on similar points that enabled her to feel belonged, united: i had two friends from israel, one of them is a really close friend of mine. one of them was an atheist and we used to discuss women rights in christianity, islam and judaism. she knew a lot about those and other faiths. the three of us met a lot. actually, it was feminism keeping us together. building on her knowledge and skills in elt from her student-teacher learning and experiences as a novice teacher, the participant narrated that her professional development as a language instructor was informed by 1) her classroom experience of teaching turkish to american university students, and 2) webinars and courses she took. the participant expressed that she became knowledgeable about the educational system in the u.s. as she had the opportunity both to present and listen to sessions in one of her classes: “in our education in america class, toward the end of the semester, each week one of us introduced some level or subject education, the educational system either of the u.s. or another country” adding “i was both a student and a teacher on the campus that made me experience how that schooling system worked”. as for her professional gains out of webinars and graduate courses she attended, she paid attention to her developed theoretical knowledge in applied linguistics and communication studies. she stated that she learned more about brain-based language teaching, endangered languages, and she attended a webinar on teaching spanish as a second language. in addition, she participated in seminars in teaching language in a meaningful context: taşdemir, h. & gümüşok, f. / focus on elt journal, 2022 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 97 one of them was entitled as using the target language in a meaningful context, they were about input interaction output model, successful implementation of 5c’s in our teaching paradigm like how to make it more concrete, 5c’s are communication, culture, connection, communities and comparisons and how they should organically come together in the language class. she further reflected on her improved technological skills. she shared her knowledge through her blog as well: “i designed web pages, created my digital portfolio, shared web tools on my blog, this is something that i learned in one of my classes, instructional technology”. as she clearly underlined, all these educational endeavors paid off in the end for her development as an instructor: “as a teacher i feel more confident both from the aspect of teaching … and speaking the target language and understanding it. i now have more intuition about the daily language”. study and teach abroad experiences in the classroom combining all these perspectives into her own language teaching expertise, the instructor claimed that her experiences abroad affected her classroom practices mainly at two levels: 1) providing authentic language use and so decreasing speaking anxiety, and 2) motivating and engaging students to learn the language and the target culture. the instructor journal data also supported the participant’s teaching practice enhanced with study abroad experiences. providing authentic language use; consequently, decreasing speaking anxiety the instructor underscored her improved skill of providing authentic language use in the classroom as a result of her international experiences. by referring to her learning from one of the seminars she attended abroad, she began to attach a great amount of significance to making use of and teaching authentic language use in her classes: “use the target language at every moment possiblethat's something that i do this year, the more we use the language the more we respect it, that’s why we should prioritize using it in any case”. she believed that such authentic expressions enabled students to speak more confidently and fluently and overcoming their speaking anxiety which was very observable at the beginning of the academic year: when students want to learn more about something, i could easily give examples … what would an american say in such a situation… express they’re surprised. i think this makes students feel more confident while they’re speaking because they know that these are the real sentences that someone would use in the target language context. they feel more fluent when speaking english with those structures because they keep them as frozen expressions in their mind. they were mostly anxious in the beginning. the entries in the journal also attested the instructor’s emphasis on teaching authentic language use. she related teaching formulaic expressions to authenticity by noting down “how an american would react”: teaching journalentry 5: in fact, useful expressions for daily life are not specific to one situation. whenever i feel the need, i give examples how an american would react in such and such situations. generally, this need is inferred from the utterances of students. some examples would be “it depends / taşdemir, h. & gümüşok, f. / focus on elt journal, 2022 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 98 my apologies / literally / my bad / fyi / … rocks / asap”. they felt it would be easier to speak fluently if they knew some phrases. as a means of motivating and engaging students the instructor emphasized that she tried hard to motivate students to learn not only the language itself but also the culture: “they have to know about the culture and use english in that manner while talking to any international person”. her abroad experiences seemed to serve this purpose. for instance, the entries about cool technology and celebrations (e.g., bonfire night, new year’s eve, thanksgiving) displayed that the instructor enriched her teaching with her personal photos taken in the usa and lived experiences with her international friends, which contributed to increasing student engagement with the content, culture and language. for instance, in one of the entries, the teacher noted down that the students found her personal experiencesintegrated language teaching amazing and entertaining: teaching journalentry 1: i showed the photos of mit buildings and the famous mit sign. later, i continued with giving some facts through a real photo at the school. other notable universities like harvard, princeton and stanford university were also discussed through some photos from my personal experience. the students seemed engaged. they liked seeing the famous statue at harvard and the harvard square and hearing about the urban myth related. they learned about those prestigious schools. as for the celebration-themed course, the entry indicated she also shared her personal experiences with her international friends. she stated that that the students listened to her attentively and this increased student involvement in the lesson: teaching journalentry 3: i asked the dates of thanksgiving and new year’s eve and whether they are celebrated in turkey or not. then i told what type of food is prepared for thanksgiving meals and how important it is to have dinner with the family members. then i moved on to new year’s eve, and i was told that it is a big deal to spend new year’s at times square. i talked about “ball drop” and the internationality of the square at new year’s eve. i also mentioned my adventurous nyc new year’s eve experiences with my indian, pakistani or far easterner friends. students wanted to celebrate new year’s eve in nyc one day. the data coming from efl learners to answer the second research question “in what ways do the study and teach abroad experiences influence the students’ perceptions on and experiences in language learning?” also affirmed the realization of their instructor’s international experiences as a valuable input in the form of 1) an authentic daily language provider and 2) a native-like pronunciation example. student responses further supported that the personal experience-incorporated language teaching motivated students and enabled them to get a better understanding of the target language. in line with the instructor data, the students believed that the instructor’s experiences abroad facilitated their learning of daily language use in american english. by linking the instructor’s international experiences with native speaker usage, they expressed their appreciation. for instance, st13 claimed that the instructor’s talking about her own international experiences provided contextual cues for her to recall the language structure: “for taşdemir, h. & gümüşok, f. / focus on elt journal, 2022 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 99 instance, she gives an example of her experiences abroad, and this helps me remember it. we are learning daily english rather than fixed structures. for example, i started to say, ‘are you kidding me?’ a lot”. similarly, st32 drew attention to the fact that the instructor offered daily language structure based on her work-abroad experiences, which enhanced the course-book learning: “the instructor’s sharing her experiences with us is very useful for us, learning authentic language use… for instance i have learned the phrase ‘book a seat’ through her narration although it isn’t in our coursebook”. likewise, st38 listed the phrases he learned through the instructor’s experience-sharing: “there are lots of phrases we don't know and thanks to her we have a chance to use them like take note, be mad at someone, make a mess”. what is not present in the instructor data but frequently raised in the student responses was the instructor’s exemplifying native-like pronunciation. nearly all of the students appreciated their instructor’s pronunciation by taking her as a role-model. st31 stated that she became familiar with native speaker pronunciation thanks to the instructor whom she called “having a native speaker teacher accent”: “since she lived abroad, she has a native speaker teacher accent. this helps us get used to native like pronunciation”. st37 emphasized that since the instructor experienced accent and language use in the target culture country, she helped them have a better understanding of how the language is used: “she learned the accent, how english is used by experiencing it herself in the usa, which was very useful as she enabled us to understand the language use better”. st9 expressed that the instructor’ study-abroad experiences were useful in terms of trying to pronounce words like her: “her experiences in the usa were very useful in terms of speaking. she has great pronunciation, and we are trying hard to pronounce the words as she does”. the second highly articulated influence of the instructor’s international experience in the language classroom was its motivational power. the students found the instructor’s sharing as quite inspirational and engaging. for example, st14 stated that he found the instructor narration more effective than coursebook learning “it draws our attention to the lesson when we are distracted. i personally think that it is more effective to listen to her personal experiences in the usa than to read something in the book”. besides, these narrations are not only engaging students in the lesson but also arousing interest and motivation to visit different countries: “when we are exhausted at the end of the lesson, listening to teacher ela’s experiences in the usa energizes us as well as aspires us to see that culture, visit those places” (st14); “as a class we love her sharing, it motivates us towards the language and going abroad” (st16). as one of the students also raised, these experiences were also professionally related to the students as they would work as cabin crew personnel: “the instructor showed some photos she took in the niagara falls. it is really nice to visit those places, i also would love to. it further motivated me to become a flight attendant and visit that place”. in this relation, the instructor’s experiences also functioned as a means of getting a better understanding of the target culture from the students’ perspectives. as their responses demonstrated, the instructor’s international experiences contributed to their intercultural knowledge and raised awareness on cultural diversity. the emphasis on cultural variation focuses not only on materialistic culture as food or cloth but also on non-materialistic culture as interaction, dialogue patterns or giving direction: “she helps us learn about different cuisines from different countries. she helps us realize the differences about dialogues, human relations and interaction between different countries” (st31), “unless you live within the target culture, you cannot understand even the simplest joke. so, it is quite helpful of her who personally taşdemir, h. & gümüşok, f. / focus on elt journal, 2022 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 100 experienced another culture to inform us” (st11), and “we learnt what they preferred to eat, to watch, to laugh at, what they like or how different they are even while giving directions” (st9). discussion and conclusion using an interpretive analysis, we found that teacher study and teach abroad overall represented a positive experience. it was argued to contribute to the instructor’s personal development and professional learning and have direct influences on classroom implementations. the instructor’s connecting her personal growth to her professional development in study and teach abroad could signify the multiplicity and dynamic nature of making sense of intercultural experiences. her statements were quite similar to the academic participants’ post-reflections on their work-abroad in hamza (2010). similarly, they emphasized the interconnected nature of personal and professional improvement in international experiences. from the instructor data, it could be seen that expansion in her intercultural knowledge was accompanied by her intellectual growth in the forms of debating some religious, national and philosophical issues with her international friends. the development in her advanced mental thinking and globally informed point of view were consequences of her daily interaction, communication (i.e., discussing philosophy over meal). this is in line with the assertion that global experience facilitates intellectual stimulation (mossberg, 1990 as cited in hamza, 2010). the reflection of intercultural experiences in classroom teaching was expressed in four distinct ways: 1) motivating and engaging students, 2) enriching the lesson content, 3) valuable teacher talk, and 4) increased student intercultural awareness. the instructor’s own stories, her personal visual and oral additions to the course content were appreciated by the students. both the teacher and the students emphasized the heightened authenticity in the language input. the previous research underlined the significance of using authentic materials and tasks in increasing students’ intercultural awareness (gómez & fernando, 2012; pinzón, 2020). in the present study’s situation, the instructor’s conscious efforts to utilize daily authentic language use appeared as the result of international experiences and greatly valued by her students. based on the instructor and the learners data, there were instances of cultural comparison and room for students’ reflection on the shared cultural information and experiences in line with göbel and helmke (2010). specific cultural similarities and differences between cultural groups (i.e., home and the u.s. cultures) were discussed and this demonstrated the development of culture-general knowledge similar to the findings of smolcic and katunich (2017) that building knowledge of culture was an outcome of teachers’ participating in cultural immersion programs. in hamza (2010), the teacher participants underlined how study and teach abroad broadened their global perspectives. in this study, this finding is further supported by the students' perceived improvement in their intercultural perspectives on the instructor's sharing of her study and teach abroad experiences in addition to the teacher’s perspectives. likewise, study and teach abroad was suggested to help the instructor to better address student needs (hamza, 2010), (i.e., cacs program students to serve an international group; of cultural differences on their graduation). as previously discussed, the learners developed enthusiasm to visit different countries and learn more about the instructor’s experiences. their comments on the instructor’s teaching could be voiced as “a tour of a different place” (hamza, 2010, p. 58). one of the participants in hamza (2010) stated that her students found her classes like “a tour of a different place” (p. 58) taşdemir, h. & gümüşok, f. / focus on elt journal, 2022 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 101 as she touched upon multiple cultural, international topics in her teaching as a result of studyabroad. similarly, the teacher participant in this study expanded the content through her study and teach abroad experiences and promoted a desire to be on this tour. the instructor’s content knowledge and professional perspectives were positively influenced by her one-year long study and teach abroad, similar to biraimah and jotia’s (2013) findings that underlined the more informed choice of curricular content addressing cultural diversity (i.e., using real photos of her visit in a warm-up activity before a reading text on different cultural traditions). in this regard, the instructor was stated to explicitly deal with intercultural topics in class in line with the earlier literature (göbel & helmke, 2010). one of the significant findings of this study is the learners’ interest in the instructor’s pronunciation. although the instructor data do not reveal much about an association between her native-like pronunciation and international experiences, the student data offered an immediate connection. the students appreciated their instructor’s native-like pronunciation and interpreted it as a result of her study and teach abroad experiences. comments like trying to imitate the instructor or linking the better understanding of the language use to the instructor’s pronunciation suggest that this group of students believe that sounding like a native speaker is a great asset for teachers and directly related to international experiences. in conclusion, as the schools and classes turn into a more culturally and linguistically diverse arena, teachers with interculturality are becoming in demand (smolcic & katunich, 2017) and there is a clear gap in the literature for investigating the influence of teachers’ study and/or teach abroad experiences on their professional practices when they return to their home teaching contexts. in this vein, the present research study aimed to investigate the influences of an efl teacher’s international experiences upon her language teaching and her students’ responses to the reflections of her study and teach abroad in the classroom. this study illustrated how an efl teacher put this interculturality into practice in the classroom from the perspective of the teacher and learners as well. byram (1991) argues that in order for successful intercultural teaching to take place, the first requirement is intercultural experience itself. the students’ responses in terms of being aware of how different cultures work with the language (e.g., various dialogue patterns, direction giving) thanks to their instructor’s international experiences support byram’s argument. in addition, göbel and helmke (2010) put forward that the outcomes of intercultural learning are satisfactorily achieved if students raise cultural awareness, accept cultural diversity, and show interest in the culture of the target language. in this study’s context, the learners’ increased awareness of cultural differences and growing willingness for visiting the target country or listening more to intercultural experiences could suggest that teacher international experiences could promote student intercultural learning. it is hoped that the current study will contribute to the limited literature on the effects of study and teach abroad experiences of teachers and the ways these sojourns inform teachers’ instructional practices in everyday classes. however, this study is not without its limitations such as the lack of in-class observations and longitudinal data. further research could investigate teacher study and/or teach abroad in different contexts other than tertiary level education and english language teaching and incorporate other professional stakeholders’ views: colleagues, content area teachers, administrators, professional development coaches and so on. vogt’s (2016) call for educating language teachers “especially in ways that trigger intercultural learning processes in their learners on the basis of teachers’ own intercultural awareness” (p.101) stays pertinent. since there is an acute need for teachers to develop teacher interculturality, language teacher education and in-service training programs should look into taşdemir, h. & gümüşok, f. / focus on elt journal, 2022 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 102 the ways that teachers could utilize their study and/or teach abroad experiences to create language classes serving as venues to foster learners’ intercultural competences. language teachers’ engagement with more intercultural contacts and participation in international study and/or teach abroad programs should be encouraged. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references biraimah, k. l., & jotia, a. l. 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(2018). case study research and applications: design and methods. sage. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110214246.2.219 https://doi.org/10.1080/00221340903428772 https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866x.2019.1694634 https://doi.org/10.19183/how.27.1.515 https://doi.org/10.1177/14752409211005380 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.11.002 taşdemir, h. & gümüşok, f. / focus on elt journal, 2022 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 104 appendix a the instructor interview questions 1. please tell us about your educational background. 2. please inform us about your teaching experienceswhich classes, levels, courses and age groups you have taught. 3. how did you get a chance to both study and work abroad? 4. what did you do within the scope of teaching and learning there? 5. when did you return? 6. when you think about this abroad experience, what can you say about its influences on your a. teaching b. language competency c. world knowledge d. professional development e. personal growth 7. please tell us whether (and to what extent) you make use of your abroad experiences in your teaching and exemplify. 8. what do you think about the students’ attitudes towards your narrating abroad experiences in the lessons? the instructor’s teaching journal outline please register your journal entry on the intercultural elements in your class: 1. subject: 2. date of teaching / week of the term: 3. student profile: 4. cultural content elaborated: 5. language focus: 6. immediate feedback from students: 7. comments: the student questionnaire 1. do english lessons influence your learning about culture? how? if yes, give examples. 2. does your instructor's abroad experience influence your classes? how? if yes, give examples. 3. what are your overall comments on the influences of your instructor's abroad experience in your classes? 4. is there anything else you would like to add? copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). felt article template focus on elt journal vol 3, issue 2, 2021 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: nesil.demir@bozok.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. an extended literature review on in-service efl teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs aayşe nesil demi̇r instructor, school of foreign languages, yozgat bozok university, yozgat, turkey nesil.demir@bozok.edu.tr apa citation: demir, a. n. (2021). an extended literature review on in-service efl teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. focus on elt journal, 3(2), 36-50. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.3 abstract self-efficacy (se) plays an important function for a teacher in boosting teacherstudent engagement which may lead to positive outcomes. to investigate the different se-related concerns among teachers, meta-analysis studies, systemic reviews, and many other sorts of studies in the field of education have been undertaken. in this study, an extended literature review was conducted to particularly investigate the issue of in-service efl teachers' self-efficacy beliefs. to this end, using terms such as "self-efficacy in general teachers," "self-efficacy in efl teachers," and "selfefficacy in language teachers," the researcher searched several important databases and found 31 relevant academic journal articles published over the past six years (2015–2021). these papers were derived from the following databases: elsevier, taylor & francis online, wiley online library, google scholar, the jstor digital library, education source, eric (ebsco), sage journal, cambridge core, research gate, and research online. this literature review reveals that research in this field is required to demonstrate how elements in the surroundings of teachers might predict changes in and build teacher self-efficacy beliefs. additionally, this study is believed to have significant implications in understanding the need for research on selfefficacy via a complex dynamic system theory (cdst) perspective as well as an enhancement in the future of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. keywords self-efficacy beliefs, efl teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, in-service efl teachers, extended literature review, complex dynamic system theory (cdst) article history received: 28.09.2021 revised: 17.11.2021 accepted: 11.12.2021 published: 30.12.2021 type research article introduction the term "self-efficacy" (se) relates to the teachers' confidence and belief in their capacity and value; it is also considered a cognitive process of one's feelings. bandura (2003) states that se is the personal confidence of a person in controlling different events that have happened in his/her life. confidence in the ability of activities to be completed successfully and efficiently will influence several factors, including: 1) control of action and behavior; 2) choice of environment and situation, and 3) persistence in performing specific assignments (bandura, 1997). bandura (1982) discusses broadly that se is an essential component of one's behavior if it is based on several phenomena like behavioral imitation, stress psychology, selfmanagement, and self-actualization rather than negative behavior, lack of resignation, and perseverance in achieving something and getting the desired work. tschannen-moran et al. nesil.demir@bozok.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.3 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2417-916x demir, a. n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 37 (1998) describe self-efficacy as a natural cycle with a high level of efficacy that seeks to enhance performance, resulting in great effectiveness. self-efficacy (se) is also characterized as a cognitive process for controlling behavior, increasing self-competence and ability, and making people more competent and efficient (shoulders & krei, 2016). self-efficacy plays an important function for a teacher in boosting teacher-student engagement as well, which may lead to positive outcomes. most research has been implemented to gauge the representation of self-efficacy beliefs in the field of education. to investigate the different se related concerns among teachers, meta-analysis studies, systemic reviews, and many other sorts of studies in the field of education have also been undertaken. as for research on teachers and teacher education since 1985, klassen and durksen (2014) undertook a systemic review on self-efficacy by focusing mainly on the tools employed, analytical parameters, culture, sample, content, teacher control, and teachers' wellbeing. in a meta-analysis study, steven and hansel (2015) explore the extent to which se influences teachers' commitment to teaching. zee et al. (2016) carried out a 40-year systematic review on teachers' self-efficacy beliefs concerning class performance, students' academic success, and the teachers' wellbeing. the findings of the study show the direct and indirect impacts of teachers on ses in the classroom environment. however, the results also indicate that the relationship between se and the parameters in question was considered significant. as for language teachers' self-efficacy (ltse) beliefs, wyatt (2016) proposes a domain-specific branch of research for teachers' self-efficacy (tse) beliefs over the last 16 years, emphasizing the qualities of the study area of ltse beliefs. similarly, another systematic review on selfefficacy was conducted by ramakrishnan and salleh (2018) between the years 2014 and 2018. the findings of the study show that there is a positive relationship between the studies that affect teachers' self-efficacy in pedagogy, experience and management, the participation of students, instructional policies, and instructions in the classroom. the negative factors identified in the studies include occupational stress and job satisfaction, which are both key components in the reduction of teachers' self-efficiency. furthermore, it was found that a lack of teachers' training or skills would lead to low self-efficacy in teachers who have taught students with special needs in inclusive courses. likewise, the present paper aims to focus on efl teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in the form of an extended literature review to offer some possible new insights into the psychology of language teaching. methodology in this study, the extended literature review was carried out systematically. the purpose of this study was to discover numerous essential factors that had always been employed in each of the previous studies. theories, instruments, and variables influencing teachers' se are among these determining factors. a few factors have been highlighted, including authors, years, location, samples, instruments, and study findings. the present extended literature review attempts to delve into the concept of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in various efl contexts around the demir, a. n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 38 world. to this end, using terms such as "self-efficacy in general teachers," "self-efficacy in efl teachers," and "self-efficacy in language teachers," the researcher searched several important databases and found 31 relevant academic journal articles published over the past six years (2015-2021). these papers were derived from the following databases: elsevier, taylor & francis online, wiley online library, google scholar, the jstor digital library, education source, eric (ebsco), sage journal, cambridge core, research gate, and research online. an in-depth analysis was then performed to particularly investigate the issue of in-service efl teachers' self-efficacy beliefs in this paper. this study was limited in several ways, including studies focused specifically on "language teachers' self-efficacy beliefs," which may merit a separate review, and being limited to studies published in english; it is also possible that limitations in this study hampered the ability to delve into all available studies. in addition to these constraints, while there are studies about ltse, it is preferable to formulate the latest publications relevant to this concept, and then the year 2015 was chosen as a starting point for convenience. this review thus spans 6 years, and this period (2015–2021) facilitates the comparisons made below. as norris and ortega (2006) suggested, it was attempted to be as broad as possible in examining the literature within the limits specified, leaving the "quality" of the studies to be addressed in the review itself; extensive sampling was therefore used. this study evolved through many stages while producing it, just as wyatt (2018) did in his literature review study. when finding possibly relevant sources as mentioned above, first double-check that the concept was implemented in the abstracts or full-texts by another colleague who is familiar with the concept to ensure that the emphasis was truly on in-service ltse views (rather than on learners, the teachers of other subjects, other levels of language teachers, or other constructs). the table was then generated to include additional details like the author, the topic of the studies, participants, methodology, and major findings. after labeling this table, studies were categorized in various ways, and then the table was reread by the researcher and the double checker in light of these classifications. comments were expanded by reflecting on the literature. categories included the location where the study was carried out, the year it was published, and the methodological techniques and instruments used in connection to ltse beliefs. in this way, norris and ortega's (2006) suggestions were followed and concentrated on "the actual variables, features, and data given in the original studies rather than on only the study-specific findings supplied by the primary researchers" (p. 6). exploring the studies in this manner seems necessary if the review was to be comprehensive, capable of providing new insights, and assisting the analytical effort of developing a systematic portrayal of the research area. after synthesizing the given literature to come up with some possible new perspectives, a few important factors were identified. they included some shared elements in the theories, tools, and variables of the studies in question. with this in mind, three main questions were thus raised to meet the goal of the study: demir, a. n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 39 1-what is the literature on in-service efl teachers’ self-efficacy (2015–2021)? 2-what are the common self-efficacy theories and instruments used in in-service efl teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs (2015–2021)? 3-what are the most frequent self-efficacy variables explored in the literature on inservice efl teachers' self-efficacy beliefs (2015–2021)? eligibility criteria the inclusion and exclusion criteria eligible for this study were constructed based on the research questions guiding the present study. numerous research has been published about selfefficacy (se) since 1960, including systematic reviews, literature reviews, and meta-analysis. in this regard, the researcher intended to come up with the latest excellent articles published in the last six years, because there are a few research papers on self-efficacy in the field of education. by determining the specific keyword through abstract reading, the papers were narrowed. first, the articles were classified by years, and 61 articles on the self-efficacy of teachers were received. then, through selected studies that exclusively pertain to the selfefficacy beliefs of in-service efl teachers during the last six years, the articles collected have been refined. the abstracts were reexamined again until the number of articles for in-service efl teachers was reduced to 31. results and discussion articles about self-efficacy beliefs of in-service efl teachers this part is a discussion of articles related to the self-efficacy beliefs of in-service efl teachers. as it is shown in appendix 1, the study of articles covered authors, titles, years, context, participants, data collection tools, and findings for each article. 31 self-efficacy (se) articles were identified including in-service efl tse beliefs. these articles cover the last six years. as seen in figure 1, the study included different countries around the world including turkey, iran, oman, vietnam, indonesia, japan, israel, and pakistan participating in 2.959 in-service efl teachers (see figure 2). this shows the relevance of the self-efficacy of teachers in the field of education. rawahi et al. (2019) concluded that the relationship between the academic outcomes of students and self-efficacy is significantly good. high se affects learners' motivation, students 'achievement, and teachers' teaching practices. it also affects teachers’ job satisfaction and burnout levels, as well as their psychological wellbeing (alibakhshi et al., 2020). sabet et al. (2018) also indicate that teachers with high self-efficacy motivate their students more successfully and enhance their cognitive growth. however, those with a weak perception of efficacy prefer a “custodial orientation that relies heavily on negative sanctions to get students to study” (bandura, 1994 as cited in mojavezi & tamiz, 2012, p. 489). language teacher education can have a positive influence on language teacher self-efficacy beliefs, in both preand in-service contexts. regarding this matter, wyatt (2016) indicates how omani english demir, a. n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 40 teachers, reflecting and trying, developed practical knowledge and long-term ltse convictions via focusing on self-oriented action research activities. wyatt and dikilitaş (2016) state that engaging in teachers' research as a continuous profession allowed turkish english teachers to gain higher efficiency concerning their actual tasks. figure 1. distribution of studies according to the countries between years 2015 and 2021 figure 2. distribution of the participants based on countries two-thirds of all the studies (21/31) conducted between the years 2015-2021 are quantitative methods. sabet et al. (2018) explored the relationship between iranian efl teachers' selfefficacy, their personality, and students' motivation and they found that, unlike less efficacious teachers, highly efficacious teachers are good at motivating their students and improving their cognitive growth. rawahi et al. (2019) found similar findings. there are other correlational studies including self-efficacy and job satisfaction, burnout, empowerment, etc. in our sample ( azizifar et al., 2020; babaei & abednia, 2016; fuchs et al., 2021; i̇pek et al., 2018; marashi & azizi-nassab, 2018; ortaçtepe & akyel, 2015; özkara, 2019; ravandpour, 2019; sabet et al., 2018; safari et al., 2020;). as seen in figure 2 above, the distribution of participants’ 6 14 2 3 3 1 1 1 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 turkey iran oman vietnam indonesia japan israel pakistan study numbers according to the countries 421 1867 140 24 31 138 167 171 0 500 1000 1500 2000 turkey iran oman vietnam indonesia japan israel pakistan n of participants n of participants demir, a. n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 41 numbers also supports that most of the studies were conducted via correlational studies or used quantitative methods. when we analyze these studies we can conclude that they have a reductionist point of view. their basic aim is to generalize so there is a linear type of interaction. as suggested by complexity theory the effect of dependencies among components cannot be fully represented by traditional approaches based on statistics. those components are variables and they are dependent upon each other, so they cannot be fully represented by traditional methods like correlation because the system is changing. the growth of self-efficacy cannot be predicted. the relationships between the cause and effects do not easily determine the dynamic changes of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. figure 3. distribution of the methods used in the articles in the 31 articles reviewed, it is also seen in figure 3 above that only eight articles adopted a qualitative study, and two conducted a mixed-method study, which consists of efl teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. however, a mixed-methods study conducted by lailiyah and cahyono (2017) did not truly address the challenges of directly eliciting the self-efficacy of language teachers (ltse), since qualitative research techniques were mostly applied to extract background or contextual information for other purposes and support the data collected from the questionnaires. this study examined the self-efficacy of technology integration (seti) of indonesian efl teachers and their usage of technology for teaching efl. the study looked for a linear relationship when we looked at the findings. data analysis shows that the efl teachers' seti is linked with their usage of technology in teaching efl. therefore, we could not accept this study as a mixed-method study. it is quantitative indeed. i would like to criticize it in this way. however, indahyanti (2016) used interviews as a data collection instrument in his research to explore indonesian efl teachers’ successful teaching performances and their beliefs in self-efficacy. the researcher maintained that he explored this influence in a classroom setting and discovered that experienced teachers have a higher perception of self-efficacy beliefs than novice teachers. we can conclude that generalizable results were found like in most other qualitative studies (batool & shah, 2018; indahyanti, 2016; listiani et al., 2019) in our study sample. zonoubi et al. (2017) discovered self-efficacy to be a dynamic structure and to be nurtured via teacher reflection and collaboration opportunities like those provided by 21 8 2 0 5 10 15 20 25 quantitative qualitative mixed method method demir, a. n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 42 professional learning communities (plcs). as stoll and louis (2007) describe, plcs allude to collaborative activities that enhance "teachers critically interrogating their practice in ongoing, reflective, and collaborative ways" (p. 2) to support student learning. it can be claimed that the researchers were aware that self-efficacy is a complex structure, but their research method was not suitable to gauge this dynamism. in contrast, some other researchers have succeeded in centralizing observations on various aspects of their research. in the framework of interviews, reflective assignments, etc. phan and locke (2015), phan (2016), wyatt (2016), and wyatt and dikilitaş (2016) attempted to incorporate and contextualize the knowledge they learned from them. the number one principle in designing research in a complex system perspective is including context as a part of the system under investigation, in which the researcher should consider the contextual factors and variables as a part of the research to get a holistic understanding of the issue in demand. including the context means including any variable that has an impact on the issue under investigation. although this research did not follow the principles of complexity perspective, there was a further step to be ecologically valid. theories and data collection tools this section examines the number of articles that are often used for 31 articles chosen from 2015 to 2021, depending on theories and data collection tools. based on the articles evaluated, most of them employed the theory of bandura (1982) and tschannen-moran and woolfolk (2001) in their articles or the context of the theory as well as to discuss their findings. every article summarizes the need for self-efficacy (se) of a teacher in detail, and its significance is also highlighted in depth. bandura (1982) states that the se of a teacher influences organization, the teacher's academic appointment in classrooms, and the way a teacher evaluates a student based on his/her abilities. the notion of a new theory of self-efficacy based on bandura's study was developed by tschannen-moran et al. (1998). four things are said to impact teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. self-efficacy is defined by tschannen-moran et al. (1998) as a natural cycle of excellent efficacy, leading to scaffold and continuity to improved performance and returning to excellent efficacy. it is discovered that basically, all the papers debated in the last six years formed the basis of these theories. the data collection tools used in 31 papers between 2015 and 2021 revealed that some tools were used extensively. for studies relating to in-service efl teachers’ self-efficacy, the teacher sense of efficacy scale (tses) (tschannen-moran & woolfolk hoy, 2001) was used for articles in2, in5, in10, in18, in 20, in,22, in23, in28, and in31. meanwhile, an adapted or modified version of the teacher sense of efficacy scale (tses) (tschannen-moran & woolfolk hoy, 2001) was used in articles in3, in8, in11, and in25. on the other hand, selfefficacy survey (praver, 2014) was used in article in17 to gauge the turkish efl teachers’ self-efficacy and burnout levels. the use of these tools in studies helps researchers analyze the amount and relevance of teachers' self-efficacy when used in classroom teaching and learning. demir, a. n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 43 we can conclude that these mentioned researches above started with a claim and some assumptions, and the researchers tested them. so, in terms of research design, the contemporary approaches are mostly large-scale and cross-sectional studies. it includes a large group of participants because the aim is to make generalizations. however, as wyatt (2016) mentioned, self-efficacy is a complex, dynamic and evolving construct. in this regard, the whole system and the pattern of its growth are studied, thus a transition from the objective of a causal explanation to a more descriptive, exploratory retrodiction is needed. we have to make comments on what we observed. self-efficacy is needed to minimize the stress and concerns of teachers in carrying out their assigned tasks. to achieve this, we need to know the causal mechanisms of their self-efficacy levels. research variables in teachers’ self-efficacy (tse) from 2015 to 2021, this section will discuss frequent research variables in 31 papers. there are several self-efficacy variables studied in the 31 research articles over six years from 2015 to 2021. the self-efficacy is investigated to see whether there is a relationship with these variables or not. variables selected by researchers for these groups of teachers include age (özkara, 2019), teacher motivational strategies, teachers’ general beliefs, student’s motivation and achievement, classroom management, teaching practices, ( al rawahi et al., 2019; alibakhshi et al., 2020; and sabet et al., 2018), cultural context (barabadi et al., 2018; phan, 2016; phan & locke, 2016), various instructions, and professional development programs (lailiyah & cahyono, 2017; ravandpour, 2019; wyatt & dikilitaş, 2016), job satisfaction ( safari et al., 2020), burn-out (fathi, & saeedian, 2020; roohani & iravani, 2020), psychological wellbeing (fathi et al., 2020), teachers’ empowerment (azizifar, et al., 2020), self-regulation (noughabi & amirian, 2020) and online teaching lee & ogawa, 2021). the self-efficiency of teachers depends heavily on these variables since they help increase teachers' confidence in their capacity and competence to carry out tasks without giving up (bandura, 1997). studies focused on these variables should thus be pursued with a view to the theory of complexity to receive positive feedback from teachers and to ensure a high level of self-efficacy. conclusions this extended literature review addresses in-service efl teachers' self-efficacy since 2015. there is a great possibility for quantitative and qualitative designs for methodological choices. research in this field needs to understand the real causal mechanisms of teachers' self-efficacy beliefs during their instructions and their self-efficacy trajectories. we need to start from inside. understanding things from the inside is more important than trying to put everything in a framework that is brought to us by external theories. thus, this does not seem to be a puzzle in which we put the pieces together to reach that complete picture which is predetermined because there is no predetermined picture. it emerges, and it is incidental. individual differences and the diversity of teachers, diversity of learners and context, are always an issue in complexity theory. demir, a. n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 44 additionally, the common research in our field tries to see the picture from the lens of the approach or theory presented and we try to fix or match the pieces to those theories that are not correct in the understanding of complexity perspective. in brief, this extended literature review demonstrates the challenges in this field, which require further research, are of tremendous importance and significance to language teachers. new variables rather than predetermined ones may emerge. all in all, future studies regarding self-efficacy beliefs can be conducted with instruments and methods of complexity theory as hiver and al-hoorie (2019) aim to explain in their book “research methods for complexity theory in applied linguistics”. this literature review reveals that research in this field is required to demonstrate how elements in the surroundings of teachers might predict changes in and build teacher self-efficacy beliefs. additionally, this study is believed to have significant implications in understanding the need for research on self-efficacy via complex dynamic system theory (cdst) perspective as well as an enhancement in the future of teachers’ selfefficacy beliefs. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. references alibakhshi, g., nikdel, f., & labbafi, a. 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(2016). interand intraindividual differences in teachers' self-efficacy: a multilevel factor exploration. journal of school psychology, 55, 3956. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2015.12.003 zonoubi, r., rasekh, a. e., & tavakoli, m. (2017). efl teacher self-efficacy development in professional learning communities. system, 66, 1-12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.system.2017.03.003 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). appendix 1 no topic /year journal/author method/instrument number of participants / context in1 relationship between teachers’ motivational strategies, self efficacy and beliefs on students’ academic achievement at oman public schools 2019 international journal of academic research in progressive education and development talal al rawahi, norlizah c. hassan asmah isma quantitative teacher motivational strategies questionnaire (tms) 135 efl teachers oman in2 exploring the consequences of teachers’ self-efficacy: a case of teachers of english as a foreign language 2020 asian-pasific journal of second and foreign language education goudarz alibakhshi, fariborz nikdeland akram labbafi qualitative phenomenological inquiry teachers’ sense of efficacy scale (long form) developed by tschannen-and woolfolk hoy (2007) and interview checklist 20 efl teachers iran in 3 the effects of a professional development program on english as a foreign language teachers’ efficacy and classroom practice 2015 tesol journal deniz ortaçtepe , ayşe s. akyel quantitative "english teachers’ sense of efficacy scale. the adapted version of tses (tschannenmoran & woolfolk hoy, 2001), communicative orientation of language teaching observation scheme and the questionnaire version of colt." 50 efl teachers turkey https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2015.02.001 https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2015.1058754 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ demir, a. n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 47 in 4 “are they becoming more reflective and/or efficacious?” a conceptual model mapping how teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs might grow 2016 educational review mark wyatt qualitative 27 classroom observations, 38 semi-structured interviews, reflective assignments and feedback on these as well as field notes. 5 efl teachers oman in 5 the relationship between iranian efl teachers’ self-efficacy, their personality and students’ motivation 2018 international journal of education & literacy studies masoud khalili sabet, saeedeh dehghannezhad, &abdorreza tahriri quantitative teachers’ sense of efficacy scale (tses) developed by tschannen-moran and hoy (2001), neuroticismextraversion-openness fivefactor inventory (neo-ffi), and students’ motivation questionnaire designed by mojavezi and tamiz (2012 25 efl teachers 75 efl students iran in 6 vietnamese teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching english as a foreign language does culture matter? 2016 english teaching: practice & critique nga thi tuyet phan and terry locke qualitative individual interviews, focus group discussions, observations and journaling. 8 efl teachers vietnam in 7 efl teacher self-efficacy development in professional learning communities 2017 system rezvan zonoubi, abbas eslami rasekh ,& mansoor tavakoli qualitative pre and post interviews with the participants, their reflective journals, and recordings of the plc meetings 10 efl teachers iran in 8 the relationship between occupational stress and teacher self-efficacy: a study with efl instructors 2018 anadolu journal of educational sciences international hülya i̇pek aslı akçay sibel bayindir atay gizem berber tuncay karalik temel serdar yılmaz quantitative teacher’s sense of efficacy scale (tschannen-moran & hoy, 2001) and teacher stress inventory (boyle, borg, falzon, & bagglioni, 1995) 84 efl teachers turkey in 9 reflective teaching and self-efficacy beliefs: exploring relationships in the context of teaching efl in iran 2016 australian journal of teacher education, mehdi babaei & arman abednia quantitative english language teaching reflection inventory (akbari, behzadpoor, & dadvand, 2010) and teachers’ efficacy beliefs system-self (tebs-self) (dellinger, bobbett, olivier, & ellett, 2008) 225 efl teachers iran in 10 on the relationship between iranian efl teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and their teaching styles 2016 open journal of modern linguistics mina rastegar, sholeh moradi quantitative job satisfaction survey (spector, 1994), teacher selfefficacy scale (tschannenmoran & woolfolk hoy, 2001), and spiritual well-being scale (paloutzian & ellison, 1982) 46 english teachers iran in 11 the relationship between tertiary level efl teachers’ self-efficacy and their willingness to use communicative activities in speaking procedia social and behavioral sciences quantitative 40 efl teachers demir, a. n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 48 2015 aycan demir ayşegül yurtsever , & betül çimenli teachers’ sense of efficacy scale developed by megan tschannen-moran and anita woolfolk hoy (2001). the second one was coltas, an attitude scale with 36 statements developed to investigate teachers' attitudes towards some aspects of clt which was adopted from eveyik (1999 turkey in 12 sources of self-efficacy of vietnamese efl teachers: a qualitative study 2015 teaching and teacher education nga thi tuyet phan , terry locke qualitative individual interviews, teachers started writing journal entries over a 3-month period. observation session 8 efl teachers vietnam in 13 the impact of context on vietnamese efl teachers’ self-efficacy 2016 waikato journal of education nga thi tuyet phan qualitative focus group discussion, individual interviews, observations 8 efl teachers vietnam in14 online teaching self-efficacy – how english teachers feel during the covid-19 pandemic 2021 indonesian tesol journal shzh-chen nancy lee, chie ogawa quantitative online english teaching questionnaire 138 efl teachers japan in 15 efl literacy teaching in relation to teachers’ self-efficacy, experience and native language 2021 australian journal of teacher education stephanie fuchs tami katzir janina kahn-horwitz quantitative online questionnaire 167 efl teachers israel in 16 the relationship between efl teachers’ continuing professional development and their self-efficacy: a structural equation modeling approach 2019 cogent psychology afsaneh ravandpour quantitative professional development questionnaire and self-efficacy scale. 247 efl teachers iran in 17 an investigation into the relationship between turkish efl teachers’ selfefficacy and burnout level 2019 journal of family, counseling, and education, betül özkara quantitative teacher efficacy beliefs scale developed at a japanese university (praver, 2014) and 5 point likert scale maslach burnout inventory (mbi) (maslach & jackson, 1981). 118 efl teachers turkey in 18 the influence of efl teachers’ self-efficacy, job satisfaction and reflective thinking on their professional development: a structural equation modeling 2020 journal on efficiency and responsibility in education and science, ibrahim safari mehran davaribina iraj khoshnevis quantitative (1) teachers’ sense of efficacy scale, (2) job satisfaction questionnaire, (3) reflective thinking questionnaire, and (4) professional development questionnaire. 220 efl teachers iran in 19 investigating english teachers’ selfefficacy in advances in social science, education and humanities research, qualitative 6 efl teachers demir, a. n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 49 developing classroom management style 2019 sandy listiani, sudirman willian, lalu muhaimi interview, questionnaire and observation indonesia in 20 investigating the relationship between iranian efl teachers’ empowerment and their self-efficacy as a consequence for their educational improvement 2020 journal of education and health promotion akbar azizifar, sakineh naghipour, fathola mohamadian, yousef veisani, fariba cheraghi and sehat aibod quantitative school participant empowerment scale (spes). teacher sense of efficacy scale (tses). 60 efl teachers iran in 21 indonesian efl teachers self-efficacy towards technology integration (seti) and their use of technology in efl teaching 2017 studies in english language teaching masrurin lailiyah & bambang yudi cahyono mixed method this study used both quantitative and qualitative data obtained from a survey and interviews. computer technology integration survey (ctis) questionnaire developed by wang, ertmer and newby (2004) the interview focused on three aspects of teachers’ self-efficacy: efficacy in instructional strategies, efficacy in classroom management, and efficacy in student engagement ( tschannen moran & hoy, 2001) 2001). the 23 efl teachers indonesia in 22 in 23 efl teachers’ language proficiency, classroom management, and selfefficacy 2018 assessing the contribution of autonomy and self-efficacy to efl teachers’ self-regulation 2021 international journal of foreign language teaching & research hamid marashi & fatemeh azizi-nassab english teaching & learning mostafa azari noughabi & seyed mohammad reza amirian quantitative teacher self-efficacy scale (tses) murdoch’s checklist for effective classroom management general language proficiency test quantitative the teacher autonomy scale (tas) the teacher sense of efficacy scale (tses), teacher self-regulation scale (tsrs) 110 efl teachers iran 364 efl teachers iran in 24 iranian efl teachers’ sources of self-efficacy in the context of new english curriculum: a grounded theory approach 2018 journal of teaching language skills (jtls) elyas barabadi hossein ahmad barabadi, seyyed ehsan golparvar& bayat, mokarrameh grounded theory interview journaling 18 efl teachers iran in 25 the relationship between burnout and self-efficacy among iranian male and female efl teachers 2020 journal of language & education ali roohani, mehdi iravani quantitative maslach burnout inventoryeducator’s survey (mbi-es) and a modified version of teacher sense of efficacy scale (tses 80 efl teachers iran in 26 causative factors behind an efficacious teacher: evaluating teacher efficacy 2018 journal of human psychology sadia batool, & syed mubarak abbas shah quantitative ohio state teacher efficacy scale (long form) developed by moran & woolfolk (2001) 171 efl teachers pakistan demir, a. n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 50 in 27 indonesian efl teachers’ selfefficacy and their successful teaching performance 2016 english and literature journal rizka indahyanti qualitative interview 2 efl teachers indonesia in 28 a structural model of teacher selfefficacy, resilience, and burnout among iranian efl teachers 2020 iranian journal of english for academic purposes jalil fathi &abdulbaset saeedian quantitative teacher self-efficacy scale the educator version of the maslach burnout scale (mbies) resilience scale 213 efl teachers iran in 29 english language teachers’ selfefficacy beliefs for grammar instruction: implications for teacher educators 2019 the language learning journal mark wyatt & kenan dikilitaş quantitative questionnaire 126 efl teachers turkey in 30 english language teachers becoming more efficacious through research engagement at their turkish university 2016 educational action research mark wyatt & kenan dikilitaş quantitative teachers’ research efficacy beliefs survey field notes narrations 3 efl teachers turkey in 31 investigating a structural model of self-efficacy, collective efficacy, and psychological well-being among iranian efl teachers 2020 iranian journal of applied language studies (ijals) jalil fathi, ali derakhshan,& arash saharkhiz arabani teachers’ self-efficacy scale (tses) developed by tschannen-moran and hoy (2001). collective efficacy scale developed by skaalvik and skaalvik (2007) the index of psychological well-being at work designed and validated by dagenaisdesmarais and savoie (2012) was adopted. 179 efl teachers iran ejal article template focus on elt journal (felt) vol 2, issue 1, 2020 issn: 2687-5381 contact: salami.aydin@medeniyet.edu.tr test anxiety in the foreign language learning context: a theoretical framework a ferdane denkci akkaş b selami aydın c asiye baştürk beydilli d tülin türnük and e i̇lknur saydam a assist. prof. dr., i̇stanbul medeniyet university, i̇stanbul, turkey, ferdane.denkci@medeniyet.edu.tr b prof. dr., i̇stanbul medeniyet university, i̇stanbul, turkey, selami.aydin@medeniyet.edu.tr c instructor, i̇stanbul medeniyet university, i̇stanbul, turkey, asiye.basturk@medeniyet.edu.tr d instructor, i̇stanbul medeniyet university, i̇stanbul, turkey, tulin.turnuk@medeniyet.edu.tr e instructor, i̇stanbul medeniyet university, i̇stanbul, turkey, ilknur.saydam@medeniyet.edu.tr to cite this article: denkci akkaş, f., aydın, s., baştürk beydilli, a., türnük, t. & saydam, i̇. (2020). test anxiety in the foreign language learning context: a theoretical framework. focus on elt journal (felt), 2(1), 4-19. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00014 abstract while test anxiety is a strong predictor that affects the achievement and proficiency in the foreign language learning process, how it relates to the current theories and hypotheses remains an unanswered question. in addition, while test anxiety within the scope of descriptive and correlational studies is an issue that has attracted researchers, its theoretical background is mostly ignored. thus, this paper aims to present a theoretical framework of test anxiety in the foreign language learning context. for this purpose, the paper first introduces the terms, definitions, concepts, theories, and hypotheses concerning test anxiety. then, the paper focuses on foreign language anxiety. finally, it presents a theoretical background for test anxiety in a narrower scope. the paper concludes that more research is warranted, whereas teachers need to be trained to moderate the effects of test anxiety among foreign language learners. keywords: english as a foreign language test anxiety theoretical framework received : 29 february 2020 revised : 28 march 2020 accepted : 06 april 2020 published : 22 june 2020 introduction research shows that test anxiety has adverse effects on the foreign language learning process and achievement and proficiency among foreign language learners, whereas it decreases learning potential (julkunen, 1992). in addition, it constitutes a barrier to reflecting real performance among foreign language learners. more importantly, research indicates that test anxiety is one of the sources that create psychological and physical problems, cause amotivation and demotivation, decrease interest in foreign language learning, and finally increase the number of mistakes during the production process (aydın et al., 2006). on the other hand, studies that focus on test anxiety mainly lack the theoretical background of test anxiety. furthermore, how test anxiety is related to the current theories and hypotheses remains an unanswered question. thus, the current paper mailto:salami.aydin@medeniyet.edu.tr http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-2214-326x http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-2214-326x http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-1614-874x http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-1614-874x http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-4963-084x http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-4963-084x http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-4137-0548 http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-4137-0548 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9964-090x http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-3164-9457 mailto:ferdane.denkci@medeniyet.edu.tr mailto:selami.aydin@medeniyet.edu.tr mailto:asiye.basturk@medeniyet.edu.tr mailto:tulin.turnuk@medeniyet.edu.tr mailto:ilknur.saydam@medeniyet.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00016 http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-2214-326x� http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-1614-874x� http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-4963-084x� http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-4137-0548� http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-3164-9457� denkci akkaş, et al. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 5 focus on elt journal (felt) aims at presenting the theoretical framework of test anxiety in the foreign language learning process. the paper first introduces terms, definitions, concepts, theories, and hypotheses regarding test anxiety. in other words, after defining anxiety in the broadest perspective, foreign language anxiety is discussed. then, after categorizing the elements of foreign language anxiety, test anxiety is introduced in the foreign language learning context. anxiety learning among human beings is investigated in two major domains as affective and cognitive. the affective domain involves emotions, feelings, and values that guide an individual’s perceptions of a learning effort. thus, it has an indirect but significant impact on the learning outcomes (boyle et al., 2007). as one of the substantial constituents in the affective domain, anxiety has always remained on the agenda of educational research as in many other fields of study. in other words, researchers have been striving to understand its construct and how it governs human behavior (spielberger, 2013; spielberger, 1972). to conclude, it is a powerful emotion that deserves the attention of the academy. anxiety is a concept that has derived from the latin word anxietatem which in the 1500s meant apprehension caused by danger, misfortune, or error; uneasiness of mind respecting some uncertainty; a restless dread of some evil. it is seen that the concept is still used to refer to a similar emotional state or a psychological disorder: a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome or a nervous disorder marked by excessive uneasiness and apprehension, typically with compulsive behavior or panic attacks. anxiety was an object of interest even in the ancient times when wellknown philosophers like aristoteles pondered over the phenomenon. it was stated that anxiousness arose in the anticipation of an evil being poverty, disease, or death. it was also believed that the talent to control this feeling was enough to confirm one’s courage. however, during the middle ages rather religious and mythical conceptualizations replaced this perspective. accepted as a physical or a psychological disorder rather than a natural human feeling, anxiety was under scientific investigation thanks to the studies of various researchers like darwin in the 19th and freud in the 20th century. with the advent of psychology as an independent field of science, new behavioral and cognitive mindsets were created to approach anxiety and the second half of the 20th century viewed this condition as an illness that required drug therapy (horwitz, 2013, spielberger, 1972). anxiety is perceived as a different form or an excessive level of fear that one develops against a potential threat or danger. it is such a strong feeling that it may manifest itself with such physical and subjective reactions as swelter, blush, and increase in heart rate or tension (riskind & rector, 2018) in addition to negative feelings like apprehension, tension, and dread (spielberger, 1972). it tends to emerge in unsafe and dubious social settings (horwitz, 2013). to put it simply, anxiety is defined as an unpleasant emotional condition associated with feelings of uneasiness, worry, discomfort and dread (he, 2018; riskind & rector, 2018; spielberger, 1972). for this reason, anxious individuals are usually aware of their unpleasant emotions and capable of providing verbal descriptions for denkci akkaş, et al. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 6 focus on elt journal (felt) the depth and length of these feelings (spielberger, 1972). anxiety has also been a trendy research topic due to its strong relation with performance (carrier et al., 1984; ng & lee, 2015). it can be noted that there exists an inverted u shape relation between the two. for instance, too much or too little anxiety results in low performance, whereas it can be increased with an optimum level of anxiety (arent & landers, 2003; he, 2018; raglin & hanin, 2000). thus, anxious individuals tend to perceive the case in their hands as difficult, threatening, or challenging and regard themselves as inefficient to cope with that. as a result, they are likely to get fixed with negative sides of the process and its undesirable consequences for themselves. so, they predict failure and loss of self-esteem and approval by their community (sarason & sarason, 1990; zeidner, 1998). trait, state, and situation-specific anxiety spielberger (1972) distinguishes emotional traits and states. he defines traits as relatively enduring individual differences among people in specifiable tendencies to perceive the world in a certain way and/or in dispositions to react or behave in a specified manner with predictable regularity (spielberger, 1972, p. 31), whereas an emotional state occurs at a time with a specific level of intensity. trait anxiety refers to a permanent personality disposition and so it is rather stable and predictable, whereas state anxiety identifies a rather temporary emotional condition that changes according to the perceived danger in a circumstance. state anxiety could reflect one’s trait anxiety as well (quigley et al., 2012; spielberger, 1972) and ellis (1999) proposes that it is a mixture of trait and situationspecific anxiety which shows up in very specific situations like taking a test, speaking to a native speaker or flying (ellis, 1999, p. 480). figure 1. the multidimensionality of state and trait anxiety (endler & kocovski, 2001, p. 234) anxiety state trait cognitive-worry autonomic-emotional social evaluation physical danger ambiguous daily routines other-undetermined denkci akkaş, et al. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 7 focus on elt journal (felt) endler and kocovski (2001) argue that there are four components of state anxiety: social evaluation, physical danger, ambiguous, and daily routines. likewise, trait anxiety is made up of two elements that are cognitive-worry and autonomic-emotional. they have visualized the construct of the two concepts as in figure 1 above. proposed by alpert and haber (1960), the second categorization for anxiety as facilitating and debilitating is directly linked to its relationship with performance (ellis, 1999). facilitating anxiety leads to a good performance whereas debilitating anxiety is considered an obstacle for achievement (he, 2018). this distinction is generally used for academic or physical performance, and naturally for test achievements and competitions. it helps one do better in a test or competition since it motivates him to fight and keeps him alert, while debilitating anxiety may cause failure as it leads him to avoid or give up striving (brown, 2007; ellis, 1999; zeidner, 1998). oxford (1999) specifies the direct and indirect effects of debilitating anxiety on learning and argues that a student may perform poorly due to worry or self-doubt generated by debilitating anxiety or may directly reduce participation in teaching activities which will naturally result in underachievement. foreign language anxiety even though there is considerable research showing that anxiety may promote learning in certain cases (oxford, 1999), horwitz et al. (1986) state it is the root for mental blocks against learning a foreign language for ones who can easily achieve their learning goals in other areas like math or science but not in acquiring a second language. they associate this failure with a sort of state or situational anxiety stating that this negativity is typically experienced owing to stressful classroom situations rather than a personality trait (aydın, 2009; bekleyen, 2004; horwitz, 2001; horwitz et al., 1986). foreign language anxiety (fla) refers to a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process (horwitz et al., 1986, p. 128). people with fla experience feelings of dread and worry when they are supposed to use a foreign language particularly in a classroom setting. within this scope, fla is considered a significant obstacle for foreign language learners since it decreases their motivation and classroom participation. moreover, learners who suffer from fla tend to become defensive. thus, they prefer avoiding their foreign language to get rid of negative feelings (he, 2018). ellis (1999) asserts that anxiety has the power to determine the quality and quantity of input, processing, and success in the outcome (williams & andrade, 2008). this assertion is also supported by krashen’s comprehensible input and affective filter hypotheses (brown, 2007). krashen (1985) argues that comprehensible input is the precondition for successful language acquisition and that it refers to meaningful input that is slightly beyond the learner’s current competence which is termed as “i+1”. the learner is expected to advance with the moderate challenge provided in input but still grasps the message in it. it is also suggested that speaking will emerge at the point when the learner has received enough input (brown, 2007). however, the learner can benefit from the comprehensible denkci akkaş, et al. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 8 focus on elt journal (felt) input properly only in the presence of a low affective filter (du, 2009; pierce, 1995). in other words, the learner needs to lower the affective filter to let the input in (aydın, 2019; du, 2009). otherwise, she may not be able to take in the input that is blocked by the affective filter (aydın, 2019; ni, 2012); this may lead to an interruption in the language learning progress (horwitz et al., 1986). according to the theory, the affective filter comprises certain emotions as motivation, self-confidence, attitudes, and anxiety. therefore, someone with high levels of motivation, self-confidence, positive attitudes, and reduced anxiety can lower his/her affective filter and get rid of the potential psychological barriers (aydın, 2019; ni, 2012). fla occurs more often in formal settings where adults learn their foreign language consciously rather than acquiring it in informal contexts. they can monitor their output as they are conscious of the rules and patterns that are explicitly taught which may increase their affective filter and so anxiety (scovel, 1978). in short, fla that is a significant component of the affective filter is regarded to have a negative effect on foreign language learning (horwitz, 2001); therefore, it is important to understand its nature and find out efficient ways to cope with it. some language teaching methods like silent way, suggestopedia, and community language learning were developed in the late 20th century and these methods were promising to use techniques that would lower the affective filter to provide a supportive and non-threatening environment for language learners (scovel, 1978). horwitz et al. (1986) suggest that fla is constituted by the combination of the following three components that are briefly described below: communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety (aydın, 2019; williams, 1991). communication apprehension identifies a type of shyness characterized by fear or anxiety about communicating with people (horwitz et al., 1986, p. 127). people with communication apprehension are unwilling to have social interactions with others and tend to drop out conversations (beatty & pascual‐ferrá, 2016). this is also observable in foreign language classrooms where students may exhibit reluctance to communicate in the target language due to their limited language proficiency, lack of efficient communication skills, and restricted capacity to express themselves (aida, 1994). although they have sophisticated ideas that they can talk about in their mother tongue effortlessly, students cannot express them due to the limitation in their immature l2 which creates frustration, anger, and worry and so increases their self-consciousness and anxiety (horwitz, 2001; macintyre & gardner, 1989; williams, 1991). fear of negative evaluation is basically about the social impression people create in their community and refers to the apprehension for being perceived and judged unfavorably by others (carleton et al., 2006; leary, 1983). the anticipation for negative evaluation and the fear of creating a poor image in the community will increase anxiety and bring in avoidance behaviors (leary, 1983). as foreign language learners are afraid of being evaluated negatively by their teachers or more proficient peers, they want to save their social image and become sensitive to making mistakes or producing poor quality language (horwitz et al., 1986). test anxiety is directly related to academic evaluation (macintyre & gardner, 1989). students who are afraid of exhibiting low performance in assessment situations develop test anxiety which is typical for foreign language classrooms as well (aida, 1994). test anxiety refers to the stress, uneasiness, and denkci akkaş, et al. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 9 focus on elt journal (felt) worry one feels when his performance is evaluated; that is, it is a term that describes the fear of failure in a test. people tend to develop test anxiety because they are not satisfied with their preparation before the evaluation or they are dubious of their abilities or performance during the assessment (mcdonald, 2001). below, test anxiety is discussed in detail. test anxiety tests are inevitable elements in academic life. starting from kindergarten, people are to take various tests like entrance exams, classroom exams or proficiency exams for the continuation of their education or such specific tests such as a driving license exam to get authorization for a basic activity in their daily life (goonan, 2003). it has been a common research subject both in psychology and education and gained popularity since the beginning of the 21st century (putwain, 2008; zeidner & matthews, 2002; zeidner, 1998) although there was a considerable amount of research in the late 20th century as well (stöber & pekrun, 2004). the main reason for this growing interest is the proliferation of standardized tests which are a part of american and british educational policies to determine student and school performance and to indicate accountability, while there has been severe criticism for this overemphasis on testing in such educational systems since students who perceive these exams as formidable objects that endanger their welfare suffer from serious test anxiety (goonan, 2003; putwain, 2008). test anxiety is the set of cognitive, physiological, and behavioral responses that accompany concern about possible negative consequences or failure on exams or similar evaluative situations (zeidner, 2007, p. 166). it creates excessive amounts of concern, worry, and fear about negative evaluation during or in anticipation of performance or evaluative situations (goonan, 2003, p. 258). individuals are afraid of getting embarrassed by their unsatisfactory performance since they consider it as a threat for their ego or selfesteem (goonan, 2003; putwain, 2008; sapp, 1999) and consequently, they either avoid evaluative situations or experience excessive stress if they cannot flee from being tested (sarason, 1978). their academic performance is hurt in either case (goonan, 2003; macintyre & gardner, 1989). test anxiety appears in specific situations or contexts where one’s performance is being evaluated and it has an evident social aspect due to the concerns with how that performance will be judged by the others (putwain, 2008). this may also endanger the validity of the test since the score a student gets in the test may also indicate her capability of coping with stress and anxiety in that evaluative situation rather than signifying achievement of the intended exam goals (zeidner, 2007; zeidner, 1995). when the construct of test anxiety is regarded, it is seen that there is severe ambiguity since various researchers have conducted their studies focusing on different meanings of test anxiety. the concept has been associated with close but distinct constructs like stressful evaluative stimuli and contexts, trait anxiety, and state anxiety (zeidner, 1998). at the onset of studies on test anxiety as an independent notion in the 1950s, its relationship with performance was investigated and the test anxiety questionnaire and the test anxiety scale for children were the primary tools to collect data (stöber & pekrun, 2004). today, denkci akkaş, et al. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 10 focus on elt journal (felt) it is accepted that test anxiety interferes with task performance; on the other hand, it is recognized that there are other factors like study skills and motivation which may alter performance as well (sapp, 1999). in the 60s and 70s, the discussions went on under two main conceptualizations. the first debate was on viewing test anxiety as a kind of trait or state anxiety (hembree, 1988; stöber & pekrun, 2004). researchers tried to understand whether test anxiety was a part of one’s stable personality trait or a transitory emotional state (zeidner, 1998). the stance for the trait view proposes that test anxiety is a permanent individual difference which varies according to how one perceives the threat in test-taking occasions in general. it is also argued that this personal disposition is developed through past experiences in the family and/or with failure in academic life which may not be only the result but also the source of test anxiety (putwain, 2008), while the proponents of the state perspective suggest that it is also possible for a learner to experience test anxiety in a singular case perceiving that specific situation as a threat to her ego (zeidner, 1998). this type of test anxiety is contextspecific since a student with low trait test anxiety may develop a high degree of state test anxiety in such particular assessment situations (putwain, 2008). the second approach regards test anxiety as a combination of two cognitive and affective dimensions which are worry and emotionality (liebert & morris, 1967; stöber & pekrun, 2004; zeidner, 1998). being the cognitive counterpart, worry is directly connected with one’s anticipation for failure or success. one does not think about the outcomes of failure if she predicts accomplishment for her performance in a test which eventually lowers the degree of test anxiety (liebert & morris, 1967). emotionality which is the affective dimension refers to one’s doubt about her actual performance in a particular test. this view signifies a direct correlation between the levels of test anxiety and uncertainty about test achievement (liebert & morris, 1967). however, liebert and morris’ research revealed a stronger relationship between test performance and the cognitive component of test anxiety which also concluded a weaker connection with emotionality (zeidner, 1998). just like liebert and morris, wine (1971) developed a cognitive model for test anxiety considering its debilitating effects on performance. named as the cognitive-attentional or interference model (zeidner, 1998, p. 10), this approach highlights the advantage of low test-anxious people over high test-anxious ones. this advantage mainly stems from low test-anxious people’s ability to get fully concentrated on task-relevant issues during a test whereas high test-anxious people have to allocate their attention to internal processes like self-evaluative, self-deprecatory thinking, and perception of autonomic responses” in addition to the taskrelevant issues (wine, 1971, p. 92). since high test-anxious individuals are engaged with such intrusive thinking while taking a test, they inevitably end up with poor performance and obviously, their success diminishes depending on the complexity of the test task (hembree, 1988; sarason & sarason, 1990; wine, 1971; zeidner, 1998). from the 70s to the early 80s, applied research in test anxiety flourished seeking treatment and effective techniques like attentional training, stress inoculation, systematic cognitive restructuring or studies skills counseling to diminish its debilitating consequences (zeidner, 1998, p. 11). however, all those studies eventually arose severe criticism against the cognitive-attentional model since it was revealed that treatment did not improve denkci akkaş, et al. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 11 focus on elt journal (felt) students’ performance in tests although it helped to reduce their anxiety (kirkland & hollandsworth, 1980; zeidner, 1998). the point is that students perform poorly due to their lack of proper study and test-taking skills and the ones who suffer from this deprivation are mostly high test-anxious students. in other words, high test-anxious students cannot learn the material adequately since they cannot study effectively (culler & holahan, 1980; mealey & host, 1992; sapp, 1999). these students also have serious trouble in learning, organizing, and retrieving new information in test-taking situations (benjamin et al., 1981; sapp, 1999). in a nutshell, test anxiety debilitates performance by reducing the cognitive capacity available for task solution, and study or test-taking skills facilitate learning and test performance by reducing the cognitive capacity demanded by different tasks (tobias, 1985, p. 135). the late 80s and 90s witnessed a boom of test anxiety research dealing with various theoretical models and their causal relations with test performance concerning information processing phases (zeidner, 1998). one of the prominent figures in that era was sarason who conceptualized test anxiety as a construct with four interrelated components: tension, worry, test-irrelevant thought and bodily reactions (sapp, 1999; sarason & sarason, 1990; sarason, 1984). another theory that is still well accepted is the transactional process model presented by spielberger and vagg in 1995 (sapp, 1999; spielberger & vagg, 1995; zeidner, 1998). this comprehensive model points out the functional relations between state emotions and test anxiety over time (ringeisen & buchwald, 2010, p. 432) and accordingly, test anxiety is regarded as a situation-specific case that is experienced due to a trait stimulated by state anxiety, worry, and emotionality (sapp, 1999). this model intends to explain the antecedent conditions and dispositions that influence students’ reactions to tests, the mediating emotional and cognitive processes involved in responding to evaluative situations and the correlates and consequences of test anxiety (spielberger & vagg, 1995, p. 11). it is argued that there is constant and active interaction among the components of test anxiety, so the test taker and the testing situation are interrelated. additionally, some people are better at managing anxiety than others (sapp, 1999). considering the transactional aspects of the previous test anxiety literature, zeidner (1998) suggested an integrative transactional model that is visualized in figure 2. denkci akkaş, et al. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 12 focus on elt journal (felt) figure 2. the transactional model of test anxiety (zeidner, 1998, p. 19) as can be understood from the figure, zeidner’s conceptualization presents a reciprocal and dynamic model in which all the components of test anxiety are in constant and mutual interaction. the fundamental constructs of test anxiety involve evaluative situations, personal variables, perceptions of test situations, state test anxiety, coping reactions, and adaptive outcomes (zeidner, 1998). evaluative situations first, the level of test anxiety experienced by a learner is determined by such elements in the evaluative situation as the nature of task, task difficulty, atmosphere, time constraints, examiner characteristics, and administration mode. individuals may get more stressed when the test task is complicated or unfamiliar to them or when they are given very limited time to complete the test (zeidner, 1998). moreover, things get tougher for a learner who has to cope with ambiguity due to his/her lack of adequate knowledge about the testing context. personal variables people do not get worried equally about a particular evaluative situation, so they may feel different levels of challenge and threat within the same testing context. it is possible to explain this variation as “a situation-specific form of trait anxiety” (zeidner, 1998, p. 22). individuals with high trait anxiety are likely to view an evaluative situation more evaluative situation *nature of task *task difficulty *atmosphere *time constraints *examiner characteristics *mode of personal variables *trait test anxiety *need for achievement *self-efficacy *scholastic ability *information processing capacities perceptions of test situation: appraisals and reappraisals *threat *harm coping reactions *defensive mechanisms *coping strategies: -problem-focused -emotion-focused state test anxiety *worry *emotionality *physiological arousal adaptational outcomes *task-related thinking *performance -accuracy -latency -efficiency *physiological denkci akkaş, et al. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 13 focus on elt journal (felt) frightening and stressing than ones with low trait anxiety; they tend to get hurt more intensely and frequently in testing situations. perceptions of test situation their cognitive perceptions act as a mediator between individuals and contexts. in the case of a test situation, their emotions and behaviors are guided by their personal judgment of that particular evaluative condition. how they feel and behave mostly depends on their “subjective appraisal of the situation” (zeidner, 1998, p. 22). this implies that it is not the situation itself but the way it is interpreted by an individual that evokes anxiety. according to zeidner (1998), people are apt to get anxious if they regard a test situation as egothreatening or harmful; moreover, this anxiety increases if they think they are incapable of coping with such cases. people may notice a threat in a test situation due to their expectation for such risks as social disapproval or resitting a test. likewise, they may not get anxious at all if only the threat or danger in the context goes unrecognized by them. moreover, challenges in an evaluative situation, prior experience, awareness of possible outcomes, the judgment of expenses and individual variations shape cognitive appraisals that stimulate anxiety (zeidner, 1998). state test anxiety this term is used for “the transitory, anxious affect state provoked by a specific evaluative situation” (hong & karstensson, 2002, p. 349). in such cases, people are drifted to feel tense and get incited. besides, their autonomic nervous system is activated which results in physiological arousals like trembling, sweating or irregular blood pressure. they also end up with concerning about failure, being thoughtful, and losing their self-confidence. coping reactions and adaptive outcomes people react to a test situation to reduce or tolerate the stress they feel as a result of their interaction with the environment. they apply some problem-oriented, curative, avoidance, or defensive strategies to regulate their emotional state and to manage their anxiety (zeidner, 1998). having reviewed the previous research on coping reactions and adaptive outcomes, zeidner (1995, p. 130-132) suggests the following generalizations: 1. adaptive coping in exam situations involves a flexible repertoire and combined use of alternative coping strategies. 2. coping with a stressful exam situation is a process; it is a transaction between a person and an event that plays across time and changing circumstances. 3. coping strategies in exam situations are found to work with modest effects with some people and some outcomes. 4. coping patterns should match both the context and the individual. 5. coping strategies vary between and within individuals. 6. coping responses are not uniformly adaptive. denkci akkaş, et al. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 14 focus on elt journal (felt) 7. causal relations among coping strategies and outcome indices are likely to be multidirectional rather than linear. another conceptualization for test anxiety appeared with the application of the selfregulative theory of anxiety and competence to test anxiety (zeidner, 2007; zeidner & matthews, 2005). as depicted in figure 3, the model specifies the significance of transactional processes and self-referent information (zeidner, 2007). figure 3. a prototypical self-regulative model for evaluation anxiety (zeidner & matthews, 2005, p. 154) figure 3 illustrates that self-regulative processing is activated by an intrusion which may refer to the thought of potential failure in a testing situation. with the activation, the system begins to search for a proper way to cope with it. this search is largely influenced by self-knowledge, and if negative self-beliefs are fetched, an increase in test anxiety occurs. the individual focuses on his/her poor performance and negative feedback. she gets extremely alert for danger, starts to accuse herself of being incompetent, and tends to exhibit avoidance behaviors. this type of processing eventually triggers state anxiety causing distress and cognitive interference. normally, an individual is expected to situational threat (evaluation) state anxiety acute worry, distress and cognitive interference failure to meet personal goals for changing the situation intrusion awareness of state disturbance longer term feedback self-knowledge • negative self-beliefs • dysfunctional plans for processing • avoidant motivations executive processing • appraisal of ailing immediate test • negative future consequences • meta-cognitions: heightened attention to worry and self-referent thoughts • coping thorough emotion-focus maladaptive interaction with the situation • performance failure • negative feedback from others • hypervigilance for threat • avoidance, leading to skill degradation maintenance and elaboration of maladaptive self-knowledge negative short-term feedback denkci akkaş, et al. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 15 focus on elt journal (felt) restructure his/her self-knowledge by learning from each evaluation experience and by adding more efficient coping strategies to his/her repertoire. however, constant worry may prevent one from such a beneficial update in the self-knowledge and direct her to avoid evaluative situations. such avoidance is hazardous as it reduces the chances for modification in the coping strategies for better (zeidner, 2007; zeidner & matthews, 2005). despite the slowdown after the 90s, test anxiety has continued to remain a popular research topic to date (zeidner, 1998). this popularity mainly stems from the fact that the relation between test anxiety and performance/achievement arises interest in educational psychology as well as in all other branches of applied psychology. today, it is known beyond any doubt that test anxiety is related to “students’ achievement at school, their school-related motivation, academic self-concepts, career advancement, personality development, and health” (stöber & pekrun, 2004). this is specifically significant in western communities with competitive educational systems in which tests play crucial roles in the course of every individual’s life (zeidner, 2007). in short, it is of paramount importance to understand the construct of test anxiety, to develop a reliable tool to measure it and to reveal its relations with various factors in educational settings. conclusions and discussion in the broadest sense, it can be stated that learning among human beings is directly related to affective domain. within the scope of the affective domain, anxiety can be seen as a feeling of worry and nervousness stemmed from trait, an uncertain state or situation. trait anxiety relates to a permanent personality disposition, whereas state anxiety refers to a rather temporary emotional condition that changes according to the perceived danger. last, situation-specific anxiety shows up in very specific situations. anxiety can be also categorized as facilitating and debilitating when its effects are considered. facilitating anxiety is a source of good performance while debilitating anxiety is considered an obstacle for achievement. fla can be defined as a complex combination of feelings, beliefs, behaviors, and selfperception within the foreign language learning process. it should be noted that fla has adverse effects on learners’ motivation and classroom participation and results in avoidance of foreign language. moreover, it has the power to determine the quality and quantity of input, processing, and output within the scope of affective filter that is suggested in the comprehensible input and affective filter hypotheses. fla consists of three elements. first, communication apprehension is a kind of shyness and fear resulting in communication in the target language. second, fear of negative evaluation is the fear regarding social impressions in the community. finally, test anxiety can be defined as the fear of showing low academic performance in assessment situations. test anxiety, as defined above, is the set of behavioral, psychological, and cognitive reactions to tests regarding failure, negative consequences, and evaluative situations. the concept can be associated with trait anxiety and state anxiety. on the other hand, it is also possible to state that it falls under the category of situation-specific anxiety. in other words, denkci akkaş, et al. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 16 focus on elt journal (felt) it can be noted that test anxiety is a permanent individual disposition stemmed from past experiences in academic life, whereas it can be experienced in a singular state. moreover, test anxiety can be perceived in specific situations. while the current literature suggests that test anxiety is provoked by personality, states or situations, it can be seen as a combination of worry, a direct connection to failure and success, and emotionality, referring doubt about actual performance. within this scope, the cognitive-attention or interference can be highlighted in terms of the advantage of low test-anxious people who concentrate on task-relevant issues during tests, while high test-anxious people allocate their attention to internal processes such as self-evaluative, self-deprecatory thinking, and perception of autonomic responses. yet, the cognitive-attentional model can be criticized, as test anxiety may be a result of the low level of achievement due to poor test-taking and study skills. to conclude, it is possible to state that test anxiety is not the only variable that may increase or decrease the level of achievement in the target language; however, it may be both the cause of and effect on the achievement in the target language. test anxiety is still researched and discussed regarding its causal relations with test performance. within this perspective, it can be noted that test anxiety involves four interrelated components, namely tension, worry, test-irrelevant thought, and bodily reactions. besides, the transactional process model suggests that there exist functional relations between state emotions and test anxiety. moreover, the constructs of test anxiety involve evaluative situations, personal variables, perceptions of test situations, state test anxiety, coping reactions, and adaptive outcomes. first, evaluative situations can be listed as the nature of task, task difficulty, atmosphere, time constraints, examiner characteristics, and administration mode, whereas personal variables can be a combination and variation of a situation-specific form of trait anxiety. second, perceptions of test situation can be clarified within the scope of a mediator between individuals and contexts, test situations, emotions, and behaviors, whereas state test anxiety is provoked by a specific evaluative situation. third and last, coping reactions and adaptive outcomes include several problemoriented, curative, avoidance or defensive strategies to regulate learners’ emotional state and to manage their anxiety. as a final note, it can be added that self-regulative processing is activated by an intrusion which may refer to the thought of potential failure in a testing situation. several recommendations can be noted. in the broadest perspective, foreign language teachers should raise their awareness of test anxiety. speaking more specifically, teachers should know that affect is one of the inseparable domains of foreign language learners and anxiety, one of the affective states, relates to trait, states, and situations. in addition, they should know that anxiety has both facilitating and debilitating effects on the language learning process. within the scope of fla, they should be aware that anxiety may cause avoidance of foreign language learning. in the narrowest perspective, they should also know that fla is a combination of communication comprehension, fear of negative evaluation, and test anxiety. foreign language teachers should be also aware that learners show cognitive and psychological reactions to tests. thus, they need to develop strategies regarding decreasing the level of fear of failure and designing evaluative situations. furthermore, they should know how to analyze the sources of test anxiety, as it may be denkci akkaş, et al. / focus on elt journal, 2020 2(1) 17 focus on elt journal (felt) provoked by personality, states, and specific situations. teachers should also train their students in terms of motivation, concentration, and facilitative effects of a moderate level of test anxiety. they should also develop strategies and tactics on how to cope with tension, test-irrelevant thoughts, and body reactions among learners. within this scope, teachers should be aware that stressful exam situations involve a process that depends on changing circumstances, whereas they should know that coping patterns among learners relate to the context and individual differences. in other words, they should be informed that coping with test anxiety may not be uniformly adaptive and that it is multidirectional (zeidner (1995). as a note, given that teachers may have a considerable role in moderating the level of test anxiety, reducing debilitative effects, and increasing facilitative effects, they should be trained about anxiety and related issues throughout pre and in-service teacher education programs. within this scope, both preand in-service teacher education programs should involve the above-mentioned issues. as a final note, it should be added that these improvements can be realized by program developers and policymakers who need to use research results to modify the mentioned programs. a few recommendations can be also noted for further research. more research on test anxiety in the foreign language learning context is necessary, as the current literature does not present a consensus on the causes and effects of test anxiety. for this purpose, there is a strong need to perform qualitative studies for a deeper understanding of test anxiety. moreover, new tools should be developed to measure the levels of test anxiety in various foreign language education contexts. researchers should also tend to perform descriptive, and correlational and experimental studies in terms of clarifying the relationships between test anxiety and various factors. disclosure statement this study was supported by the unit of scientific research projects of istanbul medeniyet university through the research grant (s-gap-2019-1491) under the title of test anxiety among foreign language learners. the authors would like to thank 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(1998). test anxiety: the state of the art. new york: kluwer academic publishers. zeidner, m. (2007). test anxiety in educational contexts: concepts, findings, and future directions. in emotion in education, eds. paul a. schutz & reinhard pekrun, ca: academic press, p. 165-184. copyrights copyrights for the articles are retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ focus on elt focus on elt journal special issue, 4(1), 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: tekinmustafa@comu.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. an experimental study on efl teacher trainees’ opinions about english as a lingua franca mustafa tekin lecturer, çanakkale onsekiz mart university, turkey tekinmustafa@comu.edu.tr apa citation: tekin, m. (2022). an experimental study on efl teacher trainees’ opinions about english as a lingua franca. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 105-123. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.8 abstract the present study investigates three different groups of freshman year efl teacher trainees’ opinions regarding the english as a lingua franca (elf) perspective in elt. a quantitative quasi-experimental research design with repeated measures was used to investigate the initial opinions of the participants, and how their opinions changed after semester-long target culture native speaker-oriented class practices versus intercultural elf-oriented practices as part of their listening and pronunciation course. a total of 83 students participated in the study. to collect data, a six-item mini questionnaire was used as pre and post survey immediately before and after the experiment. the results indicated that the teacher trainees under investigation favored native english varieties over nonnative ones while at the same time accepting the international lingua franca role of english in today’s globalized world. the three different treatments they took during the experiment caused some changes in their initial opinions as will be explained in detail in the coming sections of the paper. the overall findings of the study support previous research on language learners’ opinions about and attitudes towards different varieties of english, and their use in english lessons and course materials. keywords english as a lingua franca, language learner opinions, world englishes, teacher trainees article history received : 17.10.2021 revised : 06.12.2021 accepted : 06.12.2021 published : 04.04.2022 type research article introduction world englishes (we) and english as a lingua franca (elf) perspective in elt the term of world englishes (we) was invented by kachru (1985) and revised by kachru (1992). rajagopalan (2004) defines we as “a hotchpotch of dialects and accents at different stages of nativization” (p. 115). in this respect, we reflects the diverse ways english is adopted and used locally in different regions of the world; and it has by far the most influential model in reference to english use in the global world (lai, 2008). in kachru’s (1985, 1992) three-circle model, there are three concentric circles, each of which refers to a group of countries categorized according to the status and use of english in those countries. in this model, the inner circle countries are the ones where english has an official status, and it is commonly learnt as a mother tongue too. the outer circle countries such as singapore, malaysia, and nigeria etc. come from a colonial past and therefore, english is learnt and used as a second language in these countries, usually as one of the official languages too. finally, in the expanding circle, there are countries like turkey, japan and spain, where english has neither an official status nor common use in daily life, but it is usually learnt at mailto:tekinmustafa@comu.edu.tr mailto:tekinmustafa@comu.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.8 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8487-9718 tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 106 schools as a foreign language for practical purposes (bayyurt & altinmakas, 2012). these countries do not have a colonial history unlike the ones in the outer circle. inspired by this early model of kachruvian concentric circles, some scholars (e.g., jenkins, 2002; seidlhofer, 2004) have suggested the idea of english as a lingua franca perspective in elt. their main argument is that english, today, is an international language which is commonly and widely used for communication across national boundaries and cultures (jenkins, 2002; mckay, 2003); and the majority of interactions in today’s world do not conform to standardized grammar, lexical and pronunciation forms of english (seidlhofer, 2004). elf users acquire the language while at the same time using it in interactions (canagarajah, 2007). this de facto situation raises the question of who the true owner of the english language is (widdowson, 2003), the answer of which, according to crystal (2003) is that no one owns the english language in the new millennium because as he points out, english does not belong to any single national group in today’s globalized world. in other words, everyone who speaks english owns it too (jenkins, 2006). besides, new english forms keep emerging in different parts of the world, particularly in eastern contexts (kachru, 2005) like china, singapore, etc. from this aspect, english as a lingua franca (elf) “is simply the product of all those who use it in their daily interactions” (schmitz, 2012, p. 261). in a later definition, jenkins (2007) suggests that elf is “…an emerging language that exists in its own right and is being described in its own terms” (p. 2) [emphasis original]. as canagarajah (2007) argues, elf may adopt a variety of forms that change in accordance with different contexts and speakers. similarly, suzuki (2010) suggests that nonnative english varieties has a rather "dynamic and hybrid nature" (p. 146). implications of the elf perspective for elt there has been an increasing level of interest on the pedagogical implications of elf research (galloway & rose, 2014; matsuda & friedrich, 2011). besides, there is a growing body of research which investigates the integration of a more elf-informed (e.g., galloway, 2013; seidlhofer, 2011, 2013) and elf-aware (e.g., bayyurt & altinmakas, 2012) perspective into elt practices. the elf perspective can contribute positively to the spread of english language because “those who opt for elf … are free of linguistic and cultural imposition from outside and may be more motivated to learn the language” (schmitz, 2012, p. 279); because standard english is only one minority variety of contemporary english (ling, 2008). from this aspect, emphasizing standardized native varieties as the only acceptable forms of english has a negative effect on the self-confidence of language learners (farrell & martin, 2009; matsuda, 2003; matsumoto, 2011). therefore, researchers like erling (2005) and bayyurt and altinmakas, (2012) call for a change in current elt practices in the direction of their being more inclusive of nonnative varieties of english. bayyurt and sifakis (2013) suggest an elfaware approach to english as a foreign language (efl) teacher education in order to make teacher candidates more aware of and knowledgeable about the elf perspective. the elfinformed pedagogy (see jenkins, 2012; seidlhofer, 2011, 2013) is to be achieved mainly through exposure to english varieties; and the transformative elf-aware teacher education as suggested by bayyurt and sifakis (2013) is the recent promising implication of the elf perspective for elt. however, as seidlhofer (2013) suggest, more research is needed, especially on how elf communications are achieved in real life to implement elf-informed tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 107 and elf-aware pedagogies in the language classroom. a general look at elf research on learner attitudes an investigation into the literature reveals that language learners’ attitudes towards english varieties have also been a major area of interest in elf research. research on learner attitudes shows that many language learners still prefer a native spoken variety (general american or received pronunciation) of english as a reference point and model for their pronunciation skills (e.g., bayyurt & altinmakas, 2012; zhang, 2005). besides, the majority of language learners believe that the main purpose of learning english is to use it for communication with native speakers, and they usually stick to this belief (jenkins, 2007) even after they become aware of the elf perspective (csizér & kontra, 2012). similarly, ke and cahyani (2014) emphasize the low speed of change in learners’ beliefs. in an earlier study, prodromou (1992) found that 75% of the participants preferred british english whereas only 18% opted for the standard american variety as a model for themselves. timmis (2002), similarly, revealed that language learners still prefer native englishes as the only models for their language learning. in friedrich’s (2002) study, when the participants were called to name an english variety, only british and american englishes were mentioned, pointing to a lack of awareness regarding the other varieties. in jenkins’ (2007) study on the beliefs and attitudes of nonnative and native speakers of english, the participants similarly preserved their initial feelings that they themselves and their students would rather learn the native speaker phonology than elf. similarly, lai’s (2008) study revealed that language teachers in taiwan had difficulties in following an elf-informed pedagogy in their classes, due to the dilemma they face between the desire from language learners to achieve native-like proficiency in the target language on one hand, and the requirements of the elf perspective on the other. in suzuki’s (2010) qualitative study, none of the participants accepted l2 varieties as equal to american or british english even after they understood the importance of different english varieties. pishghadam and fahimeh’s (2011) study, similarly revealed that most iranian teachers considered american english as the best standard form of english for teaching; and they added that using precious class time to teach and learn nonnative englishes would be quite unnecessary. in galloway’s (2013) study, the participants had more positive attitudes towards native varieties of english than nonnative ones. their attitudes did not change significantly after voluntary exposure to spoken english varieties from all three circles of kachru (1985, 1992). according to galloway, there are a number of different factors that influence learner attitudes, some of which are existing stereotypes about nonnative accents and familiarity with native english accents. when we look at the turkish context, we see a very similar picture. based on the findings of a small-scale study conducted in a foreign language teacher education department of a turkish university, coşkun (2011) reports that the majority of english teacher candidates hold the belief that pronunciation classes are successful to the level they help them become as native-like as possible. bayyurt and altinmakas’ (2012) study, similarly, reveals that language learners at the english language and literature department of a turkish private university initially report target culture and native varieties-oriented perspectives to elt. they however tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 108 change their initial perspectives after eil awareness raising activities and elf-aware practices in a semester-long oral communications class. kaypak and ortaçtepe (2014) found, similarly, that turkish language learners prefer native english varieties over nonnative ones. according to kaypak and ortaçtepe, the main problem with turkish elt seems to be that english in the turkish context is still seen as an inner-circle language. teachers show these countries as rolemodels (bayyurt, 2006), and course materials are still overpopulated with images reflecting the cultures and lifestyles of these countries (dogançay-aktuna, 2005). to sum up, previous research on attitudes towards english varieties almost unanimously reveals the superiority of native englishes over nonnative ones in the eyes of language learners (e.g., abeywickrama, 2013; bayyurt & altinmakas, 2012; kaypak & ortaçtepe, 2014; ke & cahyani, 2014; kuo, 2006; timmis, 2002). nevertheless, language learners can still benefit from elf-aware practices to be more aware and appreciate of linguistic diversity, as galloway (2013), and bayyurt and altinmakas (2012) suggest. in ke and cahyani’s study (2014), for example, the participants became more aware and tolerant of different english varieties, and they developed an understanding about that inner circle norms might not be relevant in intercultural settings. similarly, the participants of bayyurt and altinmakas’ (2012) study benefited positively from elf-aware practices in an l2 oral communications class. similarly, friedrich (2002) and kaypak and ortaçtepe (2014) draw attention to the importance of familiarity with elf as an important step forward to the implementation of an elf-informed pedagogy in english lessons. in other words, language learners should be exposed to english varieties (galloway, 2013; matsuda & friedrich, 2011; uygun, 2012) to be more efficiently prepared for global english use in intercultural settings. besides, seidlhofer (2004) suggests that it should be a primary concern for teacher educators to raise language teacher candidates’ awareness regarding the elf perspective, so that they can take better decisions in the light of this new perspective about which cultures and english varieties to include in english lessons. in this respect, the present study was conducted to find out about any attitudinal changes in efl teacher trainees after exposure to and active involvement in intercultural elf practices. more specifically the study investigates the following two research questions: research question 1: what are freshman year efl teacher trainees’ initial opinions about the global role of english, and english as a lingua franca perspective in elt? research question 2: would the participants’ opinions change in any way after exposure to different listening passages and active involvement in different culture teaching practices as part of a semester-long experiment? the study setting and participants a total of 83 freshman year students participated in the study at the elt department of çanakkale onsekiz mart university. 63 of them were female and 20 were male. some of the participants (n=34) had previously attended the prep class, but the majority of them (n=49) had become the students of the department in their first year. the study was conducted on three separate groups of students who had previously been placed in three sections of the course ‘listening and pronunciation i’, as class 1/a (n=29), class 1/b (n=28), and class 1/c (n=26). all of the participants were within the 18-25 age-group. tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 109 instruments the data in this study were collected through a mini questionnaire, that is, english as a lingua franca opinion survey (elfos) which was adapted from miyagi (2006). the initial version of the questionnaire contained 8 structured items and a number of open-ended questions. the first version was piloted on 120 students, and then went through certain revisions accordingly. the results from the piloted elfos are not reported here to save space. due to problems caused by similar items in the initial version during the piloting stage, the total number of items in elfos was reduced to six in the revised version. besides, the semi-structured and open-ended questions were removed from the survey for the sake of clarity and precision. all of the items were thereby ensured to be related to the current position of english in today’s world, and the students’ opinions about it. the data collected through the pre/post elfos were analyzed through a number of parametric tests on spss for windows, v.20. the data were first analyzed descriptively to get a better picture of each analysis and to notice any possible errors; and then they were checked for the normality of distribution as a prerequisite for parametric tests. once it was ensured that there was normal distribution, parametric tests were administered. the results of these parametric analyses are discussed in the findings section of the paper. procedures a quantitative quasi-experimental research design with repeated measures was used to collect the data, which were used for within-subjects and between-subjects comparisons. the quasiexperimental research design was chosen both for practical concerns, and also due to possible problems that might have resulted from distorting the existing groups and regrouping them for research purposes. the literature reveals the advantages of preserving the intact groups in terms of classroom dynamics (e.g., hatch & lazaraton, 1991). the three groups of participants, which were the intact sections of the freshman elt students, were assigned the roles of two experimental groups and one control group. preparatory class attendance status of the participants was taken into consideration as a criterion to determine the control group. more specifically, one section of the course hosted the majority of the students who had previously attended the departmental prep class (n=29 out of 34), and it was assigned the role of control group (cog henceforth). the experimental groups, which were the culturalist group (cg henceforth) and interculturalist group (ig henceforth), were similar in terms of the number of students who had attended the prep class; that is the overwhelming majority of the experimental group students (n=44 out of 49) had not attended the prep class. therefore, the assignment was made randomly between the experimental groups. to put it more clearly, the two sections of the course listening and pronunciation i were assigned the roles of cg and ig in a random way. the students were informed about the course content and procedures at the beginning of the semester, and their written consent was taken. however, an ethics committee application was not made because it was not required when the study was conducted. the two experimental groups took the semester-long native speaker/target culture oriented treatment (in the cg) versus elf-informed/intercultural oriented treatment (in the ig). the control group (cog), on the other hand, did not take any culture-related instruction or tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 110 listening practice but the students in this group were only exposed to english phonetics with inner circle norms. more specifically, they studied the phonetic rules of the received pronunciation (rp). elfos was administered twice as preand postsurvey, that is immediately before the experiment and once more right after the experiment ended. each of the three groups met once a week for the 135-minute course session under the supervision of the researcher. in the ig, the instruction and materials were of intercultural nature. on the other hand, the activities in the cg followed the traditional facts-transmission orientated culture teaching procedures, which only focused on the cultures of inner circle countries, or the so-called target cultures. all in all, the activities were similar in both experimental groups on the surface level but they differed greatly in terms of their content, aim, and scope. as for the listening exercises, only native varieties were used in the cg, as it is usually the case in a traditional elt classroom (see doğançay-aktuna, 2005). on the other hand, the participants in the ig were exposed to a number of both native and nonnative varieties through their specially prepared textbook. listening exercises were altogether avoided in the cog. table 1 displays the classroom procedures that were followed in the same way on each week of the intervention. table 1. weekly classroom procedures experimental groups control group each weekly class meeting of 11 total intervention weeks activity type duration (min.) activity type duration (min.) 1st session (60-65 minutes) brainstorming on the culture topic of the week 5-10 lectures and exercises on rp phonetics and rules of standard british english pronunciation 60-65 presentation on the culture topic of the week 25-30 whole class discussion about the presentation 5-10 focus group discussions on the presented topic 10-15 15-minute break 2nd session (60-65 minutes) various listening exercises and related discussions 60-65 lectures and exercises on rp phonetics and rules of standard british english pronunciation 60-65 findings tests of normality when the distributions of the pre and post elsos scores were checked with the kolmogorovsmirnov and shapiro-wilk tests of normality, normal distribution was found at both measures under investigation (p>.05). therefore, the data were available for the use of parametric tests. the results of the normality tests are displayed in table 2. tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 111 table 2. results of normality tests kolmogorov-smirnov shapiro-wilk statistic df p statistic df p pre elfos .051 83 .200 .980 83 .236 post elfos .060 83 .200 .983 83 .358 a one-way anova on the pre-elfos did not indicate any statistical difference between the groups. in other words, the groups were thinking similarly on the elfos items in time 1, that is before the experiment started. in the first part of this section, the participants’ answers to the pre-elfos are given. bar charts are provided in order to better visualize the results for easier reading. it is worth mentioning here that similar options in the elfos such as ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’ are presented as one option: ‘agree’ in the bar charts for better representation of the results. pre-elfos results research question 1 is answered in this section: what are freshman year efl teacher trainees’ initial opinions about the global role of english, and english as a lingua franca perspective in elt? descriptive statistics of the pre-elfos are provided in table 3. table 3. descriptive statistics of pre-elfos item # item mean sd 1 english is an international common language 2.96 .18 2 english only belongs to the nations who use it as their mother tongue (e.g. england, america, australia, new zealand etc.) 1.21 .56 3 as long as one gets the meaning across, how one speaks english does not matter. 2.07 .90 4 i would like to learn about nonnative english accents too as a part of the listening and pronunciation course. 2.65 .65 5 i would like the lecturers in my department to use the native accents of english while lecturing. 2.53 .65 6 i would like to speak with a native accent of english. 2.91 .38 for better illustration of the results, the findings are presented and discussed item by item, and under each item, a bar chart is provided in order to visualize the participants’ opinions for easier reading of the findings. item 1: ‘english is an international common language.’ when the participants were asked about the place of english in today’s globalized world, 96.4% (n=80) agreed that english is an international common language whereas only 3,6% (n=3) disagreed with this statement. the results are displayed in figure 1. tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 112 figure 1. percentage bar chart for elfos item 1 this finding clearly indicates that the participants of this study are aware of the global lingua franca role that english plays in today’s globalized word because the overwhelming majority of them perceive english as an international common language. item 2: ‘english only belongs to the nations who use it as their mother tongue (e.g., england, america, australia, new zealand etc.)’ the percent of the replies to this item is given in figure 2. figure 2 indicates that the great majority of the participants (85.5%, n=71) disagree with the proposition that the native speakers of english are the only owners of the english language. on the other hand, only 7.2% (n=6) agree with this statement and the same number of the participants neither agree nor disagree with it. figure 2. percentage bar chart for elfos item 2 based on the findings from the first two items, it would not be wrong to claim that the turkish efl teacher candidates who were the participants of this study were both aware of the changing role of english (see item 1) and the implications of this change in terms of the tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 113 ownership of english. to put it more clearly, they do not see the inner circle countries as the sole owners of the english language. these findings imply the participants have realized that english has gone much beyond the national boundaries of certain countries in order to become a global lingua franca in today’s globalized world. item 3: ‘as long as one gets the meaning across, how one speaks english does not matter.’ this statement was included in the elfos in order find out about the participants’ priorities: that is, whether communication or oral accuracy comes first in their use of the english language. this particular item was expected to yield important data about the importance of the ns norms to the turkish efl teacher candidates under investigation. the results are given in figure 3. figure 3. percentage bar chart for elfos item 3 as can be inferred from figure 3, the participants of the study are split into two in terms of their opinions regarding the priority of accuracy or communication (i.e., using the native speaker norms or being able to communicate in english no matter how). to put it more clearly, 44.6% (n=37) of the participants agree that it is important to be able to communicate in english, and also that as long as you can communicate with the other person, how you speak the language is not very important. on the other hand, nearly the same number of them (37.3%, n=31), disagree with this statement, and thereby prioritize accuracy over communication. 15 participants (18.1%) did not state any opinion on the issue. according to these results, it would not be wrong to claim that the participants are split in half regarding item 3 of the elfos. in other words, they have differing ideas about the importance of accuracy over communication or vice versa. more specifically, approximately half of the participants prioritize accuracy, and the other half communication before the experiment. item 4: ‘i would like to learn about nonnative english accents too as a part of the listening and pronunciation course.’ the results of item 4 are presented in figure 4. tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 114 figure 4. percentage bar chart for elfos item 4 this fourth item was incorporated into the questionnaire in order to collect data about the participants’ reactions towards the inclusion of nonnative english varieties in english lessons. this item was worded by targeting a particular course; that is the listening and pronunciation course because of two reasons: it seemed to be the most relevant course for the inclusion of nonnative english varieties, and also the researcher was offering this course at the time of data collection. figure 4 clearly displays that the majority of the participants agree with this statement. more specifically, 74.7% (n=62) of the participants reported a positive opinion about the teaching of different english accents as a part of the listening and pronunciation course. in other words, learning about different english varieties is perceived as a desirable activity by these participants. 15.7% (n=13) participants did not indicate a clear opinion on the item; and only 9.6% (n=8) were opposed to the idea of incorporating nonnative english accents into the course syllabus. according to these results, the majority of the efl teacher candidates in this study display positive attitudes towards the teaching of different english accents in the listening and pronunciation course. item 5: ‘i would like the lecturers in my department to use the native accents of english while lecturing.’ the fifth item of the questionnaire aimed to find out about the participants’ expectations about the english used by their lecturers. in a way, it was related to the third item; that is, as long as you can communicate in english, how you speak it is not very important. the results are displayed in figure5. figure 5 clearly indicates that for the majority of the participants (61.4%, n=51) the lecturers’ accents are important, and that they would prefer native-like english in lectures. in addition, a relatively high percent of the students (30.1%, n=25) did not state any opinion on the item. only a small minority of the participants (8.4%, n=7) disagreed with the proposition in this item. these results clearly indicate that native-likeness is still valued by turkish elf teacher candidates. tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 115 figure 5. percentage bar chart for elfos item 5 the findings from item 5 may seem to be contradicting the results of item 4 at first glance. however, a thorough analysis on the results reveals no contradiction. after all, it is one thing to learn about different accents of english as a requirement of the pronunciation course, and yet quite another thing to use them in class for instructional purposes. all in all, the majority of the participants would not welcome nonnative lecturers. item 6: ‘i would like to speak with a native accent of english.’ this last item aimed to discover the participant’s expectations about themselves; more clearly whether they would prefer to be native-like english users or not. the results are displayed in figure 6. these results are in keeping with the results of the previous item because in both items the participants clearly indicated how much they valued the native accents of english. just as most of them favored native-like lecturers in item 5, the overwhelming majority (95.2%, n= 79) of them reported a desire for the ability to speak english with a native accent in this item. only 3.6% (n=3) disagreed with the statement, and one student was undecided about it. figure 6. percentage bar chart for elfos item 6 when the results from items 5 and 6 are read together, it can clearly be seen that for turkish elf teacher candidates, native like usage of english is still an important goal. it is hardly surprising, however, when one thinks about all the emphasis on native-like accuracy and tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 116 pronunciation in almost all of the english courses they have taken so far (see bayyurt & altinmakas, 2012). post-elfos results research question 2 is answered in this section: would the partipants’ opinions change in any way after exposure to different listening passages and active involvement in different culture teaching practices as part of a semester-long experiment? elfos was administered after the experiment as a post scale to reveal the possible changes in the participants’ opinions about the same six items. in order to determine the effects of time and group on the students’ responses, the means of each item in the pre-elfos was also compared with the mean scores of the post-elfos through a repeated measures manova. the results are reported with one-tailed significance values since the direction of the change was predicted before the experiment. descriptive statistics of the post-elfos are given in table 3. table 3. descriptive statistics for the post-elfos item # item mean sd 1 english is an international common language 2.96 .24 2 english only belongs to the nations who use it as their mother tongue (e.g. england, america, australia, new zealand etc.) 1.32 .66 3 as long as one gets the meaning across, how one speaks english does not matter. 2.24 .84 4 i would like to learn about nonnative english accents too as a part of the listening and pronunciation course. 2.45 .80 5 i would like the lecturers in my department to use the native accents of english while lecturing. 2.54 .66 6 i would like to speak with a native accent of english. 2.80 .57 the results of the manova revealed a main effect of time only on item 4 (f1,80=3.35, p=.036, ηρ²=.040) and item 6 (f1,80=3.68, p=.029, ηρ²=.044), as well as an interaction effect between time and group on item 3 (f2,80=5.85, p=.002, ηρ²=.128). to put it more clearly, the participants’ opinions regarding item 4 and 6 changed significantly after the experiment; and this change was independent of the groups. more specifically, more participants disagreed with item 4, and agreed with item 6 in time 2. the lsd post-hoc test revealed that the only significant mean difference (p=.013) occurred between the ig (m=4.01, se=.16) and cog (m=3.50, se=.15). the main effects of time and group on item 4 (i would like to learn about nonnative english accents too as a part of the listening and pronunciation course) is seen in figure 7. tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 117 figure 7. main effect of time on elfos item 4 figure 7 clearly shows a noteworthy negative change in the cog regarding their views about the teaching of nonnative english varieties. they were less willing to learn about those accents in the classroom. minor insignificant changes were observed in the other two groups. the ig students more or less preserved their initial positions regarding this item. the main effect of time on item 6 (i would like to speak with a native accent of english) can be seen in figure 8. as displayed in figure 13, more students disagreed with this statement from time 1 to time 2, indicating that they would not like to speak with a native accent of english, and the decrease in their mean scores of the item was independent of the groups. the sharpest decrease was determined in the ig. this opinion change can be a result of the participants’ raised awareness levels regarding the difficulty, or impossibility of speaking with a native accent. in this respect, both culturalist and interculturalist practices may have affected their opinions. the participants might have discovered that it was not possible for them to be native-like after they became more acquainted with english varieties and their own accents. therefore, some students might have abolished the unrealistic goal of being native-like, and adopted the realistic goal of intelligibility. figure 8. main effect of time on elfos item 6 tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 118 the between-subjects manova results, on the other hand, indicated a statistically significant main effect of group only on item 3 (f2,80=2.72, p=.036, ηρ²=.064). an investigation into possible interaction effects on the same item revealed that time interacted significantly with group only on item 3. in other words, only item 3 (as long as one gets the meaning across, how one speaks english does not matter) differentiated the three groups after the experiment. the time and group interaction can be seen in figure 9, which clearly shows that the cog students did not change their opinions on this item in time 2. there was a slight decrease in the number of participants who disagreed with it in the cg. the most radical change was observed in the ig, indicating more positive opinions regarding the priority of communication over accuracy or vice versa. more specifically, the students in the ig reported a stronger belief after the experiment that communication was more important than accuracy. figure 9. time and group interaction on elfos item 3 a reading of items 3 and 6 together reveals that elf-informed interculturalist practices can affect turkish efl teacher candidates’ opinions in the sense that they may not want to speak english with a native accent anymore, and they instead start to believe that as long as one gets the meaning across, how one speaks english is not that important. in other words, interculturalist practices help language learners prioritize communication over accuracy. discussion learner beliefs and attitudes have a context specific and dynamic nature; therefore, they may show great variation in different contexts and times (tanaka & ellis, 2003). the descriptive analysis of the elfos revealed strongly positive attitudes towards native english varieties; and generally positive opinions about the teaching of culture and nonnative varieties in the language classroom. these results clearly indicate the superiority of native english accents over nonnative ones as role models for the turkish efl teacher candidates in this study. as for the nonnative accents, the majority of them are not against their introduction to the language classroom in the format of general knowledge. however, they would certainly avoid these accents in their own speech. one can also infer from these results that turkish efl teacher candidates will mainly use the native varieties of english when they themselves become teachers of english. tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 119 the findings of the present study are similar to those of uygun’s (2012), and galloway and rose’s (2014) because in both of these studies, the participants understood the changing global role of english in today’s world, and also prioritized communication over native-like accuracy; but still preferred native english varieties for their own learning. in other words, they had a relatively high level of awareness regarding the elf perspective but had little or no idea about what this new perspective implied in terms of fl teaching and learning. csizér and kontra’s (2012) study, which was conducted on 239 hungarian language learners, reported similar findings in the sense that their participants were trapped between, on one side, awareness of the elf perspective, and on the other, the importance of native english as a role model. the standard native english variety exerted a more powerful effect on the participants’ thinking even after becoming aware of the elf perspective. the analysis of the elfos by means of manova indicated a main effect of time on item 4 and item 6, and an interaction effect between time and group on item 3. in other words, the participants’ opinions regarding items 4 and 6 changed significantly after the experiment irrespective of group; and their opinions about item 3 created significant group differences. in other words, item 3 was the only item of the elfos that differentiated the groups significantly in time 2. to put it more clearly, the ig participants agreed more with the statement that ‘as long as one can communicate, how one speaks english is not very important’. in this respect, it can clearly be seen that the experiment was successful in helping the ig members to prioritize communication over accuracy. although the within-subjects contrasts of manova did not show any time-group interaction on item 4, the between-subjects analysis revealed a significant main effect of group on this item. besides, the lsd post hoc test showed a significant difference between the cog and ig, with a noteworthy decrease in the cog’s scores. the ig students preserved their previous position, and the cg participants, though not significant, disagreed less with the statement in time 2, that is immediately after the experiment. the cog’s responses to item 4 underline the negative impact of native variety-only (rp in this case) phonetics instruction on attitudes towards the use of nonnative accents in the classroom. from this aspect, undergraduate elt programs can be redesigned or simply enriched with elf and intercultural practices. the participants’ opinions changed significantly from time 1 to time 2 on item 6 of elfos too. although this change was not enough to create group differences, it was still noteworthy so see a decrease in the mean scores of all groups. to put it more clearly, significantly more participants disagreed with the idea of speaking with a native accent of english in time 2. this change might have resulted from a sufficient number of participants’ realization of the fact that it was not possible for them to speak with a native accent of english. native-likeness is an unrealistic goal anyway (seidlhofer, 2004). in this respect, the participants of this study prioritized mutual intelligibility more (see jenkins, 2006) in time 2. the significant time-group interaction on item 3 scores also supports this finding. the cog, on the other hand, did not change their opinions significantly, and the cg agreed less with it, thereby putting accuracy before communication. these findings display the effect of the intervention, and clearly emphasize the important effect of presenting linguistic and cultural diversity in the language classroom on language learners’ perceptions about english native accents. ig’s prioritization of intelligibility over native-like accuracy in time 2 can be seen as a good predictor of their future practices as language teachers. when they become teachers, they are tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 120 expected to be concerned more with communication rather than error correction, and thereby contribute positively to their students’ communicative skills. the findings also support bayyurt and altinmakas’ (2012) and uygun’s (2012) studies in the sense that the great majority of turkish efl university students take native english varieties as models for themselves, which indicates that sounding native-like is still very important for turkish efl learners. 66% of uygun’s participants, who were efl teacher candidates, reported that they would prefer a native english variety when they became teachers. like the participants of bayyurt and altinmakas but unlike those of uygun’s, however, the majority of the participants in the present study reported a preference for the rp rather than the ga. the participants of both uygun’s study and this study reported similar reasons for preferring one of the two native english accents though; more specifically, the ga is generally perceived to be clearer and easier to understand whereas the rp is seen as the original spoken form of the english language, and also more prestigious. when it comes to exposing learners to nonnative english varieties, 71% of uygun’s participants reported that it was important to familiarize students with different englishes, which is also in keeping with the findings of the present study. when the findings of both studies are taken together, it is clearly seen that for turkish efl teacher candidates, the inner circle standard accents are still important both as models for their own learning, and also for instructional purposes. however, they also believe that exposure to nonnative varieties is important, but only for creating familiarity with different english accents. they do not want to take them as models. conclusion as reported by coşkun (2010), the council of turkish higher education supports the elf perspective from an exposure point of view for the course listening and pronunciation ii. the council especially suggests the presentation of native and nonnative spoken english varieties together in this course. although it is an important step to weaken the hegemony of inner circle countries and their englishes in elt programs, many teacher educators unfortunately ignore this recommendation, and still prioritize the rp or ga phonetics in their courses. besides, other efl teacher education courses prioritize the inner circle countries, their english varieties, lifestyles, literatures too as if they were the sole owners of the english language (bayyurt & altinmakas, 2012). this study shows that such practice has a negative impact on turkish efl teacher candidates’ pc. in other words, they become less welcoming of both cultural and linguistic diversity. needless to say, when these teacher candidates become teachers of english, they are likely to prioritize native countries and their englishes, and this vicious circle makes a revolutionary change in elt practices impossible. if language learners realize that there is not only one correct form of english, they will feel better about their own englishes (see farrell & martin, 2009; matsuda, 2003; matsumoto, 2011). according to the results of this study, efl teacher candidates may still set being nativelike as a goal in their learning (e.g., csizér & kontra, 2012; galloway, 2013; galloway & rose, 2014; matsuda, 2003; rivers, 2011; uygun, 2012), but the realization that even native speakers vary to a large extent in their english will hopefully lead them to become more critical of the whole concept of native english as well as the superiority of it over nonnative english varieties. in short, this study reveals that, making a significant difference is possible through following different classroom procedures and materials throughout a freshman year course in an elt tekin, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 121 program of a turkish university; and this finding has implications for future researchers who want to conduct studies on elf. acknowledgements the data reported in this article were taken from mustafa teki̇n’s unpublished doctorate thesis entitled “effect of a culturalist versus an interculturalist approach in elt on turkish efl teacher candidates’ proteophilic competence”. metu (2015). i would like to express my deepest gratitude to prof. gölge seferoğlu, my phd thesis supervisor, for making this possible for me. it would have been very difficult to complete my thesis without her encouraging guidance and support. references abeywickrama, p. 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(2005). awareness-raising in the tefl phonology classroom: student voices and sociocultural and psychological considerations. itl international journal of applied linguistics, 145(1), 219-268. https://doi.org/10.2143/itl.145.0.562915 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1590/s1984-63982012000200003 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0267190504000145 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0243 https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccq024 https://doi.org/10.37546/jaltjj25.1-3 https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/56.3.240 https://doi.org/10.2143/itl.145.0.562915 focus on elt journal vol 5, issue 1, 2023 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: sametfindikli@gmail.com copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. factors affecting students' speaking anxiety in english language classroom asamet fındıklı bkağan büyükkarcı ama student, süleyman demirel university, türkiye, sametfindikli@gmail.com bassoc. prof. dr., süleyman demirel university, türkiye, kaganbuyukkarci@sdu.edu.tr apa citation: fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. (2023). factors affecting students' speaking anxiety in english language classroom. focus on elt journal, 5(1), 98-114. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2023.5.1.6 abstract in today's world, it is obvious that learning english is not just memorizing words or grammar rules. there is an increasing importance attributed to communicative english. speaking, one of the four basic language skills, is considered extremely necessary for learners to use the target language effectively. however, anxiety in speaking classes is seen as a major obstacle for language learners’ performance and communicative competence. the aim of this study is to identify whether the high school students’ foreign language speaking anxiety has significant differences in terms of their gender, grade level, self-perceived english level, receiving any special support for speaking, and their english exam scores. a likert type scale was administered to 250 students studying at a state high school in the fall semester of the 2022-2023 academic year. according to the findings, it was seen that they had a moderate level of anxiety. moreover, it was seen that there was no statistically significant difference between students' foreign language speaking anxiety level and having received special speaking support before. however, students' genders, grade levels, english scores in the previous year, and their self-perceived english level were found to be effective on foreign language speaking anxiety. keywords communication pedagogy, foreign language education, language teaching, speaking anxiety article history received : 03.01.2023 revised : 12.06.2023 accepted : 26.06.2023 published : 30.06.2023 type research article introduction our world is more globalized than ever before, thanks to factors such as advances in communication, technology, and transportation. people have become capable of communicating with each other much faster and easier, regardless of time and place. language serves as the sole factor that can either facilitate or hinder effective interaction among people from diverse backgrounds worldwide. therefore, learning a language has become more important than ever before. in turkey, language classes are frequently deemed insufficient for developing communicative abilities in foreign language learning, as they tend to prioritize memorization of vocabulary and grammar rules, rather than emphasizing the enhancement of effective communication skills (alptekin & tatar, 2011; kara et al., 2017; koral & mirici, 2021; sevingil, 2008; zerey, 2008). although it is known that there are many obstacles in front of students to develop their communicative language skills, students' psychological attitudes towards language learning such as motivation and self-esteem, are the leading ones. according to arnold and brown (1999), the way individuals perceive themselves and their abilities can mailto:sametfindikli@gmail.com mailto:sametfindikli@gmail.com mailto:kaganbuyukkarci@sdu.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2023.5.1.6 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3477-7980 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7365-0210 fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 99 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com either facilitate or impede their language learning journey. they argue that the unique characteristics of learners play a crucial role in the overall process of acquiring a second language. similarly, dörnyei (2005) stated that foreign language students' affective differences are the reason for poor language attitudes, and low motivation in the l2 classroom. one of the characteristics that affect learning is anxiety, although it is unclear if anxiety is a personality issue, an emotional response to a circumstance, or a combination of both (gass & selinker, 2008). according to arnold and brown's (1999) assertion, anxiety emerges as a major hindrance in the language learning process. they emphasized that this emotional state is frequently linked to adverse feelings such as nervousness, anger, self-doubt, apprehension, and tension. many researchers reported that the majority of pupils appeared helpless with decreasing their anxiety level when speaking english in class (liu, 2007; macintyre & gardner, 1989). thus, researchers in this field agree that speaking is the most anxiety-provoking of all four skills in language learning (horwitz et al., 1986; liu, 2007; rafek et al., 2013; young, 1991). dörnyei (2005) noted that the presence of anxiety in a learning environment often leads to a decline in our comprehension of the second language (l2). however, although it is extremely important for students' language development, there is no consensus on the sources or factors influencing the levels of speech anxiety. when the literature in turkish context was investigated, it was seen that the studies on the speech anxiety of l2 students generally focus on tertiary level students (balemir, 2009; debreli & demirkan, 2015; karataş et al., 2016; takkaç tulgar, 2018; tercan & dikilitaş, 2016), and the studies on high school students focus on a specific grade level and ignore others (kındığılı, 2022; mestan, 2017; yılmaz, 2019). this study, on the other hand, addresses high school students from all grade levels of high school and aims to determine whether there is any significant difference among grade levels. moreover, while the importance of speaking skills in language learning is recognized, there is a lack of extensive exploration on the specific impact of anxiety on students' performance and communicative competence in this particular context. by examining variations in speaking anxiety levels based on factors such as gender, grade level, self-perceived english proficiency, receiving special support for speaking, and english exam scores, this study provides valuable insights into the factors influencing speaking anxiety among high school students. consequently, it contributes to the existing literature by deepening our understanding of the complexities surrounding foreign language speaking anxiety in this demographic and offers potential strategies for educators and policymakers to effectively address this issue. anxiety although the subject of this article is the foreign language speaking anxiety of students in the english language classroom, it would be useful to mention what anxiety means in psychology in general. rachman (2004) described anxiety as “the tense, disturbing expectation of a threatening but uncertain event; an uneasy feeling of tension” (p. 3). while fear and anxiety are often used interchangeably, it is crucial to recognize significant distinctions between the two. fear typically arises from a discernible source and signifies a reaction to a specific danger, such as encountering a snake. on the other hand, anxiety frequently emerges without a clearly identifiable cause, being characterized by uncertainty, unpredictability, or a lack of control (rachman, 2004). in a similar vein, spielberger (1972) defined anxiety as an unpleasant fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 100 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com emotional state or condition characterized by changes in the nervous system and subjective feelings of stress, uneasiness, and fear (p. 45). facilitative and debilitative anxiety although researchers and scientists used negative connotations such as unpleasant or disturbing while defining anxiety in psychology, it has a distinction in educational contexts: facilitative and debilitative anxiety. to simply put into words, they can be named helpful and harmful anxiety, respectively. in the dictionary of the american psychological association, "facilitative anxiety" is defined as a level of anxiety that a person (such as a musician or an athlete) perceives as aiding performance (2022). in debilitative anxiety, on the other hand, anxiety is perceived as interfering the performance. in the facilitative anxiety level, learner is able to see the stressor as a challenge or opportunity to accomplish. if negative emotions such as fear or threat are attributed to the situation, then it can lead the learner to failure. according to strack and esteves (2014), the way we approach and think about our feelings plays a significant role in shaping various outcomes related to anxiety. as researchers suggest, a given situation can be perceived as either a challenge or an opportunity that facilitates learning. however, it can also be viewed as a threat, hindrance, or obstacle to the learner, depending on their individual perception of the event. foreign language speaking anxiety parallel to the definitions mentioned above and as a subcategory of anxiety, foreign language anxiety (fla) is a psychological condition specific to language learning environments and especially to language classes where students are in groups. gardner and macintyre (1993) provide a specific definition to distinguish foreign language anxiety from general anxiety. they describe foreign language anxiety as the apprehension that individuals experience when they are faced with a situation that necessitates the use of a second language in which they have not yet achieved proficiency. when we look at the other definitions of and discussions about foreign language anxiety, we see that negative expressions such as stress, nervousness, emotional reaction, and worry are frequently used for the emotional state of the student (horwitz et al., 1986; macintyre, 1999; young, 1990; zheng & cheng, 2018). the sources, types, and effects of anxiety in the foreign language learning process, which are very prone to be affected by emotional factors, have not been fully determined yet. as a result of her research on the possible causes of foreign language anxiety, young (1991) listed a total of six reasons arising from the learner, from the teacher, and from the educational practices. she claims that personal and interpersonal anxieties, learner misconceptions about language acquisition, teacher misconceptions about language instruction, teacher-student relations, classroom practices, and language testing all contribute to language anxiety (p. 427). horwitz et al. (1986) talk about three types of performance anxiety in language classrooms, first of which is communication apprehension. mccroskey (1978) defined it as a person's level of fear or anxiety related to actual or anticipated communication with other people. according to mccroskey, this fear or anxiety is the main determinant of a person's willingness to communicate (p. 192). similarly, mahdi (2015) asserts that lower fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 101 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com communication apprehension leads students to higher academic success. apprehension is mostly related with personal or interpersonal traits of learners, such as shyness and low selfesteem. the second type is named as test anxiety, and it is related with the fear of failure since language learning is evaluation oriented. it is a type of anxiety with a high capacity to affect a student's performance, which can usually occur before or during an academic evaluation, usually of productive abilities. denkci akkaş et al. (2020) define test anxiety as the collection of behavioral, psychological, and cognitive responses to tests that involve apprehension about failure, negative outcomes, and evaluative circumstances. we often hear students say that they studied hard but forgot everything they knew at the time of the exam. this is the result of their anxiety that causes them to create a mental block and is a concrete phenomenon that shows how they are adversely influenced by their emotions. the last type of performance anxiety in language classroom is fear of negative evaluation. according to horwitz et al. (1986), this kind of anxiety is characterized by worry about other people's opinions, avoiding situations that could lead to judgments, and the anticipation that others will have a negative opinion of oneself (p. 128). when students feel as if their image is being threatened, either by the teacher or their peers, they are experiencing fear of negative evaluation type of anxiety, leading to low performance in language learning environments (tsiplakides & keramida, 2009). the issue of how anxiety affects a student's academic success and language use is a more complex phenomenon. as mentioned before, two types of anxiety, debilitative and facilitative, exist in the literature. studies on speaking anxiety in foreign language classes, which is the subject of this article, have yielded results in both directions. according to young (1991), anxiety may have had a negative impact on one language skill but not another. horwitz et al. (1986) claim that because speaking in the target language appears to be the most intimidating aspect of learning a foreign language, developing communicative competence presents particularly significant challenges for the anxious student. krashen (1982) states in his affective filter hypothesis that anxiety together with self-confidence and motivation are variables which are related to success in second language acquisition and high anxiety acts as filter for good quality language input. on the other hand, some earlier studies, though few in number, suggested that anxiety to some extent may help learner in language tasks and tests (brown, 1994; ehrman & oxford, 1995; nicaise, 1995; scovel, 1978). studies related to speaking anxiety a number of studies have been conducted to demonstrate the effects and reasons of anxiety, and factors leading to foreign language anxiety on students' speaking performance. a wide range of students from primary school to tertiary level were selected as the samples of these studies. in a systematic review conducted by akkuş (2021), which examined 24 qualitative studies within a turkish context, six recurring themes emerged as the most commonly studied subjects. these themes revolved around the sources of anxiety, techniques and approaches to alleviate foreign language anxiety, teachers' perceptions of foreign language speaking anxiety, strategies for overcoming speaking anxiety, the impact and outcomes of speaking anxiety, and the definition of an ideal anxiety-free classroom atmosphere. in a great number of empirical studies, the researchers conducted quantitative studies to reveal the relation between gender and flsa. while the results showed that female students have higher levels of anxiety in most of the cases (çağatay, 2015; demirdaş & bozdoğan, 2013; karataş et al., 2016; kındığılı, 2022; fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 102 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com küçükler, 2020; öztürk & gürbüz, 2014; rafek et al., 2013; tercan & dikilitaş, 2016), only a few studies revealed that either males have higher levels of speaking anxiety or there is no significant difference between speaking anxiety and gender (doğan & tuncer, 2016; elaldı, 2016; yılmaz, 2019). in another study, the age factor affecting speaking anxiety level was investigated by collecting data from 4016 participants of different ages from children to adults (akar, 2021). the results showed that age is an undeniable factor affecting language learning, and english language learners in turkey experience a moderate level of speaking anxiety. another result of the same study was that younger learners have lower levels of anxiety than older ones. several studies in the literature studied the relation between language proficiency level and speaking anxiety of learners in foreign language classrooms. in karataş et al.’s (2016) study, 488 english preparatory students at a university were investigated quantitatively. the results revealed that differentiation in the proficiency level (174 pre-intermediate, 259 intermediate, and 55 upper level) does not affect the anxiety of learners of english (p= .20). balemir (2009) researched the same question on 164 preparatory class students in a university in his ma thesis and found similar results. in contrast, contradictory findings were reported by debreli and demirkan (2015) in their study involving 196 university students. their findings revealed that learners with higher levels of english proficiency exhibited higher levels of anxiety. this discrepancy in results highlights the need for further investigation and a critical analysis of the relationship between english proficiency levels and speaking anxiety among students. findings such as speaking in front of the class is more worrying than speaking to a native speaker of english (çağatay, 2015), or vice versa (young, 1990), english teachers' strict and negative approaches increase anxiety (şenel, 2012), social and educational reasons rather than personal reasons trigger anxiety (kara et al., 2017), fear of making mistakes, forced participation, lack of vocabulary, lack of practice, and lack of grammar had a great effect on flsa (alnahidh & altalhab, 2020) are among the various results of similar studies. rajitha and alamelu (2020), found in their research that speaking anxiety among tertiary-level students is influenced by various factors that are closely related to the learners themselves. the study identified several factors that contribute to speaking anxiety based on the perspectives of fifty participants. these primary anxiety factors include language proficiency, limited understanding of grammar, challenges with pronunciation, fear of public speaking, lack of confidence, shyness, and the influence of peers. in a more recent study seeking answers about the factors contributing to language speaking anxiety, suparlan (2021), conducted a case study on eighth-grade students. the study revealed ten significant factors associated with speaking anxiety, including fear of speaking in english, apprehension of teacher's consequences, lack of self-confidence, feeling less competent than peers, experiencing embarrassment, inadequate preparation, fear of making mistakes, limited vocabulary, habitual language use, and anxiety related to language tests. in conclusion, while the aforementioned studies have provided valuable insights into the factors contributing to speaking anxiety among language students, there are notable gaps and inconsistencies that need to be addressed. specifically, the existing literature lacks a comprehensive examination of the combined effects of various factors on speaking anxiety, such as grade level, self-perceived english proficiency, receiving special support, and english exam scores. therefore, further research is warranted to bridge these gaps and provide a more fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 103 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com comprehensive understanding of the complexities surrounding speaking anxiety in this specific context. such research will not only enhance our knowledge but also contribute to the development of effective interventions and strategies to support students in managing and reducing their speaking anxiety. thus, this research was carried out to seek answers to the following research questions: • what are the differences between female and male students in terms of foreign language speaking anxiety (flsa)? • how does the grade level of high school students affect flsa? • what is the impact of students' perceived english level on flsa? • how do the previous year's english scores influence students' flsa? • what is the impact of previous support for speaking on students' foreign language speaking anxiety (flsa)? methodology in this study, a quantitative cross-sectional survey design was carried out in order to determine the foreign language speaking anxiety levels of students studying at a public high school and to examine the factors affecting it. by measuring a number of variables at one point in time, field (2016) describes this type of study observing what occurs naturally in the world without directly influencing it (p. 705). moreover, creswell and creswell (2018) state that a quantitative survey design helps researcher to answer descriptive questions, and questions about the relationships between variables. context and participants the participants of the study were 250 students aged between 14 and 18, at 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades at a state high school. the study was conducted in the fall semester of the 20222023 academic year. the survey was administered using google forms, and the survey link was distributed to all classrooms' whatsapp groups using convenience sampling. this ensured that the survey reached all 776 students in the school. it is important to note that participation in the survey was voluntary, and none of the students were compelled or obligated to fill out the survey. out of the total population of 776 students, 250 students voluntarily completed the survey. the distribution of gender is shown in table 1. 90 male students (36%) and 160 female students (64%) completed the form . table 1. gender distribution of the participants gender frequency percent valid percent male 90 36.0 36.0 female 160 64.0 64.0 total 250 100.0 100.0 fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 104 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com table 2. gender distribution of the participants grade level frequency percent valid percent 9 th grade 74 29.6 29.6 10th grade 76 30.4 30.4 11th grade 60 24.0 24.0 12th grade 40 16.0 16.0 total 250 100.0 100.0 table 2 shows the distribution of the participants in terms of grade levels. 29.6% were 9th grade, 30,4% were 10th grade, 24% were 11th grade, and 16% were 12th grade students. data collection the data needed in this study was collected with the help of the "english speaking anxiety scale" developed by orakcı (2018) with the purpose of determining students’ anxiety levels towards speaking skills in english as a target language. the scale included 16 five-point likert type items, ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree. in order to fit our study’ aims, five more items (gender, grade level, whether or not the student got any speaking support before, the previous year's english exam score, and self-perceived english level) were added to this scale. in total, the scale became a 21-item scale. the survey was sent to students online using google forms. the scale was originally given in turkish, so students were able to understand the items more easily and give more reliable answers. overall cronbach's alpha value of 16 items in the scale was found to be .952 suggesting that the items have high internal consistency. data analysis descriptive statistics were used to compute the frequencies of the data. to test the internal reliability of the scale, cronbach's alpha value was computed for the 16 items in the scale. finally, nonparametric tests (kruskal-wallis test and mann-whitney u test) were applied to determine the significance (p) values for each hypothesis. the scores of the answers given by the participants to the 1st, 3rd and 9th items, which have a positive expression in the scale, were reversed while the data was being transferred into spss. thus, the positive statements should be interpreted as negative statements. this technique was applied to prevent errors in scoring. the answers given to the items have a score between 1 and 5, and 1 point means low anxiety whereas 5 points means high anxiety. in reverse items, this scoring system works in the opposite direction. each participant got an average score ranging from 1 to 5 at the end of the survey. in order to interpret the anxiety levels of the participants, the scores were divided into 5 equal segments with a range of 0.8 points. of the mean (x̄) values for each participant, 4.21 and above were determined as very high anxiety level, between 3.41 and 4.20 as high anxiety level, between 2.61 and 3.40 as medium anxiety level, between 1.81 and 2.60 as low anxiety level, and below 1.80 as very low anxiety level. fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 105 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com results anxiety level distribution foreign language speaking anxiety levels of speakers were determined according to the means of each participant's answers to 16 items. the distribution that emerged when 5 different groups were formed, from very low anxious to very high anxious, are given in table 3. table 3. anxiety level distribution of the participants anxiety level frequency percent valid percent very low anxious 45 18.0 18.0 low anxious 53 21.2 21.2 medium anxious 61 24.4 24.4 high anxious 49 19.6 19.6 very high anxious 42 16.8 16.8 total 250 100.0 100.0 table 3 presents the distribution of anxiety levels among the participants as deduced from the survey questionnaire. the table displays the frequency and corresponding percentages of participants in each anxiety level category. the findings indicate that a significant proportion of participants fell into the medium anxiety level category (24.4%), followed by low anxiety levels (21.2%) and high anxiety levels (19.6%). additionally, there were participants who were categorized as very low anxious (18.0%) and very high anxious (16.8%). in order to test whether the data is normally distributed or not, the mean, median, mode, skewness and kurtosis of the mean scores of each participant were calculated (hair et al., 2016). table 4. anxiety level distribution of the participants n mean median mode skewness kurtosis 250 2.9565 2.8750 3.44 .112 -.999 the pattern of responses is regarded as a normal distribution when both skewness and kurtosis are near to zero (between -1 and +1). according to the skewness (.112) and kurtosis (-.999) values of this study, we can say that the distribution of the participants’ scores is fairly symmetrical. analysis of the first research question the first research question interrogated whether there is a significant difference between female and male students in terms of foreign language speaking anxiety. using inferential statistics, it is possible to determine whether or not a hypothesis is correct by analyzing the intervals between samples. so, analysis was done through inferential statistics by using independent samples t-test. table 5. flsa in terms of gender gender n mean std. dev. mean difference sig (between groups) male 90 2.7319 1.0128 0.35 .015 female 160 3.0828 1.1237 fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 106 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com the results show that there is a significant difference (p=.015) between male and female participants’ foreign language speaking anxiety in this study. besides it can be said that female high school students have higher levels of flsa than male high school students, with a difference of 0.35 in the mean. analysis of the second research question the second research question is about investigating whether there is a significant difference among the grade levels of high school students in terms of foreign language speaking anxiety. descriptive statistics and one-way anova test have been utilized to examine the relationship between grade levels of participants and their flsa. table 6 presents the analysis of foreign language speaking anxiety (flsa) in relation to different grade levels of students. the analysis reveals that flsa varies across different grade levels. participants in the 9th grade (n = 74) had a mean flsa score of 2.5541, while those in the 10th grade (n = 76) had a slightly higher mean score of 3.0304. participants in the 11th grade (n = 60) and 12th grade (n = 40) had even higher mean flsa scores of 3.1958 and 3.2016, respectively. the f-value of 5.324 indicates that there is a significant difference in flsa between the grade levels. the significance level of .001 further confirms the statistical significance of this difference. table 7. tukey hsd post hoc test results (i) grade of the student (j) grade of the student mean difference (i-j) sig. tukey hsd 9 10 -.47637 .034 11 -.64178 .004 12 -.64751 .012 10 9 .47637 .034 11 -.16541 .807 12 -.17113 .845 11 9 .64178 .004 10 .16541 .807 12 -.00573 1.000 12 9 .64751 .012 10 .17113 .845 11 .00573 1.000 one drawback of using anova testing is that it only compares group averages; it does not classify specific information, such as which specific mean pairs are significant (nanda et al., 2021). to see the mean differences, multiple comparisons, and significance value between each pair of grade levels, tukey hsd post hoc test was utilized. the means of all the pairs were table 6. flsa and grade levels of students grade level n mean std. dev. f sig. (between groups) 9th grade 74 2.5541 1.0723 5.324 .001 10th grade 76 3.0304 1.0834 11th grade 60 3.1958 1.0343 12th grade 40 3.2016 1.0840 total 250 2.9565 1.0961 fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 107 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com compared in this analysis to determine which ones exhibit a significant difference. as seen in table 6 and 7, although there is a significant difference (p=.001) between grade levels according to anova test, when we analyze each grade level pair separately with the help of tukey hsd test, it can be seen that there is no significant difference between all the pairs. the difference is at a significant level when 9th grade is paired with other grades. other pairs, on the other hand, don't appear to have significant difference. analysis of the third research question to assess the students' self-perceived english language proficiency level compared to their peers, they were asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 5, where (1) represents "not sufficient at all" and (5) represents "very sufficient." table 8. flsa and self-perceived level of english self-perceived level n mean std. dev. f sig (between groups) not competent at all 27 4.3287 .6475 46.871 .000 least competent 55 3.5466 .8524 fairly competent 92 2.8920 .8790 competent 48 2.3372 .8307 very competent 28 1.7478 .7838 total 250 2.9565 1.0961 one way anova test was implemented for the analysis of the answers. table 8 presents the analysis of foreign language speaking anxiety (flsa) based on the self-perceived level of english among participants. the analysis reveals distinct variations in flsa across different self-perceived levels of english. participants who perceived themselves as "not competent at all" (n = 27) had the highest mean flsa score of 4.3287. the mean flsa scores gradually decreased for participants who perceived themselves as "least competent" (n = 55), "fairly competent" (n = 92), "competent" (n = 48), and "very competent" (n = 28), with mean scores of 3.5466, 2.8920, 2.3372, and 1.7478, respectively. the significance level (sig) of .000 indicates a statistical significance of this difference. the tukey hsd post hoc test was conducted to examine the differences in the perceived level of english proficiency among different groups. table 9 provides the mean differences between each pair of groups and the corresponding statistical significance. as can be seen in table 9, the results indicate significant differences between all pairs of groups in terms of perceived level of english proficiency. participants who perceived themselves as more competent in english had higher mean scores compared to those who perceived themselves as less competent. the differences in mean scores were statistically significant for all comparisons, with p-values less than .05. these findings suggest that there are clear distinctions in the perceived level of english proficiency among the different groups studied. fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 108 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com table 9. tukey hsd post hoc test results (i) perceived level of english (j) perceived level of english mean difference (i-j) sig. tukey hsd not competent at all least competent .7821 .001 fairly competent 1.4367 .000 competent 1.9914 .000 very competent 2.5809 .000 least competent not competent at all -.7821 .001 fairly competent .6546 .000 competent 1.2093 .000 very competent 1.7988 .000 fairly competent not competent at all -1.4367 .000 least competent -.6546 .000 competent .5547 .002 very competent 1.1442 .000 competent not competent at all -1.9914 .000 least competent -1.2093 .000 fairly competent -.5547 .002 very competent .5894 .026 very competent not competent at all -2.5809 .000 least competent -1.7988 .000 fairly competent -1.1442 .000 competent -.5894 .026 it is important to further explore the relationship between self-perceived level of english and students' anxiety levels. to accomplish this, table 10 presents a cross-tabulation of self-perceived level of english and anxiety level of students. by analyzing the distribution of anxiety levels across different self-perceived english proficiency levels, this table allows us to gain valuable insights into the potential connection between students' perceived level of english and their anxiety levels. it provides a comprehensive overview of the number of students falling into different anxiety categories across various self-perceived english proficiency levels. this information is crucial for understanding the potential influence of selfperceived english proficiency on students' anxiety levels in the context of foreign language learning. table 10. self-perceived level of english * anxiety level of students crosstabulation self-perceived level very low anxious low anxious medium anxious high anxious very high anxious not competent at all 0 0 3 7 17 least competent 2 5 15 18 15 fairly competent 12 23 33 15 9 competent 15 16 9 7 1 very competent 16 9 1 2 0 table 10 displays the relationship between the self-perceived level of english and anxiety levels among the students. it shows the distribution of students across different self-perceived levels and anxiety levels. the table indicates that students with lower self-perceived english proficiency tend to report higher levels of anxiety. for instance, among students who perceive themselves as "not competent at all" in english, a larger proportion falls into the "high anxious" and "very high anxious" categories. on the other hand, students with higher selfperceived english proficiency tend to have lower anxiety levels. this suggests a possible fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 109 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com connection between self-perceived english proficiency and anxiety levels among the participants. analysis of the fourth research question in the fourth research question of this study, it was aimed to find out whether there is a relationship between the students' end-of-year english exam scores in the previous academic year and flsa. students were asked to choose one of seven possible score segments with 5point intervals, starting with 69 and below. table 11. flsa and previous year’s exam scores exam grades n mean std. dev. f sig (between groups) below 69 22 3.8295 1.1100 11.241 .000 between 70 and 74 21 3.5089 .9111 between 75 and 79 25 3.4475 .7270 between 80 and 84 34 3.3327 1.0840 between 85 and 89 38 2.9457 .8333 between 90 and 94 44 2.6548 1.0470 between 95 and 100 66 2.3172 1.0181 total 250 2.9565 1.0961 table 11 presents the relationship between foreign language speaking anxiety (flsa) and the previous year's exam scores. the table shows the mean flsa scores for different ranges of exam grades. the data suggest that students with lower exam grades tend to have higher flsa scores, indicating a higher level of anxiety in speaking. conversely, students with higher exam grades tend to have lower flsa scores, suggesting a lower level of anxiety. the findings highlight a potential link between academic performance and foreign language speaking anxiety among the participants. analysis of the fifth research question the fifth and final research question attempted to explore whether there is a significant relationship between students' flsa, and whether they had previously received support in speaking. independent t-test was used to analyze the answers given. table 12. flsa and previous speaking support got support for speaking n mean std. dev. mean difference sig (between groups) yes 73 2.8467 1.0929 -0.155019 .310 no 177 3.0018 1.0973 total 250 2.9565 table 12 examines the relationship between foreign language speaking anxiety (flsa) and previous speaking support. the table displays the mean flsa scores for participants who received speaking support and those who did not. the data indicates that there is a slight difference in flsa scores between the two groups, with those who received support showing a slightly lower mean flsa score compared to those who did not. however, this difference is not statistically significant (p > .05), suggesting that previous speaking support may not have a significant impact on flsa levels. fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 110 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com discussion this section provides an interpretation of the findings related to foreign language anxiety, comparing them with previous studies. the study examined foreign language anxiety levels based on various factors. regarding gender differences, the findings showed that female students tend to have higher levels of anxiety compared to male students, which aligns with findings from several previous studies (çağatay, 2015; demirdaş & bozdoğan, 2013; karataş et al., 2016; kındığılı, 2022; küçükler, 2020; öztürk & gürbüz, 2014; rafek et al., 2014; tercan & dikilitaş, 2016). some other studies found that males have higher anxiety or there is no significant difference at all (doğan & tuncer, 2016; elaldı, 2016; yılmaz, 2019). however, it is important to note that this finding does not imply that all female students are more anxious. the differences in anxiety levels between genders can be attributed to various factors, including societal and cultural influences, individual differences in self-confidence and language perception, and potential biological and physiological factors. moreover, the cultural context of turkey may influence the observed gender differences in foreign language anxiety among high school students. societal expectations, gender roles, and cultural norms surrounding language learning and communication could contribute to varying anxiety levels experienced by male and female students. the study revealed an interesting finding regarding the relationship between grade levels and anxiety levels among high school students. these intriguing findings challenge conventional assumptions, suggesting that as high school students progress through grade levels, their anxiety levels actually increase rather than decrease. for example, according to elmenfi and gaibani (2016), it has been suggested that the degree of anxiety in younger individuals is likely to be higher, particularly due to the fear of negative evaluation. however, these unexpected results contradict the notion that familiarity with the school environment and peers would alleviate anxiety. this pattern is consistent with previous research conducted by akar (2021), aydın et al. (2017), gürsoy (2018), gürsoy and akın (2013), and yılmaz (2019), supporting the notion that as students mature, they may develop protective barriers to shield themselves from potential embarrassment, as proposed by johnstone (2009, as cited in gürsoy & akın, 2013). however, the study by sertçetin (2006) introduced a twist, revealing that 5thgrade students experienced higher language speaking anxieties compared to their 8th-grade counterparts. in light of the existing research and findings of this study, it is evident that grade level is just one aspect among several other factors that contribute to the complex phenomenon of speaking anxiety among high school students. the study also tried to explore any possible influence of two distinct factors on students' foreign language anxiety: self-perceived english language proficiency level and previous year's english scores. the results revealed that students with lower perceived proficiency levels and lower english scores tend to experience more speaking anxiety. this finding suggests that as students' english proficiency improves, they may feel more comfortable speaking in class due to a better understanding of grammar rules, vocabulary, and sentence structure. however, these findings differ from the research conducted by marcos-llinás and garau (2009), who found that students with advanced proficiency levels may feel more pressure for success. the contrasting results highlight the complexity of the relationship between language proficiency fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 111 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com and speaking anxiety, and further research is needed to better understand these dynamics. additionally, studies by liu (2006) and dewaele and ip (2013) with chinese efl students and students in hong kong, respectively, also found that students with higher proficiency levels experience less foreign language speaking anxiety, supporting the findings of the current study. finally, this study examined whether there were differences in foreign language speaking anxiety between students who received special support in speaking and those who did not. support means out-of-school english lessons or courses here. although significant differences were found in other factors, no significant difference was observed in this regard. while kındığılı's study (2022) reported lower anxiety levels among students who received support for foreign language lessons, research on students' language learning history is limited. overall, the findings of this study contribute to the understanding of foreign language anxiety among high school students, highlighting gender differences, the influence of grade levels, self-perceived english proficiency, and the role of previous speaking support. the findings of this study have practical implications for educators and language learning practitioners. firstly, recognizing gender differences in foreign language anxiety can guide teaching approaches to create a supportive environment for female students. secondly, addressing anxiety at different grade levels can inform interventions and support systems to alleviate anxiety as students’ progress. thirdly, fostering students' self-perceived english proficiency can reduce speaking anxiety by building confidence in language skills. finally, considering the role of previous speaking support can help in providing appropriate resources for students' speaking development. these practical implications can contribute to the design and implementation of effective language learning programs and strategies. further research can be conducted to investigate the relationship between foreign language anxiety and other psychological factors, such as self-esteem or motivation. exploring these areas can enhance our understanding of foreign language anxiety and its broader implications for language learning and learner well-being. limitations this study has some limitations such as the research uses only quantitative method, the sample group is selected only from a state high school with the convenience sampling method, the students have similar socio-demographic backgrounds, and the distributions are not homogeneous within the groups. the validity of the research can be increased by reaching larger populations by choosing students from different schools, and by using qualitative techniques such as interview, observation, or open-ended survey to triangulate the study. conclusions this study examined various factors influencing foreign language speaking anxiety among high school students. the findings revealed that the participants had a moderate level of anxiety, indicating a state of unease rather than extreme discomfort. specifically, the study found that (1) female students exhibited higher anxiety levels compared to male students, (2) while there is a significant difference in anxiety levels across grade levels, the post hoc analysis reveals that the difference is primarily observed between 9th graders and the other grade groups, without significant distinctions among the remaining grades, (3) higher self-perceived english proficiency and previous english exam scores were associated with lower anxiety levels, and fındıklı, s., & büyükkarcı, k. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 112 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com (4) the presence or absence of previous speaking support outside of school had no significant impact on anxiety levels. these findings highlight the importance of addressing gender differences, grade level progression, and english proficiency in interventions aimed at reducing foreign language speaking anxiety among high school students. moreover, future research could delve into other potential factors, such as self-esteem or motivation, to enhance our understanding of foreign language speaking anxiety among high school students and guide the development of more targeted interventions. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was 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(2018). how does anxiety influence language performance? from the perspectives of foreign language classroom anxiety and cognitive test anxiety. language testing in asia, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40468-018-0065-4 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.1401 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2020.05.154 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1978.tb00309.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-657401-2.50009-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-657401-2.50009-5 https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2014.931942 https://doi.org/10.33394/jollt.v9i2.3321 https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/jlls/issue/43366/528094 https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v2n4p39 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.1990.tb00424.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1991.tb05378.x https://doi.org/10.1186/s40468-018-0065-4 focus on elt focus on elt journal special issue, 4(1), 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: cterzi@gazi.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. from practicum to real classroom: does experience change perceived self-efficacy beliefs of english language teachers? canan terzi lecturer, gazi university, turkey, cterzi@gazi.edu.tr apa citation: terzi, c. (2022). from practicum to real classroom: does experience change perceived selfefficacy beliefs of english language teachers? focus on elt journal, 4(1), 124-141. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.9 abstract the present study aimed to explore the changes in the perceived self-efficacy beliefs of english language teachers over a four-year period, from pre-service through in-service. with that aim in mind, the study aimed to shed light on the differences the actual teaching experience might create on the self-efficacy perceptions of efl teachers. the data for the study were collected through the turkish version of the teachers’ sense of efficacy scale adapted from çapa, et al. (2005). the scale was administered three times: before and after practicum and after four years of actual teaching experience. the findings of the study indicated a gradual increase in the participants’ efficacy levels in classroom management and instructional strategies over the course of time. however, the increase after four years of teaching was found to be more prevalent and remarkable. keywords self-efficacy, teacher education, practicum, teachers’ self-efficacy, teacher experience article history received : 01.11.2021 revised : 20.01.2022 accepted : 20.01.2022 published : 04.04.2022 type research article introduction one of the most fundamental aims of teacher education programs is to empower future teachers and to train them as competent and confident teachers of the future. it takes a comprehensive curriculum and dedicated teacher educators to raise teachers who are fully equipped professionally, who are aware of their potential, and who perceive themselves as efficacious teachers. throughout their education, pre-service english language teachers (hereafter, pselts) gradually develop efficacy expectations of themselves; “an efficacy expectation is the conviction that one can successfully execute the behavior required to produce the outcomes” (bandura, 1977, p.193). according to bandura and adams (1977), one of the fundamental roots of self-efficacy expectations is “performance accomplishments”; through such performance, individuals are informed about what they can and cannot do. but the question is whether the actual teaching experience agrees with the efficacy expectations of teacher candidates regarding how they perceive themselves as teachers. the correlation can go both ways; teacher candidates who have high perceived selfefficacy (hereafter, pse) might end up lowering their perceptions, or those who have low mailto:cterzi@gazi.edu.tr mailto:cterzi@gazi.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.9 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4804-6601 terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 125 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com pse in the first place might raise their idea of how efficacious they are as teachers. therefore, the impact of teaching experience on the pse of novice teachers is always a curious topic of research, and findings of such research might contribute positively to the empowerment of teachers. according to wyatt (2018), teachers’ self-efficacy has been a frequently studied subject for several decades now; however, studies focusing on the self-efficacy of language teachers are relatively new. wyatt (2018) suggests that such studies have become much common in the last 16 years or so. the reason for such a booming interest in self-efficacy beliefs of foreign language teachers might be the challenges imposed on foreign language teachers such as their doubting themselves regarding their own linguistic competence, pronunciation, fluency in the language they teach (wyatt, 2018). there are now numerous studies in the literature which focused on self-efficacy beliefs of english language teachers (e.g., aslan-yazıcı, 2019; balcı et al., 2019; genç et al., 2016; kaygısız et al., 2018; tavil, 2014;). a considerable majority of these studies investigated the pse of pselts during their education; some of such studies focused on the impact of various factors such as teaching experience, english proficiency level and institutional policies on pse while others focused on the effects of pse on such factors as self-reported english proficiency levels and teaching practices. tavil (2014) investigated the correlation between self-reflection and self-efficacy of pselts during their practicum course, using efl teacher efficacy scale before and after the practicum as part of an experimental study. the study attempted to analyze the impact of reflective journals on the efficacy beliefs of pselts and concluded that writing reflective e-journals significantly increased the self-efficacy levels of the participants. another study on the self-efficacy beliefs of pselts was conducted by balcı et al. (2019). in their descriptive study, the researchers analyzed the self-efficacy beliefs of pre-service english language learners throughout the four years of the program and aimed to find out whether pse differed by class level. the results revealed high levels of pse among all the participants. as for the difference between class levels, the researchers found a significant difference between the pse levels of sophomores and juniors in favor of juniors; however, contrary to the expectations of the researchers, no significant difference was found between other class levels. chacón (2005) investigated self-efficacy beliefs of english language teachers in venezuela through the teacher’s sense of efficacy scale and the correlations between pse and self-reported english proficiency. her results showed a significant correlation between the two; the study also concluded that the teachers felt more efficacious about instructional strategies than student engagement and classroom management. in a similar study, aslan-yazıcı (2019) studied the impact of self-efficacy beliefs of english language teachers working in state high schools on their teaching practices and the correlations between the participants’ self-reported proficiency levels and teacher efficacy. the results of the study revealed positive correlations between self-reported proficiency and teacher efficacy and a high correlation between teachers’ self-efficacy levels and their teaching performance. self-efficacy beliefs, like all other beliefs, are prone to change, and as was suggested by wyatt (2018), “teachers’ self-beliefs are fluid and context sensitive” (p. 93). in terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 126 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com comparison with the considerable number of studies on english language teachers’ selfefficacy beliefs, there is relatively a limited number of studies that particularly focus on the changes in the self-efficacy beliefs of english language teachers (e.g., atay, 2007; ma et al., 2021; pfitzner-eden, 2016; swanson, 2013). atay (2007) investigated the impact of oneyear long practicum on teacher efficacy of turkish pselts and the factors that influence the level of such efficacy. the study employed tses, administered two times before and after the practicum. although the study did not yield statistically significant results regarding overall efficacy, the results regarding subscales revealed a significant difference between pre-practicum and post-practicum scores, especially the resulting efficacy scores in instructional strategies and efficacy in student engagement. the study revealed a significant decrease in the participants’ pse in instructional strategies while there found to be a significant increase in the scores of the other two subscales, classroom management and student engagement. hoang and wyatt (2021) also investigated the development of preservice efl teachers’ beliefs over their practicum in the vietnamese context. they found out that the practicum experience fostered the development of the self-efficacy beliefs of the pre-service efl teachers; yet they did not find enough evidence for increased self-efficacy beliefs with regards to contexts and domains peculiar to what efl teachers do. they concluded from the finding that more elt-related support in areas such as continuing professional development and assessment should be provided for pre-service efl teachers during their practicum. akbari and moradkhani (2010) compared the pse levels of novice and experienced teachers of english as a foreign language. they did not follow the efficacy development of the same group of teachers; instead, they used two different groups of teachers. the experienced group of participants comprised of teachers with three years of teaching experience. the study concluded that experienced teachers had higher levels of global efficacy. swanson (2013) conducted a quantitative study on the changes in foreign language teacher efficacy and administered tses to a group of 47 foreign language teachers twice: first nearly at the beginning of the teacher education program and second after one year of teaching experience after graduation from the program. the study found out that the participants were highly confident regarding their abilities to teach languages before they started taking courses in the teacher education program; however, after one year of teaching experience their confidence in motivating students and fostering interest in learning were found to be areas they were least confident about. swanson (2013) concluded that training teachers in teacher education programs should be more than equipping them solely with content knowledge. there is a limited number of studies in the literature that focus on the changes in the pse beliefs of pselts, and most of such studies in the literature observed changes over a relatively short period of time, throughout pre-service education. there seems to be no longitudinal study that focused on what happens over an extended period of teaching experience regarding the changes in the pse of english language teachers. the present study aims to explore the changes in the pse beliefs of english language teachers over four years. to that end, the study intends to shed light on the changes that four years of actual teaching experience might create on the self-efficacy perceptions of efl teachers. with that aim in mind, the study intends to answer the following research questions: terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 127 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 1. to what extent does practicum change the pse beliefs of pselts? 2. to what extent does 3 or 4 years of teaching experience change the pse beliefs of english language teachers? methodology design the present study is a longitudinal study which aims to investigate whether experience makes a change in the pse beliefs of english language teachers. the study employed a mixed methods research design. the quantitative data were collected through a 24-item scale; the turkish version of the teacher’s sense of efficacy scale (hereafter ttses) adopted from çapa et al. (2005). the scale was conducted three times; first in october 2017, second in may 2018, and finally in september 2021. the qualitative data for the study were collected through one open-ended question to get more details about the pse beliefs and to be able to elaborate more on the effects of four years of teaching experience on the pse beliefs of the participants. setting the first part of the study was conducted at the beginning of the 2017-2018 academic year in the english language teaching program of gazi university, ankara. the english language teaching programs in turkey are four-year education programs which offer general language skills and methodology courses in the first three years and a one-year long practicum in the final year. the practicum course requires senior pselts to attend and observe actual classes for four hours a week in a state-run school in the first semester and to observe and teach at least one class hour every week in the second semester. the scale used to collect data was first administered before the participants started the practicum, and the second administration of the scale was done at the end of the practicum course, before the participants graduated from the program. the graduates of the program are certified to work as english language teachers, if they choose to do so. when they start working as teachers, they do not necessarily get any official follow-up mentorship; their professional development is based on trial-and-error, personal efforts, and hopefully guidance from senior fellow teachers. the third and final part of the study was conducted in 2021, when most of the participants have had 3 to 4 years of teaching experience in different schools, such as private or state primary and high schools or universities. participants at the onset of the study, in 2017, the participants comprised of 12 senior students studying at the english language teaching program of gazi university, ankara. of the participants, 11 were female and one was male. all the participants were assigned to the same educator terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 128 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com in the department, but they were assigned to two different mentor teachers in two groups of six in the practice school. the first set of data was collected from the 12 participants at the beginning of the 2017-2018 academic year right before they started the practicum course. at the end of the academic year, all the participants graduated from the program successfully. the second set of data was collected from the same 12 participants in the last week of the academic year, in may 2018. almost four years after their graduation, all twelve participants were contacted through email, and they were asked to respond to the same scale one last time to collect the third and last set of data. of the twelve participants, eight responded to the scale; one of the participants, the only male participant in the original group, reported that he had not had any teaching experience whatsoever after graduation, and the remaining three participants did not reply to the email. all in all, the final data for the study were collected from eight participants. all the eight participants in the final set were female. their ages ranged between 24 (12.5%) and 26 (62.5%). as for experience, three of the eight participants (37.5%) reported they had been teaching for four years; four of them (50%) had been teaching for three years; one of the participants (12.5%) said she had been teaching for three months. of the eight participants, four (50%) were working at a state-run school, and the remaining four were working at a private school during the data collection process. regarding the type of schools, five participants (62.5%) said they worked at a high school, two (25%) worked at a university, and one (12.5%) worked at a primary school. as for their educational status, five participants (62.5%) reported they were holding a b.a. degree, and three participants (37.5%) were pursuing an m.a. degree at the time of data collection. instrument the data for the study were collected through a 24-item scale; the turkish version of the teacher’s sense of efficacy scale (ttses) adopted from çapa et al. (2005). the ttses is the translated version of the teacher’s sense of efficacy scale developed by tschannenmoran and woolfolk hoy (2001), and the overall reliability coefficient of the ttses was .93. the ttses is composed of 24 items designed to obtain data about three subcategories: efficacy in student engagement, efficacy in instructional strategies, and efficacy in classroom management. the scale comprised of five main categories of rating (none at all, very little, some degree, quite a bit, and a great deal); the participants responded to each item using 9-point likert type responses (a great deal = 9, none at all = 1). in the first two stages of the data collection procedure, the scale (ttses) was given to participants as it was. in the third and final data collection stage, two additional parts were added to the scale: one of those parts included questions to collect demographic information considering the fact that the demography of the participants changed during four years after their graduation. the questions inquired about years of teaching experience, the kind of institutions the participants were working in, and the latest educational status of the participants, all of which were assumed to be factors which might affect the pse of the participants. the second additional part included one open-ended question: terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 129 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com what are the differences between your perceived self-efficacy in your senior year at university as a teacher candidate and your perceived self-efficacy now as a teacher with 3 to 4 years of teaching experience? please, explain briefly. the open-ended question was formulated by the researcher with the help of one expert from the field of teacher education. the question was formulated in turkish since it was believed that the participants would express their opinions more effectively in their mother tongue, and it aimed to collect more detailed data about the self-efficacy perceptions of the participants as teachers with experience. data collection procedures the present study intended to collect data about the pse levels of novice english language teachers comparing their beliefs about their own efficacy prior to and after actual teaching experience. therefore, the data collection process was three-fold; before practicum, after practicum and finally after four years of teaching experience. in 2017, the participants were first given the efl teacher efficacy scale which was developed by chiang (2008), and which contained 30 items requiring respondents to provide answers using a 3-point likert scale as i agree, i can’t decide, and i disagree. the results obtained from the scale were confusing since almost all the obtained responses fell into the i agree column in the scale. it was speculated that the three categories of responses on the scale were not precise enough for the purposes of the study; also, responding to a scale in the foreign language might have created a barrier for the respondents. as a result, the participants were asked to answer the ttses, and the data obtained from the efl teacher efficacy scale were excluded from the study. the ttses was administered to the twelve participants of the study before and after the practicum to see whether the practicum would make a difference in their perceptions of self-efficacy; all twelve participants responded to the scale. then in 2021, the twelve participants were contacted through email, and they were asked to respond to the scale again. of the participants, eight answered the scale. therefore, the final number of participants turned out to be eight. data analysis the primary data collected for the study were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. the demographic information about the participants was described in percentages, which provided quantitative data. the quantitative data, although limited, were used to shed more light on the qualitative analysis of the data obtained through the scale. the responses of the participants to the scale itself were tabulated to see the changes in the responses over time. the responses showing an increase or a decrease in the ratings of the same item were identified and marked on the table. each statement in the scale falls into one of the three sub-categories as efficacy in student engagement (items 1,2,4,6,9,12,14, terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 130 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com and 22), efficacy in instructional strategies (items 7,10,11,17,18,20,23, and 24), and efficacy in classroom management (items 3,5,8,13,15,16,19, and 21). the identified changes were analyzed and interpreted according to the sub-categories. as part of the final data collection stage, the participants were also given one openended question to get a deeper understanding of the results of data analysis. the question, which inquired about the self-reported differences in the pse beliefs of the participants over the four years, was constructed as an open-ended one to allow a free range of topics and comments in the responses of the participants. the responses of the participants were read thoroughly and analyzed based on the same sub-categories as in the ttses: classroom management, student engagement and instructional strategies. one additional category was added in order to analyze other points of discussion emerging in the responses of the participants and that category was named other. the responses the participants provided were then interpreted and discussed according to the categories listed above and in relation to the research questions. results in this section, the findings of the study obtained by means of ttses and the open-ended question in the survey were presented in line with the research questions. research question 1: to what extent does practicum change the pse beliefs of pre-service english language teachers? research question 1inquired whether the one-year practicum course would change the pse beliefs of pselts. to detect the changes and the direction of the changes, the participants’ ratings of each item were tabulated, and the increases and decreases in the responses were identified. the cases when one item was rated in the same way in both steps were marked as no change. the items in the scale are analyzed according to the sub-categories they belong to as efficacy in student engagement, efficacy in instructional strategies, and efficacy in classroom management as determined by tschannen-moran and woolfolk hoy (2001). the results have revealed that the increases in the pse beliefs seem to be more prevalent in the classroom management category, which might be interpreted as the impact of the experience in an actual classroom. the theoretical background that the pselts were equipped with might have understandably made them feel confident about the use of instructional strategies and student engagement. none of the participants rated their pse as none at all, which might be considered a clear sign that they were confident in their potential as teacher candidates as senior students. most of the answers ranged between some degree and a great deal. regarding efficacy in student engagement, most of the participants reported a moderate to high level of pse. item 1, which was about how much they can get through to the most difficult students, was rated as quite a bit or a great deal by most of the participants, and the responses after the practicum did not change remarkably; the slight change in the answers showed an increase in all the responses. the responses regarding fostering critical terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 131 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com thinking in students seemed to be evenly distributed. some participants reported an increase, and some others a decrease in their pse. one of the participants rated her pse as quite a bit before practicum, but after practicum she rated the same item as a great deal. another participant, on the other hand, reported a decrease from quite a bit to some degree. for item 4, which was about motivating students, three of the participants reported an increase, three reported a decrease in their pse. a majority of the participants reported no change in their pse as far as how much they can get students to believe they can do well in schoolwork. while six of the participants reported no change, the remaining two participants reported an increase. the responses of the participants ranged between a little and a great deal. this finding might suggest that the practicum experience did not make much of a change in how much the participants believed they could foster self-belief in students. it seems that half of the participants reported an increase in their pse regarding how much they can help their students value learning. however, it should be noted that the reported increases were not remarkable increases in that most of the responses fell into the same efficacy criteria in the scale. for item 12, which was about fostering students’ creativity, half of the participants reported no change; two participants reported a decrease, but the decrease was only by one point, which did not change the category the response fell into. two participants reported an increase in their pse regarding item 12. one of them rated her pse as some degree before practicum, but she rated the same item as a great deal after the practicum. the last item in the sub-category was about efficacy in assisting families in helping their children do well at school. most of the responses showed a decrease in pse. one participant, for instance, rated her pse for item 22 as quite a bit before the practicum, but after the practicum she rated her pse for the same item as very little. considering all eight items in the efficacy in student engagement sub-category, the rates of increase, decrease, and no change in the pse beliefs were found to be 30%, 25%, and 45%, respectively. the second sub-category included eight items about efficacy in instructional strategies. the responses to some of the items in this category yielded remarkable results. item 10, which was about how much they can determine whether a student comprehended what they have taught, most of the participants reported no change. the responses to the item ranged between quite a bit and a great deal. it can be claimed that one-year practicum experience confirmed the participants’ pse beliefs regarding item 10. for item 11, which inquired about the extent to which they could craft good questions for their students, none of the participants reported a decrease. half of the participants reported an increase while the other half reported that there was no change in their pse beliefs. all the reported increases were by two points. to illustrate, one of the participants rated her pse before the practicum as some degree and after the practicum as quite a bit. about the teacher’s ability to provide alternative explanations or examples when students are confused, none of the participants reported an increase while five of them stated there was a decrease in their pse. still, it should be noted that the decreases were not dramatic; the ratings of the participants dropped by one point, which did not necessarily change the rating category they fell into. for item 23, the responses ranged between some degree and a great deal, and except for one participant, all participants stuck to their responses before the practicum. all in all, for all terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 132 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com eight items in the efficacy in instructional strategies sub-category, the rates of increase, decrease, and no change in pse were found to be 23%, 20%, and 57%, respectively. the final sub-category was efficacy in classroom management. for the first two items in the category, item 3 and item 5, half of the participants reported an increase in their pse beliefs. the ratings for item 3 ranged between very little and a great deal, and for item 5 between some degree and a great deal. as for item 8, which was about establishing routines to run activities smoothly, half of the participants reported a decrease. those who reported a decrease in their pse regarding item 8 decreased their ratings by one point. item 13 was about encouraging students to follow classroom rules. the responses before the practicum ranged between some degree to a great deal. after the practicum, two of the participants increased their ratings; two other participants reported a decrease, and four (half) of the participants did not change their responses at all. one participant, for example, rated her pse for item 13 as some degree before and after the practicum, which might suggest that one-year practicum experience failed to have an impact on the pse beliefs of the participant. more than half of the participants reported no change in their pse beliefs regarding item 15, which was about calming disruptive or noisy students. most of the responses in the nochange category ranged between some degree and quite a bit, which might indicate that the practicum experience did not support the participants about how to deal with disruptive students. considering the rates of increases, decreases, and no changes for the eight items in the sub-category of efficacy in classroom management were found to be 35%, 25%, and 40%, respectively. all in all, the results obtained from the scale administered before and after the practicum showed a moderate number of increases, decreases, and no changes. however, regarding the resulting percentages of the responses obtained from each sub-category, it can be clearly seen that the highest percentage in each belonged to the ‘no change’ column. the second sub-category, efficacy in instructional strategies, did not seem to be very much influenced by the practicum experience. this might be interpreted as a clear sign that the practicum experience failed to make a considerable effect on the pse beliefs of the pselts. the most prevalent rate of increase was found in the sub-category of efficacy in classroom management, which might be considered plausible since the practicum experience was probably the first time when the participants had to manage a real class. also, of all the subcategories, classroom management might be said to be the most challenging one in terms of putting theoretical knowledge into practice. although individual participants reported increases and decreases in their pse beliefs after the practicum experience, the overall impact of the practicum experience seems to be limited. research question 2: to what extent does 3 or 4 years of teaching experience change the pse beliefs of english language teachers? research question 2 aimed to explore whether four years of teaching experience would change the pse beliefs of pselts. with that aim in mind, the responses of the participants to the ttses as senior students before the practicum course and the responses they provided four years after their graduation as english language teachers were tabulated. the responses terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 133 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com were analyzed in the same manner as in the analysis of research question 1; the items in the scale were categorized according to the sub-categories determined by tschannen-moran and woolfolk hoy (2001). a quick look at the tabulated results shows a clear and remarkable dominance of increases in the ratings of the participants of their pse beliefs after the actual teaching experience. decreases, on the other hand, seem to be more prevalent in the sub-category of efficacy in student engagement, which might be interpreted as a mismatch between expected pse before any teaching experience and after three or four years of teaching experience. in the sub-category of efficacy in student engagement, more than half of the participants reported an increase in their pse regarding how much they can foster critical thinking in the classroom. most of the reported increases are remarkable in that they increased by 2 to 4 points. one of the participants, who has been working at a state high school for almost three years, rated her pse for item 2 as some degree before practicum, and her response changed to a great deal after the teaching experience. similarly, another participant, who has been working at a private university for four years, increased her rating of quite a bit to a great deal after the teaching experience. however, the changes of ratings for item 4, which was about motivating students with low interest, seemed to be the other way around. more than half of the participants reported a decrease in their pse for the item. most of the reported decreases were by one or two points; one participant, who has been working at a private high school for four years, decreased her pse for the item by three points, from a great deal to some degree. the responses for item 6 and item 12 yielded no change in the ratings of more than half of the participants. the items inquired about getting students to believe in themselves and fostering student creativity, respectively. the responses to the items in the first step were already high, ranging mostly between quite a bit and a great deal, and the fact that the participants stuck to their original ratings might suggest that the teaching experience lived up to their self-efficacy expectations they had at the beginning of their senior year at university. for item 14 and item 22, half of the participants reported a decrease in their pse. except for one participant, the reported decreases were by one point. that participant, who has been working at a state high school for three years, decreased her rating for item 14 from quite a bit to very little. all in all, the rates of increase, decrease, and no change were found to be 34%, 34%, and 32%, respectively. the second sub-category, efficacy in instructional strategies, yielded more increases than decreases or no changes. except for two items, items 20 and 24, half of the participants increased their pse ratings. most of the increases were by one point. one participant, who has been working at a state high school, increased her rating of the item from quite a bit to a great deal. for item 20, half of the participants did not change their ratings, which already ranged between quite a bit and a great deal in the first set of responses to the scale. one participant, though, decreased her rating of the item from quite a bit to some degree. for item 24, only one of the participants reported an increase; more than half of the participants responded to the item with the same rating (quite a bit) as in the first attempt. considering all the eight items in the sub-category, the rates of increase, decrease, and no change were calculated to be 45%, 22%, and 33%, respectively. terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 134 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com the final sub-category, efficacy in classroom management, yielded more increased ratings of all. and in this sub-category, none of the participants decreased their ratings for 3 of the items: item 3, controlling disruptive behavior in the classroom; item 13, getting children to follow classroom rules; and item 15, calming a disruptive or noisy student. it seems the participants became more confident, and therefore more efficacious with experience over the course of time. for item 3, six of the participants increased their rating of pse, and two reported no change in their pse. the participants who did not change their responses rated their pse as some degree. the reported increases might be considered remarkable in that the increases were by two to four points. one of the participants, who has been working at a state university for three years, increased her rating from some degree to a great deal. for item 8, a great majority of the participants (seven) reported an increase in their pse, while only one participant reported a decrease. half of the reported increases were by two points, which changed the rating category. the results for item 13 did not yield any decreases; more than half of the participants increased their ratings of pse. one participant increased her rating of pse for the item from some degree to a great deal. similarly, the responses for item 15 did not yield any decreases. more than half of the participants increased their ratings, and three participants stuck to their original ratings. the increases were by one or two points. for item 16, which was about establishing a classroom management system with groups of students, more than half of the participants reported an increase, and two of the participants decreased their ratings by one point. for item 19 and item 21, half of the participants reported an increase. one participant, for example, increased her rating for the item from some degree to a great deal. another participant, on the other hand, reported a dramatic decrease in her pse; she decreased her rating from a great deal to some degree. the same participant decreased her rating of item 21 from a great deal to very little after the actual teaching experience. all in all, the rates of increase, decrease, and no change for the sub-category of efficacy in classroom management were estimated as 66%, 14%, and 20%, respectively. table 1. resulting percentages of the changes in the pse beliefs categories change (%) no change (%) increased pse decreased pse after the practicum after 3-4 years of teaching after the practicum after 3-4 years of teaching after the practicum after 3-4 years of teaching student engagement 30 34 25 34 45 32 instructional strategies 23 45 20 22 57 33 classroom management 35 66 25 14 40 20 as part of the final data collection stage, the participants were given one open-ended question to get a deeper understanding of the results of data analysis. the question was terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 135 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com “what are the differences between your perceived self-efficacy in your senior year at university as a teacher candidate and your perceived self-efficacy now as a teacher with three to four years of teaching experience?”. the question was formulated in turkish since it was believed that the participants would express their opinions more effectively in their mother tongue. the responses of the participants were read in detail and analyzed according to the sub-categories in the ttses and one additional category for other emerging points of discussion: classroom management, student engagement, instructional strategies, and other. the responses the participants provided were then interpreted and discussed according to the categories listed above and in relation to the research questions. classroom management was one of the most prevalent topics of discussion in the responses of the participants. an overall look at the responses revealed that all the participants felt more confident and efficacious about their classroom management skills today as a teacher with experience than when they were pselts. all the participants reported that they found their own ways around their classroom management skills through experience, and that they were still looking for solutions as classroom management-related challenges came along. one participant reported that she had difficulty dealing with managing the classroom during her practicum experience and in the first year of teaching after graduation. she stated that she felt more confident after four years of teaching experience about classroom management issues such as setting rules or dealing with disruptive students, and that she is still developing professionally. another participant stated that she came a long way as far as managing her classrooms is concerned, but she is still working on it to find better ways by trying alternative ideas of her own. from such suggestions, it might be concluded that in terms of efficacy in classroom management, there was an increase in the pse beliefs of the participants after four years of teaching experience. as for the reasons for the increased pse beliefs, several suggestions were made by the participants. all the participants wrote a few words or so about the differences between their practicum experience and actual teaching experience. doing so, they mostly mentioned what was missing or lacking in the practicum rather than talking about how they benefitted from it. one participant talked about her theoretical knowledge of classroom management, and said she thought she would handle students with disruptive behavior using the knowledge background she gained at university. to her surprise, as was suggested by her, “none of that knowledge worked for (her) to communicate effectively with such students, which made (her) question (her) efficacy”. one other participant talked about the fact that they did not have the chance to work with students of different age groups during the practicum. in a typical practicum course, the psets go to the same schools in both semesters; they do not have the opportunity to teach different class levels. the participant reported that she became more efficacious as a result of the fact that the actual teaching experience gave her a chance to work with students of different age groups. however, during my teaching experience, i had the chance to work with students of different age groups, and those of different special needs. my perception of my teaching efficacy developed positively. terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 136 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com the time constraint seemed to be another reason why the participants failed to manage classes effectively. most participants stated that they were not able to take ownership of the class since they spent little time at practice schools. “…there was a lack of familiarity and bond between students and me. i could not determine classroom rules with them; i did not have enough experience… we were temporary in the school…” the analysis of the data regarding efficacy in classroom management showed that the participants thought that their pse beliefs changed for the better and that they felt more confident and aware about how they could manage their classrooms. it seems that the practicum experience made the participants question their classroom management skills, but it did not result in much of a development in that regard. the second category of analysis was instructional strategies. one of the most interesting points mentioned by most of the participants was the correlation between the theoretical knowledge they learned in the elt program and the actual practice in classrooms. one participant stated that she thought she could teach all her lessons in english, and she was quite confident about it during the practicum; however, when she started working as a teacher, she found out to her disappointment that it was not possible with certain groups of students. she also added that she had to teach so-called exam english during her first two years of teaching and that she was not trained for that kind of lesson content at university. another participant reported that when she was preparing lesson plans for her lessons during the practicum, she would religiously follow the steps that she was taught in her methodology courses at university. yet, she was not happy with the results after implementing the lesson plan in the class. especially, in vocabulary teaching there are certain techniques we apply such as concept-checking questions. it takes hours to prepare them, but the student wants to learn through another way. not getting the feedback i expected made me sad. with experience i realized asking concept-checking questions was artificial. i found my way of doing things. i prepare lesson plans of my own, and i try not to include all the techniques i learned at university. the time constraint during the practicum was reported to be also influential in terms of instructional strategies. the participants stated that they did not have ample time to get to know the students so that they could design activities accordingly. “…since i could not get to know the students due to the limited time we got to spend together, so i could not design effective lessons for them”. as for student engagement, the participants seem to have gained more confidence and awareness over the course of time. all the participants reported a change for the better in their efficacy regarding how to understand their students’ needs and how to design lessons and activities accordingly. one participant stated that during her practicum experience she terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 137 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com thought only those students who enjoy learning english would participate in activities, and by experience she came to realize that it all depended on the teacher’s efforts to invoke interest in learning english. another participant reported that her teaching performance improved significantly, and she could easily identify low-achieving students and design activities for their needs. it can be understood from the responses of the participants that during the practicum they focused mostly on teaching the lesson rather than teaching students; that is, they tended to stick to the lesson plan and failed to engage most students in their class. they all reported that they improved their student engagement skills considerably and that they knew there was still room for improvement. now i know what i do is more than merely teaching english. part of it is about adding something to their life experiences. i have tried to guide students who have lost their way about their life goals, although i feel i haven’t been much successful. the participants provided discussions about topics which did not fall into any of the above-mentioned categories, and those discussions were analyzed under the category “other”. most of the participants talked about their feelings during the practicum experience, comparing those feelings with how they feel today. some of the participants wrote about the impact of being observed on their pse beliefs. one participant stated that her overall pse level was low during the practicum experience because, as she stated, “we were constantly being observed”. another participant stated that she could not help but feel as if she was being observed even when she was teaching her own class working as a teacher, and that she overcame the feeling through experience. now i can see my students as students; i used to feel they were observing me just like what my professors did during practicum. i stopped doing that and showing off, so to speak. i did not have enough experience, we were temporary in the school, and we were constantly being observed. therefore, my pse level was lower. the practicum experience, although it seems to have given the participants an idea of what it would be like in a real classroom, might have failed to create a feeling of involvement on the part of the pselts in the present study. one participant stated that during the practicum she felt as if she were in virtual (unreal) classroom. another participant reported that she did not feel much like a teacher during the practicum experience. however, as she had the chance to work with students of different age groups and different needs, she had a chance to gain a stronger perspective about her own teaching. during practicum, i did not feel efficacious since i could not quite grasp the seriousness of the profession, and since i could not get to know the students due to the limited time we spent together. however, during my teaching experience, i had the chance to work with students of different age groups, and those of different special needs. my perception of self-teaching efficacy developed positively. terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 138 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com regarding their pse beliefs then and now, all the participants might be said to have achieved to become their own person. one participant stated that her pse beliefs were rather superficial during the practicum, but that superficiality was replaced by reality through experience. another participant reported that she felt more efficacious after four years of teaching because of the responsibility she had undertaken and because of the difficulties she had successfully overcome. all in all, the participants seem to have become more confident, more aware, and more efficacious as a result of their actual teaching experience, and all seem to be actively reflecting about the experience. discussion and conclusions the present study aimed to find out whether experience would change the pse beliefs of english language teachers, investigating the pse beliefs before and after practicum and after four years of teaching experience. the findings of the study indicated that the practicum and actual teaching experience have an impact on the pse beliefs of english language teachers. this finding is in line with the findings of several studies in the literature (atay, 2007; swanson, 2013; tavil, 2014). one of the findings of the study was that the participants of the study, when they were psets, were thinking highly of their teaching abilities, and they were quite confident in their theoretical knowledge of english language teaching. swanson (2013) found similar results and suggested that the participants in his study were highly confident in their teaching abilities at the beginning of the teacher education program. balcı et al. (2019) found out that the efficacy scores of junior students were significantly higher than those of other class levels. they have noted that the seniors turned out to have lower scores than other class levels, but the difference was not statistically significant. senior pre-service english language teachers have the chance of putting their knowledge into practice during practicum. teaching practicum is the final step of pre-service teacher education through which the perceptions, beliefs of teacher candidates are finetuned, and through which pre-service language teachers become better equipped to cope with classroom realities in the future (yuan & lee, 2014). considering that, it would not be wrong to expect changes in the pse beliefs of pre-service teachers after practicum. the findings of the present study confirmed that practicum experience made a change in the pse beliefs of pselts. the resulting percentages of the changes in the ratings of the participants, including both increases and decreases, were 55% for efficacy in student engagement, 43% for efficacy in instructional strategies and 60% for efficacy in classroom management. one interesting finding was that the pse beliefs regarding efficacy in instructional strategies did not change for most of the participants; 57% of the ratings fell into the “no-change” category. of the three categories in the scale, efficacy in instructional strategies seems to be the only domainspecific category; efficacy in student engagement and classroom management might be generalized to teaching profession in general. it is interesting that such a finding might suggest that the practicum experience did not make much of a change in the pse beliefs of the participants in terms of language teaching methods. this finding is in line with the terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 139 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com findings of hoang and wyatt (2021); they concluded in their study that one-year practicum experience did not provide much growth in the domain-specific dimensions of english language teaching. although there seems to be a limited impact of the practicum experience on the pse beliefs of the participants regarding instructional strategies, the finding might also suggest a strong confidence in the theoretical knowledge base on the part of the psets. the same finding, however, is not consistent with the findings of atay (2007). her study indicated a significant decrease in instructional strategies. in the present study, only two of the items in the category indicated a considerable decrease: efficacies regarding providing alternative explanations when students are confused and providing appropriate challenges for high-achieving students. another finding of the study was that the efficacy ratings of the participants revealed a significant change after three or four years of actual teaching experience. although the individual ratings of the participants varied, most of the changes were found in the categories of instructional strategies and classroom management, 67% and 80% respectively. the changes in the pse beliefs of the participants fell more into the “increase” category, especially for instructional strategies and classroom management. 45% of the participants increased the ratings for their pse beliefs regarding instructional strategies. this result was also confirmed in the responses for the open-ended question; all the participants explained how they found their way through different techniques of teaching, trying lesson designs and activities and reflecting on them. we might conclude from this finding that three or four years of teaching experience empowered the english language teachers since they had the opportunity to synthesize theoretical knowledge and what they learned from the real practice of teaching. the findings indicated that they are still working on their teaching abilities to be more effective in student engagement, the scores of which indicated higher rates of decrease and no-change in the efficacy scores. decreases were found to be more prevalent in the sub-category of efficacy in student engagement (34%), which might be interpreted as a mismatch between expected pse before any teaching experience and after three or four years of teaching experience. the present study is not without limitations. although the study is a longitudinal one, it is limited to eight participants. thus, in further studies, it could be replicated with more participants to better understand and evaluate the relationships among the self-efficacy beliefs of the pre-service english language teachers before and after the practicum period and after four years of experience as efl teachers. longitudinal studies are recommended to investigate whether junior and senior teachers’ pse beliefs to teach efl vary across years. these studies are supportive and enlightening for future teachers in their profession rather than leaving them alone. it might be suggested that studies in this realm might trigger self-reflection on the part of both efl teachers and teacher educators. despite the afore-mentioned limitations, it is clear from the present results that gaining a deeper insight into the self-efficacy beliefs of junior and senior efl teachers, longitudinal studies should be implemented since they have a great impact on understanding the crucial roles of self-efficacy beliefs in teachers’ professional development. it is clear that such a deeper analysis will inform all stakeholders in teacher education programs to terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 140 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com understand the junior and senior teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs to provide the necessary contexts for guiding the pre-service teachers to develop as qualified and confident professionals for their future careers. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references akbari, r., & moradkhani, s. 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(2018). language teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs: a review of the literature (2005-2016). australian journal of teacher education, 43(4), 92-120. https://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2018v43n4.6 http://www.idealonline.com.tr/ https://doi.org/10.1080/13664530701414720 https://doi.org/10.51383/ijonmes.2019.35 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.84.2.191 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01663995 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2005.01.001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2007.05.004 https://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2016v41n2.4 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2020.102422 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-021-00481-5 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.01.018 https://doi.org/10.15700/201412120931 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0742-051x(01)00036-1 https://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2018v43n4.6 terzi, c. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue 141 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com yuan, r., & lee, i. (2014). pre-service teachers’ changing beliefs in the teaching practicum: three cases in an efl context. system, 44, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2014.02.002 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2014.02.002 felt article template focus on elt journal (felt) vol 2 issue 1, 2020 issn: 2687-5381  contact: isik.irem@hacettepe.edu.tr the effects of reflective teaching techniques on teachers’ selfevaluation for further lessons: analysis through diary keeping a i̇smail çakır and b i̇rem işık a ankara yıldırım beyazıt university, ankara, turkey, icakir@ybu.edu.tr b ma student, hacettepe university, ankara, turkey, isik.irem@hacettepe.edu.tr to cite this article: işık, i̇. & çakır, i̇. (2020). the effects of reflective teaching techniques on teachers’ selfevaluation for further lessons: analysis through diary keeping. focus on elt journal (felt), 2(1), 20-36. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00016 abstract this study aims to reveal the current attitudes and beliefs of english teachers about reflective teaching with an interview along with using a technique called diary keeping. it also focuses on the effects of keeping diaries on teachers’ self-reflection and tries to bring the contributions it can provide to teachers’ reflective teaching skills into the results of this study. it has been presumed that teachers will benefit the most in this process from this technique that allows them to look at their own practices closely through an introspective, mirror-like experience. for this study, the data were collected from four english teachers and diaries were used as the instrument of this study. prediary questions were also asked teachers to reveal their current attitudes related to the topic as well as to identify the level of awareness on the topic. the data were analyzed qualitatively by using thematic analysis. it is found out that teachers have used this technique both as a source and as a tool. they have used it as a source of awareness, self-evaluation, and preparation for further lessons and as a tool to analyze student needs, detect routine activities, and uncover the problems. as a result of this study, diaries have been suggested for further educational practices and current english teachers because they lead one of the best ways the teachers can be reflective, give themselves effective feedback and advance their teaching skills. keywords: reflection evaluation reflective teacher diary journal received : 18 march 2020 revised : 08 may 2020 accepted : 18 may 2020 published : 22 june 2020 introduction reflective teaching has been one of the most prominent areas of teaching pedagogy and teacher education. in many schools and institutions, the majority of english language teachers come to classrooms unaware of the reasons behind their own teaching and practices. it has been discussed for many years that there are different applications of being reflective for teachers and reflective action which may help teachers feel more confident, secure, and content with their teaching and classroom implementations both during the lesson time and for further lessons. english teachers who are reflective can contribute to students’ development as well as their own as language teachers since they are always in a process of evaluation. in education, this leads teachers to be critical in their practices and more hardworking to make classroom practices better and more useful for learners. even experienced teachers might have problems in their teaching career and tend to burn out, which will result in poor performance of both their own and learners. therefore, mailto:isik.irem@hacettepe.edu.tr http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-4301-486x http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-7497-3249 mailto:icakir@ybu.edu.tr mailto:isik.irem@hacettepe.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00017 çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 21 focus on elt journal (felt) researchers have also proved that reflection is crucial for teachers since it helps them acknowledge the experience, assume a critical attitude towards practice, enhance their awareness of teaching, develop profound understanding, and create positive changes (maksimović & osmanović, 2019). recent changes in education and teacher development in turkey have brought teachers to a point where they try to understand their students’ needs and follow the opportunities to be more professional teachers. to be able to understand how reflective english language instructors are in turkey, gözüyeşil and soylu (2014) investigated efl instructors through a reflective thinking inventory and found out that one prominent way to understand this is through reflecting on one’s own teaching by using one of the reflective techniques to bring changes into their teaching and going beyond their routinized classroom situations. similarly, dikilitaş and yaylı (2018) tried to grasp the changes in the professional identity development of teachers through action research to have a closer look at teachers’ selfefficacy beliefs, self-reflection, and awareness. in a mixed-method approach by moghaddam et al. (2019), journal entries were used with efl teachers to qualitatively analyze their reflective actions and findings encourage future teachers to have a fresh and closer look at their classroom practices with the intention of changing and modifying the techniques they use in their classrooms. it is stated by bilger (2017) that ‘reflection helps us understand the nature of feelings, our patterns of thoughts, and our emotional reactions’ (p.146). akbaş and dikilitaş (2019) also stress the value of reflection and argue that ‘the learning and teaching experiences and creating personal and pedagogical meanings could empower teachers since it leads to a sense of self-regulation of own learning to become a teacher’ (p. 134). therefore, diary entries were also chosen in this current study to find out the changes and contributions reflective diaries can bring to teachers’ classroom practices. it is quite significant to investigate teachers’ attitudes and views in a far deeper way by using introspective approaches like journals and diaries. as a result, this study aims to motivate teachers to be reflective by bringing english teachers’ reflections on authentic classroom events to the surface. literature review reflective teaching schön (1983; 1987) defines reflection as an advanced mental process that goes beyond technical reality and involves an ability to be intuitive and insightful, and is mostly related to action and reflective practice, what he also calls as ‘reflection-in-action’ and ‘reflectionon-action.’ therefore, in educational settings, this kind of reflection results in critical thinking and reflective action of a teacher. for critical reflection, focusing on the problem, defining suppositions related to the problem, inductive and deductive reasoning related to the analysis of the problem, assessment of the credibility of all these suppositions and sources of information, discussion, evaluation, self-regulation, and problem-solving are all the skills a critical thinking person must have (maksimović & osmanović, 2019). reflective teachers are defined by schön (1983) as teachers who critically investigate their classroom practices, bring new ideas related to the way they can improve their performance to enhance students’ learning, and carry out those ideas in practice. according to schön (1983), for the reflection to occur, “there is some puzzling or troubling or interesting phenomenon with which the individual is trying to deal. as the individuals try to make sense of it, they also reflect on the understandings which have been implicit in çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 22 focus on elt journal (felt) their actions, understandings which they surface, criticize, restructure, and embody in future action” (p. 50). in a various number of studies, (e.g. dewey, 1993; farrell, 2014; grant & zeichner, 1984) three main features of reflective teachers are characterized: ‘open-mindedness’, which is a willingness to listen to more than one aspect of a problem and give way to alternative ideas and views; ‘responsibility’ which is thinking carefully about the results an action can lead to; and wholeheartedness which means that teachers can handle ambiguities and fears so as to critically and meaningfully evaluate their practice (tajik & pakzad, 2016). maksimović and osmanović (2019) mention that only those teachers who reflect on their practice do become more professional and efficient in teaching since only systematic reflection enables teachers to have an influence on making decisions that may cause changes in teaching practice. reflective practice also helps teachers free themselves from the constraints of a routine and impulsive behavior (maksimović & osmanović, 2019). as it is pointed out earlier, even experienced teachers are often unaware of their teaching routines and beliefs; consequently, they may not actually do what they think they do in the classroom (farrell, 1998). there is indeed a big difference between reflective action and routine action, and according to zeichner and liston (1987), reflective action "entails the active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds that support it and the consequences to which it leads. routine action is guided primarily by tradition, external authority, and circumstance" (p. 24). it is also crucial to bear in mind that the concept of reflective practice also arose out of the need to counteract burnout in the teaching profession. for example, ‘burned out' teachers may see teaching as a routine and find it repetitive (farrell, 1998). in a study conducted with a novice teacher in turkey by kayaoğlu, erbay and sağlamel (2016), this aspect of teaching is highlighted by especially emphasizing teachers’ feeling reluctant to develop themselves professionally due to the reasons such as busy schedule, institutions’ and parents’ high expectations and lack of appreciation by any educational authorities. for this reason, it is suggested not to think of even reflective practice as the only effective solution that will work very quickly. on the other hand, cebeci (2016) found out that when teacher candidates reflected back on their micro-teaching sessions in interviews conducted, they related themselves with positive feelings favoring the curriculum as well as becoming aware of using different teaching techniques and as a result developing their professional competence and enjoying teaching the young learners. as zeichner (1998) pointed out, reflective action does not only involve a logical or rational problem-solving process but also involves intuition, emotion, and passion so it is not something that can be neatly packaged as some have tried to do, and taught as a set of techniques for teachers to use. teachers need to realize and be aware of the need and urge to be reflective in terms of every aspect of their teaching. so, reflective teachers need to sit and analyze carefully about their teaching practices and classrooms especially by asking the broader questions, not only like ‘do i like results’ but also ‘have my objectives been met’ (zeichner, 1998). therefore, reflective teaching is a term that is broader than the idea of meeting classroom objectives but rather trying to get better results in each try than the previous ones. so, it is a process that always helps the teachers develop and improve their teaching for better outcomes. çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 23 focus on elt journal (felt) reflection-in-action schön (1983; 1987) puts the reflection into two categories as reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. when teachers implement their classroom routine and find out that these are not useful or do not work in the new situation, then they instantly need to refer to reflection-in-action to deal with the problem. farrell (1998) recognizes reflection-in-action as an ability to display problems based on past experiences as if a type of conversation takes place between the unknown situation to be analyzed and the reflective practitioner. that is why, it can be also described thinking while doing the action. moghaddam et al. (2019) discovered that reflections related to classroom management and learning environment are fairly connected to reflection-in-action since they are related to the way teachers decide to approach situations which are unexpected at the time of the lesson. reflection-on-action another aspect of reflection is that if the teachers look back and reflect on what happened in the class, then it means that they adopt reflection-on-action. the fact that teachers take some time and evaluate the events, try to come up with possible solutions for the future shows that they internalize the reflection-on-action approach. farrell (1998) recognizes reflection-on-action as some kind of metacognitive action seeing that it requires critical thinking and analysis. it is observed in a study by kayaoğlu, erbay and sağlamel (2016) that the novice teacher who was interviewed on her reflections later in the study was mostly in a state of reflection-on-action since she already did the action and was describing them reflectively and then justifying her decisions. reflection-for-action other than these two types of reflection, tajik and pakzad (2016) mention that in reflection-for-action, teachers reflect not to go back and analyze the past but to guide future action. teachers can predict possible problems that might occur in the future based on their reflections and accordingly they can change, modify, or arrange their future classroom practices. in a study conducted with pre-service english teachers, yeşilbursa (2011) points to teachers’ reflective skills of contemplating possible solutions for the future or projecting themselves for possible occurrences in the future based on their past experiences. tülüce and çeçen (2017) also mention that the student teachers of efl engaged themselves in a process of reflection-for-action while watching videos of their own micro-teaching lessons and at the same time reflecting and deciding for their future practices. diary studies there are many different implementations of reflective action in education and second language learning classrooms. in terms of teachers, there are options like journal/diary writing, peer observation, lesson report forms, audio, or video recording the lessons. one of the most prominent techniques used in recent years has been the journal or diary entries for they are comprehensive while looking back on thoughts and feelings reflected on the events and situations. in this sense, richards (1991) points out that experience by itself is indeed not enough for professional development, but that experience in collaboration with reflection can be more powerful for teacher development and professional growth. genç çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 24 focus on elt journal (felt) (2010) emphasizes the significance of reflection through journal entries and states that the process is a kind of ‘eye-opener’ since it motivates teachers to help to analyze possible solutions and to feel autonomous and empowered. that is why, providing opportunities for critical self-reflection is valued and recognized as an important component of teacher development (richards, 1992). boud, keogh, and walker (1985) also contend that experience alone is not the key to learning, and reflection is what turns experience into learning. in a study conducted in turkey, yeşilbursa (2011) states that “even through a single written reflection on one microteaching event a good deal of insight can be gained into the way pre-service teachers see themselves as teachers and how they reflect on their own practice” (p. 113). so, diaries can provide opportunities for teachers to self-reflect and develop their teaching for the future and contribute to their teaching experience. gün (2011) also mentions that when reflection is not practiced but only preached, it is more like something that will not be embraced and as a result, not pursued by the participants. bailey (2006) agrees that reflection is valuable when teachers are able to make a critical inquiry into their process of teaching practice by interpreting the data they collect on their teaching and as a result to make necessary changes in their practices and classrooms based on those interpretations. as it is also noted by gün (2011), being aware is our first step towards being able to change our practice. for this reason, raising awareness and promoting critical thinking are among the reasons diary studies are favored in reflective teaching. zeichner and tabachnick (1991) make it clear that reflection might occasionally seem difficult since it is commonly considered to be a private activity, while reflective teaching, like any kind of teaching, is expected to be a public activity. diaries can be private too but they have outcomes not only related to the diarist but also the other people involved in his or her experience. therefore, when reflected on and interpreted meticulously, the diaries’ scope is no longer narrow and private. richards and lockhart (1996) point out the importance of diaries by saying “it is a teacher's written response to teaching events and serves two purposes: events and ideas are recorded for the purpose of later reflection. the process of writing itself helps trigger insights about teaching. writing in this sense serves as a discovery process” (p. 7). according to bailey (1991), the diarist may be a language teacher or a language learner but the actual characteristic and focus of diaries are being introspective as it means that the diarist studies his own teaching or learning and reflects on it. this way, they can give reports on their own perceptions which are normally hidden or hard to access for an external observer. bailey (1991) remarks that “introspective methods encompass ‘selfreport, self-observation, and self-revealment’” (p. 63). moreover, bailey (1991) adds that “introspections are conscious verbalizations of what we think we know” (p. 63). it is also mentioned by bailey and curtis (2009) that “diary studies can offer insights into processes that are not otherwise easily accessible or open to investigation and can thus provide useful information to language teachers, learners and researchers. they are based on data generated through personal written records, and those data consist of detailed notes on events, actions, emotions, and thoughts” (p. 70). similar to the research studies based on teacher diaries and journal entries, ho and richards (1993) also studied journals with ten teachers who were in-service tesol teacher education program at tertiary level to identify the ways journals promote reflective thinking and found out that teachers mainly wrote about the problems they faced in the classrooms and included the techniques and procedures they used. based on all these studies and ideas, diary-keeping was chosen as the reflective teaching technique to be used in this research. çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 25 focus on elt journal (felt) methodology research questions this study was carried out to reveal the current attitudes and beliefs of english teachers about reflective teaching and to find out whether there are any significant changes after teachers’ keeping diaries on their classroom practices. in this regard, the following research questions were asked; 1. what are the teachers’ current attitudes and beliefs towards reflective teaching? 2. in what ways can keeping diaries be effective on teachers’ views on reflective teaching and to raise their awareness? 3. what are the contributions of diary keeping to teachers’ self-evaluation and reflection for further lessons? participants the participants of this study were volunteers to take part in the research and they were also chosen for the convenience. they are composed of 4 english teachers (1 male and 3 female), 3 of them working at government schools and 1 of them working at a private language course. they all graduated from english language teaching departments and had a ba degree. all teachers had 3 years of teaching experience. the age range of the participants is between 24 and 26. instruments in this study, teacher diaries were used and diary-keeping was implemented with the teachers. the researchers thought that diary-keeping would be one of the best options for language teachers since it is a verbal skill best reflecting the characteristic of language learning and teaching which are also verbal skills. pre-diary questions prepared by the authors were also asked teachers. points to be included in the diaries were taken from “reflection questions to guide journal entries” by richards and lockhart (1996) and it has been suggested to teachers as guidance while keeping the diaries. as a result, diaries were both developed with the help of “reflection questions to guide journal entries” by richards and lockhart (1996) and teachers’ own writing style. data collection and analysis before starting the process, the researchers familiarized the participant teachers with the process and had a warm-up session of writing with them. during this process, teachers shared what they wrote and gave each other feedback. at the same time, the researchers observed the teachers and measured their level of willingness to participate. participant teachers were eager and paid attention to the feedback given by their peers and the researchers. they chose a grade and a classroom they had been teaching and kept diaries for 6 weeks after every lesson. the points to be included in the diaries were presented to participant teachers, they read the guidelines and they were suggested that they could also include the answers to these questions along with their own ideas and feelings especially by pointing out to the effects of keeping diaries after every writing session. reflection çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 26 focus on elt journal (felt) questions to guide journal entries by richards and lockhart (1996) were used in this study to guide teacher diaries. teachers described their classroom moments, included the points by following up the guidelines, and also shared their feelings about keeping a diary at the end of every writing. pre-diary questions prepared by the authors were asked to participants before starting the whole process to identify the current attitudes and beliefs of the teachers along with their level of awareness on reflective teaching. it was consulted for pre-diary questions to teachers who are experienced in the reflective teaching area along with the university instructors who are dominant in the subject matter and as a result, their approvals indicated that the questions appeared to be appropriate to the study purpose and content area. pre-diary questions were asked through meetings and phone calls arranged with teachers, and in the end, diaries were examined. the data were analyzed qualitatively with an exploratory design using interpretive and thematic analysis. the content from diaries was analyzed interpretively and the most recurring patterns were presented under a common theme. each theme was reviewed and named as a title to guide readers and included in the findings with further explanation. results and discussion in this study, the focus is mainly on the teachers’ perspective on their experiences that have been interpreted from their diary entries and also the effectiveness of teacher diaries. the results obtained from these tools reveal the current attitudes of the teachers towards reflection, and contributions of keeping diaries to their self-evaluation and further lessons. the findings from the pre-diary interview showed that teachers in common did not know much about reflective teaching practices except the theory in general. they did not know any techniques to be reflective nor they had applied them in their practices. they did not have regular feedback sessions with their students or by themselves, either. all four teachers thought that diaries or journals could be good ways to be reflective and favored the idea of getting better results of one’s teaching when it comes to the preference of being reflective. the participant teachers included in their diaries, their lesson plans in summary, activities they followed, or the moments they wanted to share as well as the changes and contributions they experienced during this process along with their feelings and thoughts about themselves, the class, or the language education in general. when participant teachers handed their diaries, it was seen that they also assessed the effectiveness of the diary technique while keeping the diaries. it has been found out that this reflective teacher technique has mostly been a source as well as a tool for teachers. the findings have been presented in six categories according to the recurring themes identified with some of the illustrative excerpts taken from teacher diaries and interviews. a source of awareness it has been prominently seen that teachers have used diaries effectively to understand some points in their teaching practices and that they have been a source of awareness for them. most of the teachers specify that they realized some certain things while writing diaries, they think that the diaries made them aware of their practices more. some excerpts to prove this are as follows: çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 27 focus on elt journal (felt) “now i realized that i had problems with not the sequences of activities, somehow i managed it, but the classroom management.” (participant 1) “…it made me realize that students understand better in this way.” (participant 3) the findings show that this aspect of diaries is parallel to a finding in a study by korucukis and kartal (2019) since the most noticeable point in the study of student teachers’ journals was self-awareness. in this study, teachers are found to be in a process of realization and it is seen that the experience helps them to see the things they could not see and be aware of in the very beginning. similarly, in a study by kayaoğlu, erbay and sağlamel (2016), a novice teacher gained insight into her own practices and recognized her mistakes which resulted in an increase in her awareness. however, not all teachers used diaries as a source of awareness to see their weak points but also to understand their better sides and useful classroom activities as well as to grasp diaries’ benefits thinking positively as can be seen from the excerpts below: “i realized i do much more than i thought and my lessons weren’t that dull and actually they were a kind of fun” (participant 2) “this also raised my awareness and helped me to get better for the next lesson…” (participant 1) the findings demonstrate that when teachers started keeping their diaries, whether it was positive or negative, they were involved in a process of self-discovery and awareness. this also opened new ways to understand and analyze other issues as mentioned in teachers’ sentences related to classroom management, the sequence of activities, the content of the lessons. a tool to analyze student needs it has been found out that teachers have understood their students’ needs better and included some solutions for that in their diaries. while some were thinking over them in terms of the whole classroom needs, some focused on specific students and tried to understand their needs. some excerpts are as follows: “during the lesson, they were talking to each other, but i know that we never had group activities today which would be good for this group of students because they participated well enough last week in group work” (participant 4) “my students in this class might need to go back since they pointed out that they had problems with the other teacher at the beginning of the term.” (participant 1) these findings indicate that some teachers analyzed the needs and the problems especially by referring to ‘a certain group of students’ and included phrases like ‘my students in this class’ or ‘this group of students’ which shows that the teachers carefully struggled to understand the certain groups of students from a minority in a class to a whole different class they are supposed to teach in that term. çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 28 focus on elt journal (felt) one teacher even focused on affective factors and mentioned her attempt to integrate herself with her student’s feelings. this also proves that the teacher recognized her student very well in this sense and owned the problem in the situation as her own fault: “i think i could not give him enough encouragement because if he fails, he is easily lost.” (participant 1) in a study conducted by genç (2010), she mentions that one teacher decided to act considering the specific needs of the students along with their interest and age which finally helped her to implement a certain method according to these needs. similar to this finding, one of the teachers identified the problem specifically focusing on the level of the students: “i still thought that i might have chosen a difficult song which was not suitable for their level.” (participant 3) the statements reveal that teachers have been analyzing the classroom needs whenever they discover them in their diaries. it proves that this aspect of the diaries can also help teachers to uncover these needs and find some concrete solutions by creating a better learning atmosphere in harmony with learners’ needs. a source of self-evaluation it has been found out that teachers often evaluated themselves in their diary entries and mentioned in their views, the contributions of this technique to see their strong and weak sides as language teachers. consciously or unconsciously they were giving themselves feedback and trying to understand themselves as language teachers. this process has helped them to identify their strong and weak points. all the findings from similar studies (yeşilbursa, 2011; bilger, 2017; tülüce & çeçen, 2017; korucu-kis & kartal, 2019) are compatible with the results of this study in terms of the fact that reflective teaching practices help teachers identify their strengths and weakness. some excerpts provided are as follows: “i thought i wasn’t a good teacher. but i realized that i am not that bad. and i feel more encouraged. if i didn’t keep a diary, i wouldn’t realize my better sides.” (participant 2) “it helped me to see my positive and negative sides. it kind of helped me to see the missing points and useful points in my teaching.” (participant 4) based on these statements from teacher diaries, it is seen that teachers have been using phrases of self-evaluation such as ‘strong sides’ or ‘weak points’ and they have mainly focused on assessing themselves as language teachers to be able to reach to the success point or become the successful teacher image on their minds. however, teachers recognized the diaries more than the source of identifying strengths and weakness, they also described lacking a certain characteristic to have an efficient lesson that day. they evaluated themselves by also evaluating the results of the lesson and identified the problematic areas such as classroom or time management: çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 29 focus on elt journal (felt) “i don’t have any ideas about how to prevent this. i see, once again that i am not good at classroom management in this grade.” (participant 3) “i had time management problems since i could not put into practice half of the plan and the materials i prepared.” (participant 1) unlike a study by dikilitaş and yaylı (2018), teachers were far beyond self-criticism impulsed by dissatisfaction with themselves, instead, they chose to be positive and remarked often that they were doing more than they thought and came with constructive attributes. one teacher even made it comprehensible by explaining that seeing her good work increased her motivation. this study naturally proves that not all the time focusing on negative points or inabilities will foster change for better, but seeing the positive and strong sides of oneself can be a significant impetus for professional development: “writing all those activities that i did today… thinking of them now, good job, i say. it is increasing my motivation for the next week. i love this class though…” (participant 1) “we had fun today a lot, i did not know i could understand the nature of young learners a lot. we had storytelling, dramas, games on the smartboard. most of them work when they understand and i make myself clear… …i think i was a bit cruel to myself by judging myself and keep saying: ‘i am not a good teacher, i am not a good teacher…’” (participant 2) findings show that the self-appreciation seems like a great stimulus to teachers. selfevaluation with the participants of this study comes with identifying all points not only the negative ones but also the positive ones which keep their mindset healthy and their motivation high. a tool to detect routine activities while keeping the diaries, it has been found that teachers have detected what they have been repeating unnecessarily and some even explored that they never used certain activity types even if they are suitable with the needs of their learners. identifying these same and repeated more than necessary types of activities led teachers to choose different types of activities in further lessons and expand their repertoire with diversity. an excerpt from teacher diaries to demonstrate this: “i have been using act-out and guessing activities again and again for three weeks. students do not prefer and like them as they used to at the beginning of the term.” (participant 2) as is obvious from the excerpt above, the teacher has become aware of the type of activities she has used and this has clearly shown her the routine she has been following and the repetitive activity she has used unnecessarily. moreover, by looking at the other statements, it is also found out that the teachers have brought new and different ideas in their diary reflections based on their thoughts about repetitions or the routine activities. the studies by genç (2010) and korucu-kis and kartal (2019) also show that teachers are aware of their routines or useless activities when reflecting and try to find out alternatives çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 30 focus on elt journal (felt) to their teaching techniques. examples below prove that the teachers project what to do as alternatives: “i spent most of my class time to ask and answer part as i did the other weeks. i should change it and find a different type of activity which is fun, too.” (participant 2) “i repeated the same activities most of the time, they were so similar and students got bored. they were all verbal, maybe i should bring some visuals or include tpr in my lesson plan.” (participant 4) “it is complementary with our needs but i never used roleplays in this topic. i think i really need to plan it well and implement it in the classroom.” (participant 1) the findings also demonstrate that teachers suddenly engage themselves in a process of reflection-for-action which is another effective aspect of keeping diaries and prepares them for further lessons. this issue will also be discussed below in detail in this study. a source of preparation for the next lesson it has been observed that teachers have included ideas in diaries for the next lessons with the experiences they had from the previous lessons. this process facilitated to pre-plan and design the next lesson and also made teachers prepared for anything that can possibly occur in the classroom. they wanted to shape their future lessons and make them better by introspecting the situations or moments they had in the classroom and the points they found unsatisfactory or incomplete. new perspectives of teachers showed that they benefited from writing on diaries since it made easier to compare what was done in the previous lessons with their projects on their minds and finally come up with better ideas: “i was looking at my experience i had in the previous lesson more critically and getting better prepared for the next lesson as a result.” (participant 4) “in terms of classroom management, i could see my faults and, in this lesson, i can be more careful in the next lesson.” (participant 3) statements also show that teachers were engaged in a process of reflection-for-action most of the time. one of the characteristics of diaries is able to see the action that has happened in front of oneself on a paper concretely and then reflecting, making decisions, and projecting ideas on mind for the next action. in the study by korucu-kis and kartal (2019), student teachers engaged themselves in a similar activity and could provide logical responses to emerging issues out of their teaching. again, very similar to the findings of this study, yeşilbursa (2011), tülüce and çeçen (2017) found out that student teachers were occasionally preparing themselves for the possible future experiences and try to understand them by reflecting on past experiences. in this study, teachers also demonstrated their motivation to have different ideas for the future and constantly attempted to find alternatives: “…next time, i should not forget to come up with better ideas to raise classroom energy and have fun all together.” (participant 1) çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 31 focus on elt journal (felt) “next time, i will take notes with the minutes of the activities also by considering the possible situations that might take up my time. (participant 1) “but i guess i need to find something to make the book activities more fun next week.” (participant 2) the results show that based on their previous experiences, teachers have preferred shaping their next lessons for better learning outcomes by reflecting on what they have been doing and what they ideally want to achieve for the further lessons. in a constantly changing world, the fact that teachers want to change their approaches or try to find alternatives that are new also produces proof for the impact of reflective practices. a tool to uncover problems it is seen that diaries helped teachers to reveal the most problematic areas or aspects of the lesson. it also paved the way for possible solutions to these problems since teachers could see them on a paper in front of them and this facilitated thinking over and easily interpreting them. an excerpt from teacher diaries is as follows: “students were unhappy and less active. i learned at the last minute that they fought in the previous lesson. i should observe the class carefully and talk about these issues at the start of the lesson maybe i can help them and cheer them up a bit.” (participant 2) interestingly, the most problematic issues to solve in almost all teachers’ diaries come to the point of classroom management. similarly, in many studies conducted recently (e.g. genç, 2010; korucu-kis & kartal, 2019; moghaddam et al., 2019) teachers include the problems of classroom management in their journal entries or reflective teaching practices. outstandingly, teachers in this study discovered solutions, some of them might have been the repetitions of their ideas during the class moments which naturally would engage them in a process of reflection-in-action and some of them might have been their decisions when they made while writing in their diaries and contemplating of implementing for the next lessons which would obviously engage them in a process of reflection-for-action: “there had been a serious problem with a group of students making noise and distracting each other for weeks. for the other lessons, i will change their seats and suggest the classroom teacher do the same.” (participant 3) “also, next time, i should not allow him to sit in the same place, that also motivates him.” (participant 1) all the statements from these findings clearly reveal that the hidden or unseen problems are easily uncovered in teacher diaries. this aspect of the diaries helps teachers to find effective solutions for certain problematic situations especially with respect to classroom management since they could see them more concretely on papers thanks to the reflections in their diaries. çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 32 focus on elt journal (felt) all these findings from the study reveal that they are very similar to previous research studies alongside the different characteristics of this study. moreover, there is a consistency in the results with the studies conducted especially in turkish context (genç, 2010; yeşilbursa, 2011; kayaoğlu, erbay & sağlamel, 2016; bilger, 2017; tülüce & çeçen, 2017; dikilitaş & yaylı, 2018; korucu-kis & kartal, 2019). besides, in the study conducted by ho and richards (1993), the topics teachers wrote about the most are related to self-awareness, evaluating teaching and lessons, diagnosing the problems and solutions to them, very similar to the findings of this study which are mostly related to selfevaluation, awareness, and identifying problems. in the studies by kayaoğlu, erbay and sağlamel (2016) and korucu-kis and kartal (2019), time and busy schedules of teachers have been mentioned as problems and obstacles preventing teachers from continuing their reflective practices. similarly, teachers in this study mentioned that writing diaries was taking their time or lacking time hinders them giving some more details about the events: “i really like writing this teaching diary. but i had to keep it short today and could not give details because i did not have enough time this week.” (participant 2) “…writing the diary takes a lot of time, too.” (participant 3) on the other hand, diaries generally helped teachers discover many aspects of their teaching, and consider critically about possible solutions or alternatives. one of the findings that are quite useful and significant in the study is the way teachers approach the problems of which the sources are not themselves but the other people, materials, or authorities. in a critical reflection study by watts and lawson (2009), beginning teachers have been found out to adopt an ego-centric and low-level reflection, which resulted in showing negativity and likelihood to blame others for incapabilities. on the contrary, teachers in this study, despite being not experienced enough, showed positive attitudes, and adopted a solution-oriented approach instead of complaining or blaming others. some excerpts below from teacher diaries prove this: “even if i do not use it all the time, the book that was chosen by the headmaster is boring for students. i think, i, with the other teachers, need to suggest something different for the next term.” (participant 1) "the book of 2nd graders could have been better but every year, it seems like it is the same book. fortunately, i have an archive of materials for young learners. if i do some extracurricular activities, it will not be difficult for my students because the book is already too easy." (participant 2) based on all these findings from teachers’ diary entries, it has been found out that writing has greatly helped participant teachers to discover about themselves as language teachers, their students along with their needs, the materials used and problems related to them, critical thinking, and creating alternatives. therefore, reflective practices are significantly çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 33 focus on elt journal (felt) suggested to language teachers to make effective use of diary or journal entries to contribute to their professional development. conclusion the aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of keeping diaries on teachers’ reflective teaching skills, teachers’ views on this technique, and how this technique contributes to their awareness as a language teacher, self-evaluation, and reflection for further lessons. this study proved that teachers greatly benefited from this process of reflection. being reflective and writing it down helped them to realize what they were doing in the classroom and analyze their practices more critically. it gained them an awareness of self, of their teaching, and effective language teaching in general by reflecting back on their own memories and classroom implementations. it demonstrated that teachers regarded the reflective diary technique in a positive sense and as something that they could use to embody the classroom spirit since everything seemed more concrete on papers. when their answers from pre-interview are compared to what they found and realized while keeping their diaries, their perceptions have changed and even they remarked that this process changed their practices positively and contributed to their teaching. the only common problem they had with keeping a diary was lacking time. when they did not have time, they mentioned that they could not write and reflect efficiently. they also think that the reason why most of the teachers do not prefer being reflective can be related to not having enough time or not giving priority to this kind of activity. however, this was the only negative point they included in their answers. on the contrary to this aspect, it helped teachers to identify the needs and problems of their students and in the classroom overall, as well as to give themselves feedback in a more realistic way. moreover, with the evaluation of their teaching and practices, they pre-planned and prepared their further lessons more effectively and securely. very similar to the findings of the study by genç (2010), teachers have gained autonomy while making decision for their classrooms. throughout the process, teachers mostly regarded the reflectivity in a positive sense and the results of the study created positive changes, too which, in this sense, corroborates the other studies in the field (genç, 2010; yeşilbursa, 2011; gözüyeşil & soylu, 2014; kayaoğlu, erbay & sağlamel, 2016; bilger, 2017; korucu-kis & kartal, 2019). differently from the studies conducted in the same field by using different techniques such as videorecording where individuals learn from seeing the evidence (tülüce & çeçen, 2017) or peer observation and interviews where individuals learn from each other (cebeci, 2016), the participants in this study learned from their own self-talk and faced their memories on the notebooks in front of them which are all powerful ways of learning by referring to narratives and verbal sources such as diaries and journals. another significant characteristic of this study has been the fact that it paved the way for teachers to engage themselves in all three processes of reflection (reflection-in-action, reflection-on-action, reflection-for-action). therefore, it is suggested for teachers, institutions and government schools that they can start using any technique to be reflective but especially, reflection papers, journals, and diaries can make them aware of what they have been doing in a more perceptible way. çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 34 focus on elt journal (felt) limitations it needs to be stated that this study has limitations such as the time allocated to diaries and the number of participants. it is suggested that any similar further research needs to be conducted with more participants and time to provide richer data and more findings. if diaries can be used throughout a term or one academic year, a richer discourse composed of teacher reflections can be obtained and more can be contributed to the field. it is important to note that any similar projects can be triangulated to have richer and more reliable data by using more than one reflective teaching technique such as videorecordings, peer observations along with journal entries. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references akbaş, e., & dikilitaş, k. (2019). developing critical reflection practices via reflective writing for preservice language teachers. in inquiry and research skills for language teachers (pp. 125-135). palgrave macmillan, london. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21137-0_7 bailey, k. m. (1991): “diary studies of classroom language learning: the doubting game and the believing game”, in language acquisition and the second/foreign language classroom, anthology series 28, sartono, e. (coord.), singapore, seameo regional language centre, 60-102. bailey, k. m. (2006). language teacher supervision: a case-based approach. cambridge: cambridge university press. bailey, k. m., & curtis, a. (2009). diary studies. oncue journal, 3(1), 67-85. bilger, n. (2017). appraisal in preservice teachers’ reflections on microteaching experience. elt research journal, 6(1), 138-153. boud, d., keogh, r., & walker, d. (1985). reflection, turning experience into learning. london: kogan page. cebeci, n. (2016). prospective teachers' beliefs about micro-teaching. elt research journal, 5(1), 60-71. dikilitaş, k., yaylı, d. (2018). teachers’ professional identity development through action research. elt journal, 72(4), 415-424. farrell, t. s. c. (1998). understanding reflective teaching. teaching and learning, 19(2), 52-63. genç, z. s. (2010). teacher autonomy through reflective journals among teachers of english as a foreign language in turkey, teacher development, 14(3), 397-409. gözüyeşil, e., soylu b. a. (2014). how reflective are efl instructors in turkey?. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 116, 23 – 27. gün, b. (2011). quality self-reflection through reflection training. elt journal, 65(2), 126-135. ho, b., & richards, j. (1993). reflective thinking through teacher journal writing myths and realities. prospect, 8(3), 7-24. kayaoglu, m. n., erbay, s., & saglamel, h. (2016). gaining insight into a novice teacher’s initial journey through reflective practice. reflective practice, 17(2), 167-181. korucu-kis, s., & kartal, g. (2019). no pain no gain: reflections on the promises and challenges of embedding reflective practices in large classes. reflective practice, 20(5), 637-653. çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 35 focus on elt journal (felt) maksimović, j., & osmanović, j. (2019). perspective of cognitive thinking and reflective teaching practice. international journal of cognitive research in science, engineering and education (ijcrsee), 7(2), 1-10. moghaddam, r. g., davoudi, m., adel, s. m. r., amirian, s. m. r. (2019). reflective teaching through journal writing: a study on efl teachers’ reflection-for-action, reflection-in-action, and reflection-on-action. english teaching & learning https://doi.org/10.1007/s42321-019-00041-2 richards, j. c. (1991). towards reflective teaching. the teacher trainer, 5(3), 4-8. richards, j. c., & lockhart, c. (1994). reflective teaching in second language classrooms. cambridge: cambridge university press. richards, j. c., & lockhart, c. (1992). teacher development through peer observation. tesol journal, 1(2), 7-10. schön, d. a. (1983). the reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. new york: basic books. schön, d. a. (1987). educating the reflective practitioner: toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. san francisco: jossey-bass. tajik, l., & pakzad, k. (2016). designing a reflective teacher education course and its contribution to elt teachers’ reflectivity. australian journal of teacher education, 41(9). tülüce, h. s., çeçen, s. (2017). the use of video in microteaching: affordances and constraints. elt journal, 72(1), 73-82. watts, m., & lawson, m. (2009). using a meta-analysis activity to make critical reflection explicit in teacher education. teaching and teacher education, 25, 609–616. yesilbursa, a. (2011). reflection at the interface of theory and practice: an analysis of pre-service english language teachers’ written reflections. australian journal of teacher education, 36(3), 50-62. zeichner, k. m., liston, d. p. (1987). teaching student teachers to reflect. harvard educational review, 56(1), 23-48. zeichner, k. m., liston, d. p. (1996). reflective teaching: an introduction. lawrence erlbaum associates, mahwah, new jersey. zeichner, k. m., & tabachnick, b. r. (1991). reflections on reflective teaching. in b. r. tabachnick & k. m. zeichner (eds.), issues and practices in inquiry-oriented teacher education (pp. 1-18). new york: falmer press. appendix 1: pre-diary interview questions 1. what do you know about reflective teaching? 2. do you know any techniques teachers use to be reflective? 3. if so, have you ever applied any of those techniques in your teaching life? 4. what do you think can be useful in terms of being reflective and using techniques such as journal writing or diary keeping? 5. what do you think about teachers' preference for being reflective? 6. what do you think about teachers' preference for not being reflective? 7. feedback is one of the first steps in being reflective. do you evaluate and give yourself feedback after the lessons (in a non-written way) or do you let your students give feedback verbally at the end of every lesson? appendix 2: reflection questions to guide journal entries (richards & lockhart, 1996) questions about what happened during a lesson: çakır, i̇. & işık, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2020 36 focus on elt journal (felt) questions about your teaching 1. what did you set out to teach? 2. were you able to accomplish your goals? 3. what teaching materials did you use? how effective were they? 4. what techniques did you use? 5. what grouping arrangements did you use? 6. was your lesson teacher dominated? 7. what kind of teacher-student interaction occurred? 8. did anything amusing or unusual occur? 9. did you have any problems with the lesson? 10. did you do anything differently than usual? 11. what kinds of decision making did you employ? 12. did you depart from your lesson plan? if so, why? did the change make things better or worse? 13. what was the main accomplishment of the lesson? 14. which parts of the lesson were most successful? 15. which parts of the lesson were least successful? 16. would you teach the lesson differently if you taught it again? 17. was your philosophy of teaching reflected in the lesson? 18. did you discover anything new about your teaching? 19. what changes do you think you should make in your teaching? questions about the students 1. did you teach all your students today? 2. did students contribute actively to the lesson? 3. how did you respond to different students' needs? 4. were students challenged by the lesson? 5. what do you think students really learned from the lesson? 6. what did they like most about the lesson? 7. what didn't they respond well to? questions to ask yourself as a language teacher : 1. what is the source of my ideas about language teaching? 2. where am i in my professional development? 3. how am i developing as a language teacher? 4. what are my strengths as a language teacher? 5. what are my limitations at present? 6. are there any contradictions in my teaching? 7. how can i improve my language teaching? 8. how am i helping my students? 9. what satisfaction does language teaching give me? copyrights copyrights for the articles are retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ focus on elt focus on elt journal special issue, 4(1) 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: guldentaner@gmail.com copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. efl teachers’ opinions on the use of l1 in l2 classrooms: role of experience and context a gülden taner bgözde balıkçı adr., middle east technical university alumna, turkey, guldentaner@gmail.com bassist. prof. dr., kahramanmaraş sütçü i̇mam university, turkey, gbalikci@ksu.edu.tr apa citation: taner, g., & balıkçı, g. (2022). efl teachers’ opinions on the use of l1 in l2 classrooms: role of experience and context. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 74-90. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.6 abstract the use of native language (l1) in foreign language classrooms (l2) has been studied from various perspectives, and it is important to investigate teachers’ opinions about the use of l1 to better understand their practice. this study investigates the role of experience on the attitudes of language teachers towards the use of l1 in l2 classes. the participants of this research were pre-service and in-service teachers, and research questions aimed to reveal the language teaching areas that they agreed and/or disagreed with the use of l1 in. the role of experience was clearly seen in the results of both quantitative and qualitative analyses in that the pre-service and in-service teachers differed significantly in their views about some areas where they use l1. while pre-service teachers showed a tendency to support english only, experienced teachers were more moderate towards the use of l1 in all their practices. discussion of findings revealed that both experience and the l2 teaching and learning context were influential on teachers’ practices and beliefs. the study will provide insights into pre-service and in-service teachers’ attitudes in different educational settings and implications for preand in-service teacher education programs. keywords l1 use, l2 classroom, efl teacher attitudes, beliefs. article history received : 01.11.2021 revised : 19.12.2021 accepted : 26.12.2021 published : 04.04.2022 type research article introduction the use of native language (l1) in foreign language classrooms (l2) has been studied from various perspectives, and it has been concluded that l1 use is an unavoidable reality of l2 classrooms (hall & cook, 2013). while judicious use of l1 by language teachers is suggested to facilitate l2 learning (shin et al., 2019), there is a need for more research to examine the teachers’ beliefs and attitudes in different educational contexts about their l1 and l2 use. the opinions and attitudes of english teachers towards the role of l1 use in l2 classrooms are observed to vary, and “these vary according to context and develop with experience” (gallagher, 2020, p.3). for this reason, this study aims to address differences related to the context l2 teachers are working in, and the experience l2 teachers have. it reports on in-service and pre-service teachers’ attitudes and beliefs towards the use of turkish (l1) in english as a foreign language (efl) classroom. while pre-service teachers recruited do not have any real teaching or practicum experience, in-service teachers participating in this study work in two different contexts: k-12 schools and tertiary (university) level. mailto:guldentaner@gmail.com mailto:guldentaner@gmail.com mailto:gbalikci@ksu.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.6 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8040-5195 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7168-8648 taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 75 the recent attitude studies conducted in the turkish context mainly involve efl learners (kocaman & aslan, 2018), pre-service teachers (korkut & şener, 2018), instructors (i̇nal & turhanlı, 2019; i̇stifçi, 2019) or various stakeholders (taşkın, 2011) working at preparatory schools of universities. hence, this study may contribute to the existing literature by displaying and comparing the views of language teachers: pre-service teachers without teaching experience and in-service teachers working in k-12 schools and at tertiary levels (the participant groups are introduced in greater detail in the methodology section). literature review l1 use in l2 classrooms english language teaching has been experiencing an attitude change regarding l1 use in l2 classrooms in the 21st century (hall & cook, 2013). although the english only approach has been advocated and approaches that avoid l1 have still been presented as the appropriate methods (e.g., communicative language teaching, task-based language teaching), there have also been voices arguing against this understanding and welcoming l1 use. the english-only tendency in language teaching was criticized by auerbach (1993) who argued that the english-only movement had historical and ideological roots, and phillipson (1992) named this tendency as “monolingual fallacy”. in support of these claims, cook (2001) argued that “(t)he first language can be a useful element in creating authentic l2 users rather than something to be shunned at all costs” (p. 402). the exclusion of native language from language classrooms is not reflecting the reality of language teaching practices; rather, it is an argument of the circles that advocate the superiority of native teachers through indirect methods (şimşek, 2010, p.12). language learners are now seen as multi-competent language users (cook, 2001) and learners’ l1 or own language (hall & cook, 2013) is now seen as a resource they bring to the l2 classroom. the paradigm shift welcomes language learners as bilinguals and their l1s as a resource to exploit while teaching l2. after this paradigm shift, we see many code-switching studies (cs) in language classrooms as cs has been re-valued and considered as a common practice in language classrooms (gallagher, 2020). in the turkish efl context, these studies focused mostly at the tertiary level (e.g., ataş & sağın-şimşek, 2021; üstünel & seedhouse, 2005) to demonstrate the pedagogical value of the use of turkish to achieve educational goals in language classrooms. as language learners are active bilinguals who engage in languaging practices to make meaning and thereby construct new identities, this issue has also been investigated under the framework of translanguaging (goodman & tastanbek, 2021), in line with the latest celebration of multilingualism. the current question is how language teachers experience this paradigm shift in their own practices and how their attitudes are shaped in the context where l1 is seen as a realistic choice (shin et al., 2019). taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 76 teachers’ beliefs & attitudes on l1 use in l2 classes the experience and the context where teachers work definitely influence the opinions and attitudes of english teachers towards the role of l1 use in l2 classrooms (gallagher, 2020). there are many studies examining the attitudes of teachers and students towards the language used in the classroom. even though the studies conducted differ in design and methodology, results are more or less the same: native language cannot be ignored. one of the most cited and preliminary questionnaire studies was from schweer (1999), who researched the beliefs of language learners and teachers towards the use of their native language in the classroom, and he reported a positive attitude (p. 6). this study had been a cornerstone; since then, most of the studies concerning the use of l1 in l2 context had been investigated through comparing student views to teachers’ beliefs. levine (2003) also asked learners and teachers in university-level foreign language classes how much time l2 is used by the instructor and found that in “40% to 60% of fl classes, the instructor used the l2 80% to 100% of the class time” (p. 350). “topic/theme-based communication, less overall for communication about grammar, and less still for communication about tests, quizzes, and assignments” (p. 351) were reported areas of l2 use. şevik (2007) found out in the turkish high school context that students and teachers think that l1 should be used “sometimes”, especially “the teaching of complex grammar points”. teachers see turkish as a must to teach grammar in both k-12 and tertiary levels (i̇nal & turhanlı, 2019; kayaoğlu, 2012; şen, 2010; şevik, 2007) or to enrich the understanding of grammar rules (i̇stifçi, 2019). this result echoed in different contexts as well (e.g. al-nofaie, 2010; çelik, 2008). in addition to teaching grammar, checking and ensuring comprehension, classroom management, giving instructions are some potential occasions where l1 use is advocated (çelik, 2008). the teachers with varying experiences were also asked to report on their attitudes towards turkish. in kayaoğlu’s (2012) study, teachers were found to report that in their first years at teaching, they were against the use of l1; however, as they gained experience, they saw “no need to insist on using l2” (p. 32). although taşkın (2011) found a similar positive impact of teaching experience on l1 use for teachers at tertiary levels; the teachers did not favor turkish in their classrooms but still had to use it due to the “some concerns related to curriculum, testing and learner proficiency” (p.150). in another tertiary context, i̇stifçi (2019) noted that both novice and experienced teachers did not favour the use of turkish in english classrooms and kept it to a minimum level. these studies show that even within the same institution, the attitudes towards the use of l1 might vary. pre-service teachers’ attitudes have also been examined in different contexts (korkut & şener, 2018; wach & monroy, 2020) and the opinions of pre-service and in-service teachers were also compared (lee, 2016). while the educational culture of the program and past learning experiences affect pre-service teachers’ attitudes, experience is found to be a vital factor in influencing teacher beliefs towards l1 use in different language teaching settings (lee, 2016). taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 77 the rationale for the study in turkey, in an english as a foreign language (efl) context, english has been taught starting from the second grade in primary schools, and it is the most common foreign language in the country (selvi, 2011). in such an educational setting where english is learnt by many turkish speakers, displaying language teachers’ (who are also native speakers of turkish) practices and beliefs towards the use of turkish (l1) in english classrooms (l2) will be a reasonable step to understand the real practices of teachers in classrooms. while previous research dealt with teacher attitudes either in contrast with student opinions or by teachers themselves, this study aims to investigate the role of experience on the attitudes of teachers towards the use of native language in l2 classrooms. in this study, the views of two groups of teachers, namely pre-service teachers (psts) and in-service teachers (insts), are reflected. for this aim, this paper reports on a study in which 78 psts and 34 insts participated. teachers responded to a questionnaire on their use of and attitudes on l1 use in the l2 efl classroom. then, 2 psts and 3 insts were interviewed. through the questionnaire and interviews, this study attempts to answer the following questions: 1) how much class time do the in-service and pre-service teachers report l1 is used in l2 classes? 2) what are the attitudes and beliefs of pre-service and in-service teachers towards the use of l1 in specific l2 classroom situations and areas? 3) do teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards l1 change with experience? 4) is there a significant difference between in-service and pre-service teachers’ opinions? methodology this study utilizes a mixed-methods research design to answer the research questions above which call for different types of data to be gathered (creswell & plano clark, 2011; dörnyei, 2007). for the quantitative aspect, pre-service and in-service participant groups were administered a questionnaire; the open-ended items in the questionnaire and semi-structured interviews make up the qualitative dimension of the data collection. participants initially, two groups of participants were targeted in this confirmatory study: pre-service (psts) and in-service teachers (insts). the sampling for the pst group was purposive, with both opportunity and criterion-based dimensions. the in-service teachers were all accessed through a snowball-sampling method. the sample characteristics will be further discussed below. all participants were recruited on a voluntary basis after they provided their informed consent for data collection, analysis, and anonymous dissemination of findings. the data were then anonymized, and participants were assigned participant ids. taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 78 psts were 78 third-year ba students enrolled in the english language teaching program of a top university in ankara, turkey where the medium of instruction is english. in previous terms, they had successfully completed courses that focus on language teaching methodology, such as methodology i and ii, and approaches to elt. at the time of data collection, psts had not taken any practicum courses in which they have school-based observation and teaching experience yet. therefore, they were the target group to test the effect of experience on the attitudes towards the use of l1 in the l2 classroom. during data collection, some of psts were found to be experienced in language teaching since they had previously offered voluntary one-to-one tutoring to prep-year students at their university as part of another course they enrolled in. this gave us two groups of psts; the first group consisted of psts with no teaching experience (npst0=23), and the second group included psts with 1-6 months of teaching experience at beginner and elementary levels (npst1-6=55). insts consisted of 34 efl teachers with teaching experience at k-12 schools (nk12=16) or at tertiary level (university instructors, nuni=18) across six different cities. when the initial observations during the data collection revealed differences between the attitudes of l1 teachers teaching different age groups for different aims in different contexts, the analyses were conducted separately for these sub-groups as well whenever possible, creating four groups of participants in total. the questionnaire quantitative data regarding the attitudes of pre-service and in-service teachers were collected through a questionnaire on the use of l1. the first scale of the questionnaire, on reported l1 use, included items adapted from levine’s (2003) study, asking teachers to mark the degree to which native language is used under specific situations in the classroom. while the first scale items asked for the amount of actual time l1/l2 is used, the second scale focused on the beliefs and attitudes of teachers. the attitudes scale included 20 likert-scale items on which the teachers marked the degree they agreed or disagreed with the remarks. there were items on the use of english only, items on the use of turkish, and items on their beliefs about the amount of english used in specific classroom situations. likert-scale items were followed by open-ended questions in the third part. this section asked the teachers when and why they use english only and when and why they also use turkish in their classrooms. the final part was related to demographic information and past experiences of the teachers to enable descriptive statistics. two comparable versions of the questionnaire were developed for in-service and pre-service teachers. piloting the first piloting for the questionnaire was conducted with 7 psts. the feedback was generally positive, with some remarks for the improvement of face validity. since the two questionnaires shared similar formats, the teacher questionnaire underwent the same changes before the second piloting. the second piloting continued with four more psts and eight research assistants with language teaching and elt research backgrounds. the feedback was positive for wording and clarity of items, readability, and face validity. taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 79 at the end of the piloting, the questionnaires were sent out to in-service efl teachers through convenience sampling methods, along with a request to suggest eligible participants. at the end of the snowball-sampling procedure, 41 teachers volunteered, 7 of whom dropped out later. again, through convenience, adopting a purposive criterion-based sampling approach, the psts who met the criteria of having taken methodology courses but not practicum were given the questionnaire. 78 of the distributed 80 questionnaires returned filled in. semi-structured interview semi-structured interviews were designed in turkish to enhance the qualitative component of the design. five guiding interview questions were developed by three experienced researchers in accordance with the research questions under investigation. the interview guide was then further evaluated and re-worded by two other researchers to eliminate any possible bias. the pst interviews were conducted with two pre-service teachers from the efl teaching department. they were chosen from among voluntary participants purposefully to ensure maximum variation; one pst with no experience (s23) and one with previous experience (s42). inst interviews followed the same procedure, recruiting three insts who favored the use of l1 in l2 classes in different degrees, two k-12 teachers (t27 and t21), and one university instructor (t6). data analysis the quantitative data obtained from the questionnaires were analyzed on spss28®. for the overall reliability of scales, cronbach’s alpha was calculated to be α=.919, indicating high reliability of measures. separate analyses on subscales also showed high reliability for the 23 items on english use (α=.877) and 9 items on the use of turkish (α=.814). the results chapter presents descriptive statistics such as frequencies, means and medians1 for illustrating the tendencies and characteristics of the data. for further analyses, non-parametric statistics were utilized since the participant numbers in groups were not equal and the data distribution was not normal (kolmogorov-smirnov tests were significant at p<.001 level). non-parametric kruskal wallis tests were conducted to compare four groups with bonferroni correction, and mann-whitney u tests were used for two-group comparisons (field, 2005; larsen-hall, 2010). non-parametric correlations on experience and opinions were reported on spearman’s rho. the qualitative data from the responses to open-ended questions in the questionnaire and the semi-structured interviews were subjected to qualitative coding (dörnyei, 2007), in which two researchers analyzed the data for recurrent patterns and themes. an initial list of categories was developed by the first author after the data collection. the list was then developed into a coding scheme to include emerging themes and was re-organized throughout the first coding. for the second round, two researchers separately coded the data to verify credibility. both researchers coded most of the data (96%) in the same categories. the audio 1 we preferred medians in reporting our descriptive findings for two reasons. first, medians (unlike means) are not influenced by the extremes. second, they are useful in analysing ordinal data while modes are more frequently used for nominal/categorical variables. taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 80 recordings of the interviews were played several times to select any conflicting ideas or views that support the general tendency in the questionnaire findings. typical comments that highlight the important discrepancies and similarities were then transcribed and translated. results this part of the paper presents the results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses regarding the opinions of teachers on the amount of time english is being or would be exclusively used in l2 english classrooms, their attitudes towards the use of l1 in certain l2 classroom situations and teaching, and teaching experience in relation to these. amount of actual l2 english use in classroom the first scale asked for opinions on the amount of time that would be spent using english in the classroom, through 12 items. these items may be categorized under three main categories: a) use of english by students (items 2, 3, 10); b) use of english by the teacher while teaching (items 1, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12) and c) use of english for other purposes in class (items 7, 8, 9). the major findings are summarized below in frequency tables. table 1: students’ use and understanding of english in the classroom students... amount of time: 0-20% 20-40% 40-60% 60-80% 80-100% 2. use english to communicate with the teacher* psts with no experience 4.3% 8.7% 39.1% 39.1% 8.7% psts with experience 3.6% 14.5% 38.2% 30.9% 12.7% k-12 teachers 31.3% 37.5% 25.0% 0.0% 6.2% university instructors 11.1% 50.0% 5.6% 27.8% 5.6% 3. use english to communicate with each other* psts with no experience 17.4% 21.7% 26.1% 26.1% 4.3% psts with experience 25.5% 27.3% 14.5% 27.3% 5.5% k-12 teachers 62.5% 25.0% 6.2% 0.0% 6.3% university instructors 61.1% 16.7% 11.1% 11.1% 0.0% 10. understand what teacher says in english psts with no experience 0.0% 8.7% 47.8% 30.4% 13.0% psts with experience 0.0% 9.1% 41.8% 27.3% 21.8% k-12 teachers 0.0% 18.8% 37.5% 37.5% 6.2% university instructors 0.0% 11.1% 22.2% 38.9% 27.8% * indicates statistically significant differences across participant groups on kruskal-wallis h test. as seen in table 1, most k-12 teachers (68.8%) and university instructors (61.1%) observe that their students use english to communicate with them, not more than 40% of the total class time. however, as for both groups of psts, the students would use english to communicate with the teacher between 40% to 80% of the time. another clear distinction is seen for the amount of english used between the students themselves, for which more than half of the insts answered the rank of 0-20% while psts had an equal distribution among all the ranks with 60-80% having the highest frequency for both pre-service groups. for both of these areas, the differences among groups are found to be statistically significant with h(3)=18.8, p=0.001 for item 2 and h(3)=15.69, p=0.001 for item 3. the area where the pre-service and in-service teachers agreed is the understanding of students. for item 10 on students’ use of english, distribution was not significantly different across four groups (h(3)=3.04, p=0.39). taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 81 the differing views on the use of target language by language learners were also noted in interviews. during the interview, a pre-service teacher reported that: (…) if you can find good activities, you can make students speak english in the classrooms. this is the only way they can have enough input. i think, for example, when i had some students last semester, they were willing to communicate. they asked me questions in english. they answered their own questions in english. it is possible that students speak english in the classroom, why not? the only thing is to motivate them, (...) communicating in english is not a problematic issue for a language teacher.” (pst23) while an in-service k-12 teacher shared her views on the importance of speaking and communicating in english, she listed some problems as well and noted the impossibility of exclusive l2 use in class: “(…) of course, i believe in its importance. i try to give [my students] some colorful, enjoyable activities. […] but in the end, we end up playing games with the front rows while others have ‘paper wars’ at the back row –no matter how interesting the activity is. some days, the only thing they utter in english is ‘good morning my teacher’ in a chorus at the beginning. when i force them to speak english with me, or with their friends, they either remain silent or they totally ignore me […] i had to leave this communicative teaching thing behind, to catch up with the curriculum.” (t21) this divergence on the use of english in the classroom also reflects itself in the responses to items on teacher’s language use. in the table below (table 2), the areas of teacher talk are listed, where all the questions asked for the amount of time in which english is used in the classroom (except in item 11, which asks for the use of ‘turkish’ and therefore has no significant comparisons). the first difference is in the item on teacher’s use of english for all the communication during class hours (part i, item 1, h(3)=12.85, at p<.05 level). pairwise comparisons of groups indicated that k-12 teachers are seen to be using significantly less english in their language classes than both pst groups (bonferroni-adjusted p=0.004 for pst1-6 and 0.01 for pst0) and university instructors (p=0.04), while differences were non-significant amongst other groups. this case was also true for the items on activity organization and conduct, with h(3)=10.588, p=.014 for item 4 and h(3)=12.031, p=.007 for item 5. this is most probably due to their learners’ proficiency levels and their goals in learning english (the influence of context on the use of l1 will be discussed further later). for item 6 on the use of english, while teaching grammar, k-12 teachers’ reported use was again significantly different from pre-service teachers (at p<.001 level) but not different from university instructors (p=.205). in this category, the only item for which the overall tests did not show any statistical difference was ‘giving clarifications in turkish’ (item 11, h(3)=5.013, p=.171). the insts say they use turkish because “it saves time” (t23) as “it takes a long time to explain everything in english. as [they] haven’t got enough time, [they] may use turkish as an option” (t33). t3 also confirms that “the aim here is to ensure that students understand what’s expected of them, so if they have difficulty, turkish can be used”. taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 82 the last category of the first scale is related to classroom situations that are not directly related to the lesson or teaching but more about communicating with students in school. as in previous categories, the two pre-service teacher groups (pst0 and pst1-6) reported higher amounts of time for the use of english. this difference was found to be statistically significant when pairwise comparisons were run: in-service (instk12 and instuni; p=.43) and pre-service (pst0 and pst1-6; p=.741) groups did not differ within pairs, but the difference between ptss’ ranks (mdn=4.00) and insts’ ranks (mdn=3.00) was significantly different u(npst=78, ninst=34)=808.50, z=-3.397, p<.001. the same observations hold true for communication on administrative information where psts (mdn=4.00) again differed from insts (mdn=2.00) significantly (u=472, z=-5.56, p<.001). table 2: teachers’ use of english while teaching items amount of total class time: 0-20% 20-40% 40-60% 60-80% 80-100% 1. for all the communication in the class* psts with no experience 0.0% 4.3% 13.0% 39.1% 43.5% psts with experience 1.8% 3.6% 14.5% 36.4% 43.6% k-12 teachers 0.0% 25.0% 43.8% 18.8% 12.5% university instructors 0.0% 11.1% 11.1% 33.3% 44.4% 4. for topic based/thematic activities* psts with no experience 0.0% 0.0% 4.3% 56.5% 34.8% psts with experience 0.0% 1.8% 12.7% 38.2% 47.3% k-12 teachers 12.5% 18.8% 6.2% 43.8% 18.8% university instructors 0.0% 0.0% 6.7% 40.0% 53.3% 5. to give directions for activities* psts with no experience 0.0% 0.0% 13.0% 52.2% 34.8% psts with experience 0.0% 1.8% 12.7% 47.3% 38.2% k-12 teachers 0.0% 31.2% 25.0% 31.2% 12.5% university instructors 0.0% 5.6% 16.7% 33.3% 44.4% 6. teaching grammar and usage* psts with no experience 0.0% 4.3% 26.1% 34.8% 34.8% psts with experience 0.0% 7.3% 18.2% 45.5% 29.1% k-12 teachers 31.2% 25.0% 12.5% 25.0% 6.2% university instructors 5.6% 33.3% 5.6% 22.2% 33.3% 11. using turkish, to clarify problematic areas psts with no experience 21.7% 39.1% 17.4% 8.7% 13.0% psts with experience 14.5% 27.3% 25.5% 20.0% 12.7% k-12 teachers 6.2% 25.0% 25.0% 25.0% 18.8% university instructors 27.8% 27.8% 22.2% 16.7% 5.6% 12. using english, to clarify problematic areas* psts with no experience 0.0% 4.3% 13.0% 52.2% 30.4% psts with experience 1.8% 3.6% 25.5% 52.7% 16.4% k-12 teachers 12.5% 37.5% 18.8% 12.5% 18.8% university instructors 0.0% 5.6% 33.3% 27.8% 33.3% * indicates statistically significant differences across participant groups on kruskal-wallis h test. non-parametric spearman correlations were calculated to investigate the relationship between experience and the amount of language use reported by participants in order to verify the overall findings. although not very strong, negative correlations (all rs< -,424) were observed for all items on the first scale except two items. these were namely students’ understanding of english (item 10) and use of turkish for clarification (item 11). the negative correlation of experience was significant at p<.05 level in items 1, 7, and 12; and at p<.001 in items 2, 3, 6, and 8. in other words, as the experience of participants increased, the amount of english use in various classroom situations decreased. taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 83 beliefs and attitudes towards the use of l1 in l2 classroom teachers’ attitudes and beliefs were elicited through 20 items on a 5-point likert scale that constituted the second part of the questionnaire. regarding seven specific classroom situations summarized in table 3, teachers reported on their attitudes towards using l1 turkish (items 1, 3, 9, 10, 12, 17, 20) and use of english (items 5, 7, 11, 13, 14, 16, 19). the remaining six items asked for english-only all the time (items 2, 4, 6, 15, 18) and using l1 for attention (item 8). the means and medians for l1 and l2 use in certain classroom situations are presented below in table 3. the highest agreement reported for the use of turkish can be observed in the k-12 teacher group, followed by university instructors. the highest agreement with englishonly in the same areas was higher for psts, especially for psts with no teaching experience. despite noticeable patterns, statistically significant differences were observed only for a few variables, which will be supported further with reference to qualitative findings. table 3. attitudes towards language use in certain classroom situations statistics for: turkish may be used only english should be used situation group mean median mean median teaching grammar* psts with no experience 3.26 3.00 2.96 3.00 psts with experience 3.24 3.00 2.84 3.00 k-12 teachers 3.88 4.00 2.56 2.00 university instructors 3.61 4.00 2.67 2.00 teaching vocabulary* psts with no experience 3.30 2.00 3.83 4.00 psts with experience 3.38 2.00 3.73 4.00 k-12 teachers 3.00 3.50 3.06 3.00 university instructors 3.50 4.00 3.35 3.00 giving instructions for activities psts with no experience 2.96 3.00 3.18 3.00 psts with experience 2.93 3.00 3.25 3.00 k-12 teachers 3.13 4.00 3.06 3.00 university instructors 2.61 2.00 3.50 4.00 feedback for activities psts with no experience 3.22 3.00 3.17 3.00 psts with experience 3.07 3.00 3.09 3.00 k-12 teachers 3.19 4.00 2.73 2.00 university instructors 3.44 4.00 2.94 3.00 instructions for exam psts with no experience 3.39 4.00 3.22 3.00 psts with experience 3.51 4.00 2.69 3.00 k-12 teachers 3.38 4.00 2.44 2.00 university instructors 3.56 4.00 3.11 3.00 feedback for exam* psts with no experience 3.17 3.00 2.87 3.00 psts with experience 3.36 4.00 2.95 3.00 k-12 teachers 3.60 4.00 2.44 2.00 university instructors 4.00 4.00 2.61 2.00 administrative/ school information* psts with no experience 3.13 3.00 3.00 3.00 psts with experience 3.13 3.00 3.02 3.00 k-12 teachers 3.69 4.00 3.69 2.00 university instructors 4.11 4.00 2.39 2.00 * indicates that there are statistically significant differences across groups. the first area where psts’ attitudes were significantly different from the insts is teaching grammar: u(npre-service=78, nin-service=34)=1684.50, z=2.382, p=.017; demonstrating that insts favored using l1 while teaching l2 more than psts did. the majority of the insts (75% of taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 84 k-12 teachers and 73.3% of university instructors) reported that they agreed with the remark “turkish may be used while teaching grammar”, while only around 45% of psts supported the use of l1 while teaching grammar. the differences were not statistically different for the equivalent exclusive l2 use item. still, 62.5% of k-12 teachers and 53.3% of university instructors disagreed with the remark that ‘only english should be used while teaching grammar’; while the disagreement rate was 34.8% and 41.8% for inexperienced and experienced pre-service teachers, respectively. teaching vocabulary is another field where the attitudes of teachers differ. only 17,4% and 14,5% of the inexperienced and experienced pre-service teachers agreed with the remark “turkish may be used while teaching vocabulary”, respectively. the agreement rate was 50% for k-12 teachers and 66.7% for university instructors. further statistics showed that in-service (instk12 and instuni; p=.83) and pre-service (pst0 and pst1-6; p=.21) groups did not differ within pairs, but the difference between psts’ ranks (mdn=2.00) and ists’ ranks (mdn=4.00) was significantly different u=1923.50, z=3.93., p<.001. for the matching item on the use of english-only for vocabulary teaching, only 8.7% of inexperienced and 16.4% of experienced psts disagreed, while disagreement was 37.5% for k-12 teachers and for 42.9% of university instructors. therefore, vocabulary teaching may be listed as another area where psts and insts significantly differ (p=.03). participant groups were similar in their attitudes towards using l1 and/or l2-only in areas of instruction and feedback for activities, and for instructions during exams. however, all groups significantly differed from each other in terms of using l1 while providing feedback on exams (h(3)=10.468, p=.015); the insts supported english-only for exam feedback significantly less (p=0.04) than the psts. finally, administrative information was an area in which insts were more positive towards using turkish when compared to psts (u=1913, z=4.033., p<.001). the remaining items on the second scale were on using english-only strictly at all times in the classroom, including for student-teacher communication, english as l2 input and between students. the first item, ‘…the instructors should use english at all times in the classroom’, was the one on which the psts and insts differed most in their attitudes. specifically speaking, the difference was statistically significant between k-12 teachers and the other 3 groups. while k-12 teachers had a disagreement rate of 50%, the disagreement rates of psts were below 20%, and the university instructors also disagreed with a rate of 20%. moreover, 81,2% of k-12 teachers and 93,3% of instructors disagreed with the statement ‘there are no situations in which the first language should be used’, unlike the psts who had lower disagreement rates for the same item. the relationship between years of experience teachers had and their overall attitudes towards the use of l1 was also supported by the correlations observed between these two constructs. most items on the use of turkish (items 3, 8, 9, 10, 12, 17, 20) correlated positively, and all items on use of english-only (items 2, 4, 6, 15, 18) correlated negatively with experience. even though these correlations were not strong, they indicate that as experience increases, positive attitudes towards l1 use increase. in the next part, the open-ended items asked teachers to describe a situation in which l1 might be used and a situation where only l2 should be used. therefore, they wrote about the taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 85 first learning area that they associated with l1 or l2 use, along with their justification. below is a list of categories and the percentages of occurrence for each case. table 4 below presents the percentages of the responses given to open-ended questions. the tendency of insts towards the use of l1 for teaching grammar can easily be noticed. the percentage of occurrence of ‘teaching grammar’ in the use of turkish part is 58.3% for insts, while it is only found in 16.7% of the pst comments. it is also seen that ‘vocabulary teaching’ is stated in 25.5% of the pst comments while only 8.3% of the insts stated ‘vocabulary teaching’ under the english-only section. this difference about the vocabulary teaching is also reflected in the turkish may be used part; where 19.4% of the insts noted vocabulary teaching as an area where l1 was used, the rate for the same item is only 1.3% in psts. these findings support the results of the analyses on the quantitative scales. table 4: coded responses to open-ended questions only english for: % of all psts % of all insts all the time in class 38,5 8,3 most of the time in class 11,1 teaching grammar 9,0 0,0 teaching vocabulary 25,5 8,3 teaching speaking 17,9 19,4 at higher levels 3,8 5,6 instructions for activities 15,4 19,4 for communicative activities 38,5 19,4 all kinds of interactions in the classroom 12,8 5,6 all kinds of activities in class 20,5 5,6 when there’s no time constraint 13,9 reading 5,1 22,2 writing 8,3 listening 1,3 11,1 turkish may be used at lower levels 2,6 teaching grammar 16,7 58,3 to explain points that are not understood 38,5 38,9 talking about something not related to the lesson 7,7 8,3 to give instructions for exams 21,8 5,6 for giving feedback 19,2 16,7 repeating important points 2,6 5,6 outside the classroom 6,4 2,7 to give instructions in the classroom 11,5 5,6 to teach vocabulary 1,3 19,4 writing 11,1 reading 5,6 it is seen that 38,9% of insts and 38,5% of the psts are in favor of using l1 ‘to explain points that are not understood’. agreement on this item indicates that teachers prioritize students’ comprehension over the use of l2. it is important to note here, however, that the psts included a condition for supporting the use of l1. a typical comment was: “only english should be used, when doing speaking, vocabulary and communicative activities in classroom, because the students should use language to learn it. taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 86 turkish may also be used, when there is a problem that students cannot understand a point, teacher can explain in turkish. but it should be the last resort, teacher should have really hard time in explaining the thing in english. because use of turkish in the classroom may have negative (e)ffects on the learners.” (s28) so, use of turkish, according to the majority of psts, had to be the last resort. however, the insts viewed l1 as a tool for efficiency in terms of time, student motivation and understanding. when students “have difficulty in understanding what you are trying to teach as a grammar subject, [use of english-only makes it] more complicated for them to get the point” (t27). in such cases, “insisting on using only english (...) may demotivate students. when they don’t understand an instruction or any feedback, they cannot focus on language, achieve intended goals, or go one step further” (t21, k-12). t34, a university instructor, commented on l1 use in vocabulary and grammar teaching, noting that: (...) grammar and vocabulary are language “areas”, not skills. these should be considered only as tools, not aims. students need grammar and vocabulary to be able to read, write, listen and speak. i find teaching grammar in english a waste of time. the grammar is of course introduced within a context inductively, but then the form, the functions and rules can be explained in turkish, so that it can be better understood and it takes less time to teach. (...) vocabulary is more or less the same. especially with abstract vocabulary, and (...) zero-beginners, you don’t have any choice but to use turkish (...) i am really positive towards using turkish in the classroom in an “efl” (capital letters!)2 setting. all in all, the context in which teaching and learning take place emerged as an important factor that shapes both the use and attitudes of teachers regarding the use of l1 in their efl classrooms. discussion the study shows that there are significant differences between the attitudes of in-service (insts) and pre-service teachers (psts) regarding l1 (turkish) use in different classroom situations. compared to insts, psts think they would use more l2 (english) and their future students would use english more among themselves. the findings show that the more experienced teachers are, the more tolerant they towards using l1 in their classrooms. insts (especially k-12 teachers) report they use l1 frequently in most situations, while psts see l1 as a last resort, especially when students do not comprehend. regarding the language areas, grammar and vocabulary teaching are found to be the ones where the attitudes of groups differ significantly. these findings echoed the existing literature, especially the ones in which vocabulary and grammar were “criticized as too reliant on l1 use” (shin et al., 2019, p. 10). in other words, other studies also show that l2 teachers use l1 to teach grammar and vocabulary to support learning. however, it is striking to find out that psts’ attitudes are positioned as maximal position on the continuum macaro (2014) described. they seem to favor maximal position, which sees l1 as a deficiency to be allowed or tolerated (korkut & şener, 2018). on the other hand, insts see l1 as a must to cover the curriculum and teach grammar. we believe that these two groups’ attitudes are positioned on 2 the participant’s own emphasis and punctuation. taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 87 two extreme ends of a continuum. their attitudes do not seem to reflect the judicious use of l1 to support l2 use which is currently suggested by many scholars (hall & cook, 2013; shin et al., 2019). the results might imply that k-12 insts teach knowledge about language rather than language use since most k-12 teachers (65%) use english for less than 60% of the class time (see table 2). macaro’s (2014) argues that in the classrooms where l1 is used 50% of the class time, the educational outcome is not communicative competence. hlas (2016) suggests that “l2 should be taught in l2 90% of the time, and in l1 10% of the time” (as cited in shin et al., 2019, p. 9). while the official english language curriculum (meb, 2018) aims to teach english as a means of communication, the reported english use by language teachers in this study shows that it is not an attainable goal. conversely, insts views corroborate the findings of the british council and tepav’s (2013) comprehensive report, which highlighted the fact that the language was taught merely as a lesson but not as a vehicle for communication in k-12 classrooms in turkey. thus, it is not surprising to see that turkey was listed in the low proficiency band (ranking 70th among 100 countries) in the recent ef english proficiency index (2021). the exam-oriented culture and the washback effect of the exams in k-12 schools on the language skills might be the reason for extensive use of turkish in efl classrooms since our insts at the tertiary level report less l1 and higher l2 use in their classrooms. another factor that leads teachers to use l1 more may be their language proficiency (lee, 2016). in a recent study (taner, 2017), k-12 efl teachers in turkey report their proficiency level below cefr b2 in interaction and speaking. similarly, in the south korean context, lee (2016) investigates the attitude towards l1 use and finds that teachers do not see themselves competent in speaking. as a remedy, lee (2016) suggests efl teachers should receive in-service training to improve oral proficiency and self-confidence to speak halfway through their career. departing from our interpretation of findings and literature, providing guidance and support for insts through their career is an absolute need. recent literature highlights the need for professional platforms where k-12 teachers come together and share their experiences regarding l1l2 use in classrooms and read recent sla literature on l1 and l2 use to construct their “principled and purposeful own language use” (hall & cook, 2013) rather than ad hoc approaches; namely, extensively overusing l1, or banning it altogether. psts in this study are observed to be positioned at another end of the continuum. the results imply that they see l1 as a last resort, not a resource they may exploit judiciously. hall and cook (2013) think that there is a discrepancy between actual practice and mainstream elt literature. this might be why psts in this study advocated l2 only policy. another reason for this attitude might be the pre-service teacher education they receive. since they were studying in one of the top universities where the medium of instruction is english, they are used to ‘ideal’ l2 learning environments and might be a little far from the realities of low proficiency classrooms. similarly, wach and monroy (2020) found that spanish trainees who were trained in clil classrooms or observed clil classrooms advocate l2-only approach compared to those trainees who never experienced such education. observing good practices of l2-only approach at the tertiary level may influence their attitudes towards l1 use. taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 88 however, the literature shows that the most influential factor shaping attitudes towards l1 use is the actual experience of teachers (lee, 2016). pre-service teachers are also aware of the fact that language teacher education programs need to involve more teaching practice (e.g., seferoğlu, 2006). for instance, pre-service teachers in their first years may experience challenges such as low-proficient learners in the classroom (sali & keçik, 2018) and may not know how to balance l1 and l2 use to teach effectively. hence, the need for a more up-to-date, realistic, principled, purposeful, and evidence-based approach towards l1 use in efl classrooms should be introduced to the efl teacher education curriculum. conclusion this mixed-methods study attempted to explore efl teachers’ use, beliefs and attitudes regarding the use of l1 in l2 classrooms with respect to teaching experience. the initial aim was to compare two groups, namely in-service and pre-service. during the study, we noticed that four groups with varying teaching experiences emerged. this limited the number and distribution of participants in groups. however, this limitation also enriched our insight and helped us observe the effect of teaching context (k-12 vs tertiary) on teacher beliefs. therefore, a further dimension to research might be the influence of the teaching context on the place of l1 in efl teaching. also, qualitative studies may be designed for in-depth analysis of the factors that determine l1 use. for policy and practice, several implications were provided; 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(2020). beliefs about l1 use in teaching english: a comparative study of polish and spanish teacher-trainees. language teaching research, 24(6), 855–873. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168819830422 https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.571 https://doi.org/10.1353/hpn.2016.0060 https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.631526 https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.668428 https://doi.org/10.9779/puje492 https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/jlls/issue/43366/528107 https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/ekuad/issue/35893/412903 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203875964 https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2015.1133629 https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-4781.00194 https://doi.org/10.21832/9781783090914-004 http://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v11n4p117 https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/02-40-1-h.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/02607470600981953 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971x.2011.01705.x https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/aibuefd/issue/1499/18145 https://doi.org/10.1501/egifak_0000000167 https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2019.1684928 https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/mersinefd/issue/17373/181414 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-4192.2005.00093.x https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168819830422 taner, g.& balıkçı, g. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 90 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). focus on elt focus on elt journal special issue, 4(1), 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: raslan@ohu.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. ‘what kind of teacher i wish to be’: exploring prospective english language teachers’ future-oriented identities reyhan aslan assist. prof. dr., ömer halisdemir university, turkey, raslan@ohu.edu.tr apa citation: aslan, r. (2022). ‘what kind of teacher i wish to be’: exploring prospective english language teachers’ future-oriented identities. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 28-45. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.3 abstract studies on identity has shown that future-oriented thinking could be a useful framework for studying teacher identity development and in the contexts of language teacher preparation; however, research into the future-oriented dimensions of teacher identity is still rather limited. therefore, in this case study, how prospective english language teachers envision their possible selves as future teachers were explored. writings from the 56 participants were used as a method of data collection to provide a more profound analysis of the contextsensitive nature of their future-oriented identities. following an interpretive analysis of qualitative data, the findings revealed two patterns in the participants’ future-oriented identity work: highly developed and (under)developed possible selves as l2 teachers. both groups of participants appeared to be quite diverse in the nature of their hopes and fears as well as in their exercises of agency and response to tensions and challenges of language teaching. also, participants’ possible language teacher selves seemed to be classified into three primary categories (i.e., l2 teacher development, l2 teacher competency and l2 teacher proficiency). based on the findings and discussions, how future-oriented perspective may inform teacher identity development and teacher preparation in the context of language teaching was discussed. several recommendations for further research and preparation of prospective language teachers were made. keywords: identity, possible selves, language teacher education, teacher preparation, hopes, fears article history received : 16.10.2021 revised : 18.12.2021 accepted : 18.12.2021 published : 04.04.2022 type research article introduction in recent years, there has been growing interest in understanding teachers’ future-oriented self-concepts, also termed as ‘possible selves’ (markus & nurius, 1986) regarding teaching, especially in current l2 (second language) teacher identity research (hiver, 2013). in response to the social turn in the field of second language acquisition (sla) (block, 2003), l2 teacher learning has been conceptualized as a dialogic process of co-constructing knowledge, rather than simply a process of translating theories of linguistics and/or sla into effective classroom practices (johnson, 2016). accordingly, the recent decade has witnessed a noticeable growth in studies on how l2 teachers construct their professional identities while participating in varying communities, interacting with individuals, and mailto:raslan@ohu.edu.tr mailto:raslan@ohu.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.3 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6099-8990 aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 29 positioning themselves (and are positioned by others) in social settings (yazan, 2018). a specific strand of research is regarding the role of future thinking in l2 teacher identity, particularly how language teachers envision their possible selves as teachers (i.e., their hoped-for and feared selves) (see, e.g., hiver, 2013; kubanyiova, 2009; pennington & richards, 2016; rahmati et al., 2019). research has identified that possible selves theory can offer a useful framework for studying teacher identity development, particularly in the contexts of teacher preparation where prospective teachers seek self-definitions or are encouraged to do so (lutovac, 2020). to date, however, there is little empirical evidence of mapping future-oriented dimensions of identity through possible selves theory for understanding pre-service teacher identity development, especially in the context of l2 teaching. the majority of research studies on identity development in language teacher education have explored linguistic and professional identities of non-native speaking (nns) teachers in educational contexts (e.g., aneja, 2016; varghese et al., 2016) and sociocultural identities of language teachers in their social contexts (e.g., tsui, 2007). while research indicates that identity development is a future-oriented process (lutovac, 2020; urzúa & vásquez, 2008), there is a dearth of research on a future aspect of identity in light of possible selves theory (kumazawa, 2013). in particular, it is not clear what kind of teacher prospective language teachers hope to become, expect to become, and fear becoming in the future. to fill such a void in the literature, this paper reports on a qualitative study of turkish students’ future-oriented identities as prospective teachers at a pre-service language teacher education program. theoretical framework identity and possible selves theory the current body of research, heavily influenced by the social turn in sla, has started to focus more on the role of identity in l2 teacher education (hiver, 2013). this recent thread of research has adopted a poststructuralist and critical approach to l2 teacher identity development, which rejects the essentialist conceptualizations of self (kayi-aydar, 2019). as described by many poststructuralist scholars (johnson, 2016; norton, 2010), in other words, identity is an unstable, multiple, situated, and context-dependent phenomenon (wenger, 1998). moreover, becoming a teacher is an identity construction process, whereby individuals negotiate their sense of self by generating possible selves or holding images concerning who they expect to become or fear becoming (krzywacki, 2009). thus, the construct of possible selves theory is of importance in identity exploration and development (lutovac, 2020). according to markus and nurius (1986), possible selves refer to individuals’ futureoriented representations of self. possible selves are primarily associated with self-concepts concerning how they view their potential and about their future (markus & nurius, 1986). in particular, these future-oriented self-concepts might be either positive and represent what one would like to become (i.e., hoped-for selves) or might be negative and represent what one wants to avoid (i.e., feared selves) (oyserman & james, 2015). akin to identity, these future-oriented self-concepts are also not fluid, fixed and uniform, rather they are dynamic, aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 30 open to transformations and are impacted by contextual factors and personal past experiences (hong & greene, 2011). recent studies have emphasized the importance of possible selves in directing one’s behavior and actions in the present (oyserman & james, 2015). as such, one significant contribution of possible selves is concerning with the motivational influence (stevenson & clegg, 2011). individuals tend to eliminate the gap between their current and future selves (oyserman & james, 2015). thus, possible selves facilitate one’s motivation (oyserman et al., 2004). second, possible selves have also a self-regulative fuction (hamman et al., 2010). these future-oriented self-concepts function as ‘roadmaps’ (oyserman et al., 2004) or ‘behavioral blueprints’ (robinson et al., 2003) that facilitates making judgments about whether some possible selves are possible while others are not (stevenson & clegg, 2011). in other words, they provide a clear goal to work towards or avoid (oyserman et al., 2004). possible selves theory may allow for better understanding prospective teachers’ past and present experiences and the process of creating possible selves (pellikka et al., 2020). given these future-oriented identities contributes to self-improvement, change and growth, which are viewed as critical in the way of becoming a teacher (lutovac, 2020), this study was based on the possible selves theory. literature review much of the extant work on the theory of possible selves in general has focused on individuals’ transitional period in their lives (hamman et al., 2010, 2013). despite the prolific research on teacher identity, the study of possible selves in the context of teacher preparation and development has been a relatively uncharted area (hamman et al., 2013; kumazawa, 2013). for example, hamman et al. (2010) investigated the possible selves of student teachers and new teachers. they revealed four categories of possible selves concerning professionalism, interpersonal relationships, classroom management and instruction. the authors indicated that student teachers tended to be more task-focused (interpersonal, management, instruction) whereas new teachers were more quality-focused (professional qualities) in terms of their possible selves. hamman et al. (2013) explored student teachers’ possible selves in their final practicum semester. they revealed the categories of expected possible selves, including learning to teacher and professionalism, as well as feared possible selves, including loss of control, uninspired instruction, and uncaring teacher. the authors also discussed the role of these results in teacher retention and attrition. hong and greene (2011) examined pre-service teachers’ hoped-for selves and feared selves and the experiences that shape their possible selves. the authors found six categories: sufficient/insufficient content knowledge, well-managed/poorly-managed classroom, effective/ineffective teaching, being caring and helpful/not being caring and helpful, having positive/negative attitudes toward students and teaching, and demonstrating leadership/not being liked or respected by fellow teachers. the most frequent comments were related to hopes for being effective and fears of being ineffective. the authors also highlighted stronger impact of past experiences than the impact of teacher education on the development of possible selves. aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 31 in the l2 teaching context, however, research into the theory of possible selves is still rather limited (hiver, 2013; kumazawa, 2013), and there is a lack of comprehensive understanding about what kind of possible selves prospective language teachers hold with regard to l2 teaching. kubanyiova’s (2007, 2009) studies introduced the concept of ‘possible language teacher selves’ as a construct through which to investigate l2 teacher development. in a longitudinal study on eight slovakian l2 teachers, kubanyiova (2009) conceptualized possible language teacher self as: ‘ideal language teacher self’ which relates to identity goals and aspirations; ‘ought-to language teacher self’ which concerns with teachers’ responsibilities and obligations and ‘feared language teacher self’ that is related to language teaching anxiety resulted from a fear of failure. the author further discussed the significant role of ideal self in l2 teachers’ conceptual development and motivation. also, she revealed that factors such as large workload, unsupportive working environment and gap between ideal and actual selves made a negative motivational impact on the ideal self. white and ding (2009) also addressed the ideal and ought-to teacher selves perspective to explore how the self-concepts of 23 teachers in the u.k., china and new zealand impacted and was impacted by their engagement in the domain of e-learning. the authors highlighted the motivational power of possible selves for teachers when taking actions about their teaching. in the japanese context, kumazawa (2013) investigated the relationship between possible selves and motivation among four novice l2 teachers. the researcher found that teachers had clear ideal selves at the pre-service stage whereas contextual constraints and classroom realities led to the conflicts between the ideal and actual selves. however, teachers could find a better harmony between their ideal, ought-to, and actual selves through reflection and exercising agency. similarly, hiver (2013) examined how seven in-service korean language teachers’ possible selves impacted their professional development choices and concluded that the participants’ possible selves were either guided by their motivation to repair their perceived inadequacies, or to enhance the self. the least important motive for teachers’ professional development choices was reported as adhering to normative obligations. most researchers agree that possible selves could offer a versatile framework for exploring the future-oriented dimensions of teacher identity (kumazawa, 2013). it is critical for pre-service teachers to construct vivid self-concepts concerning teaching so that they could understand their progress toward their goals (hamman et al., 2013); have motivational support to pursue these goals in the present (yowell, 2000), and develop possible selves strategies or display self-regulative behaviors to move towards hoped-for selves or avoid feared selves (lutovac, 2020). furthermore, prospective teachers’ hopes and expectations might be considered as their self-perceptions that, a certain extent, reflects their current situation and contexts (markus & nurius, 1986). in that regard, the learning experiences, including the coursework and fieldwork, in addition to the experiences with teacher educators and mentors may enable future teachers to revise their possible selves (hadi, 2019; lutovac & kaasila, 2014; meyers et al., 2017) and such situational factors could impact their exercise of agency (furlong, 2013). prospective teachers’ imaginations of professional roles could also be challenged by the realities they faced during their internships (christofferson & sullivan, 2015; darling-hammond, 2014; tekir & akar, 2019). examination of possible aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 32 selves is critical to gain insights into pre-service teachers’ identity development and to predict their future thinking and action (lutovac, 2020). therefore, understanding prospective teachers’ future-oriented identities is important. purpose of the study the literature on possible selves in the context of l2 teacher education indicates that there is a lack of in-depth qualitative studies with individuals from different settings because of the context-specific nature of self, which limits the generalizability of findings across contexts (taylor et al., 2013). as stated before, less attention is also given to how pre-service teachers’ future-oriented identities are formed and the process of becoming a teacher in subject specific contexts (lutovac, 2020). previous studies call for greater attention on a more complete understanding identity in general and teacher identity, in particular, to enhance the ways in which teacher education institutions are conceived (beauchamp & thomas, 2009). given the lack of a comprehensive understanding about future-oriented dimensions of l2 teacher identity, the overall aim of this study is to explore how prospective language teachers envision their possible selves as future teachers. more specifically, prospective teachers’ hoped-for selves and feared selves in an l2 teacher education program were analyzed. in line with the research aims, in this study, the following research questions was investigated: ‘what do prospective english language teachers envision their possible selves as future teachers? what are their hopes and fears concerning l2 teaching?’ it is also important to note that possible selves, future-oriented identities and future-oriented selfconcepts are used as interchangeable concepts in this manuscript. methodology this research is qualitative in nature and uses case study design to explore the emerging professional identities of prospective language teachers. given the objective of this study, case study is appropriate to provide a comprehensive description of the participants’ futureoriented identities concerning teaching and to interpret the phenomenon in their worlds (creswell, 2012; merriam, 2009). case study is particularly suited for the present study since it allows researchers to understand and inquire into the complexities of identity development in its real-life context (yin, 2009). moreover, case study could be a valuable tool to shed light on the ways in which participants form their possible selves from different perspectives (stake, 1995). this paper does not target empirical generalizability; however, the examination of cases could offer a comprehensive picture of a complex phenomenon to be researched over time (van lier, 2005). setting and participants the present study was undertaken in a four-year teacher education program at one of the major research universities in central turkey. this pre-service english language teacher education program, on its official website, acknowledges that it seeks to prepare students as fully qualified english language teachers for primary, secondary, and tertiary educational aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 33 institutions. therefore, the program claims to offer a rigorous undergraduate curriculum, involving a wide range of courses in english language, methodologies, educational sciences, english literature, linguistics, and school-based practicum courses (i.e., school experience and practice teaching). those who fulfilled the success requirements of the program are awarded a bachelor’s degree in english language teaching. data set of this study was collected at one of the school-based practicum courses offered in the last year of the program for pre-service english language teachers. there were ten sections (almost 250 students) in the practice teaching course at the time of data collection. however, only eight of the instructors who taught the practicum course allowed the researcher to ask students to write a reflection paper upon their possible selves about l2 teaching. from a pool of 93 pre-service english language teachers, 56 participants (49 female and seven male) volunteered to participate in this study. all the participants who agreed to participate in this study were senior year students and completing their practicum semester in the department. the selected participants’ age ranged from 21 to 25. all the participants were turkish, and they all completed their final teaching practicum at placement schools. data collection in this study, writing by participants was considered as a method of gathering data on futureoriented identities about l2 teaching. this method was chosen because it facilitates a more profound analysis and understanding of the context sensitive phenomenon, not available from large-scale positivistic, survey-based research methods (clarke, 2020). with this in mind, student writings as a way of collecting the stories of emerging teacher identity has been found useful in the study of possible selves than other methods (whitty, 2002). participants were prompted to reflect on and write about their descriptions of their possible selves relating to l2 teaching through a series of open-ended questions such as: imagine that you have started to work as an english teacher at a school. what type of teacher you hope to be? what type of teacher you fear becoming? the prompts also asked participants to consider: why do they want to become a teacher; how confident they are in their teaching ability; how much they feel like a teacher; whether they feel prepared to be an english teacher, and to describe the experiences that made them feel this way. these open-ended questions can be viewed as a way to understand highly complex and dense feelings and processes (hiltunen et al., 2020). data analysis student writings were analyzed by employing qualitative content analysis (newby, 2014) which is based on systemic realization of the following steps: (1) familiarization with the data through multiple reading of the text; (2) identification of meaning units; (3) division of the categories into subcategories; (4) interpretation of the categories with subcategories. by way of the constant comparative method (corbin & strauss, 2008), categories that emerged from one group were compared and contrasted with those from the other group to discern similarities and differences. aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 34 to enhance the trustworthiness of the study, the preliminary findings were sent back to the participants for feedback through a member checking procedure after completing the analysis and interpretation of the data (newby, 2014). of the 56 participants contacted, five shared their comments. for ensuring the credibility of data analysis, the extracted data were read and reviewed by two colleagues who are working as instructors in the field of language teaching (merriam, 2009). the agreed analyses and interpretations were used, and these were then compared and discussed. in case of disagreement, the final interpretations were negotiated to develop a shared coding scheme. findings as the analysis indicated, two types of future-oriented identity work as prospective language teachers were identified. the contrasts between the cases concerning the vividness of their possible selves and the balance between these selves helped to identify two categories of future-oriented identity work. although some similarities that cut across the cases in participants’ writings on their future-oriented identities as prospective teachers were captured, they convey divergent stories in a sufficient depth. as evident in the data, the participants seemed to be quite diverse in the nature of the possible selves they envisioned as a language teacher. the findings point to two emerging patterns based on the degree of elaboration of participants’ possible selves and also balance between these selves across the student writings: highly developed and (under)developed possible selves as l2 teachers. highly developed possible selves as l2 teachers as the analysis indicates, 18 out of 56 participants seemed to establish a well-elaborated l2 teacher vision and were able to describe their visions. these participants were also highly motivated to become an english teacher and incorporated l2 teaching into their future plans. they were characterized by the balance between their possible selves and goal-orientedness. most of the participants reported that they aspired to become an english teacher because the job would let them “to make a difference in the students’ growth through english”, “to create a change for a better society” and “to connect with the young generation”. although the participants in this group possessed multiple future-oriented identities, they regarded their ideal images as ‘professional and innovative l2 teacher’ as the primary ones. in parallel, the student writings revealed that possible teacher selves that are ‘l2 teacher development-based’ and ‘l2 teacher competency-based’ were strongly present” (see table 1). as for the possible selves focused on l2 teacher development, prospective language teachers on one hand spoke about keep up with the recent trends and focus of language teaching. these participants highlighted the desire to have good grasp of content, mastery of subject matter, continuous learning and keeping up-to-date, as well as being goaloriented. aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 35 table 1. data excerpts describing hoped-for possible selves l2 teacher development i think the english teacher should be expert in the field. (p2) i want to be a teacher who always try to increase my expertise and experience. (p8) i am going to always be engaged in my profession. i know that i have to keep up-to-date on new digital technologies and apps. (p15) a good teacher should look forward to how s/he could grow. this would help maintain everything and keep on the top of my content. (p4) i hope to be a teacher who is fine where i am at, i mean, to be expert in my subject matter. i won’t stop studying and keep learning more and more. (p13) l2 teacher competency as a teacher, i will not use the traditional grammar-translation method. (p3) i would like to try out creative teaching methods and ideas. (p2) i hope that i will not repeat things well; instead, i will spice them up purposely changing my teaching methods. (p9) i will strive to come up with creative teaching ideas, so that my classes will not be boring. (p6) i hope to utilize enjoying and creative teaching ideas with the help of digital tools. there are many practical websites for digital storytelling, role-plays or intercultural learning. i plan to integrate them all into my classes. (12) … but a teacher should work hard to make learning interesting and fun … it is so sad for a teacher to have students saying ‘i’am bored’ or ‘it’s boring’. (p16) in this type of future-oriented identity work, the focus was also on ‘l2 teacher competency’. in particular, participants’ possible selves were focused to a great extent on becoming an active and competent user of innovative and creative teaching methods. besides, participants’ hoped-for selves related to l2 teacher competency involved the references to instructional strategies including individual learning support, differentiated instruction, variety in the classroom, using sufficient and authentic tasks, creating alternative scenarios and designing and implementing different materials in the classroom. analysis also revealed that participants in this group were more likely to balance their hoped-for and feared possible selves: between what kind of teacher they wish to become and what kind of teacher they do not wish to become. for the feared selves of participants with well-developed possible selves, data excerpts were also about the possible selves focused on l2 teacher development and l2 teacher competency (see table 2). table 2. data excerpts describing feared selves l2 teacher development i don’t want to be the type of teacher who is tired at the end of the day. (p2) i am afraid of this kind of stress in the long run because sometimes you feel like you squeeze so much into a term. it may be frustrating. (p13) in my opinion, it is important to know how to protect myself against suffering from teacher burnout. i am worried about that. (p9) i fear becoming a monotonous teacher who cannot keep himself/herself up-to-date with recent trends. (p5) i fear forgetting about what drove me to teaching in the first place one day. (p14) aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 36 l2 teacher competency a teacher should never have habits of boring teachers. giving worksheets over and over and over again makes classes dull. (p12) i don’t want to become a traditional teacher who is obsessed with pen-and-pencil entrance exams. (p11) i don’t know if i have to use traditional methods. we, as teachers, should incorporate teaching ideas that pique curiosity and motivation. (p8) it’s difficult and a big risk to use digital boards in the classroom. i tested it during the practicum. it would have been better to know how to integrate such technology tools into my classes. i think i am not good at it. (p1) my biggest fear is to become an english teacher who does not care about pupils. (p2) i don’t wish to become a teacher who uses the same materials in my classes or just teach students the material that is already in the coursebook. (p10) some of the participants’ possible selves emphasized their worries about reaching the breaking point, stress and emotional exhaustion when considering the challenges of teaching. one participant also stressed the need to learn proactive strategies to deal with the threat of burnout. these participants also wanted to avoid becoming a ‘boring’, ‘uninspired’ and ‘discouraging’ l2 teachers. more specifically, their feared possible selves involve the references to an image of a pen-and-pencil type of teacher who is strictly adhered to the traditional teaching methods. the findings suggest that these participants could balance their positive (hoped-for) and negative (feared) possible selves, which points to their motivation for becoming a teacher. the participants in this group appeared to have positive views of themselves as competent future l2 teachers in terms of their teaching skills. it was evident in the data that all thirteen participants established confidence in their abilities as competent, effective language teachers. the analysis indicates that students with positive orientations towards the future appeared to be highly motivated to take agentive actions required to achieve their hoped-for selves as professional and innovative l2 teachers. in that regard, some of the participants wrote about their desire to utilize diverse professional development resources, such as conferences, workshops, and international projects so that they could continue to build their teaching skills and be better equipped to become professional teachers. also, these participants were more likely to take initiatives and sought for strategies for professional learning opportunities at diverse teaching settings (i.e., private tutoring or institutions), which allowed them to feel adequately prepared for teaching and close the gap between their current selves and positive possible selves. although they had also negative possible selves (i.e., feared selves), the availability of well-elaborated possible selves seemed to motivate to behave in a goal-directed manner. in addition to their deliberate efforts to develop their possible selves, most of the participants also underscored the role of mentor teachers and teacher educators in forming strong possible selves. they stated that encouragement, the possibility to deal with dilemmas and tensions during the practicum period, and constructive feedback during the practicum period were beneficial in building their positive images of themselves as competent future teachers. aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 37 (under)developed possible selves as l2 teachers at the opposite of the spectrum are the possible selves of prospective language teachers with (under)developed visions of ideal language teacher selves. similar to the former pattern, participants in this group (38 participants) also wanted to become a language teacher since teaching would allow them “to make a difference in young people’s lives”, “to inspire the next generation”, “to prepare students as 21st century citizens” and “to become a role model”. this cohort included the prospective language teachers who either were likely to own a vision of l2 teacher, though not vivid and specific enough to be described or were not able to develop a substantial image of ideal language teacher self. contrary to the former cohort, some of the participants in this group lacked any clear visions of their future teacher selves, and more importantly, building their hoped-for language teacher self did not come as easily as it did for the other participants. in this pattern, most of the participants tended to remain in the teaching profession. however, six of them appeared to be undecided to remain or were less likely to view teaching as the final destination although they appreciated particular features of teaching, such as job security or connecting with individuals. instead, they hoped to have private-sector career prospects upon graduation, even work abroad at various international enterprises. rather than foreseeing themselves as l2 teachers in classroom contexts, they were more inclined to envision their possible selves in the specific form of competent l2 users that can speak english fluently in international contact situations. despite their weaker visions of language teacher selves, this cohort of prospective teachers spoke about the type of teachers they hope to and/or fear becoming. analysis revealed that the hoped-for selves of participants (see table 3) with (under)developed possible selves often included l2 teacher competency-based possible selves focused on instructional strategies. in this pattern, hoped-for selves revolved around becoming practitioners of communicative language teaching (clt), incorporating intercultural and/or multicultural understanding into lesson plans, promoting open-mindedness and respect, high-student engagement, differentiation, using diverse and interactive teaching methods, supporting student learning, being motivating and encouraging and understanding challenges and anxieties of students. table 3. data excerpts describing hoped-for possible selves l2 teacher competency i believe i can break the traditional way of english teaching. (p27) i would like to teach english but also prepare pupils to be citizens of the 21st century. i am going to focus on globalization multiculturalism, respect, open-mindedness etc. (p32) i think i am not good at understanding different student profiles. i would like to possess an extremely thorough understanding and knowledge of differentiated instruction. (p41) i think an english teacher should build connections between l2 learners’ cultural background and their classroom learning experience. (p22) i would like to become a mindful, inspiring and encouraging teacher… (p19) i want to be able to understand the challenges and anxieties students might undergo when trying to learn a different language and culture from their own. (p38) aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 38 i think a teacher should have more patience because we, as teachers, have the privilege of being in a very important position in students’ lives. (p55) language learning is a difficult process. so, i believe that an english teacher should guide and offer support and advice for pupils when needed. (p52) the more you enjoy in your classes, the more pupils will enjoy. (p51) the participants also highlighted the teacher’s role in the classroom referring to becoming more of a facilitator, scaffolding l2 learning for pupils. these possible selves also included the idea of inspiring and encouraging learners as their role models to make them realize their fullest potential. as an example, one pre-service teacher stressed the importance of powerful modeling so that it could be an efficient learning tool. the findings showed that the proportion of feared compared to hoped-for language teacher selves appeared to be dominant for student writings concerning l2 teacher competency focused on instructional strategies and management, monitoring, and interaction as well as l2 proficiency (see table 4). many of these participants wanted to avoid becoming ‘authoritarian’, ‘harsh’, ‘demanding’ and ‘punitive’ teachers who are preoccupied with enforcing strict discipline. through participants’ perspectives, ‘becoming an authoritative teacher’ who blends a caring atmosphere with firm, but fair discipline would allow them to have superior learning outcomes. in many writings, the fears of poor time management as well as monitoring difficult behaviors were also at the forefront. in several writings, participants reported feared selves focused on becoming ‘uncaring’ and ‘uninspiring’ teacher, building weaker relationships with students and disorganized instruction. participants’ l2 teacher competency-based feared selves pertained to instructional strategies were also strongly present. their fears included possible selves, such as bad grasp of content, overreliance on lesson plans and having many students who fail. similar to the participants in the former group, these participants’ feared selves revolved around teaching students with diverse needs and profiles. more specifically, they involved the references to teaching different age groups, such as young and adult l2 learners. participants also reported their l2 proficiency-based feared selves, which revealed their need to have stronger linguistic knowledge and better confidence in speaking. these participants recognized as their weaknesses the inability to use english language like a native speaker. feared possible selves mostly focused on making grammar mistakes and stuttering while speaking since they seemed to believe their students would be judgmental and critical of their language skills. aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 39 table 4. data excerpts describing feared possible selves l2 teacher competency still, my biggest fear is not being able to manage the class. (p31) i have problems with classroom management. i’d really want to be an extremely good classroom manager. (p29) during my internships, the gap was a big shock. i found myself in difficult situations where it was hard to monitor disruptive behaviors in class. this is one side of myself i fear remaining unprepared, and i know i need more experience and confidence. (p19) i am afraid of talking in a monotone voice, which makes me a boring teacher. (p56) i really don’t want to be an unapproachable teacher. (p52) during my internships, when the unexpected occurs, it becomes difficult for me to keep on track. i try to avoid wasting class time. (p52) i have the fear of not being able to answer students’ questions in classes (p23) i still detailed on syllabus or lesson plans. (p29) i went to two different practicum schools and based on my experiences; i have to learn to teach students with diverse profiles. (p43) there is a mismatch between theory and practice. i had frustrating experiences with the 1st graders. i really don’t want to teach young learners. (p37) l2 proficiency speaking fluently is one of the most important qualities of an english teacher, so i need to improve my language skills (p22) i would really want to be able to explain my point and get it across to the students. (p33) for example, i want to simply express my point. i want to use english as if it’s my mother tongue. (p24) during my internships, i made serious grammar mistakes and it was frustrating for me. as a teacher, i am afraid of making grammar mistakes in the classroom. (p51) i fear becoming an english teacher who have a bad command of english grammar. (p28) many examples of their feared possible selves reference to the challenges, tensions and conflicts between their ideal language teacher selves and current selves. giving more details about their fears based on their practicum experiences in the writings, most participants attributed these serious discrepancies between their ideal and current language teacher selves to the lack of sufficient practice opportunities in “real settings with real students” (p31). in this respect, participants emphasized the need for more authentic tasks wherein they could explore the possibilities of meaningful and realistic practice. as opposed to the academic training sources, many of the participants expressed greater satisfaction amongst experiential training sources such as mentoring from teachers and supervised practicum. akin to the former group, many referred to successful experiences during their internships. they reported that the mentor and the teacher educator were important motivators in building their confidence and positive self-images during their internships. discussion and conclusions the purpose of this paper was to investigate a group of prospective language teachers’ possible selves at a pre-service teacher education program in turkey. given the gap in the literature on future-oriented identities in the context of teacher preparation and development, this study points to the potential of possible selves theory in providing analytic concepts to better understand images of self-as-teacher (kumazawa, 2013). while derived from a small aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 40 scale study, the findings suggest that prospective teachers claim and form diverse and multiple forms of possible selves when describing the kind of language teacher they wish to be or fear becoming (hiver, 2013). this study revealed two different patterns of futureoriented language teacher identity work: (a) highly developed that is characterized by goalorientedness, optimistic view of l2 teaching and balanced possible selves and (b) (under)developed that is characterized by the lack of vivid visions of teaching, irresolute goals and imbalanced possible selves. of particular note is that these patterns should not be considered as reductionist categories into which a language teacher might belong to forever losing the possibility to move across different patterns. as reported by many scholars (rahmati et al., 2019; taylor et al., 2013), these patterns are relational. in other words, since identity construction includes “a mixture of being in and being out” (wenger, 1998, p. 165), language teachers might reconcile forms of different possible selves at any given time in any given setting. participants with highly developed possible selves appeared to possess specific and clear visions of the future. these participants hope to reach their possible selves. in their writing, they were likely to balance their hoped-for and feared possible selves: between how they desire to become and how they avoid becoming. likewise, individuals build self-images that they wish to achieve, and they would tend to avoid. these prospective language teachers balance their hoped-for and feared possible selves. these findings suggest that the balance between these possible selves serves to motivation (lutovac & kaasila, 2014; yowell, 2000). on the other hand, participants with (under)developed possible selves were more concerned about their future and owned vague ambitions and irresolute plans to become a teacher. this was indicated through the common use of the utterances in the student writings “i have the fear of …”, “my biggest fear…” and “i am afraid…”. such expressions of uncertainty might demonstrate that prospective language teachers are struggling (urzúa & vásquez, 2008). these possible selves appeared to be less clear and feared possible selves were more likely to dominate over hoped-for teacher selves in the data. this shows that unbalanced possible selves suggest fewer efforts to achieve and avoid these possible selves (markus & nurius, 1986). the analysis indicated that participants’ possible language teacher selves might be classified into three primary categories (i.e., l2 teacher development, l2 teacher competency and ‘l2 proficiency), revealing a distinction as demonstrated by previous studies between task-focused and quality-focused possible selves (hamman et al., 2010, 2013). l2 teacher competency-based possible selves pertained to both instructional strategies and monitoring, management and interaction. the former relates to teaching techniques and methods to help students accomplish tasks whereas the latter focuses on management and discipline issues and interaction with individuals. the findings of this study suggest that participants in each pattern appeared to formulate hoped-for selves and feared selves that are task-focused reflecting the category of l2 teacher competency. this is in line with the literature indicating that prospective teachers might experience struggles when considering their future-oriented identities much beyond their immediate role and context (hamman et al., 2010). to start with, l2 teacher competency-based possible selves focused on instructional strategies seemed to dominate the student writings. in the construct of the l2 teachers they aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 41 wish to become, prospective teachers in two types of future-oriented identity work focus mainly on differentiated instruction, using different, interactive teaching ideas and methods as well as being motivating and encouraging. many participants’ feared selves related to this category are bound up with bad grasp of content, addressing student with individual needs and profiles and overreliance on syllabus. second, l2 teacher competency-based possible selves concerning management, monitoring and interaction were reported only by the participants with (under)developed ideal images as l2 teachers. taken together, the greater proportion of feared selves related to instructional strategies and management, monitoring, and interaction may indicate a limited focus in the language teacher education context where participants of this study studied. in this respect, limited opportunities to practice implementing evidence-based strategies during the practicum (christofferson & sullivan, 2015), and overemphasis on theories of teaching and less focus on practice continue to be important concerns in the field of l2 teacher preparation (tekir & akar, 2019). since the participants in this study consistently complained about the gap between theory and practice in the program, l2 teacher education programs should offer students more integrated and coherent curriculum that link coursework and clinical work (darling-hammond, 2014). also, participants’ desire to have more opportunities for teaching practice could also be interpreted as prospective language teachers’ feeling the need for more extended practicum experience rather than the traditional one-day-a-week (meyers et al., 2017). third, most of the participants, that is, those with (under)developed possible selves narrated feared selves related to l2 proficiency. these proficiency-based possible selves are related to their sense of self in their own ability to use english competently. thus, generating supportive curriculum provision which combine language use, language objectification, and language acquisition should be offered to prospective language teachers to facilitate the development of their english proficiency and pedagogy (hadi, 2019). lastly, only prospective language teachers with highly developed possible selves formulated l2 teacher development-based possible selves that were quality-focused as it pertains to teacher self-concepts to achieve high standards and to seek opportunities for increasing teacher expertise (hamman et al., 2010). of particular interest is the highly developed possible teacher selves in relation to the teacher development. this elaborated sense of teacher self might be thought of as an advantageous positioning as this allowed them to cope with the future and move beyond their fears (lutovac & kaasila, 2014). contrary to the participants with (under)developed possible selves who possessed doubts and worries about language teaching competence and lack personal agency to learn as prospective teachers, their choice to distance themselves from the feared selves and seek out opportunities to practice teaching outside the university classroom (i.e., private tutoring and teaching in different institutions) could be taken as manifestations of agency (kumazawa, 2013). the different exercises of agency and responses to challenges is important as they highlight the dynamic process of future-oriented identity work as either bridging the gap between the current selves and hoped-for selves or increasing the gap between the current selves and feared selves (hamman et al., 2010). considering the significant impact of future thinking on the exercise of agency, it is critical for language teacher education programs to apply possible selves theory to the development of prospective teachers (hamman et al., 2013; urzúa & vásquez, 2008). aslan, r./ focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 42 research suggests that past experiences with pre-service teachers’ school time and experiences with teacher educators and mentors during practicum are extremely influential in the formation of future-oriented teacher identity development (pellikka et al., 2020; urzúa & vásquez, 2008). for most of the participants, encouragement, support and constructive feedback from mentors and supervisors during internships were beneficial for building their positive visions of themselves as competent teachers and strengthening their motivation for teaching (lutovac & kaasila, 2014). these findings also suggest that imagining a possible self of being successful (or vice versa) may lead to enhanced performance and increased efforts (oyserman & james, 2015). the deconstructing and reconstructing process of teachers’ self-concepts can help future teachers to make a ‘journey inward’ or ‘self-searching journey’ and contribute to their understandings of themselves in a higher degree of selfawareness (kumazawa, 2013). such an empowering setting where future teachers are provided with opportunities for ‘critical reflection and inquiry’ is important to help them revisit their past and become active agents of their own development (furlong, 2013). in enabling prospective teachers to have a strong sense of self as a teacher and formulate their identities, the teacher educators should engage them with future-oriented talk in the context of language teacher education. although this study has implications for pre-service language teacher education, given the unique setting in which the study took place and the scope and sample size of the study, findings are not generalizable. the student writings of 56 participants were insufficient to explore the complexity of identity development of prospective language teachers. the writings of this cohort might provide a picture of the emergent pre-service teacher identity development. also, the self-reported data were elicited through the student writings might not be accurate or complete due to social desirability bias or other reasons. therefore, it would be desirable to triangulate their student writings with teacher educators and mentors’ accounts to provide a holistic perspective of prospective language teachers’ possible selves. further research could also complement the writing data with other data sources, such as in-depth interviews. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references aneja, g. a. 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(2002). possible selves: an exploration of the utility of a narrative approach. identity: an international journal of theory and research, 2(3), 211-228. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532706xid0203_02 yazan, b. (2018). a conceptual framework to understand language teacher identities. journal of second language teacher education, 1(1), 21-48. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327514138_a_conceptual_framework_to_understand_l anguage_teacher_identities yin, r. k. (2009). case study research: design and methods (4th ed). sage. yowell, c. m. (2000). possible selves and future orientation: exploring hopes and fears of latino boys and girls. the journal of early adolescence, 20(3), 245-280. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431600020003001 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2008.04.008 https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.221 https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511803932 https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847691293-018 https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532706xid0203_02 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327514138_a_conceptual_framework_to_understand_language_teacher_identities https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327514138_a_conceptual_framework_to_understand_language_teacher_identities https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431600020003001 focus on elt journal special issue, 4(1), 2022 issn: 2687-5381 🖂corresponding author: akayoglu_s@ibu.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. supporting teachers’ engagement in pedagogies of social justice (steps): a collaborative project between five universities in turkey and the usa asedat akayoğlu bbabürhan üzüm and cbedrettin yazan aassoc. prof. dr., bolu abant i̇zzet baysal university, turkey, akayoglu_s@ibu.edu.tr bassoc. prof. dr., sam houston state university, usa, uzum@shsu.edu cassoc. prof. dr., the university of texas at san antonio, usa, bedrettin.yazan@utsa.edu apa citation: akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. (2022). supporting teachers’ engagement in pedagogies of social justice (steps): a collaborative project between five universities in turkey and the usa. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 7-27. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.2 abstract this paper reports on the findings of a research project titled supporting teachers’ engagement in pedagogies of social justice (steps), in which pre-service and inservice teachers from five universities in turkey and the usa participated in a sixweek-long virtual exchange. the main objective of the study was to promote social justice-informed pedagogies in k-12 schools through professional development and intercultural discussions between pre-service and in-service teachers from two countries. the study addressed the following research question: how does a sixweek virtual exchange project influence in-service and pre-service teachers’ social justice orientation? for this purpose, we collected quantitative data through a questionnaire based on social justice standards developed by a group of researchers called “learning for justice”. participants completed this questionnaire before and after their participation in the project. additionally, we asked the participants to write a reflection post at the end of the project regarding its impact, and we treated their posts as qualitative data. the findings indicated that the mean scores of the post-test results were significantly higher than those of the pre-test results, which indicated that participants’ engagement in the project changed their perspectives in a positive way. furthermore, analyzing the qualitative data, we found four recurring themes: a) learning through sharing and working in collaboration, b) noticing common concerns with other educators, c) self-awareness and self-evaluation, and d) promise for taking action. keywords teaching diverse learners of english, social justice pedagogy, virtual intercultural exchange, teacher education. article history received : 15.02.2022 revised : 19.03.2022 accepted : 21.03.2022 published : 04.04.2022 type research article introduction our world changes every day linguistically, culturally, politically, and economically as a result of local events that may have global impacts. the demographic changes due to global movement of people inevitably affect how we educate students and prepare teachers for an everchanging world. in recent years, we have witnessed the immigration of people with the hope of finding safer and better places to live, often escaping war-torn countries or looking for better economic opportunities. for example, at the time of writing this paper, many ukrainian citizens were leaving their countries as a result of the russian invasion in ukraine that started in mailto:akayoglu_s@ibu.edu.tr mailto:uzum@shsu.edu mailto:bedrettin.yazan@utsa.edu https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.2 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9865-2546 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4511-7985 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1888-1120 8 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com february 2022. wars are not a problem of the past, and we will continue to live in a world in which people are forced to leave their homes. while there is surely room for improvement, the usa has traditionally been a country which receives immigrants and has plans and policies in place to address the needs of linguistically and culturally diverse populations. in comparison, turkey has received exponentially more immigrants in the last decade compared to its history since its establishment. therefore, the plans and policies to better serve diverse populations are still developing. according to the unhcr (the un refugee agency) global report in 2019, turkey hosted the highest number of refugees worldwide and the number of registered syrian refugees in turkey was over 3.6 million, only 1.7% of whom are living in temporary refugee camps. this means that 98.3% of the refugees are living in urban and rural areas of provinces all around the country. among these people, 674,199 syrian children were registered to receive education in public schools in the 2019-2020 academic year (mone, 2020), which has transformed the ethnolinguistic make-up of the children in schools. these are among the crucial factors that changed the dynamics of today’s classrooms: more access and need for technology in education and increased diversity of student populations across the world in general and turkey in particular. although there are many challenges that educators have encountered because of these changes, one of the most important ones can be named as promoting social justice in the classroom in order to better serve the linguistically and culturally diverse student populations. the uneven power relations minoritize and marginalize students based on their language, race, ethnicity, culture, and nation of origin. therefore, teachers are expected to play a pivotal role in promoting more equitable education services and outcomes for all students with diverse backgrounds with such contextual parameters. social justice in language classrooms with globalization and recent waves of forced and voluntary migration throughout the world, classrooms are more diverse than ever before. also, individuals, with access to required technologies, could communicate with the rest of the world regardless of their regions, and they could follow the recent news from anywhere they like. these changes brought some challenges into the classrooms, not only for teachers but also for students, administrators, and parents. one of the most crucial points in classrooms is about maintaining social justice among students. therefore, attention to social justice issues has become an important component in the language classroom (boylan, 2009; carson, 2005; cochran-smith, 2009; grant & agosto, 2008; kapustka et al., 2009; mills, 2012; mills & ballantyne, 2010) and has received attention in virtual intercultural exchange projects (akayoğlu et al., 2020; üzüm et al., 2019, 2020, 2022; yazan et al., 2021). however, social justice is not a new topic; it has always been an important issue in language classrooms (lojacono, 2013). defining the concept of “social justice” is not an easy task (cochran-smith, 2009). zajda et al. (2006) defined social justice as an “egalitarian society that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognises the dignity of every human being” (p. 10). however, they also highlighted that this definition “may vary according to different definitions, perspectives, and social theories” (zajda et al., 2006, p. 9). nieto (2010) defined social justice as “a philosophy, an approach, and actions that embody treating all people with fairness, respect, dignity, and generosity” (p. 46). despite the changing 9 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com definitions, equality, liberty, and fraternity, agency for social change are expressed as common issues in social justice. according to nieto (2010), social justice is not just being kind and nice to others. she listed four components of social justice which she used as guidelines for language teachers who would like to create a learning environment to support agency for social justice. first of all, language teachers should examine their thoughts and attitudes towards those different from them. then, they should encourage students to make comparisons between their own cultures and target cultures and question the ideas taken for granted. to achieve this, language teachers should challenge untruths and stereotypes because these lead to inequality and discrimination among people. secondly, all students should be provided with the necessary resources. language teachers should know the backgrounds, families, communities, and living conditions of their students and their abilities and provide authentic materials to develop them according to these. thirdly, students’ talents and strengths should be used to enrich classrooms. teachers should provide students with the understanding that cultural and social differences between individuals are a source of wealth and guide them on how to evaluate these differences. in this sense, language courses have the potential to provide vast and rich opportunities for teachers in terms of both subject and activity richness in gaining this understanding. finally, a learning environment should be created to support critical thinking and agency for social change. learners should be encouraged to take actions and be the voice of marginalized individuals. in teacher education, it could also be associated with some phrases like “teaching for diversity” (boylan & woolsey, 2015). in the literature, the need for including social justice issues in teacher education has been widely discussed (aronson et al., 2020; cochran-smith et al., 2009; cochran-smith & fries, 2005; milner, 2017; pugach et al., 2019; reyes et al., 2021; zeichner, 2009). for example, reyes et al. (2021) explained this need as “teacher educators work to prepare teachers for an array of contexts and demographic shifts” (p. 353). moreover, teacher educators are often unaware of the contexts in which pre-service teachers will work. milner (2017) also reported that early career and pre-service teachers felt unprepared for social justice work at schools. the importance of training pre-service teachers for their future teaching career is argued by pugach et al. (2019, p. 206) as the world shifts towards “increasingly global societies facing persistent inequities”. it is quite obvious that there is an increasing need for integrating social justice issues in educational settings; however, it is not an effortless task for teachers. in previous studies, many researchers (aronson et al., 2020; ploof & hochtritt, 2018; pugach et al., 2019; reyes et al., 2021) made suggestions on how to foster social justice for pre-service teachers and how to integrate these critical issues in teacher education curriculum. aronson et al. (2020, p. 35) acknowledged that social justice should be “embedded across all courses within teacher preparation programs” rather than offering a single course aiming to foster social justice. during the implementation, they believed that teacher educators should be willing to reimagine the way they prepare pre-service teachers. ploof and hochtritt (2018) also highlighted the importance of introducing pre-service teachers to curriculum that fosters respect for human rights. pugach et al. (2019) argued that the learning and growth process should start with understanding the identities of the students and suggested that teachers understand how they view and respond to their students regardless of their complexity. last but not the least, reyes et al. (2021) recommended co-teaching and collaboration, which they argued as one of the missing points in 10 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com higher education. they stated that if we could build connections among the teacher educators, we could “better prepare to engage with our students in meaningful and transformative ways” (p. 363). this collective view of teaching and learning for teacher education was touched upon by villegas and lucas (2002). aronson et al. (2020) worked on the curriculum in collaboration, and they stated that their study yielded positive results in terms of students’ social growth. these kinds of collaboration studies help teacher educators to critically examine the curriculum and revise it for diversity. in light of these studies, we also attempted to bring teachers and preservice teachers from different contexts in an online platform and we expected the participants to critically examine their educational settings. a small team of educators and writers working in montgomery, alabama, usa founded a group called learning for justice (https://www.learningforjustice.org) and are working with active teachers with “a deep belief that education is the best chance we have to build a better world, and a firm commitment to making sure that every student has the opportunity to learn and thrive.” they also worked on standards of social justice and proposed four pillars of social justice as identity, diversity, justice, and action. the first component, identity, is related to understanding one’s own identity. individuals could develop positive identities, recognize traits of the dominant culture, their home culture, and other cultures, and understand how they negotiate their own identity in multiple spaces. first of all, individuals should have knowledge of identities. second, diversity becomes an important concept. individuals should be aware of the fact they are living in heterogeneous communities, and they should be aware of the similarities and differences among people, and as a result, they should be able to build empathy, respect, understanding, and connection with others. the third component, justice, is about being fair at the individual level, and individuals should be able to analyze the harmful impact of bias and injustice on the world, historically and today. the final component, action, emphasizes that individuals should take action in order to maintain social justice in all settings. they should be able to recognize their own responsibility to stand up to exclusion, prejudice, and injustice; they should be able to speak up with courage and respect when they or someone else has been hurt or wronged by bias. these are the four standards of social justice declared by this group of educators. in this study, the participants completed various tasks based on these components, and we attempted to determine whether our participants developed knowledge and skills on these standards at the end of the project. the tasks were designed to be parallel with these four components. the participants wrote about their own identities and their students’ identities at first. then, we implemented another task in which they could notice the diversity in their classrooms; the participants were provided with some cases, and they were expected to empathize with a refugee student and, finally, they designed course materials and poster presentations as the culmination of the project, displaying the knowledge and skills they had developed throughout the collaboration. using technology to connect people while promoting social justice in classrooms, teachers have some concerns in addition to academic achievement, such as learning about other cultures, finding similarities and differences among different cultures, creating cultural awareness, and developing mutual understanding. these can only be achieved through communication. when it comes to communication, we could easily notice that most of the communication today is on internet 11 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com platforms and teachers are integrating information and communication tools (ict) in their teaching contexts. the roles of students and teachers have changed dramatically from passive individuals to active agents in education. teachers are expected to design and create materials using different web 2.0 tools and learners have more chances to learn by doing and completing tasks. in other words, both teachers and learners are producers in this era. however, ict integration is not limited to using technological tools to enrich classroom materials; these technologies are also used to facilitate communication and interaction between learners living in different regions of the world. as mentioned by chun et al. (2016), “educators are increasingly under pressure to use technology to prepare students to live in a technologically interconnected, globalized world” (p. 65). with the increased interaction, teachers and learners can create digital spaces in which learners are able to interact and educate themselves. unlike the past, it has become much easier and cheaper to gather people on internet platforms and as such, one of the opportunities in today’s world is virtual exchange projects. these tools can be integrated for the purpose of promoting social justice for participants in international projects. as mentioned in the literature, “intercultural projects have the potential to enhance learners’ communication skills and to enrich their knowledge of another culture, as well as to provide a context for viewing one’s own culture from another group’s perspective” (kern, 2006, p. 198). as educators, we could be involved in this kind of virtual exchange projects to focus on some critical issues, like social justice, from an intercultural perspective. the steps project in the steps project, we designed and implemented a virtual intercultural exchange (a.k.a. telecollaboration) program for pre-service and in-service teachers to develop their intercultural communicative competence and prepare them to work with culturally and linguistically diverse student populations, especially from refugee backgrounds. since this project was granted by the regional english language office (relo) of the us embassy in turkey, one of the goals was expected to foster turkish and us ties and bring the individuals from both countries together in intercultural collaboration projects. thus, this project involved teachers from turkey and the usa and engaged them in collaborative intercultural learning through synchronous and asynchronous online participation to promote social justice. the project lasted for six weeks and was based on weekly tasks on the edmodo platform, a learning management system (www.edmodo.com). while we were designing the project as a research team, we tried to focus on four pillars of social justice identity, diversity, justice, and actionwhich were proposed by learning for justice group (https://www.learningforjustice.org). for example, in terms of identity, we asked participants to introduce themselves so that they could write and think about their own identities. next, participants wrote posts about their students and the main goal was to create awareness about the diversity in the classroom. in another task, participants wrote a daily routine from the perspective of a refugee student and they discussed the injustices these students might encounter in their daily life. after the tasks were completed, they were shared with the relo of the us embassy. the relo office also made some suggestions and recommendations and we finalized the tasks at least one month before the project implementation. http://www.edmodo.com/ https://www.learningforjustice.org/ 12 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com participants throughout the study, 120 pre-service and in-service teachers participated in weekly activities. there were 45 pre-service teachers from three different english language teaching departments in turkey; 45 in-service teachers working in different regions of turkey; and 30 undergraduate and masters’ program students, some of which were working as teachers in the us. the survey was administered on a voluntary basis, and although there were 120 participants in the study, only 58 of them responded to the pre-test and post-test surveys. of these 58 participants, 12 were pre-service teachers in the us, 29 were pre-service teachers in turkey, and 17 were in-service teachers in turkey. the pre-service teachers in this study were all senior students and were taking a “teaching practice” course. they were visiting state schools for observation and practice teaching during the project, and they were planning to start their teaching career the following year. weekly tasks participants engaged in online discussion board conversations over six weeks. for the first week, the goal was to introduce participants to the project by sharing its main goals, timeline, tasks, and technological requirements/tools and to start a conversation on the relationship between self and culture and reflect on the ways in which cultures concomitantly include and exclude individuals through representation. then, they were divided into 15 small groups and asked to write a post replying to the following prompt: introduce yourself. please introduce your daily routines (work, school), culture, and context? how could you describe the majority cultures in your context, and do you feel that you belong to those cultures? discuss why or why not. how could you describe the experiences of people in your context who are marginalized or minoritized in a community or broader society? in the second week, the goal of the tasks was to reflect on the intricate relationship between personal and professional identities, understand how their identities inform their teaching practices and create awareness of their teaching contexts. they responded to the following questions: who are your students? do you have any background information about your students’ parents, culture? do you think your values are similar to those of your students? are all students/parents equal in your context? do you or your school administrator do something in order to maintain equality among the students? do minority students have access to resources equitably? if not, what can you do as a teacher to achieve equitable outcomes for student learning? the third and fourth weeks included two scenarios from two different contexts, the us and turkey. the main objective of the tasks assigned to the participants in these two weeks was to encourage empathy with the marginalized students. therefore, the participants were asked to write a daily routine from the perspectives of two immigrant students. although the scenarios 13 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com were fictitious, they were possible to witness in language classes. the scenarios were as follows: scenario 1: abdulaziz is a syrian student who immigrated to a small town in turkey. he is accepted to a state school, and he is the only syrian student in his class. his native language is arabic, and he does not know turkish or english. neither his language teacher, mustafa, nor his classmates know arabic, and there is no common language between them. mustafa tried to communicate with abdulaziz several times, but the student was not willing to take part in classroom activities. for example, whenever the teacher gives worksheets to the students, abdulaziz takes them and understands nothing. since the teacher had other students, he could not focus on only one student all the time. in time, the teacher gave up trying to communicate, and he behaved as if he was not in the classroom. scenario 2: nancy is a 4th-grade teacher. her student eduardo is an el from el salvador. eduardo has a beginning english level proficiency but is a rising star in math. eduardo takes standardized tests in english. nancy wanted to give him spanish versions, but her principal didn’t allow it. when students were taking the test, eduardo opened his dictionary and looked for a definition for a word. nancy saw this and told him dictionaries weren’t allowed and took the dictionary away since they are not allowed during exams. what do you think about her actions? what would you do if you were eduardo’s teacher? as for the fifth week, the participants were asked to work collaboratively in their small groups (n=7-8) to design course material that could be used in their current or future classrooms. the main objective of the material was to improve the language skills of their learners while creating awareness about social justice. finally, in the sixth week, they all designed posters individually, answering the question: “who am i as the teacher or future teacher of minorities?”; and wrote reflection posts on what they learned at the end of the project. methodology the purpose of this study is to identify whether/how a six-week intercultural collaboration project affected the pre-service and in-service teachers’ views of social justice. the data were collected in a project (steps project) funded by the relo of the us embassy in ankara, turkey. the implementation of the project and the weekly tasks are presented in appendix a. in this study, a one group pre-test/post-test research design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of this project, and the following research question was posed: how does a sixweek virtual exchange project influence in-service and pre-service teachers’ social justice orientation? data collection and analysis social justice standards, which were claimed to “provide a road map for anti-bias education at every grade level” (https://www.learningforjustice.org/frameworks), composed of 20 statements. there were four factors in the survey: identity, diversity, justice, and action. first, the founders of the “learning for justice” community were contacted and required permission 14 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com was granted. then, these statements were used as the survey items in a 5 scale likert type format and administered as the pre-test survey before the project and as the post-test survey after the project (appendix b). as mentioned before, 58 participants responded to both surveys on a voluntary basis. as a result of the reliability analysis, the cronbach’s alpha was calculated as 0.859 which means that the reliability of the survey was rated as excellent. in addition to the quantitative data, we used participants’ responses to the reflection questions at the end of the project: “what have you learned in this project?”. we used these responses as qualitative data to complement the analysis of the quantitative survey data. in order to find out the difference between the mean scores of pre-test and post-test surveys, the normality of the difference test was administered. since there was no normal distribution between the difference of the two tests, the wilcoxon signed rank test was used to determine whether the difference was statistically significant or not. as for the qualitative data, the reflection posts submitted by the participants were collected and analyzed through content analysis (schreier, 2012). after coding the qualitative data, the codes were organized to create recurring themes. representative excerpts from these recurring themes are presented in the findings. findings in this study, we explored whether the steps project had any statistically significant effect on the social justice perceptions of the participants, so a one group pre-test/post-test research design was adopted. for this purpose, the scores of the participants at the beginning of the study had to be compared to those obtained at the end of the project. when comparing the mean scores of pre-test and post-test surveys, the normality test was used to determine which statistical analysis needed to be conducted. at the end of the normality test, it was found that the significance level was 0.000, and this indicated that there was no normal distribution, as seen in table 1. table 1. test of normality kolmogorov-smirnova shapiro-wilk statistic df sig. statistic df sig. difference 0.227 58 0.000 0.644 58 0.000 since there was no normal distribution, the wilcoxon signed ranks test was used to determine whether the difference between the pre-test and post-test survey mean scores were statistically significant or not. a wilcoxon signed ranks test revealed that the mean scores of the post-test survey were significantly higher after the implementation of the project (m=4.51, n=58) compared to before (m=4.31, n=58), z = -4.468, p= 0.000, with a large effect size, r= 0.59. more than 0.50 effect size is considered a large effect size (cohen, 1988). 15 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com table 2. wilcoxon signed ranks tests test statisticsa totalpost totalpre z -4.468b asymp. sig. (2-tailed) 0.000 according to the quantitative analysis, the project significantly influenced the perceptions of the participants on social justice in a positive manner. in other words, the project was found to be effective in the views of the participants in terms of social justice standards. in order to better understand the analysis of the quantitative data, the reflection posts of the participants were analyzed as the qualitative data. as a result of the qualitative analysis, four themes emerged from the data: a) learning through sharing and working in collaboration, b) noticing common concerns with other educators, c) self-awareness and self-evaluation, and d) promise for taking action. the first theme that emerged in the data was learning through sharing and working in collaboration. while designing the project, the activities were designed mostly based on sharing ideas, taking part in discussions, and producing materials in collaboration and individually. as a result, it is not surprising that almost all participants acknowledged that they learned through listening to other participants’ experiences, ideas, and suggestions. as a sample to this theme, one of the participants, who was an in-service teacher from the us, remarked: figure 1. an excerpt from the edmodo post in this quotation, the participant showed awareness of ongoing professional development, and she stated that she made use of the other participants’ responses to realize some of her biases and provide solutions to the problems she encountered in her classroom. this shows that in addition to pre-service teachers benefitting from the project, in-service teachers also learned from it. the second theme was noticing common concerns with other educators. before the project, some of the participants believed that they were the only ones who had difficulties in coping with the problems related to social justice in their classrooms. while sharing their 16 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com experiences, ideas, and suggestions for the scenarios, they noticed that they were not alone, and these were common concerns of other educators in the project. they found some similarities in terms of social justice issues in their classrooms. for example, in-service teachers had some difficulties in using a common language with refugee students. the teachers did not know arabic and the refugee students did not know turkish or english, so they had some language difficulties during the communication. another example was that the refugee students did not want to engage in the tasks in the classroom and teachers could not find a way to involve them in the activities. there were these kinds of problems for the in-service teachers in our study. they shared their experiences and recommendations with each other and noticed that this was not specific only for their classrooms. at the end of the project, one of the pre-service teachers wrote: figure 2. an excerpt from the edmodo post if educators do not share their experiences with their colleagues, they might encounter the same problems without knowing that they have the same concerns. in the project, they discussed the problems and social justice issues in their classrooms together and noticed that they were not alone. the third theme was self-awareness and self-evaluation. this is one of the most important themes we found in this study. the pre-service and in-service teachers in the project found an opportunity to question their attitudes, biases, and opinions for the refugee students in their classrooms and refugees in the society. it was seen that the activities and weekly tasks created awareness for the participants, and they evaluated their perspectives with the help of other participants’ responses. one of the pre-service teachers acknowledged that: figure 3. an excerpt from the edmodo post 17 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com this participant had a chance to rethink her behaviors, and in the end, she decided to change her perspectives towards injustice and discrimination in her future classroom and her daily life. we argue that these small steps might help reshape other people’s perspectives in the future. as for the final theme, promise for taking action, it was found that the participants were determined to change their behaviors in the future. this was one of the main purposes of the project, which is to encourage teachers and future teachers to take action in their classrooms. once again, most participants promised that they would take action for a better world. in the following quotations from two different participants in the project, we observe that the project had some meaningful impact on our participants’ perspectives of and engagement on social justice issues. figure 4. an excerpt from the edmodo post figure 5. an excerpt from the edmodo post when compared with the social justice standards indicated by the learning for justice group, the qualitative analysis of the data showed that the participants in the project developed knowledge and skills in terms of identity, diversity, and action. they made self-evaluations and accomplished self-awareness. they found some similarities and differences among different individuals, and as the most important point, they decided to take action for maintaining social justice. as we can see in the quotations above, the participants completed the tasks, and gained an awareness that they could take action as teachers; they were the agents who could change the world. discussion and conclusion this study was based on the reports of a project granted by the regional english language office of the us embassy in turkey. the title of the project was supporting teachers’ engagement in pedagogies of social justice (steps). in this project, pre-service teachers from 18 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com five different universities in turkey and in-service teachers from turkey and the us participated in activities on the edmodo platform, which is a learning management system that allows participants to follow tasks asynchronously. the main objectives of the project were to increase intercultural, collaborative, professional learning activities between teachers from the usa and turkey, to develop pre-service and in-service teachers’ intercultural communicative competence, to promote social justice informed pedagogies in k-12 schools through professional development and conversations between teachers from two countries, and to develop teachers as change agents and informed educators who attend to the needs of linguistically and culturally diverse students in their contexts. at the end of the study, we found that the project impacted the perspectives of the participants in a positive way. furthermore, based on the qualitative analysis, four themes emerged from the data: a) learning through sharing and working in collaboration, b) noticing common concerns with other educators, c) self-awareness and self-evaluation, and d) promise for taking action. considering the roles of teachers in a globalized world, teachers are not only responsible for the academic achievement of their learners but also for preparing them as responsible individuals in society (pantić & florian, 2015). therefore, social justice is among the issues that teachers should focus on, and teachers are the ones who could make a difference for their students. in the literature, nieto (2010) stated that teachers should examine their thoughts and attitudes towards others; and in this study, we found that the participants acknowledged that they evaluated themselves, and the project created an awareness for social justice issues. this issue is also related to the standards of the learning for justice research group. one of the social justice standards was identity, and we found the participants could find an opportunity to reflect on their attitudes and opinions on social justice. the most important component of the social justice standards and nieto’s (2010) guidelines was taking action against discrimination, inequalities, prejudices, and stereotypes. knowing the differences, being aware of the inequalities, and being kind to people are not enough for individuals (nieto, 2010). individuals are expected to take action for maintaining social justice. in this study, a theme related to this point emerged promise for taking action. the participants stated that they would be more sensitive to social justice issues in their classrooms and future classrooms, which was the main goal of this project. considering the studies in the literature, it was clear that there is a need for critical pedagogy in teacher education and social justice is among the most important issues that should be touched upon in the curriculum. milner (2017) reported that pre-service teachers were not prepared enough for social justice work. this was parallel with the pre-test results of the survey in this study. before the implementation, the perceived social justice levels of pre-service teachers were lower than after the implementation. it was found that the weekly tasks used in this study contributed to the social justice perceptions of the pre-service teachers. moreover, pugach et al. (2019) mentioned that the inequities are increasing in this global world and one of the reasons for these inequalities is based on the wars that have resulted in increased immigration. in the context of our study, we noticed that pre-service teachers were aware of the fact that there were some students from other nations and this diversity made teaching more 19 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com challenging and demanding. aronson et al. (2020) highlighted the importance of a whole integration of this topic into the curriculum and they suggested reimagining the ways of preparing pre-service teachers. in our study, we integrated social justice related tasks as a project rather than using them as coursework for a single course. teacher educators should understand that a single culture-related course might not be enough to promote social justice for pre-service teachers and that these issues need to be integrated into the whole teacher education curriculum. additionally, pugach et al. (2019) reported that pre-service teachers’ being aware of their own identities and teachers’ understanding of their students’ identities should be the starting point for learning and growth. in this study, we started the tasks with selfintroductions of the participants. then, we continued the tasks with a question “who are your students?” which aimed at creating an awareness for the participants about their students and future students so that they could be prompted to look for the diversity in their classrooms. finally, lucas (2002) and reyes et al. (2021) proposed co-teaching and collaboration to address the question: “how can we promote social justice?”. this was the main framework for our study. we, as the researchers, met from five different universities and designed a virtual exchange project and we invited participants from different regions of turkey and the us. the participants worked in collaboration; they discussed critical topics; designed language teaching materials and shared their posters with other participants. as stated in the literature, these kinds of tasks are important and crucial for understanding each other. conclusion and implications in conclusion, we argue that the intercultural virtual exchange project had positively impacted the participants’ perceptions of and engagement on social justice issues in the classroom as evidenced in the statistically significant survey test results and participants’ selfreported/perceived growth throughout the project. in terms of implications, we argue that the number of virtual exchange projects can be increased so that teachers can find opportunities to meet their colleagues from any region of the world and find some similarities and differences between their contexts and the other teachers’ contexts. teachers should also understand their potential to change the world. the stakeholders of teacher education, such as policy makers, teacher educators, in-service teachers and pre-service teachers should be involved in these projects in the future. we are aware that these critical issues in education can be negotiated through increased communication and the online platforms provide us many opportunities to meet and share our experiences, problems, and solutions to these problems. this kind of virtual intercultural collaborations will positively influence the pre-service and in-service teachers’ perspectives of social justice, who may otherwise not have the chance to meet like-minded colleagues across the world. 20 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com acknowledgements we are thankful to the teachers and teacher candidates who took part in this telecollaboration project in fall 2021 and heather baker for proofreading the manuscript before it was published. we are also grateful to the relo of the us embassy in ankara, turkey, for their generous support of the steps project (# s-tu-150-19-gr-009): supporting teachers’ engagement in pedagogies of social-justice: collaborative project between five universities in turkey and the usa. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b. & yazan, b. 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https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487102053001003 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-005-5614-2 22 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com appendices appendix a: weekly tasks weeks activity details week 1 welcome meeting goal: to introduce participants to the project by sharing its main goals, timeline, tasks, and technological requirements/tools. pre-survey goal: to gather data about participating teachers’ initial perspectives on social justice via a short survey instrument on google forms. small groups meeting once groups are formed, participants will be asked to meet online in their small groups. goal: to ensure that participants have some “face” time to get to know each other individually before they are expected to work on the tasks collaboratively. edmodo post goal: to start a conversation on the relationship between self and culture and reflect on the ways in which cultures concomitantly include and exclude individuals. prompt: introduce yourself. please introduce your daily routines (work, school), your culture, your context? how could you describe the majority cultures in your context and do you feel that you belong to those cultures? discuss why or why not. how could you describe the experiences of people in your context who are marginalized or minoritized in a community or broader society? week 2 guest speaker #1 title: “professional identity development in language teaching”. edmodo post goal: to understand the relationship between teacher identity and student identities and explain its significance for their teaching practice. prompt: who are your students? do you have any background information about your students’ parents, culture? do you think your values are similar to those of your students? are all students/parents equal in your context? do you or your school administrator do something in order to maintain equality among 23 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com the students? do minority students have access to resources equitably? if not, what can you do as a teacher to achieve equitable outcomes for student learning? week 3 guest speaker #2 title: "teaching: servitude or transformation?" sample case for discussion prompt: in the following scenario, how would you react if you were the teacher in the classroom? assuming that you were abdulaziz, could you write a short paragraph about a day of abdulaziz from his point of view (e.g., using i, me, my pronouns)? abdulaziz is a syrian student who immigrated to a small town in turkey. he is accepted to a state school and he is the only syrian student in his class. his native language is arabic and he does not know turkish or english. neither his language teacher, mustafa, nor his classmates know arabic and there is no common language between them. mustafa tried to communicate with abdulaziz several times but the student was not willing to take part in classroom activities. for example, whenever the teacher gives worksheets to the students, abdulaziz takes it and understands nothing. since the teacher had other students, he could not focus on only one student all the time. in time, the teacher gave up trying to communicate and he behaved as if he was not in the classroom. poem the poem “home” written by warsan shire will be shared at the beginning of the week with the participants https://therightsangle.wordpress.com/2018/02/06/home-bywarsan-shire/ edmodo post prompt: do you have any immigrant students in your classroom? do you have any neighbours coming from other countries? has immigration affected you/your life personally? if so, how? have you ever felt marginalized in any context because of your ideas, religion, ethnicity, your behaviors? https://therightsangle.wordpress.com/2018/02/06/home-by-warsan-shire/ https://therightsangle.wordpress.com/2018/02/06/home-by-warsan-shire/ 24 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com week 4 guest speaker #3 title: "trauma informed teaching to promote social justice" sample case for discussion prompt: if you were the teacher in the following scenario, how would you react? what do you think about eduardo’s, nancy’s, and principal’s actions in this situation? nancy is a 4th grade teacher. her student eduardo is an el from el salvador. eduardo has a beginning english level proficiency but is a rising star in math. eduardo takes standardized tests in english. nancy wanted to give him spanish versions, but her principal didn’t allow it. when students were taking the test, eduardo opened his dictionary and looked for a definition for a word. nancy saw this and told him dictionaries weren’t allowed and took the dictionary away since they are not allowed during exams. what do you think about her actions? what would you do if you were eduardo’s teacher? week 5 guest speaker #4 title: 'crossing the ‘border’: what kind of zones can we create for the ‘incomers'? course materials in this week, the participants will be asked to design a course material that could be used in their classrooms/future classrooms as a group work activity. the main objective for the material will be to improve language skills of their learners while creating an awareness about social justice. these course materials (worksheet, reading passage, listening material, short video clips, games, etc.) will be uploaded to a google drive folder and shared with all participants for future use. week 6 one-hour training on how to use canva for designing visual materials before the week starts, a one-hour zoom session on how to use canva will be organized for all participants. one of the coordinators will host this session. the participants will be able to create a poster at the end of this one-hour session. note: this session will be recorded so that some participants who could not join the session for some personal reasons or time zone difference will have the chance to watch it again as needed. moreover, the participants will have to rewatch if they have some technical difficulties while completing the task. 25 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com poster design task this poster design activity will be an individual task. the participants will be asked to design a poster which will be a response to the following prompt. prompt: who am i as the teacher or future teacher of minorities? after the participants create their posters, they will be asked to add a 5-minute voice over on their posters so that each participant will have the chance to present their poster. finally, they will upload them to a google drive folder. edmodo post as for the final edmodo post, the participants will be asked to write a post on the following question. it will also be an evaluation of the project. prompt: what have you learned in the past six weeks? are you planning to change anything for your teaching practices? post-survey the survey on social justice will be administered as the post-survey at the end of the project. closing ceremony this closing ceremony will be organized for all participants. a convenient time will be found and the reflections of the participants on the project will be asked. this activity will be the final task for all participants. this meeting will be recorded and shared with the participants and the us embassy. 26 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com appendix b: social justice survey s tr o n g ly d is a g re e d is a g re e n e u tr a l a g re e s tr o n g ly a g re e id e n t it y 1. i have a positive view of myself, including an awareness of and comfort with my membership in multiple groups in society. 2. i know my family history and cultural background and can describe how my own identity is informed and shaped by my membership in multiple identity groups. 3. i know that all my group identities and the intersection of those identities create unique aspects of who i am and that this is true for other people too. 4. i express pride and confidence in my identity without perceiving or treating anyone else as inferior. 5. i recognize traits of the dominant culture, my home culture and other cultures, and i am conscious of how i express my identity as i move between those spaces. d iv e r s it y 6. i interact comfortably and respectfully with all people, whether they are similar to or different from me. 7. i have the language and knowledge to accurately and respectfully describe how people (including myself ) are both similar to and different from each other and others in their identity groups. 8. i respectfully express curiosity about the history and lived experiences of others and exchange ideas and beliefs in an open-minded way. 9. i relate to and build connections with other people by showing them empathy, respect and understanding, regardless of our similarities or differences. 10. i understand that diversity includes the impact of unequal power relations on the development of group identities and cultures. ju s t ic e 11. i relate to all people as individuals rather than representatives of groups and can identify stereotypes when i see or hear them. 12. i can recognize, describe and distinguish unfairness and injustice at different levels of society. 27 akayoğlu, s., üzüm, b., & yazan, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)1, special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 13. i can explain the short and long-term impact of biased words and behaviors and unjust practices, laws and institutions that limit the rights and freedoms of people based on their identity groups. 14. i am aware of the advantages and disadvantages i have in society because of my membership in different identity groups, and i know how this has affected my life. 15. i can identify figures, groups, events and a variety of strategies and philosophies relevant to the history of social justice around the world. a c t io n 16. i express empathy when people are excluded or mistreated because of their identities and concern when i personally experience bias. 17. i take responsibility for standing up to exclusion, prejudice and injustice. 18. i have the courage to speak up to people when their words, actions or views are biased and hurtful, and i will communicate with respect even when we disagree. 19. i stand up to exclusion, prejudice and discrimination, even when it’s not popular or easy or when no one else does. 20. i will join with diverse people to plan and carry out collective action against exclusion, prejudice and discrimination, and we will be thoughtful and creative in our actions in order to achieve our goals. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). focus on elt focus on elt journal special issue, 4(1), 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: buraktomak@marmara.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. language learning strategies used by the turkish efl learners to improve their reading skill burak tomak dr. lecturer, marmara university, turkey, buraktomak@marmara.edu.tr apa citation: tomak, b. (2022). language learning strategies used by the turkish efl learners to improve their reading skill. focus on elt journal, 4(1), 142-160. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.10 abstract this study investigated strategies of the learners who started their learning process from a1 level to improve their reading skill. 10 different students were chosen considering their range of learner profiles. thus, 3 of them were chosen from high-achievers, whereas 3 of them were chosen among low-achievers. the other 4 students were among the ones whose success level was on average. these students were interviewed at the end of the first term when they were supposed to complete the a2 level. additionally, they were taken to think-aloud-protocols right after the interviews to evaluate their reading performance and to monitor what kind of strategies they were using to do the tasks given to them and to check whether they were doing what they had said in the interviews. the same procedure, which included the interviews and think-aloud protocols, were applied at the end of the second semester. it was found that in the second term the hardworking group changed the strategies that they had been using in the first term, changes in learners’ responsibilities whereas there seemed to be no change in the strategies used by the other group members. . keywords language learning strategies, language development, linguistic competence, reading strategies, a1 levels article history received : 19.10.2021 revised : 13.12.2021 accepted : 18.12.2021 published : 04.04.2022 type research article introduction the changes in the language classroom and the philosophy of language teaching and learning require learners to think about their own learning process and take over the responsibility of it. the focus on individual learners and the choices they make as well as the responsibilities that they have to take have all been a pervasive influence on language learning and teaching for more than three decades (brindley, 1989; holec, 1981, 1987; holec et al., 1996; nunan, 1988; rubin, 1975; tudor, 1996). these new trends in the field which make individual learners more responsible for their own learning have led to individual language learning. white (2008) has come up with some of its principles: optimizing or extending learner choice, focusing on the needs of individual learners, not the interests of a teacher or an institution, and the diffusion of decision-making to learners. thus, independent language learning means more learnercentered language learning which pays attention to the needs and right of language learners. they should be provided with the options considering their needs, preferences and the language level so that they will be able to make their own choices for on their learning as mailto:buraktomak@marmara.edu.tr mailto:buraktomak@marmara.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.1.10 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6678-431x tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 143 anderson and garrison (1998) have suggested. therefore, dickinson (1994) argues that the most effective way of creating such an independent language learning environment is for the teachers to get their learners think about their needs and the objectives that they have to accomplish. when learners think about their needs, they will decide upon their own choices that will bring the success that they have been seeking for. thus, good language learners should be the one that makes up his/her mind to find the right path that will take him/her to the goals that s/he has set in his/her mind. chapelle and roberts (1986) assert that good language learners are more flexible so they can make some adaptations in terms of their learning style to fit a learning task or purpose, while poor language learners rigidly refuse to change their learning styles, no matter what the task or purpose is. as learners become more independent in their language learning journey, this might mean that they will be more autonomous. however, there is a slight difference between these two terms. little (1991) thinks that autonomy emphasizes interdependence over independence. dickinson (1994) makes a sharp distinguishment between these two concepts. he relates independence to responsibility of one’s own learning whereas autonomy requires a person to learn alone. littlewood (1997) defines autonomy as “an ability to operate independently with the language and use it to communicate personal meanings in real, unpredictable situations” (p. 81). thus, this means that students should be studying more independently to be an autonomous learner. in this study, it was investigated what learners were doing to improve their reading and writing skills taking over the responsibility of their own learning with the help of the learning strategies that they had been using. learning strategies the importance of learning strategies has become more apparent as learners are now more responsible for their own learning process. peculea and bocos (2015) elaborate on the significance of learning strategies by saying: the interest of education in learning strategies has increased due to the innovative concept of competencies; in fact, the strategies are considered part of the resources that the student should engage in order to put in practice the competences. the learning to learn ability that is to become autonomous, independently in the learning is often valorized in the pedagogy of competencies (p.16). according to weinstein et al. (2000), learning strategies are “any thought, behaviors, beliefs, or emotions that facilitate the acquisition, understanding, or later transfer of new knowledge and skills” (p. 727). thus, learning strategies, plans or steps taken in an organized way, facilitate learning and they can be considered as a psychological gateway to l2 learner autonomy (dickinson, 1992; littlewood, 1996; oxford, 1990; wenden, 1991). it is necessary for learners who can be identified as “autonomous students” to do self-evaluation, organization, goal-setting, planning, information-seeking, record-keeping, self-monitoring, environmental structuring, giving oneself consequences for performance, rehearsing, memorizing, seeking social assistance, and reviewing (zimmerman & martinez-pons, 1988, 1990). learning strategies are a good indication for whether the learner is autonomous or not but if the learners are using the strategies just to pass tests or exams instead of learning tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 144 the language or as a tool to facilitate their learning language, it means that they are not using learning strategies in the deep sense (oxford, 2008). learning strategies cannot be thought in that simple way. they are the clues that show learners the path that they will follow and gain the benefits in the long run. as long as they make use of the strategies in an efficient way, the strategies will have an effect on their language performance, achievement, proficiency, and autonomy beliefs (o’malley & chamot, 1990; oxford & ehrman, 1995; pressley & woloshyn, 1995). therefore, it is really vital for learners to better able to make use of learning strategies in language learning process. they can learn strategies with strategy training that can be given by their teachers so that they will improve their sense of agency, self-efficacy judgments, motivation, confidence, and l2 performance (chamot & o’malley, 1996; chamot et al., 1999; dadour & robbins, 1996; oxford & leaver, 1996). the efficient use of strategies has a significant effect on the improvement of language skills like reading and writing so that they are in a way interconnected. the purpose of the study this study was conducted to determine the strategies used by the turkish efl learners who started their language learning from a1 (beginner) level and whether the strategies used by different learner profiles worked well as for the development of their reading skill. this study aims to answer these questions: 1) what strategies did learners that started from a1 level use to improve their reading skill at the initial stage of their learning process? 2) what strategies did learners use in and out of their class time to improve their reading skill compared to their real performance in think-aloud tests? 3) was there any change in the strategies that they had used through the months as they developed their linguistic competence? 4) was there any difference between the different learner profiles in terms of the strategies chosen to develop language skills? methodology research design when all the data collection process is considered, this study is based on a qualitative design examining a case by means of a rich repertoire of data collection. gall et al. (2003) define case study research as “the in-depth study of instances of a phenomenon in its natural context and from the perspective of the participants involved in the phenomenon” (p. 545). in other words, a case study researcher does fieldwork by watching people in their own territory and interacting with them in their own language in their own natural settings. this study targeted students at a certain language level in a certain institution so the focal point was a1 english language learners in a state university at the school of foreign languages, which made this study a case study at the same time. according to yin (1994), case studies “investigate a contemporary phenomenon within its real context when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident and in which multiple sources of evidence are used” (p.23). hitchcock and hughes (1995) suggest that “the case study approach is particularly valuable when the researcher has little control over events” (p. 322). however, according to shaughnessy et al. (2003), this might lead to a problem because treatments in case studies tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 145 can rarely be controlled systematically. what is more, it is difficult to make inferences and draw conclusions from case studies. thus, they claim that the participant researcher may overstate or understate the case. however, bailey (1994) disagrees with their ideas stating that participant observation contributes positively to the case study because of several reasons. first of all, a participant observer can notice what is going around in the contextual setting which is one of the significant parts of the case studies. secondly, as case studies require extended period of time, researchers have the chance to develop more intimate and informal relationships with the participants in their own natural environment where the research has been conducted. last but not the least, a participant observer has the possibility and the opportunity to reach the participants easily and notice the slight changes that come out during the data collection process, which cannot be achieved by an outsider. study group the participants of this study were the learners who started their language learning in the school of foreign languages in one of the state universities located in istanbul (turkey) from a1 level. these students were the ones chosen from the a1 level, which means they started the program with beginner level. they were also chosen from the ones who would get 100 % english medium instruction in their departments if they passed the proficiency final exam because their program was denser and more intensive than the program of the ones whose departments provided 30 % english medium instruction. with regard to all the a1 level students who took part in this study by filling in the questionnaires given by the researcher to be able to collect the quantitative data of this research, there were 10 students who were chosen among the 169 students according to the results of the questionnaire. the focus of this study was on these ten student participants so they will be given more concentration on this paper excluding the ones who participated in the questionnaire which was used as a tool to choose the participants of this study. these ten students were categorized into three groups in accordance with their questionnaire results. strategy inventory for language learning (sill) was used as a questionnaire for this categorization. (oxford, & burry-stock, 1995). this questionnaire was distributed to 169 students and the frequencies of the questionnaire results were used to divide the participants into three groups considering the averages that they got from the questionnaires. thus, three of them were the ones whose results were above the average of the total 169 students, three of them were chosen from the ones whose averages were below the total students and the other four of them were chosen from the ones whose results were almost the same as the general average of the whole students. therefore, the categories of the participant students will be like this respectively: higher average group, which will be named as ha; below average group, which will be named as ba; and average group, which will be named as a. therefore, due to the anonymity reasons, the real names of the participants will not be given but instead they will be introduced to the reader with codes like a1, ha1, ba1. research instruments and procedure two different data collection instruments were used for the purpose of this study: interviews and think-aloud protocols. tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 146 the interviews the interview questions were written by the researcher depending on the results of students’ questionnaires. the interview questions were semi-structured because, as merriam (1998) stated, this format “allows the researcher to respond to the situation at hand, to the emerging worldview of the respondent, and to new ideas on the topic” (p. 74). therefore, the participants felt themselves free to state their opinions on the question with a certain framework on which the question was created. gall et al. (2003) also verify this by saying “in qualitative research the interview format is not tightly structured because the researcher’s target is to make respondents feel free to express their view of a phenomenon in their own terms” (p. 239). thus, the researchers did their best to make the interviewees to tell all the things related to the research topic so as to be able to gather as many data as possible. it was really important for the students to understand what was asked to them in the interviews. schellings (2011) warns that students tend to choose neutral responses to the questions unless they understand them properly so that they will be able to avoid replying inaccurately from their perspective. berger and karabenick also (2016) point out that students will touch upon different perspectives of the issue that has been asked to them as long as the items of the questionnaires are either vague or too large. therefore; during the interviews, it was assured that every item was understood well by the students and when there was a confusion or misunderstanding from the participants’ side, everything was explained in detail by the researcher especially some of the terms that might be unfamiliar for the learners. the interviews were conducted in students’ mother language, which is turkish to make them feel free to express themselves well. all these interviews were recorded so as to be transcribed by the researcher later for the easier analysis of the data. there were two different interviews that had been arranged with all these ten different students. the first interviews were organized after the questionnaire results were evaluated by a software program and the average of the target groups was calculated. after this analysis, interview questions were written considering the aim of this research as well as the contextual case and the items in the questionnaire. after the interview questions were written, they were shown to some other academics so that some of them could be edited to make them clearer and directly related to the purpose of this study. after this feedback, the interview questions were shown to a colleague of the researcher to check the comprehensibility and whether the questions were clear enough and serving for the purpose of the study. as soon as the researcher had got the feedback of the colleague, the interview questions were ready to apply. however, before the application of the whole interviews, one student was needed for piloting the interview questions. as these questions were piloted with one academic, a different perspective, especially from the students’ side was also required. one of the students, whose questionnaire result was equal to the general average of the target group, was chosen and asked whether he would be a volunteer to participate in this study. he accepted the offer and he was asked the questions so as to check whether there were any problems with them. this first interview was done for piloting the interview questions and the process as well. during the interview, the student also stated the points where he found misleading and confusing so that the researcher could correct those unclear parts of the interview questions. tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 147 the first interview went well and the researcher also gained some experience about the ongoing of the interviews that would be held with the other participants. the interview of this participant student (a2) was also included in the data and the analysis of it was also taken seriously because the researcher did not want to lose this valuable data so he did not throw it away. then the other interviews were also conducted successfully with other participant students. the first interviews were done just before the end of first semester when the participants were about to finish their a2 level learning process. the participants were interviewed after their classes had finished so they were not taken from the lessons so they were done out of their class time. they were invited to an empty class where there was no one but the researcher and the interviewee so there was no interruption, either. each interview with 10 different participants lasted almost from 40 to 60 minutes. the participants in higher average group talked more than the other two groups. the participants under below average category talked less than the others. the second interviews were conducted three weeks before the end of the second (spring) semester when they were going to take the final exam. it was difficult for the researcher to arrange these interviews as it was close to the end of the academic year and some students were not attending the school regularly because it was almost near the end of the academic year and students who had the absenteeism right were using them. however, as the researcher had the participant observer, he was able to arrange all the interviews some of which were done outside the campus because of some participants who were not coming to school any more. however, there was a logical reason for the time of the second interviews even though they might seem to be arranged late. when these second interviews were done, the participants were supposed to be b1 levels and they were expected to be b2 in the final exam that they would take in the following three weeks so the final exam was the chance for them to show their language proficiency. thus, these interviews were done at that time to serve the purpose of this study which was longitudinal. the second interview questions were written in accordance with the data collected by means of the first interviews and considering the process that the learners had gone through all those months when they were trying to develop their language level. the questions were prepared and shown to another researcher and a colleague so as not to lead to any misunderstanding from the participants’ side. after the piloting of the questions with an academic, the initial interview of the second interviews was done with the student coded as “a2” for piloting reasons so as to check the flow of the whole interview and to determine any flaws that might come out so that they would be corrected for the following interviews. everything went well in that interview with a2 so it was also included in the data that were going to be analyzed just like the first one. the durations of the second interviews lasted between 20 and 90 minutes. the participants who were in higher average group talked more than others just like the first interviews whereas the students in below average category talked the least among others. think-aloud protocols think aloud protocols are also called as “verbal protocols” (ericsson & simon, 1993), which are defined by kasper and roever (2005) as “respondents' reports of internal cognitive processes that occur as they are working on a task (concurrent verbal protocols) or their recollections of processes after the task has been completed (consecutive verbal protocols)” tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 148 (p.329). it is a kind of flow that shows the inside of the learners’ brains, what comes to their minds at the time of the task given to them. think-aloud protocols was an efficient way to collect data for the purpose of this study because students were given a certain task and asked how to handle it or how to sort it out. the responses were valuable in terms of the strategies that they were using in order to develop their skills in english language. these think-aloud protocols revealed a solid example of what they were doing in terms of language learning strategy uses and this also gave a bright picture of what they were doing to improve themselves in terms of their linguistic competence. zimmerman (2008) confirms that “think-aloud methodology is an effective way to assess students’ self-regulatory processes online, but this research needs to be extended to see if planning and motivation will emerge as significant predictors of students’ mental models” (p. 173). thus, think-aloud protocols are important ways to measure how students use the self-regulated learning strategies that are used to learn a language, which is the primary purpose of this study. veenman (2005) also agrees the efficiency of think-aloud protocols when they are compared to the questionnaires. one of the most important advantages of think-aloud protocols is that it provides the participants with only small amount of time between the thought and its articulation so the shared thoughts that come to their mind while performing a task are more accurate and less subject to “embellishment or decay of information” (pressley & afflerbach, 1995) than other more structured self-report methods just like questionnaires which had been already applied for the purpose of this study. by applying think-aloud protocols, there won’t be any data loss because the participant students had to say what came to their minds during the task given to them. another important benefit that think-aloud protocols provide the researchers is that they have the potential to sustain the information on context and strategy use as well as cognitive and affective processes (afflerbach, 2000). however, it is really difficult for the students to do a certain task and share the opinions that come to his/her mind with the researcher simultaneously. ericsson and simon (1980) suggest selecting tasks that are a little bit complex and difficult for the learner so that they will not be able to say something automatically because the complicated tasks will require them to think first and say what they do. in spite of such difficulties and possible weaknesses, oxford and burry-stock (1995) exclaim that that “think-aloud protocols offer the most detailed information of all because the student describes strategies while doing a language task” (p.2). with the help of think-aloud protocols, the researchers tried to determine the strategies that learners used to improve their language. in order to do this, one of the researchers gave the participants a particular task and wanted them to handle it. the participant student told the researcher how s/he completed the task and the whole process, which gave the researcher an idea about the learning strategies that these students had used. ericsson (2006) points out that a think-aloud protocol contains students’ reports about their own thoughts and cognitive processes while they are carrying out a task. for this study the think alouds were shaped in accordance with the pilot study conducted by hurd (2008). in this study, there was a reading test with three different comprehension questions. by doing the task, students were required to tell the researcher the strategies that they used while they were completing the tasks given to them. this was carried out twice during the whole academic year. there were not any think aloud protocols for the speaking and listening skills since kasper and roever (2005) have mentioned as limitation of think aloud protocols researcher should “exclude spoken tasks because participants cannot produce task-related talk and verbal protocol talk at the same time” (p. 329). what is more, tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 149 roever (2005) articulates that students should be given the chance to choose the language in which s/he will express himself/herself while s/he is doing the think aloud protocol tasks. thus, even if the tasks are required to do in english language, students can express themselves in their mother tongue. therefore, here in this research students were allowed to speak in their mother tongue, turkish, to tell what came to their minds while they were doing the tasks given to them and all of them used turkish to express themselves during the thinkaloud protocols. the first think-aloud protocols were applied to students just after the first interviews had been done right before the end of the first (fall) semester when they were about to finish their a2 level. in accordance with their language level, a reading text which was for a2 level learners were chosen by the researcher and given for these participants along with five reading comprehension questions. all of the questions were multiple-choice, which made it easier for the participants to solve them all. thereby, they did not need to write down long sentences so as to answer the questions as the options were already available. the students were required to read the passage and do the comprehension questions while they were telling what they were thinking in their minds to do the questions. after they had finished the reading task, the researcher asked them what they would do if they were given this task as an assignment that should be done at home later. the participants talked about what and how they would do at home. the second think aloud protocols were also prepared by one of the researchers. they were applied just after the second interviews two weeks before the final exam. one reading text was chosen in accordance with the language level of the learners which was expected to be b1 at the time of the protocol that was applied to them. a reading passage which was taken from a magazine, which made it an authentic one, was given to the participants along with three comprehension questions. all these three questions were with multiple choices but the reading passage itself was a challenging one because the language level of the learners was higher than the time when the first think-aloud protocols were applied. what is more, the students were going to take a final two weeks after the second think aloud protocols so they would be a good exercise for them to get aware of the difficulty that they were going to face in the final so that they would get prepared for it accordingly. again, firstly the second think-aloud protocols were initiated with the participant coded as “a2” for piloting reasons to check whether everything would go well. the data collected from a2 were also included for the analysis. in the same way as the first thinkaloud protocols right after the students had done the reading task of the second think-aloud protocols they were asked what and how they would do it at home later. data analysis in order to better analyze the data collected via interviews and think-aloud protocols, all the recordings that were made with the permission of the participants during the interviews and think-aloud protocols were transcribed by one of the researchers himself because of the confidentiality agreement between the researcher and the participants. the researcher who made the interviews tried to find some different categories from what the participants had shared with the researcher. gall et al. (2003) defined a category as “a construct that refers to a certain type of phenomenon mentioned in the database” (p. 454). these categories which were found by the researcher were sent to the other researcher along with the transcriptions which did not include any names of the participants so as to keep their tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 150 anonymity for member-checking purposes, which requires “the researcher to ask one or more participants in the study to check the accuracy of the account” (creswell, 2011, p. 259). she also read the transcriptions and the categories that were created by her research partner to assure that they were relevant and made sense for the purpose of the study. the researcher who made the interviews and think-aloud protocols also met with some of the participant students during the data analysis process for member-checking purposes so as to give these students the chance to change, clarify and elaborate more on what they had said in the interviews. these member checks contribute a lot to the accurate reflection of the participants beliefs on the findings of the study (merriam, 1998). there were also some subcategories under each category created by the researcher to make the findings of this study clearer for the reader. this was done so as to better relate the findings to the purpose of the study and the research questions. these categories and subcategories were also checked by another academic so as to increase the inter-rater reliability of the data. findings students were asked what kind of strategies they used for reading both in the class and out of class during the first (fall) and the second (spring) term. their responses were shown in different categories according to the three different groups in which the participants were divided so table 1 shows the answers of the average group participants. table 1. strategies used by average group participants for reading skill development participants a1 first term class synonyms, structures, grammar, vocabulary home no second term class synonyms, structures, grammar, vocabulary home no a2 first term class scanning, vocabulary, synonym home no second term class scanning, vocabulary, synonym home no a3 first term class synonyms, structures, grammar, vocabulary home synonyms, structures, revising vocabulary second term class synonyms, structures, grammar, revising vocabulary home synonym, grammar, vocabulary a4 first term class synonym, structures, reference home no second term class structures, synonyms, format of the text home reference, structures, synonyms as it can be seen from table 1, the participants in the average group focused on the structural pattern of the reading passages more such as vocabulary, synonyms, structures but they did tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 151 not use any learning strategy to focus on the meaning of the text such as skimming and scanning. what is more, most of the participants except from a3 said that they did not do reading exercises when they were back at home so the only place that they concentrated on reading was within the class time. additionally, it was shown on the table 1 that they did not change the strategies that they had used for reading in the first term even when their language level improved in the second term so they used the same strategies. these participants also had the think-aloud protocols both in the first (fall) term and the second (spring) term so as to determine what they were doing in the reading. by doing so, the researcher had the chance to observe what kind of strategies they were using at the first hand. after each think-aloud process was over, the researcher asked them what they would do if they were given that reading text at home as an assignment. table 2 shows what they did in the think aloud protocols prepared by the researcher and what they would do with the same reading task if they were given at home. table 2. strategies used by average group during the think aloud sessions the strategies that they used a1 first term class reading the text first, trying to find the answers considering the questions, not detailed reading, some unknown words in the text result 2 correct out of 5 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (bilingual), detailed reading second term class reading the questions, 80 % of unknown words in the passage, trying to find the answer associating the familiar words result 0 out of 3 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (bilingual), detailed reading a2 first term class reading the questions first, trying to find the answer from the options given by looking for it in the text result 2 correct out of 5 questions home the same strategies as the ones used in class second term class reading the questions first, trying to find the answer from the options given by looking for it in the text result 2 correct out of 3 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (bilingual), detailed reading a3 first term class reading the questions, underlining some important words such as without, only while reading, trying to find the answers considering the questions result 1 correct out of 5 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (bilingual), detailed reading, focusing on the structures second term class reading the text, found it difficult in terms of vocabulary and grammar, too many unknown words, couldn’t understand the text well, trying to find the answers considering the questions result 1 correct out of 3 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (bilingual), detailed reading, focusing on the structures a4 first term class reading the text first, found the questions difficult, having a look at the text again, trying to find the answers considering the questions result 3 correct out of 5 questions tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 152 home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (bilingual), detailed reading second term class reading the text, found it difficult in terms of vocabulary and grammar, too many unknown words, couldn’t understand the text well, trying to find the answers considering the questions result 2 correct out of 3 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (bilingual), detailed reading it may seem from table 2 that all the average group participants started the think-aloud sessions by reading the text first both in the first and the second think-alouds arranged at the end of the first and second term respectively. all of them wanted to find the find the correct answers of the questions by trying to associate the words that were given in the options of the questions with the ones that existed in the reading passage. what was interesting was that all of the participants except from a2 found the reading text given in the second think-aloud protocols quite difficult and they could not perform as well as they did in the first think-aloud protocols as they all said they could not comprehend the text well enough to be able to answer the questions properly. this might be because of their language level which did not reach the level expected from them. when they were asked about what they would do if that text was given to them as homework, all of them said they would look up the unknown words in the dictionaries that would give the turkish equivalences of the words that they did not know. they did not change this strategy and they said the same thing in the second think aloud sessions as well. when it comes to the participants in the higher average group, they were also asked about what kind of strategies they were using for reading both in the class and out of their class time. table 3 summarizes what they said. table 3. strategies used by higher average group participants for reading skill development participants ha1 first term class skimming, scanning, vocabulary home skimming, scanning, vocabulary (detail) second term class skimming, scanning, format of the text, vocabulary home skimming, scanning, vocabulary (detail) ha2 first term class skimming, scanning, finding key words home detailed reading, vocabulary second term class skimming, scanning, finding key words home detailed reading, vocabulary (detail) ha3 first term class skimming, scanning, structures, synonyms home no second term class skimming, scanning, structures, synonyms home skimming, scanning, vocabulary (detail) tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 153 from table 3 it can be understood that in contrary to their peers in the average group who focused mostly on the structural part of the language in readings without showing much focus on the meaning, the participants in the higher average group said they did skimming and scanning to get the main idea of the text and to focus on the details such as numbers and dates respectively both in the class and out of class time. they also gave importance to vocabulary and they all said that they were trying to make sentences with the new words that they had learned from the reading passages that they were analyzing at home. they were using “cognitive” strategy by “practising” (wang & pape, 2005) as shown in table 2. thus, they were trying to activate their vocabulary knowledge by studying reading as well. these participants also experienced the think-aloud process for the researcher to determine what they were doing during the reading text analysis in real world. table 3 shows what they did during the think-aloud protocols both in the first term and the second term. they were also asked what they would do if they were given these reading texts as homework. table 4 shows the think-aloud results for the reading skill from the perspective of the higher average participants. table 4. strategies used by higher average group during the think aloud sessions the strategies that they used ha1 first term class reading the questions first, trying to find the key words in the text directly related to the questions, skimming, scanning result 5 correct out of 5 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (monolingual), detailed reading second term class reading the questions first, trying to find the key words in the text directly related to the questions, skimming and scanning result 1 out of 3 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (monolingual), trying to guess the meanings first ha2 first term class reading the questions first, trying to find the key words in the text directly related to the questions, skimming, scanning, almost no unknown words result 5 correct out of 5 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (monolingual),taking notes of some advanced words in the text second term class reading the questions first, trying to find the key words in the text directly related to the questions, skimming, scanning, guessing the meanings of unknown words result 3 correct out of 3 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (monolingual),taking notes of some advanced words in the text ha3 first term class reading the questions first, trying to find the key words in the text directly related to the questions, skimming, scanning, guessing the meanings of unknown words result 2 correct out of 5 questions tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 154 home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (monolingual),taking notes of some advanced words in the text second term class reading the questions first, trying to find the key words in the text directly related to the questions, skimming, scanning, guessing the meanings of unknown words result 2 correct out of 3 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (bilingual), detailed reading, focusing on the structures, synonym writing during the think aloud sessions, the participants in the higher average group read the questions of the passage first and then they started to read the text contrary to their peers in the average group who read the text first and tried to answer the questions. they also made use of skimming and scanning strategies in the think-aloud protocols as they stated in the interviews. all of them tried to catch the key words in the reading passage that would make the answer explicit and they did this with the help of skimming and scanning strategies. what is more, they used “guessing the meaning of unknown words from context” strategy which was not used by their peers in the average group. the participants in the higher average group also used almost the same strategies in the second think-aloud protocols as they did in the first ones. they just added one more strategy which was “guessing the meaning of the unknown words”. this was because they did not come across many unknown words in the reading text given to them in the first term but in the second think-aloud protocols as the level of the language had risen, they felt the need to make an addition to the strategies that they had already been using. this also showed that they could find the appropriate strategy that suited their needs. thus, they performed much better than their peers in the average group in the second think-aloud protocols in which the difficulty level of the reading text was much higher. in contrast to their peers in the average group who said that they found it difficult to comprehend the text in the second think-aloud sessions, the ones in the higher average group did not have such complaints. when they were asked about what they would do with the reading texts given to them in the think-aloud protocols as homework, they said they would do detailed reading with them trying to find the meaning of the unknown words from monolingual dictionaries that would provide them with the definition in english along with sample sentences that would give them an idea about how to use those words. thus, this choice also made them different from the other participants in other categories. when it comes to the participants in the below average group, they were also asked about what kind of strategies they were using for reading both in the class and out of their class time. table 5 summarizes what they said. tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 155 table 5. strategies used by below average group participants for reading skill development participants ba1 first term class scanning home no second term class scanning, structures home no ba2 first term class vocabulary, structure home no second term class vocabulary, structure home no ba3 first term class structure, synonym home no second term class structure, synonym home no table 5 shows that all the participants in the below average group except from ba1 just focused on improving their lexical knowledge of the language when they were dealing with a reading text. they did not pay attention to any other contextual skills that they might need when analyzing a reading text such as skimming and scanning. also, it can easily be noticed that they did not change the strategies that they had been using in the first (fall) term when they were asked about them in the second (spring) term. another important point that should be taken into account was that they all did not do any reading exercises at home both in the first (fall) term and second (spring) term so as to be able to use strategies. these participants were also taken to think-aloud process by researcher so as to be able to observe what they were doing while they were analyzing a reading text at first hand. table 6 shows what they did during the think-aloud protocols both in the first (fall) term and the second (spring) term. they were also asked what they would do if they were given these reading texts as homework. table 6 shows the think-aloud results for the reading skill from the perspective of the below average participants. table 6. strategies used by below average group during the think aloud sessions the strategies that they used ba1 first term class reading the text first, trying to find the answers considering the questions result 4 correct out of 5 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (bilingual) second term class reading the text, 80 % of unknown words in the passage, no comprehension result 0 out of 3 questions tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 156 home no ba2 first term class reading the text first, trying to find the key words in text to find the answer, couldn’t understand the question, unknown words result 1 correct out of 5 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (bilingual) second term class reading the text, 80 % of unknown words in the passage, no comprehension result 0 correct out of 3 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (bilingual) ba3 first term class reading the questions, reading the text paragraph by paragraph, translating the sentences in his mind, many unknown words, trying to find the answers considering the questions result 2 correct out of 5 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (bilingual), detailed reading, focusing on the structures second term class reading the text, found it difficult in terms of vocabulary and grammar, too many (80 %) unknown words, no comprehension result 0 correct out of 3 questions home looking up the unknown words in the dictionary (bilingual), using translation applications to understand the text it might seem clear from table 6 that the strategies that they used during the first think-aloud protocols were almost the same as the ones used by their peers in the average group. this might be because of the fact that the difference between the average group and the below average group was not that high until the end of the first (fall) semester in terms of their language level. similarly, they started to read the text first before having a look at the questions and they did their best to reach the correct answer considering the question types and taking the options given to them into account by trying to find the familiar words in the passage. in the second think-aloud protocols, none of them could even answer one single question accurately. all of them could not comprehend the text in the second think-aloud properly because its difficulty level was much higher than their level. they all said that the text was full of words that they did not know the meanings of, which prevented them from comprehending it and answering the questions. thus, this showed that they could not keep up with the pace of the curriculum. when they were asked about what they would do if they were given these texts given in both first and second think-aloud sessions, they all said that they would look up the unknown words in bilingual dictionary that would provide them with the turkish equivalence of the words. they talked about the same strategy for the text that they did not understand at all in the second think-aloud. thus, they believed that they would understand the text well as long as they knew the meanings of the words because nobody in this group said that they would have a look at the grammar structures so as to better understand the passage. participant instructors were also asked whether they taught the students any reading strategy in the class and all of them said that they focused on several strategies that could facilitate their reading analysis such as skimming, scanning, vocabulary formation, synonym finding, reference and guessing the meaning of the unknown words from the contexts. this means that the instructors were providing the students with the strategies that they might need but some of them acquired them but some of them did not. tomak, b. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(1), special issue focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 157 conclusions and suggestions the strategies used by the higher average group participants stand out because they analyze the reading text in depth both structurally and meaningfully. they watch out for synonyms and different structures used in the text both to understand it and to use them later in their writing and speaking tasks in addition to strategies that they use to figure out the whole reading texts such as skimming and scanning that will help them save time to answer the comprehension questions. marton and säljö (1976) modify these strategies as “deep” for reading skill. however, the participants in the average group either use skimming and scanning or look for the synonyms and structures that will help them understand the text. these were all observed by the researcher during the think-aloud protocols as well. also, the participants in the higher average group state that they do reading practice out of the class time by focusing on the text and analyzing every bit of it whereas the participants in below average group and average group do not read out of their class time so the only time they are exposed to reading texts is during the class time, which is not enough to improve themselves in terms of academic reading for their departments within a short period of time which lasts eight months for preparatory school students. thus, students should be encouraged by their instructors to do reading out of their class time and they should do it with deep analysis so as to benefit from a text as much as possible by using both structural strategies such as looking out for synonyms and structures and strategies applied for meaning such as skimming and scanning. even though the focus of the reading lessons should be on comprehension of the text, vocabulary and grammar awareness of the students can be raised. students should be encouraged to use dictionaries and grammar books all the time. although students can be triggered by their teachers to guess the meaning of the unknown words in the text, they should look them up in the dictionaries in the lessons as the texts are covered for learning purposes in the lessons. however, they can use that strategy in the exams in which they are not allowed to use dictionaries. schmitt (1997) thinks that the strategy of guessing the meanings from the context is nor subordinated to looking the words up in the dictionaries in language learning. what is more, ahmed (1989) claims that good language learners can use both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries as effectively as possible. thus, teachers should encourage learners to use these two different dictionary kinds effectively instead of imposing them on the use of one type of it. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. acknowledgement this study was conducted for the doctoral dissertation of the author under the supervision of prof. dr. gölge seferoğlu who contributed a lot to this research with her wisdom, guidance, experience and expertise in this field. thus, it is an hour to state many thanks to her for everything she has done. references afflerbach, p. 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(1990). student differences in self-regulated learning: relating grade, sex, and giftedness to self-efficacy and strategy use. journal of educational psychology, 82, 51-59. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.82.1.51 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.82.1.51 focus on elt journal vol 4, issue 2, 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: thaole@ctu.edu.vn copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. efl teachers’ perceptions of professional development activities and their effects in a non-anglosphere context aduy binh nguyen bhai quan nguyen cthanh thao le aenglish teacher, diep minh chau high school, ben tre, vietnam, binhm1618003@gstudent.ctu.vn blecturer, can tho university, can tho, vietnam, nhquan@ctu.edu.vn clecturer, can tho university, can tho, vietnam, thaole@ctu.edu.vn apa citation: nguyen, d. b., nguyen, h. q., & le, t. t. (2022). efl teachers’ perceptions of professional development activities and their effects in a non-anglosphere context. focus on elt journal, 4(2), 70-86. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.5 abstract providing teachers with adequate professional development (pd) is a central tenet to enhance education quality. in vietnam, despite the blossoming of pd activities promoted over the past decade, the central question of how effectively these existing activities facilitate changes in teachers’ practice has been underresearched. this mixed-method study responded to the scarcity in understanding the effectiveness of pd activities in the vietnamese setting by employing a questionnaire administered to 80 high school teachers and six semi-structured interviews. evidence from the questionnaire and interviews revealed that efl teachers participated in pd activities on an occasional basis. institution-internal or in-house professional activities were most common, while joining a professional affiliation such as a tesol association was the rarest. also, pd activities have positively reinforced the teachers’ language proficiency, teaching practice, and planning practical lessons to meet students’ learning needs. the discussions and recommendations are made for enhancing the quality of pd activities. keywords professional development, efl teachers’ perceptions, non-anglosphere country article history received :04.02.2022 revised :22.04.2022 accepted :13.06.2022 published :30.06.2022 type research article introduction over the past ten years, the vietnamese ministry of education and training (moet) has put massive efforts into the improvement of education through numerous reforms and initiatives implemented at both national and provincial levels. language teaching and learning has also undergone essential innovations in compliance with this trend with the revised curricula and new textbook series. the costly national foreign language 2020 project could be a typical example of the vietnamese government’s strong commitment to boost the learning outcomes achieved by learners across different education levels. yet, in any reforms, teachers inevitably play a central role, for they are the ones that execute the demanded standards in the classroom (helmer et al., 2011; thao & mai, 2022). in other words, the success of such ambitious educational reforms depends mainly on teachers’ qualifications and teaching performance. this, in turn, places a strong emphasis on the quality of teacher training programs offered to mailto:thaole@ctu.edu.vn mailto:binhm1618003@gstudent.ctu.vn mailto:nhquan@ctu.edu.vn mailto:thaole@ctu.edu.vn https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.5 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8471-8305 le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 71 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com pre-service teachers and professional development (pd) programs that in-service teachers can access. an extensive body of literature has strongly supported the value of pd activities. knapp (2003), for instance, maintains that pd is closely linked to the improvement in teaching since such opportunities enable teachers to update professional knowledge and skills. given the everrising expectations from key stakeholders, including policymakers, parents, and learners, securing chances for obtaining up-to-date expertise is of crucial importance if teachers wish to stay employable as well as competently need the ever-growing demands of the society (e.g., guskey, 2002; borko, 2004; mann, 2005; phan et al., 2018; roemer, 2021). in other words, the higher the social requirements are, the more efl teachers need to be involved in pd activities. in this sense, attending pd activities ultimately contributes to teacher pd and helps them achieve career sustainability. teachers’ attitudes towards and motivation for participating in teacher training have been discussed in previous studies (e.g., brisk, 1998; karabenick & noda, 2004). teachers' attitudes and professional knowledge are equally essential to provide students who have different learning styles with high-quality instructions (brisk, 1998). according to karabenick and noda (2004), teachers’ attitudes remarkably affect their motivation for promoting their students’ learning motives and achievements. in addition, teachers’ attitudes towards english teaching and learning significantly affect their desire to partake in pd activities in order to better their students’ learning outcomes (karabenick & noda, 2004). in other words, teachers’ beliefs of the values that pd activities can underpin their willingness to participate in pd in practice. teachers’ beliefs about pd have been investigated in a relatively extensive volume of recent studies (e.g., alibakhshi & dehvari, 2015; doran, 2014; ortaçtepe & akyel, 2015; tuan, 2021). while doran (2014) employed qualitative research to examine teachers’ perceptions of and prior experiences with pd, the study by ortaçtepe and akyel (2015) examined the impact of education program for in-service teachers on their teaching performance in practice. alibakhshi and dehvari (2015) explored teachers’ perceptions of cpd and figured their principal pd activities in the iranian educational context. they all made considerable efforts to contribute to enhancing the understanding of pd activities in many different educational contexts all around the world. similarly, this current study was conducted in the mekong region where teacher pd activities had been received a lot of attentions from local educators. the findings from the study shed more light on the current opportunities for vietnamese teachers and their values and provide educational authorities and universities with important information about specific needs of pd activities in demand for high school teachers. literature review professional development to many scholars, there have been numerous definitions of pd. for instance, birman et al. (2000) perceive teacher pd as unique and short-term events, which include one-shot workshops, presentations, or graduate courses that teachers follow to update their knowledge during their career. in this sense, pd is restricted to purely activities designed and offered by educational institutions. pd is, therefore, seen as short-term, segmental, authoritarian, and incoherent to teachers’ needs and previous or current knowledge. le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 72 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com guskey (2000) provides another definition that focuses more on teachers’ changes and development from a different standpoint. accordingly, he defines pd programs as a way to reform the professional practices, beliefs, and understanding of school persons toward an articulated end. defined in this sense, pd is suggested as a process in which learning opportunities are for teachers’ professional development, aiming the bring about transmissions in the teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices. these differences, in turn, benefit learners in terms of learning achievements as a result of the teachers’ improved expertise and abilities. in other words, the effectiveness of pd activities should be evident not only through improving teachers’ knowledge and performance but also via the learners’ improved learning achievements. richards and farrell (2005) define the conceptualization of teacher pd as the approaches used to develop teachers’ quality in order to help them to keep up to date with developments in the field, to review and evaluate their pedagogical abilities, to deal with new teaching tasks according to the changing needs of the institution, to be good mentors for novice teachers, to organize training workshops and other professional events, to present papers or research at seminars or conferences, and to publish articles in trustworthy journals and teaching magazines, to maintain excellent professional standards, to pursue professional development, and to achieve higher levels of learning among their students. in a nutshell, although diverse definitions of pd activities exist, there seems to be a consensus that pd involves any form of activities that enable teachers to improve their understanding, knowledge, and skills for teaching. moreover, pd activities can empower them to make changes in their attitudes, morality, and practices to bring about better learning outcomes for their students. the effects of pd on teaching and learning the core value of pd activities lies in their impact on teachers’ knowledge, skills, and beliefs, which form bases for their classroom innovations believed to result in better students’ learning outcomes. as powell et al. (2003) defined, the impact is an alteration in professional knowledge, practices, and affective response as perceived by the individual practitioner. as such, pd activities should focus on addressing teachers’ needs in their careers and, more importantly, how to help teachers improve their teaching knowledge and skills. while pd is linked to and influences classroom practices, powell et al. (2003) suggest that measuring the impact of pd does not necessarily have to rely only on quantifiable data. instead, the effect of pd on teaching performance can also be assessed from the teachers’ insights into and on their reflection upon what creates significance and value to their own personal, academic, and pd needs. these reflections and understanding are essential since, in any pd activity, it is expected that teachers employ and apply the knowledge and experience they gain in their classroom practices. however, sufficient evidence from the literature has highlighted that teachers hold pre-existing beliefs or attitudes transferred their professional and classroom courses (lin, 2013). these pre-existing beliefs or attitudes drive the ways teachers make classroom decisions. one of the factors affecting or founding teachers’ pre-existing beliefs or attitudes is the pd experiences (lin, 2013). that is why numerous studies warned that new knowledge and ideas from recent pd might not find their ways to enter the classroom unless they converge with the teachers’ existing beliefs about teaching and learning (borg, 2008). le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 73 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com it is crucial for pd activities to bring about changes in teachers’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, or beliefs. more important is the significant innovations they make in teaching practices in the classrooms and the improvements in their students’ learning. it suggests that studies on pd activities for teachers should focus on the changes in teachers’ perceptions after participating in pd activities and whether they successfully translate their knowledge gained from pd into their teaching practices through participation in pd. forms of pd activities pd takes many forms. guskey (2000) provides a comprehensive list of different methods of tpd, namely training, observation, study group, inquiry/ action research, mentoring, and reflective teaching. murray (2010) mentions several activities for language teachers’ professional development such as reflecting, reading journal articles, keeping a teaching journal, sharing journals, joining local or national or even international teachers’ associations, peer mentoring/ coaching, joining teacher support groups, and participating in workshops and conferences either as a presenter or just participant. wong (2011) suggests fifty pd activities accompanied with references and resources, which she found in the teaching english to speakers of other languages (tesol) literature. to improve professionally and to interpret teaching differently, gebhard (2005) provides a set of principles to discuss teaching, including self-observation, other teachers' observation, talking to other teachers as ways to explore teaching, and teaching experimentation which serves as a part of teachers' decision making to see teaching differently. related studies undoubtedly, it is important to provide teachers with sufficient pd events. however, administrators and policymakers should evaluate the practical values of these events in their academic staff’s pd. therefore, it is worth-doing research exploring the impact of teachers’ attending pd on their teaching performance. doran (2014) states an increasing need for investigating the professional learning experiences that equip teachers to offer appropriate teaching. previous research regarding the significance and efficiency of raising awareness as to the existence of the pd programs (e.g., da silva, 2015) suggested that teachers who gained access to the teacher development programs showed a noticeable change in their beliefs about their pedagogical practices. ortaçtepe and akyel (2015) investigated the impact of an in-service teacher pd program on the efficacy, self-reported and actual practices of teachers. using a survey with the participation of fifty turkish efl teachers working in eight different schools and observing twenty of them, the researchers found that the professional program improved the participating in-service teachers since they happened to develop their language teaching practices and be more efficacious. alibakhshi and dehvari (2015) examined efl instructors' fundamental pd practices in the iranian context as well as how they see ongoing professional development. twenty english language teachers who participated in this phenomenological research were interviewed. the researchers reported that efl teachers perceived continuing pd as improving skills, maintaining a constant flow of learning, and upgrading information and abilities. with respect to the methods of conducting pd, the participants underlined that they conducted it by working, receiving formal education, and attending and presenting at conferences as well as workshops. le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 74 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com a volume of education reforms has been undertaken in the vietnamese context, including the curriculum, teaching methodology, and textbook replacement. tran et al. (2020) administered qualitative case-study research to figure out principals’ and the teachers’ perceptions of tpd in response to the education reforms implementation. the participants were recruited in three selected k12 schools. data were collected from the open-ended interviews with principals, the questionnaires administered to teachers, and the school policy-related documents. related to the findings of this study, the importance of tpd was highly perceived by the participants. to a certain extent, these studies have found a foundation for understanding the current situation of pd in vietnam. nevertheless, it also revealed that efforts to examine pd activities in a high school context appear to have been somewhat neglected. given the fact that the vietnamese government has been making massive attempts to upgrade teaching quality and students’ learning outcomes upon their graduation from high school over the past decade, an investigation into how high school teachers in this context have been supported to develop professionally and how these programs impact on their classroom practices and students’ learning is worth and has long been overdue. this is the gap that the present study aims to fill. in particular, this study seeks to explore efl teachers’ perceptions of the impact of pd activities on the teachers’ practice. notably, it investigates two main aspects: (1) pd activities the teachers previously engaged in and (2) the impact they perceived these activities had on their practice. methodology design the study employed a mixed-method design with quantitative data collected through a questionnaire and qualitative data gathered via in-depth interviews. this collaborative design allows the researchers to investigate the teachers’ perceptions of the issues in-depth and inbreadth. participants a total number of 80 efl teachers working in different high schools in a province in the south of vietnam responded to the questionnaire. table 1 presents information with the participants’ genders, age range, teaching experience, and educational qualifications. table 1. participants for questionnaire variables numbers percentage gender male 27 33.8% female 53 66.2% age 22-29 years old 11 13.7% 30-39 years old 29 36.3% 40-49 years old 3 3.7% 50+ years old 37 46.3% years of teaching experience less than two years 11 13.8% from 2 to 5 years 4 5% more than 5 years 65 81,2% educational qualifications bachelor 70 87.5% master 10 12.5% le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 75 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com to gain deeper insights into teachers’ perspectives on pd activities, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with participants who responded to the questionnaire and showed their willingness to participate in the interviews. six out of eighty participants agreed to participate in the discussions, among whom three are three novices (named a, b, and c) with less than two years of experience and three experienced ones (named d, e, and f). procedure the procedure of the current study followed eight steps as follows: figure 1. procedure first, the research team selected the research site to administer the investigation. then, the researchers reviewed the previous studies in the field to build up the skeleton for the current research. based on the literature review, the research team designed a questionnaire. the piloting questionnaires were sent to english teachers who did not participate in the official study to ensure validity and reliability. after that, the research team analyzed the feedback from those partaking in the pilot and revised the questionnaire. then, the official questionnaires were delivered to the current study participants through the google form platform. after two weeks, the participants were informed to stop sending the respondents and start analyzing the data. regarding the results from the quantitative data, the researchers designed the interview questions and piloted them with six participants who would not partake in the study. after receiving feedback from them for making some adjustments, six official interviews were conducted to gauge insightful information about efl teachers’ perceptions. instruments to find out answers to the two research questions, the researchers combined two instruments, including (1) a questionnaire aimed to identify the existing pd activities and their impact on participants’ teaching and learning, and (2) interviews aimed to gain further information about the teachers’ perceptions about the impact of pd activities. a combined english and vietnamese questionnaire were designed and conducted as a major research instrument to collect quantitative data. in total, the questionnaire includes thirtyeight items which are divided into three sections. in particular, the first section consists of four items aiming to get demographic information about participants’ gender, age, educational qualifications, and years of teaching experience. the second section was devoted to the examination of the teachers’ frequency in participating in pd activities. accordingly, the participants selected their answer in a 5-point-likert scale. ranging from never, rarely, sometimes, usually, and always for each of the fourteen pd activities, select research site review literature design questionnaire pilot questionnaire administer questionnaire pilot interviews administer interviews present findings le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 76 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com efl teachers were required to respond to the activities, including taking degree programs, conferences, workshops/ seminars, in-house meetings, self-reading materials, discussion with colleagues, teaching in their classes, reflective writing, peer observations, doing collaborative research, doing action research individually, belonging to a tesol association, attending training courses, and observing teachers in other institutions. in the third section, twenty items aimed to gain insights into participants’ perceptions of the impact of the existing pd activities on their teaching and learning. this section presented the questionnaire in a 5-point-likert scale ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. to gain more insights into the participants’ perceptions, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a strong focus on the participants’ perceptions of the impact of the existing pd activities. according to magaldi and berler (2020), semi-structured interviews allow researchers to gauge insightful information about interviewees’ perspectives. the interview questions were open-ended in vietnamese, the mother tongue of the interviewees, to encourage the participants to freely share and express their ideas. the interview questions mainly focused on exploring teachers’ thoughts of the existing pd activities' impact on their teaching performance. specifically, the questions were on what pd activities the teachers partook in, whether they were effective in their teaching in practice, why they perceived that way, and what caused the resistance to the implementation of teaching innovations in their teaching. findings and discussions existing pd activities in exploring the teachers’ perceptions of pd activities, the study first investigated what opportunities for pd the teacher participants have been able to gain access to in this context. table 2 displays the results of the descriptive statistics test. table 2. participants’ existing pd activities (n=80) form of pd activities min. max. mean sd in-house meetings 4.00 5.00 4.85 .36 discussion with colleagues 3.00 5.00 4.20 .70 self-reading materials 2.00 5.00 4.09 .70 teaching in their own classes 2.00 5.00 3.98 .64 attending training courses 1.00 5.00 3.53 .76 peer observation 2.00 5.00 3.30 .97 reflective writing 1.00 5.00 3.15 .93 doing action research individually 1.00 5.00 3.11 .97 workshops/ seminars 2.00 4.00 3.01 .61 taking degree programs 1.00 4.00 3.01 .99 doing collaborative research 1.00 5.00 2.28 .95 observing teachers in other schools 1.00 4.00 2.24 .84 conferences 1.00 4.00 1.99 .83 belonging to a tesol association 1.00 5.00 1.95 .83 total 2.57 3.86 3.14 .25 the results showed that the teachers attended pd activities on an occasional rather than frequent basis (m=3.14). in other words, they occasionally joined these activities only, and there appeared to be no systematic scheme for the teachers to get involved in these activities regularly. on the one hand, such an absence of regularity might be interpreted because teachers in this context have heavy teaching loads and thus limited time to plan for attending these le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 77 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com activities, especially when these event times fall into conflict with their teaching schedules. the abovementioned discussion was supported by teacher b’s excerpt as: “we actually do not have enough time for attending pd activities. we have a lot of things to do, such as teaching, lesson planning, taking care of students’ learning, or doing paperwork.” (a; novice teacher; male) it somehow showed that efl teachers there lacked the institutional support for rescheduling the teachers’ teaching or reducing their workloads. teacher a continued, “i used to ask for the institution’s support, but the support was insufficient. therefore, i decided to accept the fact that it is okay if i do not have enough opportunities to be involved in pd activities.” (a; novice teacher; male) on the other hand, administrators and policymakers did not understand how important pd activities are to the teachers’ teaching performance, or it was simply affected by the allowed budget. such a finding seemingly aligns with results reported from a study by zein (2016) which found out that pd was constrained by a lack of sound understanding of the pd, implementation inconsistencies, lack of budget, and incentives. with regards to teachers’ participation in specific activities, the three most frequently attended activities include in-house meetings (m=4.85), discussion with colleagues (m=4.20), self-reading materials (m=4.09). on the other hand, pd activities that take place outside of the teachers’ school contexts appeared to be rarely attended. these include belonging to a tesol association (m=1.95), conferences (m=1.99), and observing teachers in other schools (m=2.34). to a certain extent, these figures suggest that the participants relied mainly on activities within their schools and colleagues for pd or self-study. the interviews further explained that the teachers were officially required by their administrators. such a sense of obligation to attend these in-house activities seems even more substantial to the three novice teachers. teacher c, for instance, commented: “i always engaged in some compulsory pd activities at school like in-house meetings every week, observing my colleagues at school or taking compulsory courses. besides that, i also participated in other pd activities like reading book or materials and practice reflective teaching if i have much free time.” (c; novice teacher; male) these findings were partly in line with the study by roberts (2007), which found that academic staff usually used interactive methods consisting of consulting with colleagues and mentoring. however, while the current study found that the teachers frequently read materials to enhance their professionals, those in the study by roberts (2007) partook in self-developing activities such as online courses. different findings in these studies strengthened the inference that vietnamese teachers highly perceived the values of the pd activities held individually. consequently, the teachers’ learning autonomy also played an important role in their pd. backtracking to the literature, sert (2006) assumed that the increase of autonomous learning and the awareness of its value might develop teachers’ self-governing capacity as well as contribute to their higher achievements and motivation. however, related to the considerations of these pd activities as a compulsory task for efl teacher, a huge question mark was put on that whether it is a good sign for further pd activities in vietnam. vähäsantanen and eteläpelto (2009) found that finnish teachers perceived most of the pedagogical reforms or changes in finland that lead to the equivalent pd activities as a top-down planning process; thus, what has been absent from these pd activities was sufficient attention to the teachers’ perspectives. consequently, the teachers there tended to resist the reforms, changes, and pd activities. le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 78 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com learning from the experience in the finnish context might help other educational contexts all around the world avoid these wrecks in their implementation of educational changes, spectacularly further pd activities. on the other hand, opportunities for the teachers to network with teachers and experts from elsewhere to update new development in the field, such as attending conferences or joining tesol associations, were extremely rare. roemer (2021) stated that although tanzania lecturers are incredibly professional, devoted, and wise, only a few teachers have taken part in any organization as official members. phan et al. (2021) explained that efl high school teachers usually paid much attention to what they consider as more practical and relevant pd rather than on dealing with theories and academic issues. they perceived that these types of pd were more relevant to teachers at higher education levels and that they had never been trained or required to do research or attend conferences or seminars as presenters. however, during the interviews, both novice and experienced teachers had a great desire to participate in conferences and do action research. specifically, both novice and experienced teachers were keen on self-empowered activities such as researching to take the initiative and get involved. for instance, teacher f, among the most experienced ones, stated that “i have been teaching for over 20 years. the pd activities that i like most are doing individual research and participating in educational conferences. the reason why i choose these pd activities is that i can actively engage in what i want to learn.” (f; experienced teacher; female) representing the novice teachers, teacher c said, “i like doing research because i want to discover new things that can build knowledge and facilitate my teaching. moreover, participating in seminars is also interesting.” (c; novice teacher; male) interestingly, the teachers had great desire to conduct their action research as well as be significantly aware of research impact on their teaching performance. to make finding clearer, the background information of teachers f and c was analyzed. as a result, they both obtained master degrees in teaching english as a foreign language. as interpreted, after participating in the graduate programs, the teachers’ awareness of the importance of doing research in their teaching might be better than before. those narrations were in line with sharing by the teachers in the study conducted in colombia by gonzález (2003). spectacularly, less formal and structured training chances, including professional conferences and publication work, were perceived as their primary sources for pd in colombia. according to the interviewees in the current study, they mostly found it interesting and helpful in engaging their students in classroom activities after participating in these pd activities. teacher a remarked, “after participating several pd events, i recognize that my teaching skills are much better. as a result, my students seem to be more engaged in the learning activities.” (a; novice teacher; male) teachers’ beliefs and motivation are the main factors affecting their willingness to develop their professionals. karabenick and noda (2004) strengthened this inference, who stated that teachers’ motivation and beliefs drive teachers’ desire to participate in particular pd activities. therefore, it is important to enhance teachers’ motivation for conducting their research. in fact, vietnamese government has invested in training on developing teachers’ research skills and productivity. it is expected to increase both quantity and quality of vietnamese teacher-writers’ publications. le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 79 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com participants’ perceptions of the impact of pd activities as explained earlier, the second key focus of the present study was drawn towards the teachers’ perceptions of the impacts of the existing pd activities they have gained access to exerted on them and their teaching practice. a descriptive statistic test was run to check the influential level of the existing pd activities on the participants’ teaching and learning. table 3. impact of the existing pd activities (n=80) impacts min. max. mean sd reinforce teaching practices and language proficiency 1.00 5.00 3.66 .62 using appropriate teaching methods, approaches and strategies 1.00 5.00 3.30 .64 making positive changes in their beliefs about teaching and learning 1.00 5.00 3.24 .54 managing classroom activities more effectively 1.00 5.00 3.17 .65 knowing how to use ict for teaching vividly and effectively 1.00 5.00 3.16 .55 using more effective teaching and learning strategies 1.00 5.00 3.14 .50 planning effective lessons to meet students’ learning needs. 1.00 5.00 3.12 .58 positively changing beliefs about testing and assessing students 1.00 5.00 3.11 .72 learning new applicable techniques/ methods 1.00 5.00 3.09 .66 providing classroom instructions in english more effectively. 1.00 5.00 3.09 .44 knowing how to create a supportive learning environment 1.00 5.00 3.09 .57 designing assignments and tests to assess students more effectively 1.00 5.00 3.06 .68 adapting materials and resources more effectively for my teaching 1.00 5.00 3.06 .73 positively changing beliefs and feelings about pd activities 1.00 5.00 3.05 .55 transferring new knowledge into classroom practices effectively 1.00 5.00 3.05 .53 giving students meaningful opportunities to communicate in english 1.00 5.00 2.97 .52 providing more effective feedback to students 1.00 5.00 2.84 .71 understanding students more 1.00 5.00 2.01 .78 building good rapport with students 1.00 5.00 1.61 .74 motivating unmotivated students 1.00 5.00 1.42 .72 total 2.55 5.00 2.92 .41 the results showed that the existing pd activities just moderately affected efl teachers’ teaching in practice in a positive way (m=2.92). the results were different from those reported in the study by wati (2011), in which indonesian teachers found pd activities they had participated in highly effective for their teaching. in considerable efforts for explaining reasons why pd is sometimes not effective, buczynski and hansen (2010) stated although teachers benefited from pd, they also encountered several barriers preventing them from implementing pd, such as limited resources, time constraints, mandated curriculum pacing, language learning, and classroom management issues. also, dang (2018) found that the expenses and time constraints played as principal hindering factors of vietnamese teachers’ participation in pd. therefore, these factors might strongly affect the impact of pd on the teachers’ teaching and learning in the current study. le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 80 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com among the proposed effects, the existing pd activities mostly helped reinforce teaching practices and language proficiency (m=3.66), use appropriate teaching methods, approaches, and strategies effectively (m=3.30), make positive changes in their beliefs about teaching and learning (m=3.24), and manage classroom activities more effectively (m=3.17). in the interviews, a majority of the teacher participants repeatedly commented on the impact pd activities had in improving their knowledge for teaching more effectively. teacher b shared, “when pd activities were held, we actually learnt something new. the students get benefit from these activities sessions because pd activities equipped me to teach better and meet the needs of students.” (b; novice teacher; female) these findings are similar to those in the study by buczynski and hansen (2010), which found that pd can help increase teachers’ science content knowledge, better teaching practices, and promote students’ learning outcomes. also, the findings supported knapp’s (2003) beliefs of the primary goal of pd: to improve teachers’ performance, which is mainly measured by their students’ learning outcomes. regarding the exceptionally high level of satisfaction with this impact, the previous pd activities were influential in developing the quality of academic staff in the researched context. another significant impact that most participants consistently stressed in the interviews was that these pd activities helped them improve their language proficiency or skills; thus, they improved their teaching performance. teacher a shared, “to tell the truth, my language skills improved a lot after taking some training courses. my listening and speaking skills have been greatly improved, so it can help me meet my students' learning needs.” (a; novice teacher; male) it is undeniable that there is a strong interaction between teachers’ proficiency and their teaching performance in practice (housen et al., 2012). especially delighted for vietnamese educators, the indication of an observable improvement in language proficiency fulfilled dang’s (2018) concerns that vietnamese teachers were not confident in their english abilities. the finding was different from the study by wati (2011) which found that indonesian teachers did not improve their basic english knowledge after participating in pd events there. however, with respect to the mean score (m=3.66), the delightfulness should not have lasted for long because a need for further training focusing on developing teachers’ language proficiency is still visible. besides, they further detailed how these pd activities improved both his teaching confidence. teachers c and e presented, “participating in these training helps me enhance my awareness of the teaching methods that affect my students’ learning achievements; as a result, i feel more confident.” (c; novice teacher; male) “i think it is very important for the teaching career because it enhances my confidence in teaching.” (e; experienced teacher; female) in the study conducted in indonesia, wati (2011) also identified the positive effects of training programs on teachers’ confidence as well as their motivation. in the suggestions of how to promote students’ confidence proposed by dornyei (2003), it is crucial to provide them with a sense of success and reduce their anxiety. on occasion, as pd training, teachers are not different from playing the student roles that give them a leg up to widen and broaden their horizons academically and pedagogically. hence, dornyei’s (2003) suggested that the current study's teachers had experienced a sense of success and reduced their anxiety in teaching practices after participating in previous pd activities. le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 81 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com next, the teachers trusted in the value that the previous pd activities had brought to their application of ict in english teaching. teacher b said, “with pd activities i took part in, i learnt a lot in order not only to improve my knowledge and skills, but also to find and figure out the best ways to fit into modern teaching techniques.” (b; novice teacher; female) according to samuel and pulizala (2014), in the era of that everything is flexible, especially in english language teaching and learning due to the vast development of technologies, both language learners and teachers have to adapt and understand technological techniques in the classrooms to maximize the educational outcomes. thus, the need for professional training on the use of ict has increased for years. in the current study, both qualitative and quantitative data supported the conclusion that previous training on ict made significant impacts on efl classes in vietnam, especially the teachers’ use of technological supports in their classrooms. teacher c said, “it is so interesting to participate in the training on ict skills because i can apply a lot of useful activities through the use of technology.” (c; novice teacher; male) in addition, the previous pd activities had notable effects on teachers’ classroom management skills in dealing with mixed-level class sizes. teacher e contented, “pd activities impacted my teaching practice. i know how to plan an effective lesson for my students because we have different levels of students in the class.” (e; experienced teacher; female) undeniably, many classroom problems include large classes and classroom management, discipline problems, mixed-level classes, homework, teaching exam classes, and professional development (prodromou & clandfield, 2008). in the vietnamese educational context, tran and nguyen (2021) identified some of the abovementioned classroom problems: the mixedability students’ english proficiency. hordiienko and lomakina (2015) found it extremely difficult for teachers to develop assignments for mixed-level classes to challenge advanced students but not frustrate and demotivate less competent ones. therefore, it is necessary to organize sufficient training on classroom management in the vietnamese context. fortunately, the current study showed that the teachers benefited from the previous pd activities in terms of strategies for developing teachers’ abilities to deal with mixed-ability classes. in reverse, besides the visual impacts on the teachers’ performance, they did not recognize their improvement in motivating unmotivated students (m=1.42), building a good rapport with students (m=1.61), and understanding students more (m=2.01). also, in the interview, the teachers did not recognize the improvement in their skills encouraging their students to learn. specially, teacher d stated, “actually, i participated in a lot of training on enhancing teachers’ classroom management skills. however, i did not find them much practical for my teaching in practice. specifically, majority of my students do not want to learn english majors in the future. therefore, they focus on learning natural science subjects…” (d; experienced teacher; male) ryan and deci (2000) defined motivation as an essential factor involving someone in doing something. a person who lacks the driving force to act is considered unmotivated (yenilmez & çemrek, 2008). as a result, a big concern has arisen because no improvement in the teachers’ learning of motivating students was observed in this study. although nguyen (2019) found that vietnamese students were highly motivated in english learning, whether the vietnamese educators have been underestimating the values of the training on the motivational strategies for students’ english knowledge in this context. as evidence, pham (2016) pointed out that le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 82 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com english was not regarded as the primary study focus by most students in his study. the systematic map of factors affecting vietnamese students’ motivation is complicated. the factors include students’ gender, school year, english learning spent time, parental abilities in speaking english (nguyen, 2019), parental encouragement and financial investment, peer and near-peer effects, perceived values of english for their personal and interpersonal commitments (pham, 2016), and so on. to deal with diverse factors like that, training on this issue in the vietnamese context should be more considered. besides, the teachers stated that the strategies they had learnt in the previous training were not remarkably helpful for their teaching in practice. as a result, the relationship between the teachers and their students was somehow not as good as expected. teacher f said, “i found it difficult to establish a connection with my current study. as you know, we have a remarkable gap between the two generations. accordingly, it is challenging to have the same perspectives. sometimes, different perspectives cause problems…” (f; experienced teacher; female) lee (2012) remarked on the importance of the supportive teacher-student relationship in students learning outcomes. as explained by hughes et al. (2008) and o’connor and mccartney (2007), students could behaviorally and emotionally engage in-class activities if the relationship between them and their teachers was good; as a result, they would achieve higher learning outcomes. therefore, training on improving teachers’ abilities to build a strong relationship with their students is essential. however, in the current study, the teachers said they could not improve this ability after attending the previous pd activities. teacher d said, “sometimes, i can feel a huge distance between my students and i, their teachers. i am strongly aware of the importance of teacher-student rapport. that is why i participated in many pd activities that train on improving teachers’ abilities to build a good relationship between ourselves and our students. nonetheless, the impact is not satisfactory.” (d; experienced teacher; male) as hoang and vu (2016) discussed, both vietnamese teachers and students had been aware of the importance and benefits of social and emotional learning in school. in this type of learning, the participants can share thoughts and express feelings and sympathy with others. however, said is easier than done because many difficulties prevent this learning from being effective in real life (hoang & vu, 2016). these difficulties are students’ unwillingness to share thoughts, student-teacher conflict, educational teasing, teachers’ and students’ negative traits, lack of understanding, time constraints, and even lack of cooperation and support from students’ families. teacher d explained, “at the ages of a teenager, my students have complicated psychological issues. it is very difficult for me to understand what they want if they do not want to share their thoughts with me.” (d; experienced teacher; male) in the interviews, the participants also directly listed some reasons why they resisted the previous pd activities. first, the experienced teachers found it difficult to absorb new teaching methods. teachers d and f recounted, “i feel pressured to participate in pd activities because when you are getting older, it is difficult to absorb new teaching methods.” (d; experienced teacher; male) “you know what, i am a bit old now. therefore, participating in pd is sometimes challenging to me. the movement from my house to the events is often over long distances. i feel a bit tired.” (f; experienced teacher; female) the interaction of age-related factors and the responses to change of working forces has been well-explored in the previous studies (shore et al., 2003; brooke & taylor, 2005; posthuma & campion, 2009). specifically, posthuma and campion (2009) stated that older employees le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 83 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com rarely engaged in taking risks; shore et al. (2003) found that older workers performed worse than their young colleagues, or brooke and taylor (2005) found it difficult for the old workers to learn something new. in educational contexts, teachers’ motivation is also affected by their demographic information in general and their age in particular (powney et al., 2003). specifically, instead of participating in pd events to gain more knowledge, they are likely to spend more time with their families and friends. second, the interviewees found no noticeable increase in their students’ learning outcomes after applying the educational innovations. teacher f said, “it is a waste of time and effort to take pd courses that have not had any effect on students. i have been looking forward to students’ progress after applying what i have learned in the pd programs, but no change has been seen in the learners’ outcomes.” (f; experienced teacher; female) it is unavoidable to state a solid and direct relationship between professional development for educators and their students’ learning improvement. as a result, students’ learning outcomes strongly affect teachers’ participation in pd or implementing educational innovations in their practices. thao and mai (2022) made their efforts to investigate the influence level of both internal and external factors affecting teachers’ responses to elt pedagogical reforms in a teaching context of vietnam. they found that students’ learning outcomes prominently affected teachers’ reactions to the reforms. therefore, the resistance to applying new teaching approaches given in the previous pd activities in the current study was clearly explained throughout their fewer impacts on students’ learning progress. finally, the proposed teaching methods and techniques in the previous pd activities lacked the applicable values in practice because of students’ insufficient learning proficiency. teacher c and e said, “i think they do not fully meet teachers’ professional needs in practice. specifically, students’ competencies are not good enough to follow the techniques i gained in the previous pd activities.” (c; novice teacher; male) “to be honest, the low level of students makes it difficult for me to apply the methods learned from pd activities.” (e; experienced teacher; female) english proficiency of vietnamese people is still a dilemma in this educational context. it is meritorious to observe the considerable efforts of the vietnamese moet in improving english language teaching in this country (phuong, 2017). however, the results of the vietnam national foreign language project (vnflp) as a key initiative in the abovementioned efforts were not satisfactory. shared the same surprise with phuong (2017), most trainings in vietnam seemed to pay insufficient attention to efl students’ starting english proficiency. as a result, the teachers in the current study found it challenging to employ those kinds of knowledge that they had gained in the previous pd activities in their practices due to their students’ english level. according to bantwini and king-mckenzie (2011), changes are resisted when teachers fail to administer them in their classrooms. besides the student-related factors, it is speaking well to say back that teachers need to take much responsibility for the unsuccessful implementation of what they have learned from pd activities. as mentioned, teachers’ proficiency always plays an essential role in providing accurate meaningful explanations and responding to learners’ errors (tsui, 2003). eventually, teachers’ learning autonomy should be explored clearer, especially in the vietnamese context. in a nutshell, a combination of the quantitative and qualitative evidence revealed that the majority of the teacher participants have been positively impacted by engaging in pd le, t. t. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) 84 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com activities. the most significant areas for improvement, as they perceived, included their pedagogical knowledge and language proficiency. to be specific, these teachers highly perceived the positive impact of these pd activities had on them as a chance to reinforce their teaching practices and language skills, to plan effective lessons to meet students’ learning needs, and to design assignments and tests to assess their students more effectively. however, it should be pointed out that the positive impacts these activities exerted on the teachers’ practices were not consistently reported among the teachers. in contrast, several teachers appeared to perceive that these activities have had very little value in helping them perform better in teaching and bringing about better outcomes for their learners. implications findings from the study offer several important implications to the educational managers or government education bodies, including moet and doet, school managers, teacher trainers, and the efl teachers themselves. first, institution managers must provide adequate time for teachers and motivate them to participate in other types of pd activities. it also signals that it is crucial to plan and schedule these activities appropriately and logically into their teaching schedules to increase the teachers' participation rate in these activities. this can be further supported by the fact that the activities are compulsory yet endorsed fully by the school management board to make it officially part of their workload at school. second, training sessions should be provided where teachers can learn and engage in hands-on experience in classroom-based research. doing could offer an amicable solution to encourage these teachers to attend more professional programs actively. third, it is recommended that institution managers should provide teachers with practical pd activities as before. for the pd activities that received less participation and were not applicable, such as attending conferences or belonging to the tesol association, institution managers should introduce some meetings or tesol association to help them familiarize themselves with these pd activities. furthermore, institution managers should consider organizing more pd activities for efl teachers to participate in. however, institution managers should allow for some participant choice in determining pd offerings. this study indicates that when teachers may choose from a variety of topics and tailor their professional development (pd) experiences to their expertise, prior knowledge, and student populations, they discover greater potential for engagement. therefore, teacher trainers should investigate teachers’ priority, prior knowledge, school curriculum, and student's needs carefully before organizing a pd program. besides that, one crucial finding from the interview is that novice and experienced teachers appeared to have different requirements for pd. in this sense, when designing or planning for upcoming pd activities, institution managers must understand the specific 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(2016). factors affecting the professional development of elementary english teachers. professional development in education, 42(3), 423-440. focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 5, issue 1, 2023 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: iykazu@firat.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. a descriptive analysis of digital game-based foreign language education ai̇brahim yaşar kazu bmurat kuvvetli a assoc. prof. dr., fırat university, türkiye, iykazu@firat.edu.tr b english teacher, türkiye, 202401101@firat.edu.tr apa citation: kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. (2023). a descriptive analysis of digital game-based foreign language education. focus on elt journal, 5(1), 56-73. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2023.5.1.4 abstract digital games are increasingly being used for foreign language learning; a trend that has grown popular recently. this research dives deeply into this topic, assessing different skill areas targeted by these digital games, and how they are utilized in various settings worldwide educational and otherwise. the research takes into account studies carried out between 2010 and 2021. the study's methodology is rooted in qualitative research, specifically the embedded theory design, and the gathered data is interpreted through a descriptive analysis approach. out of an initial pool of 145 academic studies reviewed, 57 met the necessary criteria for inclusion, such as quality of data, sample size, year of publication, gender balance, and content relevance. the analyzed data is then expressed in terms of frequency and percentages for simplicity and easier understanding. the findings show that studies focusing on the use of digital games for foreign language learning have multiplied in recent years. however, a large proportion of these studies are heavily focused on vocabulary acquisition. this led to the suggestion that future work in this area should broaden its scope to include other important language skills like reading, writing, and listening, in addition to vocabulary. keywords descriptive analysis, digital games, language education, language skills article history received : 12.01.2023 revised : 24.04.2023 accepted : 01.06.2023 published : 30.06.2023 type research article introduction technological advancements in recent years have presented new opportunities in the field of education, and one such possibility is the integration of digital games in foreign language teaching. the use of digital games offers a unique perspective on education and provides several benefits. these games are learner-centered, meaning they are designed to be instructive, interesting, and appropriate for learners' levels and ages. digital game-based foreign language teaching has gained significant importance, particularly due to the covid-19 pandemic, and numerous studies have highlighted its significance in language learning. by leveraging digital games, learners can overcome learning anxiety, increase motivation, and alleviate difficulties in comprehending and solidifying language concepts. consequently, educational benefits are observed across various domains. several studies have demonstrated the positive impact of digital games on foreign language learning, aligning with krashen's theory. the experiences acquired through gameplay can prove beneficial for students. according to krashen (1982), learners need to be actively engaged and highly motivated to acquire the desired information. furthermore, klimova and kacet (2017) suggest that digital game-based foreign language teaching offers certain conveniences in the language learning process. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2023.5.1.4 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1039-0482 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6343-6459 kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 57 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com in conclusion, the use of digital games in foreign language teaching holds immense potential. it aligns with a learner-centered approach, provides educational advantages, and has been supported by research. by integrating digital games into language learning, educators can create engaging and effective learning environments that enhance students' motivation, comprehension, and retention of language skills. moreover, as highlighted by klimova and kacet (2017), digital game-based foreign language instruction offers several conveniences that streamline the language learning process. these include providing visual and sensory input in the target language, emphasizing specific aspects of grammar such as vocabulary and syntax, and promoting consistent practice and steady progress in language learning and acquisition. one crucial aspect emphasized in these areas is that students engaged in digital games exhibit high motivation, leading to more lasting learning outcomes (poole & clarke-midura, 2020). this can be attributed to the fact that individuals growing up in the era of technological advancements generally have a keen interest in technology and digital games. when learners are exposed to digital game-based learning, they become active participants in the learning process, which in turn enhances their motivation to work and engage with the content. learning while having fun is a key advantage of digital game-based learning, and it can be further enhanced by incorporating educational themes that stimulate students' thinking and evaluation skills. by combining the interactive and immersive nature of digital games with educational content, learners are encouraged to think critically, problem-solve, and evaluate different scenarios within the game environment. digital platforms can enhance digital game-based foreign language learning (dgbll) by evaluating learners' progress and engagement. they provide personalized feedback through data analysis of performance, enabling educators to customize instruction based on identified areas for improvement. moreover, dgbll fosters creativity and collaboration, as students produce meaningful artifacts from game-based activities. this method also accommodates various types of intelligence by leveraging diverse game mechanics, visuals, and interactive elements. in essence, dgbll presents numerous advantages such as increased motivation, effective learning outcomes, data-driven evaluations, fostering creativity, and addressing learning diversity. thus, digital games allow educators to craft dynamic learning environments promoting active participation, profound understanding, and enjoyment in language learning. literature review in the 21st century, the incorporation of technology in education has become an unavoidable aspect. its integration in educational settings is constantly expanding to motivate students to utilize technology in language learning, enhance classroom dynamics, foster learner autonomy, and improve student learning outcomes (kessler, 2018). additionally, several researchers and educators, such as kohnke (2021), kohnke and moorhouse (2020), and wang and tahir (2020), have highlighted the growing adoption of digital apps and tools as a more engaging alternative to traditional exercises in education. specifically, tools like mentimeter and gosoapbox have gained popularity among teachers seeking to create interactive and dynamic learning experiences for their students (kohnke, 2021; moorhouse & kohnke, 2020; wang & tahir, 2020). online games and digital game-based learning are closely related and often used interchangeably. an online game refers to any computer-based game played over the internet, where the games are stored and played directly from servers (roslina & azizah, 2008). consequently, digital game-based learning encompasses learning experiences that involve playing electronic games (tang et al., 2009). digital games have garnered widespread interest kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 58 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com from individuals around the world, and the global video game industry has witnessed substantial growth. it was projected that between 2010 and 2019, the global video game business would expand by 30% to reach a market value of $19.6 billion (hamizul & rahimi, 2015). a recent survey on video game usage found that 49% of the 2,001 respondents claimed to play video games, with 10% reporting that they have an 'avatar' character (hamizul & rahimi, 2015). the popularity of digital games and the engagement of individuals with gaming present opportunities for incorporating online games and digital game-based learning into educational contexts. by leveraging the existing interest and enthusiasm for gaming, educators can create engaging and immersive language learning experiences. integrating online games and digital game-based learning in language instruction not only increases motivation but also fosters active participation, critical thinking, problem-solving skills, collaboration, and creativity. the integration of digital apps, tools, online games, and digital game-based learning in education allows for active student participation, instant feedback, increased engagement, and the promotion of critical thinking and collaboration. it signifies a shift towards learner-centered approaches, empowering students to take an active role in their learning process. the widespread interest in digital games worldwide underscores the potential of leveraging gamebased elements in language learning, facilitating enjoyable and effective educational experiences. the increasing popularity of digital games in educational settings is not surprising. educators have recognized the complexity and benefits of digital gaming, as well as its vast potential for effective and meaningful learning across various disciplines, over the past decade (gee, 2007; mcgonigal, 2013; squire, 2009). however, research into the use of digital games in language teaching and learning began even earlier than many people realize (hubbard, 1991; phillips, 1987). in recent years, there has been a significant increase in theoretical and empirical research on the relationship between digital games and language development (benson & chik, 2011; cornillie et al., 2012; peterson, 2013; reinders, 2012; reinhardt & sykes, 2012; reinders & wattana, 2012; sykes et al., 2008; sykes & reindhart, 2012). researchers, such as nadolny et al. (2020), have contributed to the literature in this field, as demonstrated in figure 1 of their work. the increasing body of research signifies the growing interest in exploring the potential of digital games for language development and learning. these studies have shed light on the effectiveness of incorporating digital games in language instruction, highlighting their ability to enhance motivation, engagement, language acquisition, and the development of various language skills. as research continues to evolve, educators can leverage these findings to inform their instructional practices and create more effective and engaging learning experiences through the integration of digital games in language teaching. the work presented by nadolny et al. (2020) and other researchers contributes to the expanding body of knowledge in this field and reinforces the value of exploring the intersection of digital games and language learning. kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 59 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com figure 1. primary and secondary features in digital game-based learning the framework provided can serve as a valuable starting point for scholars interested in studying how game designers create games and the overall process of game design. researchers and practitioners can utilize this framework to draw conclusions and gain insights into digital game-based learning (dgbll). by employing this method, they can examine the effectiveness and impact of dgbll on language acquisition and learning outcomes. in the realm of language acquisition, researchers have explored various theories to enhance our understanding of dgbll. for instance, second language acquisition theories, such as the work of pavlenko and lantolf (2000), have been examined to shed light on the processes involved in language learning through digital games. additionally, krashen's hypothesis (krashen, 1982), which focuses on reducing affective barriers in language learning within the socio-cultural theory, has also been considered in the context of dgbll. furthermore, it has been suggested that learners derive benefits from the experience of playing games while learning because they willingly acquire target information with pleasure. this notion aligns with the idea that enjoyable and engaging learning experiences can enhance motivation, resulting in improved learning outcomes. by incorporating digital games into language learning, educators can tap into learners' intrinsic motivation and create an environment where acquiring language skills becomes an enjoyable and immersive experience. dgbll provides opportunities for learners to actively engage with the target language, practice language skills in authentic contexts, and receive immediate feedback, all of which contribute to more effective language acquisition. additionally, the framework provided serves as a useful tool for researchers and practitioners to study the process of game design and explore the potential of dgbll. by drawing on relevant language acquisition theories and understanding the motivational aspects of gamebased learning, educators can create meaningful and engaging language learning experiences that promote effective language acquisition. dgbll has been explored concerning various aspects of language acquisition. while some studies have presented conflicting results (kazu & kurtoğlu, 2022; lucht & heidig, 2013; jalali & dousti, 2012), further research has focused on the effectiveness of dgbll in vocabulary acquisition (ebrahimzadeh, 2017; jensen, 2017), grammar learning (cornillie et al., 2017; mehrpour & ghayour, 2017), writing (allen et al., 2014), and speaking skills (hwang et al., 2016). kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 60 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com kahoot! and a digital bingo game have been effectively used to bolster learning in foreign language classrooms, introducing dynamic, interactive elements to education and evaluation processes (mustika et al., 2014 ; wang & tahir, 2020). to maximize these benefits, instructors must have a comprehensive understanding of the topic and employ diverse teaching strategies alongside game-based activities. equally, the rise of mobile technology like the apple watch, fitbit, and google pixel earphones, coupled with augmented reality games like pokemon go, is shaping consumer engagement with games and learning experiences (sykes, 2017). these technological advancements have not only popularized game-based learning but also added to the depth and versatility of language learning strategies (peterson, 2012, 2013). however, careful implementation and integration with other language practices and communication methods remain crucial for a comprehensive language acquisition process. ongoing research continues to refine these digital game-based language learning strategies, offering an array of engaging options for teaching and learning foreign languages. in an envisioned foreign language class, students display a strong eagerness to engage in learning activities until the designated class period concludes, comparable to the motivation and sense of accomplishment observed when advancing levels in a game. additionally, the teacher possesses the ability to offer tailored feedback and effectively collaborate with specific groups of students, despite a class size of 30 individuals. the integration of suitable digital games within the classroom setting facilitates the establishment of productive group dynamics and personalized learning experiences, thereby optimizing the teacher's pedagogical skills and expertise. this pedagogical approach is expected to persist and undergo further development, leading to significant transformations in the field of education. the field of educational technology continues to show significant interest in dgbll, emphasizing the need for enhanced game design to improve the quality of language learning experiences. this scoping study aims to address this need by conducting a comprehensive literature review on dgbll. the study focuses on examining the characteristics of foreign language learners, methodological requirements, game characteristics, and their interrelationships. by investigating these areas, the study aims to gain a deeper understanding of the utilization of dgbll in contemporary educational technology settings and emphasize the critical role of game design. consequently, this study intends to bridge a gap in the existing literature by providing insights into the specific areas where dgbll is employed in foreign language education and highlighting the importance of future research on the language skills targeted by digital games for language teaching. the following research questions guide the study's objectives.  what are the methods and techniques in digital game-based foreign language teaching that has been carried out recently?  when the studies conducted in recent years are examined, in which field of study has been carried out the most in digital game-based foreign language education?  which data collection methods are frequently used in digital game-based foreign language learning?  in which field of study are the sample numbers used in digital game-based foreign language teaching more?  which is the most frequently used data analysis method in digital game-based foreign language learning?  when the results of the research are examined, are the results mostly successful or unsuccessful for digital game-based foreign language learning? kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 61 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com methodology context the research study employed a qualitative approach using an embedded theory design. the methodology involved conducting a systematic literature review of academic studies published between 2010 and 2021. inclusion criteria were established to select relevant studies, considering factors such as data quality, sample size, publication year, gender balance, and content relevance. specifically, studies focusing on the use of digital games for foreign language learning were included. exclusion criteria were also applied to the initial pool of 145 academic studies reviewed, with studies published outside the defined timeframe or those not directly related to digital games for foreign language learning being excluded. after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 57 studies met the necessary criteria for inclusion. data from the selected studies were then analyzed using a descriptive analysis approach, and the findings were presented in terms of frequency and percentages. the results revealed an increase in studies focusing on the use of digital games for foreign language learning, with a predominant emphasis on vocabulary acquisition. the case study method aims to delve into in-depth and descriptive inquiries, seeking to gain a comprehensive understanding of how different cases shed light on a particular issue or present unique instances. in line with this objective, content analysis was employed as the chosen technique to illuminate the research questions. content analysis involves the systematic examination and interpretation of various sources, including theoretical models, professional expertise, and researcher-generated data. to ensure consistency in the interpretation of coding, two academics with comparable academic backgrounds and expertise in digital game-based foreign language learning (dgbll) conducted the content analysis. this was done to establish uniformity and reliability in the coding process, following the guidelines set by krippendorff (1980). the working group responsible for the analysis was led by a doctoral student who is also a fourth-year english instructor in the dgbll research group. additionally, the group included two associate professors who possess a combined experience of ten years in teaching, research, and publishing within the field. procedure content analysis refers to a systematic and rigorous examination of a text or communication to derive its underlying meaning (neuendorf, 2017). in the field of education, content analysis serves various purposes, including the identification of patterns within the research literature on education and technology (bozkurt et al., 2015; shih et al., 2008; zawacki-richter & latchem, 2018). in this study, content analysis was employed to identify common elements present in the textual content of articles published in the domain of digital game-based language learning (dgbll) that align with the scope of content analysis. this approach involved leveraging the similarities found within the analyzed materials to inform the coding and analysis process (krippendorff, 1980). by employing content analysis, the research aimed to discern recurrent themes and examine the shared characteristics among the articles. figure 2 presents the detailed methodology employed for evaluating and analyzing the identified articles. content analysis is the methodical examination of a text or communication to deduce its meaning (neuendorf, 2017). in education, content analysis is used for several purposes, including identifying patterns in the educational and technological research literature (bozkurt et al., 2015; shih et al., 2008; zawacki-richter & latchem, 2018). kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 62 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com figure 2. article evaluation procedure a systematic review was conducted to examine the utilization of digital games in the context of foreign language learning. the search process encompassed four databases, namely ebsco, scopus springer, elsevier, and web of science, employing a range of keywords associated with the research topic. the initial search yielded 145 articles, which underwent a thorough evaluation to determine their relevance to the research question. following a detailed examination of the abstracts and summaries of the 140 articles, 84 were excluded due to their lack of alignment with english education or their divergence from the specified topic area. consequently, a final set of 56 articles was selected for coding and analysis. the primary aim of this systematic review was to present a comprehensive overview of the existing literature concerning the use of digital games in foreign language learning. the search process employed rigorous procedures, encompassing multiple databases and employing pertinent keywords to ensure the inclusion of a wide range of relevant articles. the subsequent screening and selection process further refined the focus, identifying articles that directly addressed the research question. the resulting sample of 56 articles represents a robust and comprehensive compilation of current research on this subject matter, serving as the foundation for the subsequent analysis and interpretation of the findings. data collection and analysis the data extracted from the selected 56 articles were subjected to a comprehensive analysis aimed at identifying common themes and patterns in the utilization of digital games in the context of foreign language learning. the coding process involved a meticulous reading of each article, with categorization conducted based on the research questions addressed. the coded data were subsequently subjected to frequency analysis to determine the prevailing aspects discussed concerning digital game-based foreign language learning. the findings of the data analysis revealed that digital games can serve as effective tools for facilitating foreign language learning. among the reviewed articles, 40 addressed the positive impacts of employing digital games in foreign language learning, highlighting improvements in language skills, heightened kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 63 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com motivation and engagement, and enhanced cultural awareness. additionally, 35 articles explored the various types of digital games utilized in foreign language learning, encompassing role-playing games, simulation games, puzzle games, and other genres. collectively, the data analysis furnished a comprehensive overview of the implementation of digital games in foreign language learning, shedding light on their potential benefits and design considerations. the outcomes of this study contribute to the existing body of research on digital game-based foreign language learning, offering valuable insights for future investigations and practical applications in this domain. to ensure consistency in the interpretation of codes, the content analysis was conducted by two academics possessing comparable academic backgrounds and expertise in digital game-based foreign language learning (dgbll). the research team, led by a seasoned university professor with a decade of teaching, research, and publishing experience, included a fourth-year english teacher from a dgbll research group and a graduate student. the reliability of the coding process was determined to be 91% using the formula reliability = number of overlap / (number of overlap + number of non-overlap), with a recommended minimum of 80% reliability (miles & hubermann, 1994). the coding criteria were established following the study's objectives, and the results were thoroughly analyzed, employing techniques such as frequency counts, percentage calculations, and visual representations. moreover, a grounded approach was adopted to derive variables from the existing literature, drawing upon the works of kazu and issaku (2020) and neuendorf (2017). the research team identified experimental studies that employed frameworks or models to elucidate the characteristics of learning games, as well as investigations focusing on different educational levels. through a constant comparative technique, articles were continually assessed until theoretical saturation was achieved (bowen, 2008). the identified characteristics were conceptually classified, yielding results encompassing three descriptive features and seven study topics. results the descriptive characteristics of the studies regarding the descriptive features of the included studies, the outcomes regarding publication year, researcher gender, and education level are presented below in terms of frequency, percentage, and graphical representations. the distribution of the studies based on publication years is visually depicted in figure 3. figure 3. distribution of studies by publication years 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 2010 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 percentage 2 2 2 10 8 4 8 8 8 30 18 frequency 1 1 1 5 4 2 4 4 4 15 9 2 2 2 10 8 4 8 8 8 30 18 1 1 1 5 4 2 4 4 4 15 9 kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 64 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com the findings indicate that the majority of studies on dgbll were conducted in the year 2020, accounting for 30% of the total studies included in the analysis. on the other hand, the years between 2010 and 2013 had the lowest representation, with only 2% of the studies being conducted during each of those years. this distribution suggests a growing interest in dgbll in recent years, particularly in 2020, possibly indicating an increased recognition of the potential benefits and effectiveness of digital games in foreign language learning. the limited number of studies conducted in the earlier years could be attributed to a relatively nascent stage of research and exploration in the field during that period. however, it is important to consider that this interpretation is based on the available data and may be subject to further investigation and analysis. the analysis of researcher gender in the studies conducted on dgbll over the last 11 years reveals that 52.6% (n=72) of the researchers were women, while 47.4% were men. this indicates a relatively balanced distribution in terms of gender representation among researchers in the field of dgbll. regarding the distribution by education level, further details are provided in figure 5, which illustrates the breakdown of studies based on different educational levels. however, without the specific information from figure 4, it is not possible to comment on the findings related to the distribution by education level. please refer to figure 4 for a comprehensive understanding of the distribution patterns. it is worth noting that gender representation and education level are important factors to consider in research, as they can influence perspectives, experiences, and the overall diversity of the research community. the balanced gender distribution in the studies reflects a positive trend toward inclusivity and representation in the field of dgbll research. figure 4. distribution by education levels the findings indicate that a significant proportion of studies on dgbll focus on the university level, accounting for 35.71% of the total studies. this suggests that there is a considerable emphasis on utilizing digital games for foreign language learning in higher education settings. the higher representation of university-level studies may be attributed to the increased availability of resources, technological infrastructure, and the recognition of the potential benefits of dgbll in higher education institutions. on the other hand, the relatively lower number of studies in the preschool period, comprising only 7.14% of the total, highlights a potential gap in research focusing on digital game-based foreign language learning for young learners. this finding suggests that more attention could be given to exploring the effectiveness and appropriate implementation of dgbll strategies in early childhood education. in summary, the distribution of studies across different educational levels underscores the importance of considering the specific needs, characteristics, and developmental stages of learners when designing and implementing dgbll interventions. future research efforts 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 pre-school primary secondary high school university percentage 7,14 19,4 14,28 23,8 35,71 frequency 3 8 6 10 15 7,14 19,4 14,28 23,8 35,71 3 8 6 10 15 kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 65 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com should aim to bridge the gap by further investigating the potential benefits and challenges of using digital games for foreign language learning in various educational contexts, including preschool settings, to promote a comprehensive understanding of dgbll's impact across different age groups. the findings of the work areas in this part of the research, the findings obtained from the studies included in the content analysis are respectively; research subject areas, language skills areas, research methods, data collection tools, sample levels, data analysis methods, and data analysis results are presented as frequency, percentage, and graphic. the distribution of the studies according to language skill areas is given in figure 5. figure 5. subject distribution by foreign language skills the data presented in figure 5 indicate that the majority of studies on dgbll focus on the word level, with a frequency of 41 and comprising 37.93% of the total studies. this suggests that there is a strong emphasis on investigating the effectiveness of digital games in enhancing learners' vocabulary acquisition and word-level proficiency in foreign language learning contexts. on the other hand, the findings reveal that there is a relatively lower number of studies specifically targeting writing skills, with only two studies accounting for 1.72% of the total. this observation highlights a potential gap in the literature concerning the use of digital games to improve learners' writing abilities in foreign language learning. it suggests that further research is needed to explore the potential benefits, challenges, and effective strategies for incorporating digital games in enhancing writing skills. considering the importance of developing well-rounded language skills, it is crucial to address the imbalance in research focus between the word level and writing skills. future studies should aim to investigate and identify innovative approaches, game mechanics, and pedagogical strategies that effectively integrate digital games to support learners' writing proficiency in foreign language learning settings. furthermore, the findings underscore the need for more comprehensive research endeavors that encompass a broader range of language skills in dgbll, including not only vocabulary but also speaking, listening, reading, and writing. by addressing these gaps, researchers can contribute to a more holistic understanding of the potential benefits and effective implementation of digital games in fostering language development across multiple skill domains. the frequency-percentage table for the studies conducted according to the motivation and anxiety status in the second category is shown in figure 6. kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 66 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com figure 6. studies on motivation and anxiety upon analyzing the presented figure, it is evident that the total frequency of studies in the field of dgbll is 16. among these studies, a significant proportion of research efforts, accounting for 70.58 percent, have been dedicated to investigating the impact of digital games on motivation in foreign language learning. this focus on motivation highlights the recognition of its crucial role in enhancing learners' engagement, persistence, and overall language learning outcomes within the context of digital game-based approaches. additionally, the figure reveals that 23.52 percent of the studies have examined the relationship between dgbll and anxiety. this finding suggests that researchers have recognized the potential influence of digital games on learners' anxiety levels during language learning activities. exploring this aspect is valuable, as addressing anxiety can contribute to creating a supportive and conducive learning environment that promotes learners' confidence and reduces potential barriers to language acquisition. the emphasis on motivation and anxiety in the reviewed studies indicates the acknowledgment of these psychological factors as important considerations when designing and implementing dgbll interventions. by addressing motivation and anxiety, researchers and educators can effectively promote learners' positive attitudes, engagement, and emotional well-being, ultimately facilitating more effective foreign language learning experiences. it is worth noting that while motivation and anxiety are crucial aspects to investigate in the dgbll context, future research should also explore other relevant factors such as cognitive processes, language proficiency development, and socio-cultural considerations. by examining a broader range of variables, researchers can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted effects and implications of dgbll in foreign language learning. according to the data obtained, it is evident that quantitative research has been the most commonly employed method in studies on dgbll, accounting for 56% (n=28) of the total studies. this preference for quantitative research reflects the inclination of researchers to gather and analyze numerical data to investigate the effectiveness and impact of digital games in foreign language learning. quantitative research allows for the measurement and statistical analysis of variables, enabling researchers to establish correlations, trends, and generalizable findings. on the other hand, the utilization of qualitative research methods in dgbll studies is comparatively lower, representing 22% (n=11) of the total studies. qualitative research methods are valuable for exploring learners' experiences, perceptions, and in-depth understanding of the complex dynamics and nuances of dgbll. qualitative approaches, such as interviews, observations, and focus groups, provide rich and detailed insights into learners' perspectives, motivations, and learning processes, offering a deeper understanding of the phenomenon under investigation. interestingly, the findings reveal an equal number of studies employing mixed methods (n=11) as those using qualitative methods (n=11). the utilization of mixed methods signifies researchers' recognition of the value of combining quantitative and 0 20 40 60 80 motivation anxiety percentage 70,58 23,52 frequency 12 4 70,58 23,52 12 4 kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 67 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com qualitative approaches to capture a more comprehensive understanding of dgbll. by integrating both quantitative and qualitative data, researchers can gain a more holistic view of the subject, incorporating numerical data as well as rich qualitative insights. the distribution of research methods in the dgbll studies indicates the diverse approaches employed to explore the multifaceted nature of digital game-based foreign language learning. while quantitative research offers valuable quantitative data and statistical analysis, qualitative research and mixed methods bring in-depth contextual understanding and nuanced perspectives. it is essential to consider that the choice of research method should align with the research questions, objectives, and the nature of the phenomenon being investigated. each research method has its strengths and limitations, and selecting the appropriate method or employing a combination of methods should be determined by the research goals and the research context. according to the data, it is evident that achievement tests are the most commonly used data collection tool in studies investigating the effects of digital games on language learning in the context of dgbll, accounting for 50% (n=28) of the total studies. achievement tests are standardized assessments that measure learners' language proficiency and skills, allowing researchers to gather quantitative data on learners' performance and progress. these tests provide objective and comparable measures of language learning outcomes, enabling researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of digital games in improving language proficiency. on the other hand, interviews are the least utilized data collection tool in the examined studies, representing 7.1% (n=4) of the total studies. interviews involve direct interactions with participants, allowing researchers to gather qualitative data on learners' experiences, perceptions, and attitudes toward dgbll. through interviews, researchers can gain in-depth insights into learners' perspectives, motivations, and challenges related to using digital games for language learning. while interviews require more time and resources to conduct, they offer valuable qualitative data that enriches the understanding of the impact and experiences associated with dgbll. it is important to note that different data collection tools offer distinct advantages and limitations. achievement tests provide standardized and quantifiable measures of language learning outcomes, facilitating comparisons and statistical analysis. on the other hand, interviews offer subjective and contextual insights, allowing researchers to explore the individual experiences and nuances of language learners concerning digital games. the data presented in the analysis indicate that the primary school level had the highest average sample size (n=131) among the education levels examined in studies on dgbll. this suggests that a significant number of studies focused on investigating the effects of digital games on language learning in primary school settings. the primary school level is crucial in language acquisition, as it lays the foundation for language skills development. in contrast, the high school level had the lowest average sample size (n=49) among the education levels studied. this indicates that fewer studies specifically targeted high school students in the context of dgbll. it is worth noting that high school students may have different needs, motivations, and learning experiences compared to younger learners, which could contribute to the lower sample size at this level. regarding the distribution of studies according to education levels, it was found that the university level had the highest frequency (f=9) of sampled studies. this suggests that a considerable number of studies focused on digital game-based foreign language learning in university settings. this could be due to the availability of resources, research opportunities, and a higher level of autonomy among university students. on the other hand, the preschool level had the lowest frequency (f=3) of sampled studies, indicating that fewer studies have targeted this age group in the context of dgbll. this could be attributed to factors such as the limited availability of digital gamekazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 68 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com based interventions specifically designed for pre-schoolers and the challenges associated with conducting research with young children. the analysis of the data revealed that the questionnaire was the most commonly used data analysis method, accounting for 30.4% of the studies in dgbll. this indicates that researchers frequently employed questionnaires to collect and analyze data related to digital game-based foreign language learning. questionnaires are commonly used to gather selfreported information from participants, allowing researchers to assess various aspects such as attitudes, perceptions, and preferences. in contrast, less frequently used data analysis methods included frequency analysis, meta-analysis, and non-parametric tests, each accounting for only 1.8% of the studies. frequency analysis involves examining the occurrence and distribution of specific variables or categories within a dataset. a meta-analysis, on the other hand, involves synthesizing the results of multiple studies to draw overall conclusions. non-parametric tests are statistical tests that do not assume a specific distribution of data. the lower utilization of these methods may be due to various factors, including the nature of the research questions, the type of data collected, or the specific focus of the studies included in the analysis. it is important to note that the choice of data analysis method depends on the research objectives, the type of data collected, and the research design employed. researchers should carefully select the most appropriate analysis method that aligns with their research questions and the characteristics of their data. the results indicate that a majority of the studies on the effect of digital game-based foreign language learning (dgbll) on learners were successful, accounting for 93.6% of the total studies analyzed. this suggests that incorporating digital games into foreign language learning has generally yielded positive outcomes for learners. on the other hand, a smaller proportion of the studies, representing 6.4% of the total, reported unsuccessful outcomes. these findings suggest that in some cases, the implementation of dgbll did not lead to the desired or expected results in terms of language learning outcomes. it is crucial to consider various factors that may contribute to the success or lack thereof in dgbll studies, such as the specific design and implementation of the digital games, the characteristics of the learners, the instructional methods employed, and the context in which the studies were conducted. the reasons for the varying levels of success or failure in these studies could be multifaceted and may require further investigation. discussion this study's findings underscore the potential advantages of digital games in foreign language education. through the analysis of 56 articles, we observed that digital games could effectively boost language skills, increase learner motivation and engagement, and foster cultural awareness (zeiss & isabelli-garcía, 2005). this aligns with previous studies that consider games as an enjoyable, engaging learning tool promoting learner persistence (anastasiadis et al., 2018). moreover, the study underlines the role of game design in foreign language learning. 26 articles underscored design elements, like clear objectives, immediate feedback, and authentic language use (kiili, 2005), that enhance game effectiveness. these features reflect game-based learning principles, which advocate for games offering meaningful and challenging tasks in line with learning goals (lameras et al. 2017). however, the study also highlights some limitations and challenges. for instance, digital games may not suit all learners, particularly those less technologically inclined or less familiar with digital games (licorish et al. 2018). furthermore, the effectiveness may vary depending on the game type and specific language skills targeted (acquah & katz, 2020). despite these challenges, the study presents compelling evidence supporting the use of digital games in foreign language education. hence, it is crucial for researchers and practitioners to further explore this field, identifying best kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 69 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com practices for the design and implementation of digital game-based language programs (yang et al. 2021). in response to the research questions posed, the latest findings offer several conclusions. first, the incorporation of digital games has demonstrated considerable potential for boosting vocabulary acquisition and enhancing proficiency at the word level. additionally, investigations into the effectiveness of digital games have revealed a positive impact on the development of critical language skills, including speaking, listening, reading, and writing. notably, there is mounting evidence supporting the positive effect of digital games on learners' motivation and engagement levels in the context of foreign language acquisition. moreover, studies are beginning to highlight the correlation between digital game-based learning and learners' anxiety levels, emphasizing the potential of games to facilitate a less stressful learning environment. the research conducted on this subject has been broad in scope, with researchers applying a variety of methodologies, encompassing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research approaches, to gain a comprehensive understanding of the phenomena. to ensure the validity and reliability of the findings, a wide range of data collection tools has been employed, including achievement tests, interviews, and questionnaires. furthermore, the universal applicability and adaptability of digital game-based language teaching have been shown, as studies have explored a broad spectrum of educational contexts, ranging from primary schools to universities. this study's findings highlight that digital games are a popular tool for foreign language education at universities, accounting for 35.71% of the studies. various data collection methods, including tests, interviews, and questionnaires, have been used, suggesting a holistic approach to evaluating this teaching method. it is evident from larger sample sizes in primary school studies that there's growing interest in using digital games for language learning among younger learners. questionnaires were the most preferred data analysis method, signifying the importance of learners' views. the high success rate of 93.6% reaffirms digital games as effective language-learning tools. in summary, there's a rising interest in using digital games for language education, particularly at universities, with diverse data collection and analysis techniques underpinning a comprehensive understanding of this approach's impact. the findings affirm digital games' potential to improve language skills, boost engagement, and enhance cultural awareness. however, the game design and learners' specific needs should be considered when implementing such programs. further research is needed to explore this and identify best practices (kazu & kuvvetli, 2021). our study on digital game-based foreign language learning diverges from prior studies in its broader scope and methodology. unlike previous studies focused mainly on vocabulary acquisition, our research offers a comprehensive analysis of various skill areas, including reading, writing, listening, and vocabulary, filling a gap in the literature. the study utilizes the embedded theory design for a nuanced examination of these skills across diverse settings globally, aiming to provide a holistic understanding of the topic. we've reviewed literature from 2010 to 2021 for a current perspective on trends and developments in the field, with the intent to spot gaps and opportunities for further research. our unique approach extends the existing literature, and we believe that our detailed analysis will provide valuable insights for stakeholders in this field. limitations this study has several limitations. firstly, it analyzed articles from only four databases and only in english, potentially missing other important research in digital game-based foreign language education. secondly, the review was limited to summary portions of articles, possibly omitting key information. the subjective nature of the coding process may have also introduced biases, kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 70 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com despite efforts to mitigate this with a standardized protocol and double coding. lastly, the study examined articles published until 2021, which may not capture the latest research in this rapidly evolving field. while the study's findings offer insights into digital games' role in language education, these limitations need consideration, and further research is needed to fully understand the potential of digital games in this context. conclusions this research carried out comprehensive research on digital game-based foreign language education, and primarily the descriptive features of the studies were taken into account. for this reason, firstly, the distribution of the study by years was examined, and as a result, it was proved that the use of digital games in the field of language education increased in recent years with the development of technology together with the game world, the increase in the variety of digital games, and the increase in investments on digital games (hamizul & rahimi, 2021). apart from this, it was determined that female researchers have done more research on this subject. high-quality scoping research begins with a thorough search. the present research explored four widely used databases and uncovered over 100 papers, resulting in a thorough evaluation. additionally, past studies have not paid sufficient attention to the characteristics/elements of dgbll, which seem to be essential areas for both study and practice aimed at improving dgbll. by studying current digital games for language learning using game design criteria, researchers may determine their quality and investigate their features while taking into account other factors such as language learning goals, educational level, and language competency level. as a result of the examinations made according to education levels, it can be suggested to include more studies in the field of preschool, secondary school, and primary school to eliminate the deficiency in the subject of dgbll in the literature. in addition, considering the frequency and percentage results of the sub-topics related to the acquisition of english skills, it can be concluded that the most gaps in dgbll in the literature are in writing skills, followed by listening, pronunciation (phonetics), speaking, and reading skills. in addition, when the data obtained from studies on motivation and anxiety states are examined, it can be concluded that dgbll has an interesting feature in students who mostly participate in game-based foreign language education. when the distribution of the studies according to the method types and the situations of the data collection tools were examined, it was found that the quantitative studies mostly wanted to measure the effects of the dgbll on the learners with the achievement tests, and it was seen that it was desired to obtain findings of the success of the students. in addition, when the sample levels are examined in the studies, it can be deduced that more opinions about dgbll are desired to be obtained by selecting the highest sample level in qualitative studies. consequently, when the results of many qualitative, quantitative, and mixed studies on dgbll were analyzed, it was found that dgbll played a successful role in learning in most of the studies, and it was learned that it was an effective method for learners. when the data is examined in general, it is seen that there is an important gap in the literature on dgbll, especially in the development of language skills. when the historical developments of the games are examined in the context of the conceptual framework (benson & chik; cornillie et al. 2012; 2011; peterson, 2013; reinders, 2012; reinhardt & sykes, 2012; reinders & wattana, 2012; sykes et al. 2008; sykes, 2017), it is seen that the dgbll researches are mostly at the word level. however, expanding this research to include additional skill areas and determining how successful dgbll is in language acquisition areas can contribute to the literature. kazu, i̇. y., & kuvvetli, m. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) 71 focus on elt 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(2005). the role of asynchronous computer mediated communication on enhancing cultural awareness. computer assisted language learning, 18(3), 151-169. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588220500173310 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-360-9.ch001 https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-360-9.ch001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103818 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2021.2008979 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.04.001 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588220500173310 ejal article template focus on elt journal vol 3, issue 1, 2021 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: rabiairem.demirci@omu.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. book review ‘‘language teacher educator identity’’ rabia i̇rem demirci res. assist., ondokuz mayıs university, turkey, rabiairem.demirci@omu.edu.tr apa citation: demirci, r. i̇. (2021). book review: language teacher educator identity. focus on elt journal, 3(1), 81-83. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00049 language teacher educator identity, gary barkhuizen. cambridge university press. london, uk (2021). 92 pp., paperback: $18.88, isbn 978-1-108–81266-5. the notion of professional identity has gained prominence in many professional fields, especially in education with supportive policies of universities around the world. as language teacher educators, we need to better understand the roles we are ascribed to carry the language teacher education a step further. in barkhuizen’s (2021) book language teacher educator identity, being language teacher educators in the field of language teaching and learning were examined from varying perspectives. barkhuizen is currently working as a professor in applied language studies and linguistics at the university of auckland, new zealand. as a researcher, his areas of expertise consist of language teacher education, teacher identity, study abroad, narrative research in applied linguistics. along with publishing several books on identity, he was involved in many projects adopting a narrative inquiry approach that he employs in language teacher educator identity book, as well. mailto:rabiairem.demirci@omu.edu.tr mailto:rabiairem.demirci@omu.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00049 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8884-2899 demirci, r. i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) 82 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com the book includes the description of different types of language teacher educators working in a range of professional and institutional contexts to comprehend the identities that language teacher educators are attributed to in different working contexts. this book not only presents theoretical aspects of language teacher educator identity but also provides personal narratives to support theoretical parts with practical sides to offer the reader to conceptualize the perfect matches and ill-matches between theory and practice regarding language teacher educator identity. with its comprehensive contents and reader-friendly style, the book may serve as a guide and a handbook for practitioners in language teaching fields from all levels of educational systems, but it is especially geared towards academics in the language teacher education field. to present an overview of the book of 95 pages in total, it is composed of five main sections respectively titled as; 1) who are language teacher educators?, 2) teacher educators reflecting on their identity, 3) what do language teacher educators do?, 4) further professional development of language teacher educators, and 5) future research on language teacher educator identity. this work aims to examine and understand how teachers learn to become teachers, what they know, when they know how to teach, how they continue to develop professionally over time, and how their teacher identities relate to what they do, both inside and outside the classroom. in section 1, who are language teacher educators?, barkhuizen (2021) introduces the topic by addressing basic questions and informs readers about what the work covers and what it does not. after this brief introduction of the work, the indispensability of the language teachers, the content and pedagogy of teacher education, and the teacher educators as core constituents of the knowledge-base of language teacher education (lte) is highlighted by stressing the significance of pedagogy education and pedagogical knowledge. the second part of the section starts with the author's personal narrative about his first formal experience as a kind of language teacher educator. after briefly discussing the narrative, language teacher educatorstheir history, their beliefs, experiences, roles and practices, emotions and desires, and their moral stance were presented in a straightforward way, dwelling on different types of language teacher educator types, including a brief statement of prominent identity theories. teacher educators reflecting on their identity is the name of section 2, which mainly discusses a study that aimed to explore the construction of teacher educator identities considering identity experiences of a group of seven teacher educators enrolled in a doctoral program at a public university in colombia, south america. barkhuizen (2021) used qualitative method and interviewed the participants about their lived and imagined experiences avoiding direct questions. however, before each interview excerpt, we see a short biography to introduce the teacher educator to help readers to comment appropriately and to bridge the gap between experiences of teacher education and their identities. just after the author presented some examples from the interviews exploring the experiencesreflecting their identitiesof the teacher educators were given, he discussed different dimensions encountered in the statements of the participants. following the discussion of the main themes related to teacher educator identity, they are re-organized and refined, and main identity keywords extracted from the interviews are defined, and identity-related categories are proposed in a table with brief descriptions of the categories. what do language teacher educators do? is introduced as section 3 in the book. in this section, what language teacher educators do and to what extent their experiences intersect with their teacher educator identities were introduced. after an extensive introduction, the process of becoming a language teacher educator is overviewed, stressing the potential identity tension experienced during the process. the importance of pedagogy education in lte was highlighted, and pedagogy-related 'must-haves' of becoming a language teacher educator were demirci, r. i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) 83 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com elaborately offered. towards the end of this chapter, the author emphasized the dynamic nature of language teacher educator identities, highlighting the fact that they are shaped and reshaped in the transition process. the author also touched upon the contributions of having a sit in an institutional or community service by the faculty along with being a researcher and their effects on teacher educators’ identities. at the end of the section, the author presented a language teacher identity conceptual framework that includes a discussion of aspects less frequently examined in the literature and concluded the section with a personal narrative, in which he reflected on some of his service and leadership contributions. section 4, further professional development of language teacher educators, mainly discusses teacher educators' reasons for continuing professional development referencing the interview statements of the same group of seven teacher educators enrolled in a doctoral program at a public university in colombia. barkhuizen (2021) mentioned professional development preference reasons which have different focuses such as personal-focused development, academic-focused development, practice-focused development, researchfocused development, and student teacherfocused development and clarified these focuses by matching the reasons with the statements of the participants. the last section, future research on language teacher educator identity, offers forty questions to encourage further research into the identities of language teacher educators. the questions were gathered under categories using some keywords to enlighten the path for the researcher. to-the-point further suggestions were made putting the focus on the importance of personal experiences, appropriateness of the questions considering the research context, and he ended the section with a personal narrative about his research interest and passion. all in all, i can fairly state that this book is an engaging resource for the target readers, especially with its narrative-based style. in my humble opinion, this book is a worthy attempt to fill the gap that language teacher educators have been neglected in the research literature in language teaching and learning. last but not least, the book has also highlighted the need to focus attention on the work they do and signaled the broad scope of academic potential that exists to be investigated, particularly that in relation to the development of their identities. although there is nearly no room for criticism, it may not be wrong to suggest organizing the sections in a better way to make the readers easily follow the subject matter. also, although the author's personal narratives clothe the book, it could have been better to give more place to the theoretical side of language teacher educator identity to provide a comprehensive understanding. overall, i believe the book is a notable contribution to the field and a stunning example for future works. considering all of these, this book deserves to be counted among the introductory books in the field of language teacher education. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. references barkhuizen, g. (2021). language teacher educator identity. cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108874083 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108874083 focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 4, issue 2, 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: daydin@msn.com; deniz.alkan.aydin@gmail.com copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. preparedness for online learning: an analysis of english teachers in türkiye deniz alkan aydin english instructor at toros university, mersin, türkiye, deniz.aydin@toros.edu.tr apa citation: aydin, d.a. (2021). preparedness for online learning: an analysis of english teachers in türkiye. focus on elt journal, 4(2), 43-69. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.4 abstract ever since the early 1990s, online learning has become a method of instruction in the education systems of the world. online learning offers both the educators and students extensive benefits such as flexibility, convenience, mobilization, and personalized learning. however, the significance of online learning had not been so apparent until the recent covid-19 pandemic disrupted life in türkiye and countries around the world. the switch to online education during the crisis was so swift and unprecedented that the question of how educators handled this experience was highly controversial. thus, the answer to how prepared the users were for this type of encounter was worth the investigation. the study explored how prepared the english teachers in türkiye were in using online learning to carry out their instruction from the start of the covid-19 pandemic in comparison to the time of data collection of the research. the project used a mixed-methods approach with an online survey conducted with 55 teachers and online interviews performed with 5 participants. the findings show that most teachers felt confident in their level of preparedness for online learning at the start and whilst the pandemic. however, the findings also highlighted the essential need for improvement in certain aspects of online learning such as staff and student orientation, functional infrastructure, user-friendly interface, administrative support, counseling services, and user interaction. lastly, one other significant finding of the research was that most teachers had been able to develop their skills in online learning independently without heavily relying on their institutions. keywords online learning, e-learning, ert, distance education. article history received : 29.03.2022 revised : 08.06.2022 accepted : 13.06.2022 published : 30.06.2022 type research article introduction when online learning (hereinafter oll) was a relatively new concept at the beginning of the century, there was some uncertainty about it. educators wondered how teaching online would eventually become an indispensable tool that almost every institution will use in some way or the other to instruct their students (ko & rossen, 2010). nonetheless, the ongoing development in technology has continued to enhance the comfort and convenience of people's lives, reflecting on how people communicate, socialize, trade, and inevitably get educated. online learning gives both the educator and the student the benefits of using the internet to send and receive educational content conveniently and practically. some examples of these benefits for the learners and instructors are being able to learn from almost any location via the web, mailto:deniz.aydin@toros.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.4 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1913-6640 aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 44 pursuing education while having other responsibilities, and tailoring the instruction according to the needs of the learners. what is more is that with the introduction of web 2.0, online learning has become even more effective and operational with the help of tools such as realtime chat, instant messaging, streaming media, discussion boards, and social media (burns, 2011). as mentioned earlier, online learning continues to add a valuable contribution to the world of education. however, it was not until the recent global pandemic of 2019 that online learning became a reviving tool for educational institutions worldwide. the novel coronavirus disease, also known as covid-19, was labeled a fatally contagious disease by the world health organization in 2020. according to its report, the virus was first discovered in wuhan, china, back in december of 2019 and later noticed in other parts of the world. the swift spread of the covid-19 virus forced schools to close their doors to face-to-face education and put a halt to instruction till it could be delivered by other means possible (bozkurt & sharma, 2020). nevertheless, online learning tools made it possible to pursue instruction and to learn again. however, as this scenario was utterly unforeseen for most participants, it created issues in adaption for the students and facilitation for the teachers. the leading cause of this was that although online learning had been developing for many years before the pandemic, it had not been implemented into the curricula of most institutions (hodges et al., 2020). what is more, the necessary preparedness of the teachers in online learning had played a significant role in making this process a success, and it deserves crucial attention from educational establishments. thus, this study intended to find the answer to the research question, “how prepared were the english teachers in türkiye in using online learning to carry out their instruction at the start of the covid-19 pandemic?” (*with reference to the time of data collection) although there had been some research done on the web instruction process in türkiye during the covid-19 crisis, most of them had been focusing on either the efficiency of the distance education system (beltekin & kuyulu, 2020), the teachers’ perceptions of online learning (karakaya et al., 2021), or pre-service teachers’ views on their digital competence (çebi & reisoğlu, 2020). by taking into account all previous studies, this research project attempted to measure a different aspect of the e-learning experience by analyzing the teachers’ essential skillsets needed for a robust online educational experience from the start and whilst the pandemic. background online learning educators have used different terminologies to refer to the term online learning. for instance, some of these terms are e-learning, internet learning, distributed learning, networked learning, tele-learning, virtual learning, computer-assisted learning, web-based learning, and distance learning. hence, anderson (2008) defines online learning further by simply stating that in online learning, the student learns from a distance from the classroom with the help of technology and support from the instructor. on the other hand, ally (1997 as cited in khan, 1997) does not see online learning to be a simple process and uses a more in-depth definition by remarking ‘‘the use of the internet to access learning materials; to interact with the content, instructor, and other learners; and to obtain support during the learning process, to acquire aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 45 knowledge, to construct personal meaning, and to grow from the learning experience’’ (p. 7). regardless of how we try to define online learning, one factor about the process does not change. oll is the instruction that is conducted with two required tools: a technological device (e.g., computer, tablet, mobile phone) and the medium of the world wide web. since there is a vast amount of information about oll and its affiliations, particular distinctions need to be made. firstly, oll is a type of distance education as the learning could be done physically away from the conventional classroom using the internet. however, it would not be correct to refer to distance education as online learning, considering that distance education could be conducted with other means besides the internet (e.g., post mail, dvd, telephone, tv) (ko & rossen, 2010). along with this, another separation needs to be made by setting oll apart from another concept called ‘‘e-learning’’. the european union commission, which is an acting body of politicians with one of their duties is to ensure quality education in europe, defined e-learning as: ‘‘the use of new multimedia technologies and the internet to improve the quality of learning by facilitating access to resources and services as well as remote exchanges and collaboration’’ (commission of the european communities, 2001, p.2). as the e.u commission highlights, although e-learning could involve using the internet, it does not necessarily depend on it. e-learning could solely be applied using preinstalled multimedia on a computer (e.g., audio and video, presentation slides, e-books). the significant difference here between oll and e-learning is that oll relies on the medium of the web as its agent. the final concept that oll deserves to be contrasted with is blended learning. stein and graham (2020) illustrate that blended learning is a combination of conventional instruction and online learning. they further explain that anytime a typical face-to-face learning course is supplemented with online instruction or vice versa, this process becomes labeled as blended learning. advantages of online learning as the digital age continues to progress, technology plays a more significant role in our lives, changing the way we learn and teach. therefore, it is implicit that oll can create significant educational opportunities both for the educator and the student. what is more, as holmes and gardner (2006) affirm, oll creates a transformation in the way students learn by extending and enhancing the learning experience. therefore, one benefit of oll is its flexibility (anderson, 2008). oll does not possess limitations to time or location for most users. either the educator or the learner can access material from almost any time zone or geographical position at any given time. another advantage to oll according to fee (2009) is that online learning can become crucially practical if/when the teaching content needs to be personalized for the learner. with the power of online learning, different learning styles and methods could be implemented into educational programs by creating tailor-made courses. with the high demand for computer skills and savviness towards technology in the business world, it is crucially important that the current generations (e.g., millennials, gen. z) possess the proper knowledge needed for their careers in the digital age. based on this note, another advantage to oll is that it can motivate participants to acquire such technical skills. aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 46 challenges of online learning it would be overcredulous to create a perfect image of oll because, just as with other new developments in education (e.g., competency based-learning, experiential learning, distance education), the oll method also comes with its challenges and skepticism. although computers and the internet have been more widely available in recent years, these tools still require additional training and knowledge to a certain extent. ironically one of the most challenging drawbacks to oll is technology. aiming to participate in oll, the stakeholders (e.g., educators, students, staff) are expected to own a technological device (e.g., tablet, laptop) and have stable access to the internet (berman, 2006). furthermore, these stakeholders need to have acquired minimal computer skills to make educational tasks successful. consequently, failure to be adequately equipped with these skills would result in frustration and discouragement for most participants (zounek & sudický, 2012). kumar (2015) points out another drawback of oll, the lack of interaction among the participants. she argues that face-to-face interaction is inadequate in oll and that most real communication happens through emails and instant messages. therefore, the issues related to isolation and lack of interaction could negatively affect students' productivity and motivation. zounek and sudický (2012) further argue that this particular problem could be more visible with students who are not characterized as independent learners and need instructor support for their progress in the course. the final setback to oll is the argument of learning itself. as anderson (2008) states, some educators believe that oll does not fully allow deep learning to take place with more complex subjects. according to anderson, deep learning cannot exist without having real-time classroom experience, building technical and pedagogical homogeneity, monitoring possibilities that invade privacy regulations, and theorizing existing cultural activities (e.g., education as a cultural discourse). learning languages via online learning technology has taken part in language learning for decades. ever since the obsolete cassette player, devices such as cd players, dvd players, projectors, mp3 players, laptops, and tablets have assisted the learner and the instructor in the language classroom. in fact, the use of a computer in language learning dates back to the start of the 1960s with the computer assisted language learning system (call). whether recording an excerpt for the listening exercise of an exam or displaying the book's contents on the whiteboard, these tools have created countless ways to creativity for language enthusiasts. with the advancement of the internet in the late 1980s and the accessibility of a web browser in the early 1990s, technology created new opportunities for oll in education (bezhovski & poorani, 2016). the first aspect of oll in language acquisition worth discussing is the use of learning management systems (lms) and the virtual learning environments (hereinafter vle). both lms and vle are online platforms that create a language-learning opportunity with the use of the web. although lms and vle are used interchangeably in the literature, pinner (2014) distinguishes these two systems by pointing out that the difference between the two is that lms is more of a training-based platform where the interactive realtime instruction is not so significant. pinner further distinguishes by saying that in vle, the aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 47 focus is more on the interactive real-time learning process. in other words, lms is preferred mainly by institutions whose goals are to track the progress of their trainees, whereas vle is fancied by organizations that want to educate students with synchronous instruction. furthermore, due to the insignificant difference between the two platforms, this composition will use the term lms to refer to these online learning platforms throughout this study. finally, moodle, blackboard, alms, sakai, and google classroom are examples of some lms systems used today for online language teaching. about 3.78 billion people use social media in the world today, and this number is expected to rise to 4.41 billion by the year 2025 (tankovska, 2021). as the numbers highlight, social media has become one of the most preferred ways to socialize and communicate. furthermore, social media has also been integrated into the language learning process, and it has gained its place as one of the most beneficial online teaching tools (ahmed, 2020). language learners can access videos or films with subtitles of the target language or subscribe to language teaching channels via social media. in addition, teachers may use blogs or pages to provide materials and create online interactions for their students. using social media in language learning also provides benefits such as student immersion, participant collaboration, blended learning opportunities, and student self-direction (ahmed, 2020). popular social media types with language learning are youtube, twitter, facebook, flipgrid, and specialized blogs. another conventional classroom tool that has been carried to the realm of online is games. wright et al. (2006) describe a classroom game as ‘‘an activity which is entertaining and engaging, often challenging, and an activity in which the learners play and usually interact with others’’ (p.1). halfield (1999 as cited in gozcu & caganaga, 2016) emphasize that some authors on games in the classroom defend the idea that games should not just be used as supplementary tools but instead be placed in the center of the language learning process. what is more, playing games in the classroom can ease language learning difficulty by making it fun, allowing the student to use the language in context, and review previously learned material (halfield, 1999 as cited in gozcu & caganaga, 2016). some examples of popular english learning games that can be played online are kahoot (user-generated quiz), hangman (letter guessing/spelling), taboo (word guessing), and scrabble (word formation). competency of the online teacher according to barbour (2012), although what teachers learn in their pre-teacher training programs on conventional education may align with how they should approach oll, there is still a substantial difference between oll and face-to-face instruction. by the same token, burns (2011) stresses that distance education, especially in web-based applications, is a significant paradigm shift. furthermore, robinson and latchem (1997) warn that instructors without a good understanding of technology or pedagogy will be confronted by a steep learning curve. according to the authors, teacher competency in oll is essential. if the instructors are not skillfully prepared for the oll experience, it can lead to ominous consequences in learning. hence, proper teacher training in oll is thereby fundamentally beneficial for institutions. the idea of being trained as a conventional instructor before becoming an online teacher is most likely accurate but what is certain is that the duties and the responsibilities of the oll aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 48 educator outweigh that of any traditional teacher (gulbahar & kalelioglu, 2015). goodyear et al. (2001) summarize these roles of the online educator for us, as seen in figure 1 below. figure 1. roles of the online teacher (goodyear et al., 2001, p.69) the first role of the online teacher is to act as a technologist. this indicates that the instructor is expected to choose the right technologies to be used in online learning, which will help enhance the learning environment for the learners (goodyear et al., 2001). the next role is the advisory role. the instructor maintains contact with the learners individually to help them get the most out of the online learning experience (goodyear et al., 2001). the following role of the teacher is the content facilitator, where they are responsible for the learners' understanding of the online course content (goodyear et al., 2001). the fourth role is administration. with this duty, the teacher assists students with issues related to registration, online security, and record keeping (goodyear et al., 2001). next is the role of being an online content designer. the online teacher is expected to construct tasks specifically designed for online learning (goodyear et al., 2001). the sixth role of the online instructor is to be the process facilitator. this particular position is more complex compared to the previous roles mentioned. the oll teacher is accountable for creating online learning tasks that involve welcoming learners, developing ground rules, creating an online community, maintaining communication, demonstrating social behavior, and creating a self-identity for students (goodyear et al., 2001). the next role of the instructor is involved with assessment. this particular job is more straightforward as the teacher conducts online assessments, provides timely feedback/marks, and validates learners' assignments (goodyear et al., 2001). finally, the last role of the online teacher is the researcher. since knowledge, content, and technology are in constant development, the online instructor's unique duty is to search and find new information regarding these elements for online instructional content (goodyear et al., 2001). based on the information provided above, it is apparent that the role of the online teacher goes well beyond just teaching. the instructor has to be well knowledgeable in other areas such as technology, research, online content, administration, design, and processing. for these reasons, burns (2011) encourages all oll programs worldwide to offer high-quality ongoing professional development for their staff. as attested by burns, the online teacher training programs should mainly focus on the following aspects of teacher development: understanding how to utilize technology (e.g., using emails, chat, bulletin boards, lms systems, web 2.0 applications), maintaining student interest and motivation, promoting interaction (e.g., student aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 49  teacher, student  student, student content), providing timely and relevant feedback, creating high-quality evaluations that make use of the advantages of the specific distance learning technology, allocating instruction and assistance for students (based on needs, abilities, and professional status), constructing fair assessments that take advantage of the specific distance education technology and understanding grading and administrative procedures (especially in the context of lms). all in all, teacher capability and creativity in technology add significant value to distance learning programs. the skills of adapting conventional pedagogical approaches while exploiting the benefits of the internet can raise the quality standards of any type of distance education program. preparedness of the online teacher as mentioned earlier in this composition, using any kind of new technology can bring along its challenges. therefore, it is essential that working professionals do some research on how to overcome these challenges and acquire some type of training. with this in mind, some countries around have already placed teacher development programs in oll. some examples of these countries are singapore, taiwan, and china (kong et al., 2017). what is more, according to kong et al. (2017), the most common methods being used for teacher development in oll today are lectures, workshops, hands-on training, involvement in communities of practice, mentorship programs, and design-based pedagogical education. in relation to these types of teacher training programs, the literature from various authors suggests that oll instructors gain skills in the following areas: the use of technology (goodyear et al., 2001), content facilitation (burns, 2011), blended pedagogy (burns, 2011), maintaining online presence (burns, 2011), learner management (dennis et al., 2004), instructional design (gulbahar & kalelioglu, 2015) and e-assessment (gulbahar & kalelioglu, 2015). the first aspect of online teacher training programs is the use of technology. the progress in technology demands that educators stay up to date with their technological skills. as a result, with the implementation of oll, teachers need to possess basic computing skills (e.g., word processing, email, file organization, installing/uninstalling software) and knowledge of information communication technologies (ict) (ghavifekr & rosdy, 2015). as goodyear et al. (2001) mentions, the online teacher also carries the title of being a "technologist." therefore, he/she must be able to deal with any technological issues and at the same time make good use of the technologies available for instruction in oll. furthermore, carrolaggi (2006) and sodhar et al. (2020) identify these commonly used technological oll tools in figure 2 below. aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 50 figure 2. technologies used in oll (adapted from carrolaggi, 2006; sodhar et al., 2020) the second notion of online teacher training programs is content facilitation. according to burns (2011), a common misinterpretation by online instructors is the belief that learners can learn independently with the provided learning content. in contrast, burns argues that the oll instructors are responsible for assuring that the participants gain a deep knowledge of the learning materials and that this process is efficiently structured. as a result, it is vital that oll instructors possess skills in online facilitation. as zorfass et al. (1998) indicate, some of the facilitation duties of the online teacher are to provide orientation to the participants, promote strong interaction, identify the needs of the students, and create channels for feedback on the learning. furthermore, pappas (2014) points out another aspect of facilitation related to content. he states that instructors should break down the information they provide to the students by dividing their courses into smaller sessions. this way, the learners can absorb the information given to them and make sense of it. pappas concludes by emphasizing that the content taught online should also have connections to actual life scenarios so that the learners can build a real connection. the third critical skill for oll teachers stated by burns (2011) is adapting instructional skills from face-to-face education to the online learning environment. in other words, to use blended pedagogy. as vanourek (2006 as cited in burns, 2011) notes, ‘‘distance learning programs often struggle to find well-qualified instructors who understand how the intersection of technology, pedagogy, and content can provide meaningful learning experiences for the learners’’ (p.178). nevertheless, harris et al. (2007) suggest that teachers acquire sufficient technology-based pedagogical content along with various pedagogical approaches. thus, online instructors need to combine two types of technology or approaches to convey information to the learners effectively. aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 51 the fourth aspect of online teacher training programs is online presence. since oll is a form of distance education, the participants may not be physically in the same environment as the teacher or their classmates. consequently, this may create a disconnection among all the stakeholders (burns, 2011). therefore, according to burns, the online instructor has to be skilled in maintaining the online presence of all learners by supporting engagement and curiosity, analyzing participant interaction, monitoring learner progress, and creating ways for deep communication. another type of expertise burns (2011) believes that the oll teacher should demonstrate is learner management. since learners in the oll platform may not be accustomed to the learner autonomy or self-discipline, the instructors need to act as counselors. therefore, the instructor directs students to reach their goals by helping them find resources, setting up synchronous interactions, motivating them to participate in group assignments, and making sure they are up to date with their work. burns (2011) proposes that this can be achieved by using online communication tools (e.g., instant messaging, email, discussion boards) on an ongoing basis. lastly, dennis et al. (2004) add that the online educator is also entitled to other managerial duties such as course record-keeping and overseeing enrollments. the following skillset for the online teacher, according to gulbahar and kalelioglu (2015), is the concept of instructional design. reizer (2007, as cited in azimi & fazelian, 2013) gives the latest definition to instructional design regarding the concept of technology as ‘‘the analysis of learning, performance problems, design, development, implementation, evaluation, and management of both instructional and non-instructional processes and resources’’. therefore, it is a vital skill for the online instructors to develop a learning environment with the following foundations: fundamental knowledge of the learning process, taking into account the learners' needs, forming a connection between theory and practice, accommodating different learning styles, having a flexible design (customizable) and maintaining flexible delivery of instruction. the final concept of online teacher training programs worth mentioning is e-assessment. burns (2011) identifies assessment in distance education to be the weakest element. he advocates the view that problems such as distance, lack of funding, and under-trained staff who do not have sufficient knowledge in online assessment result in testing that forgoes validity and accurate performance-based measurement. furthermore, he adds that assessments in distance education should be formative and continual rather than summative. therefore, the online instructor is advised to make full use of the technology available online by utilizing certain conventional face-to-face assessment practices on the online platform. some examples of the online alternatives for assessment could be online quizzes, e-portfolios, drag and drop activities, online interviews, dialogue simulations, online polls, online games, and discussion boards (jones, 2020). methodology the operation of this study took a mixed-methods approach. the quantitative data collection was performed with a five-point likert scale online survey with statements related to the essential skillsets of online teachers. the researcher conducted semi-structured, individual interviews with five participants for the qualitative data collection. however, to better aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 52 understand the topics asked in the questions, the researcher used probes to acquire more indepth explanations of the answers. participants the participants for the study, in general, had two pre-set requirements. the first requirement was that they had to be english teachers working in türkiye, and secondly, they had to have taught online learning at any point from the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic to the time of research. the participants were first recruited from the researcher's network of colleagues for the online questionnaire. the researcher sent out the surveys first to his network of teachers and then had those people send the online questionnaire to other potential candidates. in addition, social media such as linkedin and instagram were also used to reach out to the candidates outside of the researcher's internal network. a total of 55 english teachers filled out the online questionnaire. for descriptive statistics purposes, some demographic information such as age, gender, location, type of institution, level of education, and work experience were acquired from the contributors. thus, based on the demographic information accumulated from the survey, the researcher was able to determine the following characteristics of the participants: firstly, most of the partakers were from the age group of 31-40 (58.2 %), as shown in figure 3, with the females dominating the task with 69.1 %, as demonstrated in figure 4. figure 3. age groups for survey participants figure 4. gender results for survey participants aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 53 secondly, in addition to the age and gender information, other demographic details that were observed to be relevant were the teachers' work experience and the type of institution. according to figure 5, a large proportion of the participants had 6-10 years of work experience (49.1%), with 54.5 % working in private institutions, as illustrated in figure 6. figure 5. teaching experience for survey participants figure 6. type of institutions survey participants work for the recruitment for the online interviews took place via email. the researcher contacted potential participants with the contact information they had left on the last section of the online survey. in order to get different perspectives on the interview questions, the researcher tried to choose individuals based on three types of demographic data. these were age, type of institution, and grades taught. table 1 below shows the results of the demographic data of the five participants from the interviews, along with their genders. table 1. demographic information on interview participants pseudonym gender age institution type grades taught p-1 female 41-50 governmental university p-2 male 51 or older private university p-3 female 31-40 governmental high school p-4 female 21-30 governmental university p-5 male 31-40 private university aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 54 all the interviews started with a couple of ice breaker questions regarding why the participants became teachers and their feelings towards their jobs. the interviews later progressed into questions related to the participants' perceptions on specific aspects of oll, such as general feelings on oll, teachers' preparedness for oll, motivation and interaction in oll, and the future with oll. quantitative data analysis the data collected from the google forms online survey was converted into an excel document. then the data was reorganized in excel according to variable names and values that the researcher had set in the online survey. once the reorganization was done, the excel document was imported into the spss software. in spss, final labels and measuring types were assigned to the data. finally, descriptive statistics were performed on the data to look at possible trends in the given answers. some of the statistical procedures conducted were frequencies, crosstabulation, scale reliability, correlations, and comparison of mean values. qualitative data analysis the one-on-one interviews conducted with five english teachers were digitally recorded with the zoom application. the audio files were then fully transcribed and prepared as text documents for thematic analysis. as mentioned by braun and clarke, the procedure could be applied by two approaches: an inductive approach (bottom-up) and a theoretical approach (topbottom, also known as the deductive method). since the researcher was interested in investigating related themes to the research question, the theoretical approach was adopted. next, by importing the transcriptions into the qda miner software, the analysis was performed in six phases, as suggested by braun and clarke. the first phase was getting familiar with the data (e.g., reading the dialogues a few times to get an overall understanding of the ideas or opinions). the next step was creating initial codes about the data (e.g., identifying early patterns). the third phase was to search for themes (e.g., grouping certain codes together tied to a similar idea). the following step was to review the set themes (e.g., going over the themes to ensure that correlation truly exists). the fifth phase was defining and naming the themes. in this step, the researcher had to decide on the themes he wanted to use for a detailed analysis. as advocated by braun and clarke, the final phase of the thematic analysis was producing a report (e.g., writing an analytical narrative on the themes and collected data). results and discussion teachers’ preparedness at the start of the pandemic as mentioned earlier, the online survey consisted of two parts that questioned the teachers’ competence in online learning skills. the first part (part 2 of the survey) was separated into seven sections that focused on different aspects of competence in online instruction. this part assessed the teachers’ skillsets at the start of the covid-19 pandemic rather than their status at the time of the data collection. there were seven sections with three statements for each section with a total of 21 items. for the total calculation of the results of this section, the aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 55 answers showing positivity were paired (e.g., agree, strongly agree), then the selections that showed negativity were paired (e.g., disagree, strongly disagree), and thirdly the answers showing uncertainty (e.g., neutral) were separately counted. finally, the total answers given for items 1-21 of the survey were calculated, and the percentages were determined accordingly. figure 7 below shows the results of the overall view of the teachers regarding their preparedness in oll at the start of the pandemic. figure 7. teachers’ preparedness at the start of the pandemic according to figure 7 above, a majority of the teachers (63 %) displayed confidence in their preparedness for oll, while 15 % showed concern. furthermore, 22 % of the teachers felt uncertain about the sufficiency of their skills. let us now look at the results for each skillset and interpret the results in the following sections. use of technology section a (items 1-3) of the online survey focused on the use of technology in oll. it acquired teachers’ views on how skilled they were in oll with technology-based tools, such as word processing applications, web-conferencing software, and online instruction platforms (lms). as shown in table 2 below, although the general attitude towards this set of questions seemed to be positive (n=55, m=3.89, sd=.839), question 3 related to the use of online instruction platforms displayed some concern. table 2. section a-use of technology question 1 question 2 question 3 average n valid 55 55 55 - missing 0 0 0 - mean 4.02 3.96 3.69 3.89 std. deviation .828 1.071 1.052 .839 question 3 assessed the teachers’ perspectives related to using instructional websites with the statement, “i had sufficient skills in using the online learning system of my institution (e.g., 63% 15% 22% agreement (prepared) disagreement (unprepared) uncertainty aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 56 lms, eba, moodle, google classroom) to give online instruction while switching to online education at the start of the covid-19 pandemic”. despite the fact that 37 out of the 55 participants showed agreement to this statement, 18.2 % of the teachers disagreed, while 14.5 % of them were neutral about it. the rationale behind the lack of confidence shown by some of the teachers may have been that the instructional websites were reasonably new technology, especially if the instructors had never used this particular tool for instruction or that this type of infrastructure had not existed at their institution before/during the pandemic. online facilitation the next aspect of oll that was questioned in section b (items 4-6) was regarding online facilitation. this aspect included giving online orientation about the learning system, encouraging students to interact, and preparing online learning content. 65% of the teachers displayed a positive stance on this aspect of oll for the total of the three statements (n=55, m=3.68, sd=.965). however, as table 3 displays, question 4 regarding orientation about the learning platform illustrates that about a quarter of the teachers (25.5%) felt neutral while 18.1 % disagreed. table 3. online facilitation (item 4) frequency percentage valid strongly disagree 2 3.6 disagree 8 14.5 neutral 14 25.5 agree 20 36.4 strongly agree 11 20.0 total 55 100.0 question 4 of the survey examined the instructors’ views on introducing the teaching platform to their students with the sentence, “i had sufficient skills in giving orientation to students about the institution's online learning system while switching to online education during the covid-19 pandemic”. as mentioned earlier, with the use of technology, the learning platforms had been perceived as advanced infrastructures that some teachers had not experienced before. thus, the lack of experience in this type of technology may have left the teachers confused, resulting in the incapability of familiarizing their students with the new instructional tool. blended pedagogy section c of the questionnaire (items 7-9) concentrated on using a blended pedagogical approach with online instruction. this aspect of oll measured the teachers’ views on how sufficiently they could convert face-to-face lesson plans to online learning. based on table 4 below, the majority of the teachers believed they were adequately skilled in all items, with 61.8 % for item 7, 63.6% for item 8, and 69.1 % for item 9. aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 57 table 4. blended pedagogy results (section c) scale of agreement item 7 item 8 item 9 agree (4) 38.2 % 32.7 % 49.1 % strongly agree (5) 23.6 % 30.9 % 20.0 % total 61.8 % 63.6 % 69.1 % despite the fact that all three items regarding the use of blended pedagogy for oll had seemed to show satisfying results, a demographic factor illustrated a compelling finding with this aspect of oll. item 7 examined the teachers’ views on their skills to adapt either face-to-face lessons or teaching approaches to oll in the statement, “i had sufficient skills in adapting a face-toface teaching approach to online learning while switching to online education during the covid-19 pandemic”. the astounding finding of the statement was that a vast majority of 32 of the 35 participants that displayed optimism about the use of blended pedagogy had had six years of work experience or more. the grounds for this outcome might have been that teachers with more teaching experience could better transform their face-to-face teaching materials to the online platform. finally, teachers that lacked the experience most likely found oll highly challenging as they had not had the skills to accommodate the new teaching environment. maintaining online presence the next group of statements in section d (items 10-12) addressed the skillset of maintaining students' online presence. in other words, were the teachers skilled enough to keep their students motivated, comforted, and engaged with oll? the findings show satisfactory results in this aspect, with 66% of the teachers agreeing to statements 10-12 (n=55, m=3.78, sd=.882). nevertheless, when we observe item 11, which demonstrated the highest mean score of 3.85 compared to 3.75 for items 10 and 12, the researcher felt the need to investigate what factors could have influenced these results. item 11 had questioned the teachers specifically in making students feel comfortable with the online learning environment with the inquiry, “i had sufficient skills in making students feel comfortable with the online learning environment while switching to online education during the covid-19 pandemic”. with a thorough analysis of the demographical information provided by the participants, it was agreed that the age factor of the students with the “grades taught” demographic information may have affected the results, as illustrated in figure 8 below. aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 58 figure 8. online presence by grades taught (item 11) as figure 8 above demonstrates, out of the 39 participants that showed agreement with item 11, 15 of them taught university-level students who were assumed to be 18 years of age or older. therefore, teachers dealing with the adults may have had less of a challenge explaining the new features of new technology than the teachers who had younger pupils. it may be appropriate to say the older students were most likely more familiar with using the internet and its communication tools than the younger generation. all of these factors may have influenced the experience of the teachers regarding this aspect. learner management section e of the questionnaire (items 13-15) assessed the teachers’ competence in managing their classes in oll. the topic of management included different aspects such as helping students with their individual needs, forming group learning activities, and bookkeeping of grades. according to table 5 below, the teachers’ position towards this dimension of oll was assuring except for item 14. table 5. learner management results (section e) question 13 question 14 question 15 n valid 55 55 55 missing 0 0 0 mean 3.69 3.38 3.87 std. deviation 1.086 1.225 .944 as 65.4 % of the participants agreed on item 13 related to helping with the students individual learning needs and 76.3 % of the teachers agreed on item 15 related to the bookkeeping of student records, the level of positivity towards item 14 was 54.5 %. question 14 enquired the teachers’ opinions of the readiness they possessed on organizing group learning tasks online by aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 59 asking the question, “i had sufficient skills in organizing students to participate in group learning with online learning while switching to online education during the covid-19 pandemic”. the speculation towards this outcome was the challenging task of applying groupbased assignments online. as this type of work requires certain technological features for executing pair or group activities online, it could be a complicated and detailed task to manage. instructional design the following aspect of oll that the teachers were asked about was instructional design. section f of the survey (items 16-18) covered skills such as constructing an online course (including an online curriculum) and developing learning tools specifically designed for online education. although the average mean is slightly above the threshold of positivity with 3.53 (n=55, sd=.909), the results for items 16 (m=3.40) and 17 (m=3.51) do not seem to be very convincing, as shown in table 6 below. table 6. instructional design results (section f) item 16 (instructional design) item 17 (instructional design) item 18 (instructional design) n valid 55 55 55 missing 0 0 0 mean 3.40 3.51 3.67 std. deviation 1.047 1.034 1.055 the particular set of questions in this section had been intended more for teachers in administrative positions (e.g., coordinators, course leaders) as the main topic was the construction of an online course. for instance, item 16 was stated as follows “i had sufficient skills in creating an online learning curriculum while switching to online education during the covid-19 pandemic”. although 28 out of 55 participants showed agreement with the statement mentioned above, constructing an online course requires far more advanced skills as both formal and informal learning solutions need to be constructed for the program (gulbahar & kalelioglu, 2015). online assessment the last section of the questionnaire, section h (items 19-21), observed the teachers’ skills in applying online-based assessments to their students. this section included using online technologies, adapting face-to-face techniques, and performing formative testing. the overall judgment made by the teachers regarding this aspect also showed positive results (n=55, m=3.61, sd=.879). however, out of all three items asked in this section, question 21 regarding formative assessments failed to demonstrate a favorable outcome (m=3.40, sd=1.099). the statement that assessed the teachers’ beliefs towards making summative assessments online was as follows “i had sufficient skills in performing formative assessments online while switching to online education during the covid-19 pandemic”. as the results are displayed in figure 9 aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 60 below, it is observable that a vast majority of 47 % of the teachers had shown doubtfulness in this particular skill. figure 9. -online assessment (item 21) the motive behind the weakness in the outcome of item 21 could have been that formative assessments had not been implemented into the teachers’ curriculum or that the methods for conducting this type of assessment were never discussed by the institutions when moving online (burns, 2011). current competence in oll (at time of data collection) the next part of the online survey assessed the teachers’ competence in oll at the time of the research rather than at the start of the pandemic. the rationale behind this inquiry was to see if the perceptions of the teachers had changed since the start of the pandemic. furthermore, the seven items asked (questions 22-28) summarized the seven skillsets mentioned in the previous part of the questionnaire. when we analyze each item one by one in table 7 below, we can see that the teachers displayed the highest confidence in their online class management skills with item 26 (m=4.20, sd=.755) while showing the lowest self-assurance in their lesson adaption competence with item 24 (m=3.78, sd=1.117). table 7. teachers’ competence results in oll (at time of data collection, items 22-28) n mean std. deviation item 22 (technology) 55 4.00 .923 item 23 (interaction) 55 3.85 .848 item 24 (adaptation) 55 3.78 1.117 item 25 (motivation) 55 3.87 .924 item 26 (management) 55 4.20 .755 item 27 (constructing oll) 55 3.91 .948 item 28 (assessment) 55 3.84 1.102 valid n (listwise) 55 47% 31% 22% agreement neutral disagreement aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 61 the justification behind these results may have been that the teachers were highly experienced, which may have helped with their online class managing skills. however, the lesson adaptation from face-to-face to oll seems to be a challenge for them. finally, when we observe the results of teachers’ current competence as a whole, figure 10 below shows us, that 70 % of the instructors had thought their current competence skills in oll were adequate. figure 10. teachers’ competence at the time of data collection another analysis worth noting is when we compare the teachers’ competence at the time of research to the start of the pandemic. after applying a t-test to the two sets of questions, we can see a positive shift of 0.22 in the mean average, as displayed in table 8 below. table 8. t-test results between current competence (at the time of data collection) and the start of the pandemic n mean std. deviation std. error mean questions 1-21 teacher's competence on oll (start of pandemic) 55 3.7004 .72778 .09813 questions 22-28 teacher's current competence in oll (at data collection) 55 3.9221 .77265 .10418 this progress in the teachers’ level of competence from the start of the pandemic could have been directly tied to the fact that 52.7 % of the participants reported that they had acquired training from their institutions while 32.7 % developed their skills independently since the start of the pandemic. this particular detail regarding this matter was acquired at the beginning of the survey in the demographic section as a question with 4 choices as demonstrated in figure 11 below. 70% 22% 8% agreement neutral disagreement aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 62 figure 11. source of teachers’ competence in oll although details about the specific training that the teachers had gotten were not asked in the study, the research supposes that educators that independently trained themselves could have either acquired knowledge from social media (e.g., youtube, instagram, facebook) or from community support groups. in addition, the study assumes that teachers that received support from their institutions had been given workshops or orientation programs on oll during the pandemic. online interviews searching for themes the online interviews performed with the 5 participants showed both diverse and mutual feelings on oll. although the emotion of intimidation had existed in all participants when moving to online education at the start of the pandemic, their perceptions of adapting oll to be a permanent method of instruction seem controversial. a total of 13 sub-themes were discovered with thematic analysis performed on the transcriptions of the interviews. figure 12 below shows these 13 sub-themes. aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 63 figure 12.sub-themes after a thorough review of the 13 sub-themes, the researcher grouped the themes that formed coherency and eliminated those that did not carry any significance to the research question (braun & clarke, 2006). hence, the remaining sub-themes were transformed into four central themes, as presented in figure 13 below. aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 64 figure 13.main themes the first main theme consisted of sub-themes that identified mainly attitudes, emotions, and perceptions toward oll. thus, it was labeled as “perceptions on oll.” the second central theme was related to suggestions made by the teachers on improving oll; therefore, it was categorized as “criticism on oll.” the third main theme merged the concepts of motivation and interaction into one category called “motivation on oll.” finally, the last central theme covered the beliefs of oll regarding future developments. it was labeled as “future with oll. theme 1-perceptions on oll the participants revealed their thoughts on oll from different aspects. the points discussed were about general attitudes towards oll, emotions when first switched to oll during the pandemic, and the implications of the process. all participants had unfavorable feelings when they were told to move to online education with the covid-19 pandemic hitting türkiye. for example, in the demonstrative extract below, p4 revealed her attitude towards oll when she discovered that she had to carry on her instruction online. she expressed intimidation towards a new means of instruction due to oll being something she had never experienced before. her anxiety had derived from the uncertainty of not being able to foresee the challenges of a new platform for instruction. in addition, she was also worried about her older colleagues because they had insufficient skills in using technology. aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 65 demonstrative extract p-4: well, actually, we were all freaked out! [laughter] because that's how we literally felt. i mean because it was something totally new. and especially with teachers who were nearly close to retirement age. they didn't know anything about technology. and it was really difficult and for me. it was kind of scary at first because you don't know what's going to happen and what's waiting for you. so that's how i felt at first. p-2 voiced similar feelings concerning oll when i asked her about her initial feelings. she exposed negative feelings similar to p-4, but her distress seemed to be more related to her technological skills. we can observe from the two participants (p-2 and p-4) that the lack of support from the institution, insufficient knowledge on technology, and the uncertainty of the future created undesirable emotions (e.g., anxiety, intimidation, isolation). theme 2-criticism on oll the interviewees discussed how oll could have been more user-friendly for the users and how certain factors could have improved their experiences. p-1 advocated her view on the importance of training and ongoing support for the users of oll when i asked her about the factors that could have improved the oll experience. p-1 emphasized the necessity of a training program not only for the educators but also for the students. she also felt that there should have been psychological support for the users for a couple of reasons. first, oll had been a new experience for most, and second, the pandemic conditions had contributed to this experience with worries and distress among the participants. furthermore, p-5 emphasized his frustration about how the lms platform of his institution had limitations and how he did not have the flexibility of carrying forward his instruction with a type of technology that he was comfortable with. p-5 demonstrated his dissatisfaction with the platform that his institution used when moving online. lastly, he believed that if he had had the flexibility of using third-party software with better features, his oll experience could have been less upsetting. theme 3-motivation on oll in the data, expressions towards motivation and interaction regarding oll were significantly noticeable. throughout the conversations, motivation and interaction seemed to have a strong connection with each other. what is more, the results indicated that the students and the teachers had a challenging experience in maintaining satisfactory levels of motivation. according to the teachers, technological issues, and lack of familiarity with oll had considerable influence on the users' motivation and interaction. when i asked about his motivation, p-5 mentioned that his platform was problematic, thus diminishing the motivation of the users. as noticed in the dialogue, the microphone feature of the platform was unsatisfactory because there was a considerable amount of delay in usage and a constant loss of connection. as mentioned by p-5, these flaws in the online infrastructure of the institution had a substantial adverse effect on interaction. when i asked p-2 about his thoughts regarding motivation, he commented by saying that oll could not replicate the learning environment of face-to-face education. therefore, this aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 66 created problems in motivation and interaction both with the students and the teacher. as brown (2008) mentions in his constructivist perspective, motivation cannot be generalized, and the motives behind it can vary according to the individual. nevertheless, we can assume from the conversation i had with p-2 that some specific elements had played a role in affecting the users’ motivation. these elements seemed to be the insufficient features of the learning platform, such as a camera or other types of audio-visual technology. theme 4-future with oll the participants were asked questions concerning the future of oll. the first question was on their views of where they saw oll in the next ten years, and the other question was more of a subjective point of view on their career positions with oll in the future. firstly, there was a mutual belief in seeing oll as a part of education for the present and future. however, when we observe the teachers’ perspectives from a subjective view of oll, only two of the participants showed interest in taking on oll as a permanent profession in the future. p-3 demonstrated her optimism for oll and her desire to be a permanent online teacher. p-4 also illustrated her devotion to oll when i asked her if she would take on a permanent position with online learning. determined by the conversations with the participants, they perceived oll to be a permanent component of education one way or the other. although we can apprehend that the teachers’ experiences had not been so straightforward and that oll had created different challenges for each teacher, there still seems to be optimism for the future. nonetheless, the two participants (p-3 & p-4) have put forward their high enthusiasm in accepting oll to be a permanent part of their instruction method for the future. discussion the purpose of the study was to assess how ready the teachers were for online learning by trying to find supporting data to answer the research question “how prepared were the english instructors in türkiye to use online learning to carry out their instruction at the start of the covid-19 pandemic?”. the analysis was carried out from the teachers’ perspective to assess how competent they perceived themselves to be when they moved online to continue instruction. as the literature on online learning suggested, the research project questioned the teachers on particular skillsets they should have been knowledgeable about. these skillsets were the use of technology (goodyear et al., 2001), content facilitation (burns, 2011), blended pedagogy (burns, 2011), maintaining online presence (burns ,2011), learner management (dennis et al., 2004), instructional design (gulbahar & kalelioglu, 2015) and online assessment (gulbahar & kalelioglu, 2015). based on the analysis of the survey from the previous section, the study could conclude that most participants had sufficient skills in conducting oll when the pandemic hit türkiye. in other words, the teachers were able to one way or the other execute their lessons online while facing some challenges. however, it is also significant to consider the educators who had displayed dissatisfaction or felt uncertain about their particular skills in oll. furthermore, the qualitative data from the interviews highlighted crucial topics for us to contemplate. factors such as staff and student orientation, functional infrastructure, user-friendly interface, aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 67 administrative support, counseling services, and staff and student motivation seem to be crucially important for the development of oll. based on the interviews, the study also made a connection to relevant research that had been conducted in türkiye concerning the perceptions of the teachers toward oll. as karakaya et al. (2021) had indicated in their research that issues such as poor interaction, technological infrastructure, and lack of teacher competency had played a role in these perceptions, the qualitative data gained in this project found supporting arguments for their claims. another outcome of the study that did not come as a surprise was how competent the teachers considered themselves to be in oll for their current status (in other words referring to the time of the data collection). clearly, the teachers also rated themselves to be adequately skilled in the various skillsets of oll after a year had passed since the start of the pandemic. however, one striking finding that was achieved from the analysis was the answer to where the competence in these skillsets derived from. as burns (2011) highlighted the importance of ongoing support and training for oll by institutions, the study revealed that the teachers had not only depended on the training provided by their schools but that they had been able to train themselves independently. as this research project had not enquired about the core of this selftraining, the study supposes that the teachers’ self-development in oll could have been gained by using various sources such as community support with colleagues (burns, 2011), social media, or books on oll. lastly, although the outcome of the study favors that the educators believed they were sufficiently skilled for oll, the concept of ert has to be emphasized repeatedly. the reason for this is that the study focused mainly on the concept of oll which has long been professionally developed as a means of delivery in educational instruction. however, with the pandemic's unprecedented effect, this delivery method was forced on most institutions across the globe as they had minimal choices of continuing their teachings otherwise (hodges et al., 2020). this is when the two concepts: oll and ert, overlapped with each other. therefore, although the teachers may have perceived themselves to be ready for oll, the experience they had lived through was more in the direction of an emergency act of taking on a system to teach their students by any means possible. thus, from the perspective of the researcher, it is safer to say that the teachers managed themselves successfully for ert but that the glory for a true implementation of oll needs a deeper understanding of its methodology, features, and technologies. limitations the study faced two important obstacles worth mentioning. the first limitation was the fact that the survey data was collected from 55 participants and the interviews were conducted with only 5 teachers. hence, these limited numbers restrained the researcher from making any nationwide generalizations of the results. another limitation was that since both the pandemic and the learning process for teachers had been ongoing phenomena, identifying the exact time each participant had developed themselves in the mentioned skillsets for online learning was unattainable. conclusion aydin, d.a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 68 the english teachers in türkiye displayed a satisfactory level of confidence in the preparedness of online learning for both the start of the pandemic and the time of data collection after a year had passed. what is more, there had been an improvement in their competence in online learning from the start of the pandemic to the time of research. in contrast to the literature on online learning, teacher training programs are not the only source for the teachers’ development in online learning. instead, they had been able to enhance their skills via self-development as well. nevertheless, no matter how much the educators may seem to perceive themselves to be ready for online learning, the online interviews reveal certain issues such as the absence of user orientation, malfunctioning infrastructure, complicated user interface, lack of counseling services, and insufficient user motivation that deserve crucial attention. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references ahmed, b. 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(translated to english from czech). wolters kluwer. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 3, issue 2, 2021 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: hhaq1@gsu.edu copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. book review ‘‘writing for change: an advanced ell resource haris haq graduate teaching assistant, georgia state university, united states, hhaq1@gsu.edu apa citation: haq, h. (2021). book review: writing for change: an advanced ell resource. focus on elt journal, 3(2), 65-68. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.5 writing for change: an advanced ell resource. inés poblet. whatcom community college library. (2021). https://textbooks.whatcom.edu/writingforchange/front-matter/introduction/ in the following paper, i review the text writing for change: an advanced ell resource by inés poblet, an associate professor at the world language department at whatcom community college in bellingham, washington. poblet is academically interested in sociolinguistics, culturally responsive teaching, the learning experiences of systemically nondominant learners, the decolonization of english language teaching, code-switching, and codemeshing. poblet comes from a bilingual background, possessing a mexican american heritage and having immigrated from buenos aires, argentina (cascadia open education summit, 2021). the text is an open-access web-text available in three formats: pdf, online, and xml. it has been published by whatcom community college and is licensed under a creative https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.5 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6211-0254 haq, h. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 66 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com commons attribution 4.0 international license. in essence, this allows the reader to both share and distribute the material under certain terms, such as giving appropriating credit (“attribution 4.0 international (cc by 4.0),” n.d.). this text is hosted by the “open textbook library”, which defines an open textbook “as one that has an open license that makes it free for anyone to use and change” (open textbook library, n.d.). naturally, this is the case for all the textbooks hosted on the platform, many of which were published only recently. the text, being a web-text, has no page numbers. it begins with poblet’s addressing the educators, and specifically the english language teachers who would be using or employing this text. poblet makes it clear that this text is meant to be a resource “in the work of anti-racism and decolonization in the field of english language teaching” (poblet, 2021). poblet also immediately offers her own narrative story, arguing that through unpacking “the narratives that brought us to who we are today, we begin the work of growing with and caring about human kind” (poblet, 2021). as someone whom herself was “overwhelmed by the realities of systemic oppression”, poblet presents this book as part of her larger goal of “building english language learner resources”, in light of her personal discovery of “anti-racist, culturally responsive, and decolonization approaches” (poblet, 2021). in this section, poblet also includes activities for the educators to reflect upon their identities before embarking on instruction. writing for change is a writing textbook that is designed to teach writing in the context of inclusivity. as much as it can be seen as an elt text, it is also a text appropriate for the introductory english composition classroom. the text can be considered a practical workbook in that it presents very little theoretical content, but teachers writing through the application. the chapters are organized into six sections, as follows: a. warm-up b. vocabulary preview c. read all about it d. discussion e. topics for writing f. project! g. additional writing all these sections include various models and activities for practice, readings and discussions pertaining to community organizers, activists, and social justice movements, writing prompts that call upon learners to reflect on the topics, and projects inviting the learners to apply the content in the contexts of their respective community environments (poblet, 2021). the text, being an interactive one, also includes resources in multiple modalities to complement the main text, including videos, articles, and podcasts (poblet, 2021). the text is divided into seven chapters, including two proceeding sections and a final appendix. the first section, “creating our classroom culture”, focuses on the term “collectivism”. students are walked through an activity to discover the definition of this term, followed by group activities where students discuss aspects such as self-health and their ideal learning environments amongst each other. eventually, this culminates in students working individually to set personal and collective goals. most importantly, it allows for the setting of a frame of thought at the very beginning of any respective course. haq, h. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 67 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com the second section, “getting ready to write”, is where students are exposed to the knowledge of basic essay writing. like the format followed throughout the book, it does this in a “walk-through” fashion. students begin by discussing their own experiences in strategizing for a given writing assignment amongst each other. this is followed by a “puzzle piece” activity, where students are taught to see assignment instructions as parts of the respective “puzzle piece”. students are given an opportunity to check their understanding of this on a sample assignment thereafter. from here, students are walked through brainstorming and introductions, body paragraphs, and conclusions, often complemented with advice relevant to the underlying theme of the book (which is highlighted in bold). for example, in the brainstorming, poblet states that its main goal is “…to allow yourself space and time to think without boundaries, limitations, or judgments” (poblet, 2021). chapters 1-7 all follow a very similar model in their organization. all the chapters relate to a topic of discussion tied into the larger theme of the web-text. these are titled “identity, world englishes”, power and poverty, ¡si, se puede!, food deserts, protecting mauna kea, and black lives matter”. generally, the given chapter starts with a warm-up on student discussion related to the concept of identity, followed by vocabulary related to the topic. after some brief background reading related to the concepts, various prompts for discussion are presented where students take roles and amongst themselves and consider the questions in groups. students are then given topics of writing to consider related to the topic, and an idea for an instructional project on the given topic is then proposed. finally, additional multimedia resources are linked, including relevant videos, podcasts, and further readings. the book ends with an appendix that includes twenty-two readings pertaining to “decolonizing elt”. in reflecting on the text, i see it as valuable in the sense that it is a resource that combines pedagogy with inclusivity. in the case of composition studies, the primary lens by which i view the text, there has been a push in the field over the past years to work teach writing in a way that embraces identity and promotes social justice. this text, alongside its character of being open access, has great potential to be an asset in this regard. as much as the text frames its prompts and discussions into topics of personal identity and social justice issues, it allows for student practice in the important basics of writing. this text can even be used as a standalone text for an introductory english composition course, alongside its intended aim of being an advanced elt writing text. the text is also valuable in its accessibility which is appropriate considering its ultimate mission. it is also structured in a way that allows for easy lesson planning from the instructor. the text is limited in the sense that it does not include important instruction related to the rhetorical theories and practices that are central to composition and writing education. this would have been useful in an advanced ell writing resource book. its respective pdf version is also ineffectively formatted. all in all, this text serves a dual purpose, one that advances instruction and one that advances social justice. such texts are needed in our ever-diverse classrooms, where we, as educators, have a responsibility to give our students the confidence to express their voices in the most effective way possible. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. haq, h. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 68 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com references attribution 4.0 international (cc by 4.0). (n.d.). creative commons. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 cascadia open education summit. (2021). keynote speakers. https://cascadia.bccampus.ca/keynote-speakers/ open textbook library. (n.d.). faq. https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/faq poblet, i. (2021). writing for change: an advanced ell resource. whatcom community college library. https://textbooks.whatcom.edu/writingforchange/front-matter/introduction/ copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://cascadia.bccampus.ca/keynote-speakers/ https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/faq https://textbooks.whatcom.edu/writingforchange/front-matter/introduction/ focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 5, issue 1, 2023 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: makifince@gmail.com copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. plurilingual repertoires and identity constructions in transit states of the arabian gulf: a language portrait study with young people in a turkish school amehmet akif ince bgabriela meier aankara university, türkiye, makifince@gmail.com bsenior lecturer. dr., university of exeter, united kingdom, g.s.meier@exeter.ac.uk apa citation: ince, m. a., & meier, g. (2023). plurilingual repertoires and identity constructions in transit states of the arabian gulf: a language portrait study with young people in a turkish school. focus on elt journal, 5(1), 74-97. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2023.5.1.5 abstract this study focuses on the role of plurilingual repertoires in the construction of identities among adolescents in the arabian gulf region. the region attracts numerous migrant workers, each contributing to the linguistic diversity of a largely multilingual yet under-researched population. we analyzed visual data specifically language portraits (lps) and interview responses from twelve adolescents attending a turkish school in this region. this school was chosen for two reasons: firstly, its plurilingual environment was representative of the diverse linguistic interactions we aimed to study, and secondly, the school offered convenient access to the study group as the first author was working there as a teacher. our analysis contributes to the understanding of the complex and dynamic interplay between plurilingual repertoires and identity constructions. a thematic and metaphorical analysis of lps reveals how the young participants navigated their identities amidst intricate relationships among social, territorial, imagined, and symbolic affiliations. these connections notably shape the dynamics of transit societies, particularly in settings where english is the common language. keywords identity, plurilingual repertoires, language portraits, migration article history received : 07.03.2023 revised : 05.06.2023 accepted : 20.06.2023 published : 30.06.2023 type research article introduction populations in arab gulf states, often referred to as gcc1 countries, tend to be super-diverse and highly multilingual (calafato & tang, 2019). sometimes referred to as transit states (khalaf et al., 2015), these locations bear little resemblance to the migratory destinations of europe and the usa in terms of societal participation and integration (dito, 2015), and incomers are often not expected to converse in arabic, the national language. indeed, sociopolitical and cultural segregation between the larger incomer group and minority national arab populations is the norm (alshehabi, 2015; dito, 2015; glmm, 2016; khalaf et al., 2015). this segregation becomes especially evident in educational settings, where students often attend schools based on their family's country of origin. this segregation means that newcomers and 1 the gulf corporation council consists of bahrain, kuwait, oman, qatar, saudi arabia, and the united arab emirates. mailto:makifince@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2023.5.1.5 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6018-8442 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3899-6793 ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 75 national arab populations are less likely to interact in substantial ways, contributing to a divide in societal participation and integration. the relationship between languages and identity in gcc seems to be an under-studied but emergent field. there is a small body of relevant research, mostly on adult workers and their situations in gcc (hillman & eibenschutz, 2018; hopkyns & zoghbor, 2022; khondker, 2017; oneill, 2017), but little on adolescent groups. khondker’s chapter on uae-based bangladeshi learners, published in hopkyns and zoghbor’s (2022) book, is of particular interest here, as it resonates strongly with our study on young transnationals that we present in this article. we developed a professional interest in a specific group of transnational young individuals who were enrolled in a turkish community school in the gcc. our rationale for this focus stemmed from the fact that the first author of this study was an english teacher at this school. through his observations, he noticed that the learners exhibited the ability to utilize multiple languages. prompted by these observations, we were led to question the following: "what roles do learners' plurilingual repertoires play in the identity construction of young people in a turkish community school in the arab gulf?" thus, our professional interest in this particular group of students was driven by both the research potential presented by their plurilingual backgrounds and the insider perspective provided by the first author's role at the school. drawing on blommaert and backus (2011) and busch (2012), we defined plurilingual repertoires as complex repertoires of languages and language varieties (mastered at varying levels), as well as linguistic competencies and practices that individuals use and draw on for different purposes within speech communities and contexts. this article reports on a study that aimed to expand insights into the role linguistic repertoires play in the identity constructions of immigrant adolescents in sun state2. despite being part of an extremely multilingual population, this group has been subject to limited research. theoretically, we draw on norton and mckinney (2011) who argue that languages and language varieties are associated with identification, as people use languages and language varieties to index belonging to certain linguistic groups (blommaert, 2006) in different contexts, such as in families, in school and in society. sharing a language, or using differing language varieties, can therefore denote affiliations, but also affect negotiations of social positioning and hierarchies, including resistance and desire to learn or use languages. languages have therefore been theorised as part of a person’s multiple communicative resources as part of a linguistic repertoire (blommaert, 2006), or plurilingual repertoire (blommaert & backus, 2011). methodologically, the study collected data through the analysis of language portraits, which served as visual tools for data collection (busch, 2012). additionally, interviews were conducted with 12 adolescent english learners in a turkish school in the arabian gulf region. this context, while constituting a unique socio-linguistic setting, holds implications for other groups in voluntary and forced transit situations, including learners in other parts of the arab gulf, and potentially in refugee and economic migration contexts elsewhere. as is typical in gcc, sun state also hosts a large foreign population, and, in line with its migration policy, children from expatriate families attend private schools. these are associated with certain nationalities such as american, british, indian or french. in our case, 2 a pseudonym for one of the gcc states, to protect the identity of the school and related communities. ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 76 this was a turkish community school (tcs)3, which is a turkish national school overseas. in terms of its learner recruitment, tcs differs from some other international schools, as turkish nationality is an admission criterion. this is a k-12 state school, overseen by the turkish embassy, where the curriculum, textbooks, and examinations are all based on the national turkish education system. tcs attracts young people whose families originated, predominantly but not exclusively, from the hatay region in the southern part of turkey, where arabic is spoken for societal purposes. in the hatay region people typically have turkish citizenship, and their schooling is in turkish, but hatay – an arabic dialect – is used and accepted as a societal language (yıldırım, 2020). yıldırım (2020) describes the hatay dialect as an important identity marker for this group. some job seekers in hatay, having the advantage of speaking arabic, have chosen to seek work in sun state and bring their families. as language teachers, we assumed that the way languages are taught at school plays an important role in linguistic development in young people’s lives, and in their perceptions. in tcs three languages play a formal role. turkish is used as the medium of instruction, english as a school subject (4-6 hours weekly) as in homeland schools, and modern standard arabic (4-6 hours weekly) is taught as a separate subject. outside of school, most learners typically encounter hatay arabic in their family life, sun state arabic as the local language variety, and english as a lingua franca, plus other languages, given the international context. however, our study shows that the linguistic repertoires of tcs learners consist of many more languages and language varieties, while their linguistic identifications are far from simple or predictable. literature review and the gap in research in shaping our research design, we drew on literature concerning plurilingual repertoires and language learner identity, and we incorporated the use of language portraits as a research tool specifically tailored to investigate learner identities. we are thus contributing to research at the intersection of these topics, a relatively new field that has emerged over the past two decades. plurilingual repertoires and identity construction in addition to the definition of plurilingual repertoires introduced above, we took on board blommaert’s (2006) important distinction between communicative linguistic repertoires and communicative practices, which denotes the difference between language potential (desired, imagined, symbolic) and language uses (social, concrete) in everyday contexts. language has been proposed as a tool through which “relationships and identities are defined, negotiated, and resisted” (norton & mckinney, 2011, p. 77). thus, relationships and identities are shaped through contacts between speakers and groups of speakers of different languages and language varieties, while linguistic belonging can be desired, imagined and contested (meier & smala, 2022). belonging to language groups has been described as ‘layered’ (blommaert, 2006), as this is understood as dynamic, in flux and overlapping with other group allegiances. 3 pseudonym to protect identity of school ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 77 plurilingual repertoire not only refers to how and why we use languages, and which varieties we use in which situations (blommaert & backus, 2011), but also how we feel about these, and how our linguistic perceptions inform life choices and trajectories (chen & hélot, 2018) in complex and unpredictable ways. for instance, the first language in a person’s language repertoire is not always central to identity construction (canagarajah, 2008), and high proficiency in a language does not necessarily mean that there is a strong identification with that language (oriyama, 2010). indeed, tensions can occur between plural language competencies and “the coexistence of different competing points of views” (blackledge & creese, 2016, p. 274) or ideologies (meier & smala, 2022). research, which enabled adolescent participants to reflect on their language use (bristowe et al., 2014; prasad, 2014), shows that frequent use of a language may not necessarily index strong identification with that language either. for instance, in prasad’s (2014) study in canada, a participant with a korean background identified himself as english and preferred to be interviewed in french. given this unpredictability, blackledge and creese (2016) propose that people’s identities should be considered “not in terms of apparent or visible categories, but rather as emic positions which are self-identified” (p. 272). such emic positions are what we set out to establish through this study. plurilingual language learners language learners have been conceptualised “as multilingual social practitioners and agents with dynamic and complex biographies and identities who exist in a multilingual ecosystem” (meier, 2017, p. 153). in today’s world, most people experience different languages, dialects or ways of using a language, if not locally, then likely through the media and the internet. this understanding of language learners as people who use their plurilingual repertoires productively or receptively for their social purposes, and to understand their position in the world, was highly relevant to our study. in fact, dynamic and nuanced understandings related to language use and identities of young turkish people in european migrant contexts are emphasized, above all, in lytra and jorgensen’s (2008) book, which describes the use of all linguistic resources “to speak, write, and do identity work” (lytra & jorgensen, 2008, p. 10). of particular interest here are the findings related to young people with turkish backgrounds in europe, who were found to construct alternative identity options beyond the ones institutionally imposed on them (lytra & barac, 2008), or those used for signalling group identity (jorgensen, 2008). such findings suggest that there may be some tension between linguistic practices, or what people do, and their potential plurilingual repertoires. thus, for our study, we adopted a visual data-collection method that we deemed suitable to open “a window into the students’ minds” (i̇nözü, 2018, p. 193) without imposing any preconceived ideas of how languages, language varieties, home and host nations may be linked with identity construction. language portrait and identity research with adolescents language portrait research, as used by brigitta busch, informed our data collection and analysis. this method is designed to explore “heteroglossic linguistic repertoire[s]” and “representations of, attitudes to, and positionings towards particular languages” (busch, 2018, p. 11), and can uncover a range of identity aspects related to the linguistic repertoire of a person. ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 78 the limited language portrait research with adolescents that we identified (bristowe et al., 2014; prasad, 2014), encouraged us to use this method with the adolescent cohort in tcs. with research so far limited to north america (prasad, 2014) and south africa (bristowe et al., 2014) we saw an opportunity to expand our knowledge, by contributing relevant insights from the middle east. methodology we opted for a multi-method qualitative design, guided by an interpretative paradigm. this included language biographies (coe, 2019), language portraits (busch, 2018), interviews with learners and teacher-researcher reflections. the language biographies and lps were used as pedagogical activities in the teacher researchers’ regular english classroom in tcs, while interviews were conducted in addition to these with the 12 learners who consented to participate in the research project. data collection instruments there were four elements to our multi-method qualitative research design. the main ones are the lp and the interview. these were complemented by a language biography tool and a researcher journal. the language biography tool (coe, 2019) contains self-assessment checklists inviting learners to “state what he/she can do in each language, and to include information on linguistic, cultural and learning experiences gained in and outside formal education contexts” (coe, 2019). this enabled us to gather background information about the participants (as summarized in table 1), and enabled the participants to develop some language awareness before engaging in lps. lps have been widely used as a powerful pedagogic tool to help young people visualise their linguistic identities and repertoires (prasad, 2014). they have also been used in research to collect data (see peters & coetzee-van-rooy, 2020 for a summary). we adopted the body silhouette developed by busch (2012) and her colleagues, as this seems to be widely used, and piloting showed that it is acceptable to adolescent participants in tcs. for research purposes, lps are often accompanied by an interview to elicit verbal comments to construct the meaning of the visual representations (busch, 2012) from an inside perspective. the first author conducted short semi-structured interviews (approximately 10 minutes) in turkish, apart from with one student who preferred to be interviewed in english (harun). the interview questions were designed to find out about participants’ interpretations of the colours they used in the lp. thus, we used language portraits both for initiating interviews and as “a point of reference within the conversation” when necessary (busch, 2018, p. 6). the main questions were: “can you briefly describe to me your language portrait: the choice of colours, their arrangements and associations to different body parts and what you use your languages for?” (adapted from lau, 2016; prasad, 2014). the interviews were analysed thematically, guided by maguire and delahunt (2017), with categories inspired by the literature review, as described in section 4. in addition, the teacher researcher (insider) generated reflective notes to record observations, decisions, thoughts, potential subjectivities, and discussions held with the second ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 79 author (outsider). these enabled reflection on the research process and analysis, and helped contextualise findings. recruiting participants data was collected in 2018. at that time, tcs had around 300 students in total, from kindergarten (age 5-6) to grade 12 (age 17-18), and the first author had been teaching english to grades 9 to 12. we invited two classes of adolescent learners in grades 10 and 11 (n = 14); of these 12 consented to participate in our study. data collection and analysis the first author, who worked as an english teacher in tcs at the time, first gathered data during two 40-minute regular english classes. the first session involved activities based on language biography templates adopted from those published by the council of europe (coe, 2019). these activities combined pedagogic and research aims, as they facilitated an initial awareness among the participants of their language repertoire before their engagement in the lps during the second session. both the language biographies and lps enabled classroom discussions about languages more widely. for research purposes, the biographies and lps were anonymized and digitized, before the originals were returned to the participants. the third step in data collection involved interviews with participants, which were conducted during their lunch breaks. in addition, the teacher researcher generated reflective notes throughout the research process. our data collection generated 12 language biographies, 12 lps and 12 interview recordings, with some additional reflective notes. the analysis proceeded as follows: initially, the language biographies enabled us to describe the sample, including their first languages used at home (see table 1). we then consulted the lps, and reported associated visual data related to placement on the body silhouette and in some cases also on colour choice, guided by coffey (2015). he suggests that visual representations move “away from purely verbal descriptions of language(s) towards seeing the experience of languages as a complex configuration of emotional impressions felt in the body” (coffey, 2015, p. 504, original emphasis). this stage of the analysis helped us develop preliminary codes and guide our interview questions. as we progressed into the metaphorical analysis of lps, we incorporated three elements of coffey’s (2015) metaphorical framework. these are the core-periphery continuum, which suggests that emotional intensity is found closer to the core (torso, head, and/or heart), often including “family languages or accents that may not necessarily be well known but have strong affective resonance” (coffey, 2015, p. 506), and the language as a colour, which is expressed through the choice of colour, intensity and patterning. as there is cultural variation in metaphor construction (coffey, 2015), we kept an open mind as to how participants in our study assigned meaning and feelings to colours. coffey’s (2015) framework also suggests language as a symbol, where flags, or colours associated with flags, tend to be associated with languages, including standard and/or accents/dialects. we analysed the interview transcripts and the lps together, following busch’s perspective that “meaning is created through both modes [visual and narrative]; one is neither the translation nor simply the illustration of the other” (busch, 2012, p. 518). the interview transcripts were read multiple times to identify codes for answering our research question. ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 80 these codes were added to an excel spreadsheet, which housed all our raw data, and placed alongside the metaphorical codes that had emerged from the lps. this datasheet allowed us to examine all three sets of data in relation to each other. through our thematic analysis of the interview data, we identified deductive themes and several inductive sub-themes, as summarised in table 2. the reflective notes helped discussions and interpretations during the writing-up process. researcher positionality arguably there is no such thing as objectivity in social science research (khatwani & panhwar, 2019), therefore we make transparent the positionalities of the research team (1st and 2nd author) and how we mitigated potential biases. first, we have conceived and conducted this study as authors whose first languages are turkish (first author) and german (second author) respectively. at the time of writing, we both lived and worked outside our countries of origin and used various languages in our daily lives. thus, some of the experiences and feelings the participants describe are not alien to us. while we aimed to take an objective stance guided by theory, we are aware of our own professional and migratory backgrounds, which alongside our academic interest in multilingualism may have informed our interpretation of the findings. the fact that data was collected by the participants’ english teacher (first author) may have influenced the responses. for instance, the researcher's reflection notes indicated that the participants said nothing negative about ‘the role of english classes in their plurilingual development’. this bias is perhaps a common drawback of data collected by teacher researchers, and we took this into consideration when interpreting the data. in addition, the teacher researcher is a turkish national, but not from the hatay region. had he shared the hatay dialect as well as turkish with the students the interviews may have gone a different way. in addition, conducting the interviews in sun state, and on school premises, may have further influenced how learners evaluated their languages. the collaboration between an insider novice researcher (first author), and a more experienced researcher (second author) who had never been to sun state or turkey, enabled us to challenge each other’s position, develop a more comprehensive understanding and keep some of our biases in check. results we first describe the sample (3.1), and we then report our results from our thematic analysis, supported by visual metaphorical analysis and reflective notes (3.2-4). guided by busch’s (2018) identity dimensions, we deductively identified four main themes in the combined data (social/situational, symbolic, territorial, and future/imagined identities associated with plurilingual repertoires). sub-themes were developed through our analysis of the interview transcripts and respective lps largely inductively. each theme will be presented in a separate section and illustrated with our results from the visual metaphor analysis. the findings are supported by example quotes/extracts from interviews and illustrative lps. ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 81 introduction to the sample and thematic structure the participants in our sample attended tcs in sun state. based on ethical consideration, we cannot share more details about the context of this school with our readers, as the school might become identifiable. ten out of twelve participants in our sample had all their schooling in tcs in sun state. one participant (burak) reported that he had several terms of his schooling – at different times – in turkey, whereas harun had his primary education in malaysia, elementary (4-8 grades) in turkey and grades 9-10 in tcs. in table 1, the participants are introduced by pseudonym, age, gender, parents l1, and languages used at home. there are four males and eight females in this sample, ranging between 15 and 17 years old. gender distribution is typical of the school population, in which females outnumber males. parents share the first language of arabic in the case of seven participants, and turkish in the case of two participants. in three cases parents have other language backgrounds. yasemin reported that in her family only turkish is spoken, whereas all other families used at least two languages at home, according to the language biographies. table 1 also shows languages included in the lps. in these, all participants showed greater linguistic complexity than they did in their language biographies. all quotes offered below are translations from turkish to english, apart from harun’s. table 1. background information for participants pseudonyms age gender parents' l1s languages used at home languages shown on portraits 1 burak 17 m turkish (both parents) arabic (rarely) and turkish (often) turkish, arabic, english, japanese, kurdish 2 alev 17 f arabic (both parents) turkish (mostly), english (sometimes), arabic (rarely) turkish, arabic, english, tagalog, romanian 3 sevgi 17 f arabic (both parents) arabic (rarely) and turkish (often) turkish, arabic, english, japanese 4 hava 17 f arabic (both parents) arabic (rarely) and turkish (often) turkish, arabic, english, german, spanish 5 hanifi 16 f english & tagalog (mother) english (mostly), turkish (mostly, brother), tagalog (sometimes), arabic (sometimes) turkish, arabic, english, tagalog, spanish, azeri turkish 6 ahmet 16 m arabic (both parents) turkish (mostly), arabic (mostly) turkish, arabic, english, spanish ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 82 table 1 continued 7 enes 16 m arabic (both parents) turkish (mostly), arabic (sometimes) turkish, arabic, english, indian 8 yasemin 16 f turkish (both parents) turkish turkish, arabic, english, french, norwegian, azeri turkish 9 kezban 16 f arabic (father), tagalog (mother) arabic (mostly), turkish (mostly), english (sometimes) turkish, arabic, english, tagalog, azeri turkish 10 merve 15 f arabic (both parents) turkish (often), arabic (rarely) turkish, arabic, english, azeri turkish 11 hayriye 15 f arabic (both parents) arabic (sometimes), turkish (often), parents between them arabic turkish, arabic, english, azeri turkish 12 harun 16 m persian (both parents) persian (mostly), english (siblings), pashto (rarely) turkish, arabic, english, persian, japanese, pashto, indian table 2 summarises the themes and sub-themes we identified, and shows how many participants referred to these in the interviews. table 2. summary of themes and sub-themes themes (deductive) subthemes (inductive) languages related to: no of participants who referred to theme social identities school selves 7 home selves 5 friendship selves 10 symbolic identity dimensions essence of being 8 social positioning 7 embodiment 6 territorial identities local affiliations 4 national affiliations 8 international affiliations 5 future/imagined identities future self 6 shifts towards a future self 5 ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 83 languages and social/situational identities literature that discusses language repertoires as social resources (blommaert & backus, 2011; meier, 2017) guided the development of this theme. without prompting beyond “what do you use your languages for?”, the participants referred to languages they used in school, in their families and with friends, which constitute the three sub-themes reported in this section. languages and school selves eight participants referred to the languages they used in the school. participants mentioned the three languages taught in tcs, which are turkish (hanifi, harun), arabic (sevgi) and english (hanifi, kezban, merve, yasemin, sevgi, hava, alev). as far as english is concerned, the analysis makes visible certain identity dynamics in the english class. while some report feeling comfortable using english in class (yasemin), and consider themselves good at it (hanifi, sevgi), some not only felt less confident or less comfortable using english in class (kezban, merve, hava, alev), but seemingly felt intimidated by others or the teacher. extract 1 demonstrates yasemin’s feelings about english inside and outside of school: extract 1: “i feel even more comfortable [in school] than outside school…because while talking outside i sometimes can’t complete my sentences…and misunderstandings happen. but in class when i say something wrong my friends complete my sentence.” (yasemin) while yasemin seemed to interpret the english classroom as collaborative, others experienced it differently. for instance, merve reported: “i feel crushed when i use english in the class. there are friends who are better”. in contrast to yasemin, some felt less comfortable about english at school, but confident about their english use outside of class. reasons for this discomfort inside the english classroom were perceived inferiority (merve), and fear of making mistakes in front of the teacher (hava). despite these feelings, hava showed english (intense green) in the middle of her heart, indicating strong positive emotions towards english. some see english as personally important: kezban (black) and yasemin (intense green) gave english prominent places in all limbs and the head, but not the heart. merve (intense purple) and alev (intense blue) saw english as a general and important presence in the world, also covering several parts of the body. interestingly, english is positioned in the heart of those with positive, ambiguous or conflicting identifications with english at school. from this, we infer that feelings related to one language can change in different social contexts, and language affiliations – especially related to high-status languages such as english – and can be desirable and positive even if the school experience is not positive. from this, we infer that feelings related to a particular language can vary depending on the social contexts. for instance, students can construct a positive affiliation with a language – such as english – even if the respective language learning experience at school is perceived as problematic. in the interview, hanifi made an observation about english in tcs, namely that “real english” was taught in school, while she seemed to view her mother tongue, which is the filipino variety of english (light blue), as less “real”. ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 84 figure 1. sevgi’s language portrait while many saw english as important in and outside of school, some languages were only found to be relevant at school, for harun this was turkish (light green), and for sevgi arabic (brown). languages and home selves according to the language biography data (see table 1), all participants, apart from yasemin, indicated that they use more than one language in their homes. five students offered insights into the role of languages related to their home selves. harun (fig. 2) mentioned several home languages: persian (light blue), pashto (deep orange), and “indian” (black). besides persian, which seems to represent the essence of his identity (see extract 2), he also mentioned the political and linguistic interconnections between pashto and “indian”, and represented these as a yin and yang symbol in the stomach area. these two home languages seemed to represent a deeper connection with his mother, and a side of his identity that was very personal, as he could “use” these languages at home but no one else “hears” them outside the home (extract 2). extract 2: “pashto and indian are together because they are close languages…pakistan and india…a dynamic dual between them…and i put them in my stomach because if i had a stomach ache, no one would feel it but me. basically, i tried to say only i can speak them, but no one hears me.” (harun) pashto connected harun to his mother, who watches pashto movies, in a positive way. similarly, hayriye whose parents “always speak arabic” at home “likes this language”. in contrast, sevgi seemed to strongly reject arabic, one of her family languages. according to her, arabic should be avoided, including by her parents, as she said: they “can’t help using it from time to time”. while in sevgi’s case arabic is coloured in brown symbolised by scratches on ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 85 her body, alev uses two shades of green on her leg to represent standard arabic (dark green) and hatay arabic (lighter green). in hayriye’s case, arabic is a part of her core self. from our data, we cannot establish the reasons behind these widely varying sentiments associated with arabic, specifically hatay arabic, in this cohort. however, as shown below, the religious association with arabic may play a role. figure 2. harun’s language portrait overall, our analysis suggests a range of feelings related to single and multiple languages used in the home. this means that languages used in the family can mean positive identification with respective languages. it comes to the fore through our analysis that home or family languages can be associated with a range of strong emotions in some students – positive and negative, as well as more neutral ones. languages and friendship selves languages were also used to develop social selves outside of school and at home, namely to meet new people and develop friendships. english was reported as useful to talk to foreign people locally in sun state (yasemin, ahmet), to say hello to people, and to meet people at english-speaking events (sevgi), “in a way to include everybody” (sevgi), or to translate for parents and their english friends (enes). in addition, english was seen as a stepping stone to imagined friendships abroad: “english is the world language. let’s say we went to china or japan…everybody speaks english. if we want to make friends there, we start with english and then learn their local language.” (hayriye) in addition, some participants are aware that their friends use languages they cannot understand and use (well) themselves, such as azeri (kezban, merve) and tagalog (kezban). while some expressed a desire to learn their friends’ languages, such as arabic (hanifi), others did not express this wish. interestingly though, merve, yasemin, kezban and alev included ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 86 their friends’ languages in their lps. thus, linguistic identity might be understood broadly including the languages of others, including current and potential friends. it is important to note that languages can also serve as bonding tools in young people’s lives. for instance, burak reported that he watched anime videos with a friend in japanese, which seemed to offer a uniting experience, perhaps similar to sevgi and hava’s shared love for english. figure 3. hava’s language portrait languages as symbolic identity dimensions this theme and its sub-themes were guided by the ideas that language is central to social identity (canagarajah, 2008), that languages can be used for social positioning (busch, 2018) and that symbolic aspects of identities can be identified in lps (busch, 2018; coffey, 2015). languages and essence of being nine participants referred to languages as related to their core, or essence of, being. participants used singular languages to represent the self at a deep and what seemed permanent level. for instance, hanifi referred to tagalog, the language she shares with her mother, as being red “because it is in my blood”. others described the language most used in the family as being at the centre. this is illustrated by sevgi (fig. 1), who confirmed that “my heart will always be red [turkish], i know this for sure. i will always express my feelings in turkish”. harun (fig. 2) illustrates the all-encompassing and life-long affiliation with his mother tongue, persian, in his lp (extract 3). extract 3: “blue is the colour i like most. i painted persian in blue and in my head because it is my main…mother language. since i was born, i have had persian with me. it is in the head because my nose, my mouth, my brain…everything is persian. ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 87 everybody speaks persian at home. […] the center of my body…upper legs…is also blue because persian holds every language together.” (harun) besides language affiliations expressed as deep and permanent, there still seemed to be space for other languages to play a role in the understanding of core selves. one such additional language was english, which can exist alongside others as part of a core identity, as illustrated in sevgi’s lp (fig. 1) or alev’s quote (extract 4). extract 4: “i am a turk and nationalist of course. i like my country and language. if someone insults them, i go crazy of course. but i find english more intimate. [...] i embrace english. [...] my heart and mind are with english.” (alev) similarly, kezban saw her core affiliation as multiple: “since turkish is my mother tongue, i painted it in the heart because i am an arab…filipino…turkish!” while strong core identifications were linked to certain languages, none of them was understood as exclusive and all seemed to feel at ease with accommodating several languages in their lives, and as part of their plurilingual core selves. social positioning through english we identified different ways learners positioned themselves in a social hierarchy based on their english competencies. in our study, there were arguably self-identified linguistic leaders in the english classroom (sevgi, hanifi), those welcoming help from others (yasemin), and those who seemed intimidated by those they perceived as linguistically more competent (kezban, merve, hava, alev). english competence seemed to be viewed as a symbol of distinction (hanifi, sevgi). this symbol was deemed of significance in school (sevgi) and in turkey (kezban). kezban felt being able to speak english in turkey was “cool”, “because there are not many people who speak english in turkey”. indeed, the lack of competence in english seemed to affect hayriye’s sense of self deeply, as illustrated in a rather visceral way in extract 5. extract 5: “i drew an intestine to show english. i know i speak english as much to survive... but i feel upset because i am behind my friends. you know…intestine is the second organ after the brain that affects our psychology. when i cannot speak english, it affects my psychology a lot and i feel upset…that is why i have drawn it as the intestine.” (hayriye) our analysis also shows the feelings associated with languages in gcc contexts, where english is widely spoken socially. english may facilitate positive affiliations with the language outside of school, even though within the school a competence hierarchy and insecurities might apply. this is powerfully illustrated in extract 6. extract 6: “strangely i can’t speak english in the school. in the school, i feel like i am learning english for the first time. but outside school, when i need something, i use english very well as if i’d spoken it for ages.” (alev) ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 88 thus, observations regarding competence or engagement made in classrooms may not necessarily be indicative of wider language learning motivation, or identification with a particular language. in our study, physical organs and sensations seemed to play an important role, a point we develop next. languages as embodied coffey (2015) argues that lps invite the use of metaphors that are embodied and emotional. in our case, such metaphorical embodiments were indeed often associated with organs. for instance, the mother tongue (arabic) with lungs, english with intestines, and turkish with the stomach (ahmet: fig. 4, hayriye: extract 5) or the oesophagus (ahmet). the participants used such metaphorical representations of languages to express strong emotions about individual hurt and political perceptions, as well as with affection for national cuisine. arabic was associated with injuries by two respondents, as strangling and squeezing (hava), and as persistent scratches or wounds on the body (sevgi, fig. 1), and represented as an undesired language. the languages of pashto and “indian” were represented as a yin and yang symbol that appears in the stomach area (harun, fig. 2), as they were perceived to be politically intertwined. also referring to politics, turkish was represented in the stomach as a metaphor for the “upsetting political situation in turkey” (hayriye). the stomach was furthermore associated with turkish symbolising affection for turkish food (hayriye and ahmet). the heart, being an organ, as well as a widespread symbol of love, is often seen in lps (e.g. busch, 2018; coffey, 2015). this also features in several portraits in our study (kezban, merve, enes, ahmet). an interesting use of symbolism can be found in hanifi’s lp, as english and turkish seem to contain or surround other languages (tagalog, spanish, azeri arabic) in the heart space. interestingly, arabic (presumably standard or sun-state variety) occupies the feet and hands, symbolising use in the outside world. similar to prasad’s (2014) findings, blank or white space can have symbolic meaning. hanifi: “i like learning languages and i feel empty inside of me…i need to learn more languages.” in her case, white is the space in the core of her body which can be filled with further languages. other lps also feature white space (enes, ahmet, sevgi, hava) without mentioning this as meaningful (see fig. 1 and 3). all others filled out their silhouettes with colours, as exemplified in fig 2 and 4. languages and territorial identity constructions according to duff (2015), language repertoires are associated with forms of citizenship that may be salient identity markers in migratory contexts. there seemed to be linguistic identity constructions based on local (alev, hayriye, merve, burak), ancestral and national (burak, hayriye, alev, kezban, merve, sevgi), as well as international orientations (hayriye, ahmet, sevgi, alev, burak). as evident from this section, identity constructions based on connecting languages with territorial orientations can be highly complex, overlapping and layered, and there can be multiple local, national, and international orientations that can be expressed through languages as identity markers. ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 89 languages and local identifications languages associated with the local environment of sun state are the sun state variety of arabic (alev), english (merve) and “all languages” (hayriye). this is illustrated by hava’s lp (fig. 3), who represented her languages as locally relevant in the present: “i painted all languages here [upper hand] because we use all of them here in sun state.” in this group, alev seemed most closely connected with sun state and the local version of arabic. nevertheless, she had mixed feelings about arabic as she “can only spare one part of my body [leg] to it”. her affiliation with the local arabic variety seems a pragmatic one, as a tool for future work. english was considered locally relevant by merve, whereas burak “can survive without english” in sun state. this suggests that participants had different linguistic experiences in the same local context, which seems to be a pronounced feature for participants in our study, and possibly also for other adolescents with transnational backgrounds in transitory contexts. languages and national orientations languages were also associated with nationalities – and in some cases with ancestral links. some participants associate turkish in this way with turkey (hayriye, alev, hava) and turkishness (burak). turkey is described as “our country” (hayriye) and “my country” (alev), a country they would defend against others (alev). expressing a similar sentiment, hava (fig. 3) represented turkish in red in her heart, because “red always reminds me of turkey”. figure 4. hayriye’s language portrait turkish also seemed to be the basis for burak’s national identity, as he chose to represent turkish on limbs, trunk and head: “turkish is my mother tongue. it covers all my body. it is something that turkishness gives me, you know…we say we are turks…”. ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 90 however, turkishness was evaluated critically by hayriye (fig. 4), seemingly informed by national politics. her religious identity associated with islam seems to offer an alternative to national affiliation for her. in contrast, kezban’s mother tongue (turkish), and the mother tongues of her mother (tagalog), and father (arabic) who grew up in turkey (turkish), link her to two countries (philippines, turkey) through several languages. similarly, alev and merve associated (hatay) arabic with ancestral links to turkey. for instance, merve said that she spoke turkish, when in turkey, and hatay arabic, with older people there, “because elderly people do not know turkish”. it is important to be aware that languages associated with national and ancestral links can take on different meanings in people’s lives, as they can, but may not necessarily, serve as strong identity markers. languages and international identifications an international orientation was expressed in complex ways, sometimes alongside national orientations (burak, hayriye, sevgi and alev). english is seen to connect to the world, as hayriye’s quote above about making friends through english in china or japan illustrates, or alev’s view that for her “english has a big influence in the whole world”. indeed, sevgi felt that english allowed her to “embrace everyone with my arms”. interestingly, both a national language (turkish for ahmet) and an international lingua franca (english for sevgi) were perceived as lenses through which the world can be viewed. sevgi (fig. 1) said: “i painted eyes in blue because i see the world through english”. for her english seemed to help her escape a “restricted life in a narrow environment”, thus the new language offered her new identity options. in contrast, ahmet stated “my eyes are blue because i see the world as a turk”, rooted in national belonging. languages and future/imagined identities as maintained by busch (2018), languages are not just important for identity in the present, but also for an understanding of the self chronologically, perhaps in the course of a lifetime. an analysis of the lps and the interviews indicated that the chronological aspect consists of two sub-themes (see table 2) related to future selves and language shifts the participants expect. the past and the present dimensions that form part of a wider chronological dimension overlap largely with the topics above, so they were not developed as separate themes. languages associated with the future selves the interviews indicated that english was considered a language of their future selves by 6 participants, as illustrated by enes: “my right hand (upper hand) is english, and it represents my future. in terms of metaphorical analysis, the participants who associated english with the future associated this language with all parts of the body, as it was pragmatically deemed useful for work (kezban) and travel (burak) in the future. this instrumental motivation to include english was made explicit by kezban who reserved the heart space for turkish (intense purple), ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 91 one of the languages spoken in his home, but: “english will spread more [on my body]. it may even cover everywhere – except the heart”. besides english, other languages were considered relevant for the future: spanish (hava, ahmet, hanifi), german (hava), japanese (sevgi), french (yasemin) and azeri turkish (hanifi). for instance, ahmet and hanifi placed spanish in the heart, as a language they desired to learn in the future (intense green and red). sevgi wished japanese to play a bigger role in the future, based on past experiences. thus, on the one hand we identified the desire to add new languages in a vision of the future selves; on the other a desire to strengthen or rekindle languages already present in the plurilingual repertoire. while coffey’s (2015) metaphorical framework associates the core with family languages, our study shows that languages associated with future selves can also be associated with both, pragmatic visions and strong emotional ties. language identity shifts expected five participants expected some languages to lose and some to gain importance in their future lives: for alev, hatay arabic (intense green) was expected to “shrink to a very small place” in the future. as illustrated in extract 7, harun, whose family language is persian, expected many languages to play a role in the future, but he anticipated a shift to english, potentially severing or weakening ties with some linguistic affiliations, above all turkish. given he opted to be interviewed in english, this shift from turkish to english may have already been in process at the time of data collection. extract 7: “arabic is kind of going to evolve in a meaningful way but not too much. turkish might fade away a little. english is going to keep going massively. persian is going to be equal to english but a little down. i do not assume i am going to be speaking turkish forever…might be… but i am not going to make that as my life goal to always speak turkish…because eventually, i am going to leave everything that i have kept in turkey…i might still have friends, like ibrahim, to speak turkish with…but eventually, they are going to learn english and i can speak english with them.” (harun) arabic constituted one of the main additional languages to gain importance besides english, for harun, alev and merve. harun, again, expected arabic (purple in the legs) to become more important in the future to practice islam, while alev clarified that the sun-state variety of arabic (dark green) rather than the hatay variety (lighter green) would gain importance in the future, as she intended to return to sun state after university, presumably for work. languages that were expected to decrease in the future were azeri turkish (red with a narrow stripe on the neck) for merve, as she “will probably go away”, arabic (dark green on an arm and a leg) and english (intense purple on head and a leg) will become more important. whereas sevgi said that she “will probably get rid of arabic. it is a burden to me now. i would like to learn different languages” (arabic is brown, see extract 8). interestingly, some seemed to take a pragmatic view, such as harun, whereas others expressed emotionally fraught views, which strongly suggest that the first language or the family language is not necessarily a preferred language: sevgi expressed a deep longing to leave arabic behind and build a new linguistic identity based on turkish and english: ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 92 extract 8: "arabic is brown because i don’t like this colour at all. and it is in the ears because i am very familiar with this language…and i put some scratches all over my body in brown because i can’t get rid of this language even if i want to a lot. […] this is different in english and turkish...they are great.” (sevgi) the strong sentiment about arabic as a negative presence, and something that was not desired for the future, is reflected in both sevgi’s (extract 8) and hava’s reports. from the reflective researcher notes, we know that hava and sevgi are best friends. there is a possibility that they influenced each other’s opinions or the strength of their opinions. such findings suggest that new languages can offer new identity options, through which family languages and past experiences can be left behind. discussion and conclusion we presented a unique context in which plurilingual repertoires of young people were shown to play a complex, dynamic and unpredictable role in relation to social, symbolic, territorial, and imagined identities, illustrated through language portraits (see summary in table 2). our study contributes to research in three distinct ways. first, it uses sociolinguistic lenses to establish the way adolescents in our context negotiate, resist, imagine and desire certain linguistic identities. this adds to a budding body of research on linguistic identity constructions in gcc contexts more generally (hillman & eibenschutz, 2018; hopkyns & zoghbor, 2022; oneill, 2017), and khondker (2022) in particular. second, we add to the small body of research that uses lps internationally to examine identity constructions in adolescents (bristowe et al., 2014; prasad, 2014). thirdly, it reviews the interpretation of the symbolism in lps, and fourthly, confirms lps as valuable pedagogic instruments. linguistic identity constructions in gcc our findings revealed how 12 young people negotiated their identities in the presence of complex tensions that inevitably exist between family, homeland, school, and the local society, all within a wider globalised world and the dominant presence of english as a lingua franca. given the participants attended the same school and had similar linguistic backgrounds, it was surprising to find the highly diverse and individual links they tended to develop between their linguistic repertoires and the desired, imagined and resisted identities they seemed to construct. our findings, regarding this seemingly homogenous transnational group, show that english as a local and international lingua franca seemed to play an important role for many of them in the globalised identity constructions as adolescents. however, the findings showed that their relationship with the same language, english, can be perceived differently inside and outside the classroom, and that this again differs between participants. this affiliation with english, especially outside the classroom, as a local and global resource, seems to be a source of confidence and is associated with future aspirations for many. so far so similar, however our study was able to unpack how participants develop dynamic, complex and highly diverse linguistic identities that are largely unpredictable. the way participants constructed their linguistic identities depended on concrete communicative contexts in which languages are used (linguistic identities related to society, school, home, and friendships), and on how languages ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 93 are associated with potential identities (future and imagined linguistic identities). this understanding of languages as means to communicate and potential resources, as established by blommaert (2006), denotes the present and future relationship that participants may have or aspire to have with their languages, and what those languages might mean in their lives. however, their usages and envisaged trajectories vary greatly, depending on how languages are understood as positioned (linguistic identities as related to core identities and social status). such norms and positionings can be in competition with one another (blackledge & creese, 2016), adding to the complexity of this relationship. the way language hierarchies are understood depends to some extent also on how languages are understood to be territorially relevant (local, national, international). some might refer to “glocalisation” (e.g. khondker, 2022) to account for this, as local, national and global strands can be intertwined, overlapping or contradictory. as we have shown, languages and language varieties, including in our case english, arabic and other languages, informed our participants’ – sometimes ambivalent – territorial affiliations, social positions, as well as symbolic and imagined identities. using and developing several languages simultaneously may well offer a resource of strength, as it enables alternative imaginations of oneself and one’s future. in this regard, we complement khondker’s (2022) study with young bangladeshi nationals in the uae, as well as hillman and eibenschutz’s (2018) work with adults, by portraying how adolescents with migrant backgrounds construct their identities through their consistently complex and fluid plurilingual repertoires that might be a strength and valuable resource, of which participants are aware, if – as through our research – given a chance to reflect. such awareness, however, may not be automatic. our thematic structure (table 2) and findings (chapter 3), together with existing research, offer a valuable starting point for further research on plurilingual identity constructions in gcc contexts. specifically, research will be necessary to further develop the picture of linguistic identities, and the negotiation of these in so-called transit states for students with transnational arabic backgrounds, such as young people in our study or other learner groups. we focussed on a small group, using a language identity lens. future studies may need to take into consideration ethnicity, stereotyping, gender issues as suggested by oneill (2017), or the relevance of locally used english varieties (see hillman & eibenschutz, 2018), and what such additional dimensions might mean for national and incoming groups, as well as what happens at any intersections between the groups. lp research with adolescents in our study, all our adolescent participants expressed diverse and complex feelings about languages in their lives, echoing and complementing findings from other studies with similar age groups (bristowe et al, 2014; lytra & jorgensen, 2008; prasad, 2014). our work in gcc contexts, characterised by high mobility, indicates that links between identity constructions and plurilingual repertoires may be even less predictable and more individual than, say in south africa, where some commonalities were found among adolescent participants (bristowe et al., 2014). specifically, combined findings strongly call into question the often presumed – and in some contexts documented (bristowe et al., 2014) – link between national or first languages and core understandings of self; thus underpinning auer’s (2005) warning that “simple and ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 94 seemingly straightforward links between language and ethnicity (speaking turkish-being turkish) may fail” (p. 409). moreover, our study along with khondker (2022) confirms that language practices or language use cannot serve as a reliable indication of emotional affiliation with a language or identification with a language group. thus, these combined findings from gcc contexts seem to question lytra and jorgensen’s (2008) conclusion that dual-language practice can be interpreted as dual identity. however, it supports the idea of alternative identities that are constructed outside of school as proposed by lytra and barac (2008), which may be a more wide-spread phenomenon among adolescents. similarly to busch (2018) and bristowe et al. (2014) we used the lps to gain an understanding of plurilingual identities over time. based on this, we suggest that adolescents’ desires and motivations to learn new languages in the future need to be taken seriously in education, as young people prepare for unpredictable futures in a multilingual and interconnected world. thus, we recommend the use of lps as a pedagogic tool to facilitate reflection on languages as a resource that enables diverse life plans. on reflection, our sample may be less unique than it appeared at first sight, as it is not unusual for young people from a minority language region (here hatay region in turkey) to have two or more family languages, and to find themselves in transit situations, such as refugee or work migration contexts globally, where they may or may not intend to remain. therefore, our findings offer a warning applicable to all contexts, namely that we should not jump to conclusions as to what languages might mean to young people without asking them, and lps are one way of finding out. symbolism in lps in our study, many participants used graphic anatomy as metaphors to represent languages in their body silhouette, such as intestines to represent english. similar anatomic detail, albeit to a lesser extent, was also found in bristowe et al. (2014) study. this seems to be a departure from other contexts where national flags or national emblems were used to symbolise languages (e.g. coffey, 2015), and potentially a feature of adolescent engagement with lps. we can only speculate where the inspiration to use such symbols originated, perhaps in recent lessons on anatomy, or through classroom displays. therefore, wider contextual and semiotic information may be needed, in addition to interviews, to adequately understand and interpret symbolism and metaphors in lps. furthermore, we found that languages represented by a certain colour could take on different situational meanings. for instance, participants reported feeling differently about english inside and outside the classroom. thus, colour or its intensity cannot be interpreted easily, as this might depend on the situation learners have in mind when choosing a colour. to gain deeper insights into this complexity, it might be necessary to ask participants to fill in silhouettes for different social situations. pedagogic use of lps educationally, the findings from this study had significant implications for the teacher researcher (first author) engaged in this study. thus, confirming coffey’s (2015) point that lps can also expand teachers’ language awareness. engaging in this research project challenged some assumptions that the first author entertained about languages in education more generally, ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 95 and about his learners in tcs in particular. previously, he had been of the opinion that turkish and arabic, as heritage or national languages, would be relatively reliable identity markers, as suggested in some of the literature (e.g. bristowe et al., 2014; yıldırım, 2020). there is increasing evidence that in many contexts such links cannot be taken for granted. incorporating the innovative and multimodal tool of lps into english language teaching practice proved to offer a profound way to weave the complex concept of linguistic identity into everyday pedagogy in tcs, suggesting that this may be a useful tool in gcc contexts. lps can foster critical discussions on social/situational identities, encouraging learners to reflect on adolescents’ language use in diverse contexts such as school, home, and friendships. teachers can use real-life scenarios or role-play activities that highlight different social settings where particular language varieties can be used. expanding on busch (2018) and bristowe et al.’s (2014) work, we indicate that lps also facilitate explorations into symbolic identities, serving as a springboard for conversations about the symbolic resonance of languages and how they might reflect adolescent learners' core being or social positioning. moreover, our study reveals the significant role of languages in territorial identity constructions, as learners often map their languages onto local, national, and international orientations. by integrating this insight into teaching practices, we can guide learners in their contemplation of how languages intersect with different and overlapping territorial identities. lps also provide a framework for learners to envision their future or imagined identities, aiding them in understanding their evolving linguistic trajectories. thus, lp work, such as ours, can complement hadfield and dörnyei’s book on self-concept and language learning motivation (2014). taken together, these approaches may help teachers maximize the benefits of reflection, by incorporating goal-setting activities related to language learning into their lesson plans, as suggested by hadfield and dörnyei (2014). students could, thus, reflect on these goals in their lps, tracking their progress over time and visualizing their future linguistic selves. this may not only enhance their sense of ownership over their learning but also motivate them to work towards their goals in a selfregulated and sustainable way. thus, we join other researchers who recommend the use of lps and follow-up conversations as a pedagogic tool in language classrooms to raise language awareness in learners and teachers, including adolescent groups. this approach may help in-service and prospective teachers reduce the risk of imposing linguistic identities on learners based on unfounded or un-reflected assumptions while giving learners a voice and opening up visions for the future. ultimately, integrating lps into the english language classroom leads to a more nuanced understanding of the multifaceted role of language in learners' lives, contributing to a more personalized, inclusive, dynamic, and empowering learning environment. research and publication ethics statement ethics clearance was obtained from the university of exeter (ref. m1819-006). the data was collected in the framework of a dissertation in a post-graduate course at the university of exeter with the same focus. we re-analysed the data for this article. statement of interest there is no potential competing interest. ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 96 acknowledgements we extend our thanks to tcs and the young people who readily shared their reflections with us. thanks also go to peer reviewers and colleagues who offered valuable feedback on the previous versions of this article. references alshehabi, m. 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(2018). the notion of plurilingual and pluricultural competence in the teaching of foreign languages in france. language education and multilingualism the langscape journal, 1, pp.168-187. coe. (2019). the language biography. council of europe. https://www.coe.int/en/web/portfolio/the-languagebiography coffey, s. (2015). reframing teachers' language knowledge through metaphor analysis of language portraits. modern language journal, 99(3), 500-514. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12235. dito, m. (2015). kafala: foundations of migrant exclusion in gcc labour markets. in a. khalaf, o. alshehabi, & a. hanieh (eds.), transit states: labour, migration and citizenship in the gulf. pluto press. duff, p. a. (2015). transnationalism, multilingualism, and identity. annual review of applied linguistics, 35, 5780. https://doi.org/10.1017/s026719051400018x. glmm. (2016). percentage of nationals and foreign nationals in gcc countries' populations. https://gulfmigration.org/glmm-database/ hadfield, j., & dörnyei, z. (2014) motivating learning. routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315833286. hillman, s., & eibenschutz, e. o. (2018). english, super-diversity, and identity in the state of qatar. world englishes, 37(2), 228-247. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12312. hopkyns, s., & zoghbor, w. (2022). linguistic identities in the arab gulf states. routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003149637. i̇nözü, j. (2018). drawings are talking: exploring language learners' beliefs through visual narratives. applied linguistics review, 9(2-3), 177-200. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2016-1062. jorgensen, j. n. (2008). poly-lingual languaging: evidence from turkish-speaking youth. in v. lytra & j. n. jorgensen (eds.), multilingualism and identities across contexts: cross-disciplinary perspectives on turkish-speaking youth in europe (pp. 129-150). copenhagen studies in bilingualism volume 45. khalaf, a., alshehabi, o., & hanieh, a. (2015). transit states: labour, migration and citizenship in the gulf. pluto press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt183p1j8. khondker, h. h. (2022). global identities in the gulf: narrative of bangladeshi third culture kids. in hopkyns, s. and zoghbor, linguistic identities in the arab gulf states. routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003149637-11. khondker, h. h. (2017). class, identity, and insecurity: bangladeshi temporary migrants in the united arab emirates. current sociology monograph 1 66(2) https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392117736310 https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt183p1j8.5 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2004.10.010 https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2014.992644 https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/ams056 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2018.11.003 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2008.00361.x https://www.coe.int/en/web/portfolio/the-language-biography https://www.coe.int/en/web/portfolio/the-language-biography https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12235 https://doi.org/10.1017/s026719051400018x https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315833286 https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12312 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003149637 https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2016-1062 https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt183p1j8 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003149637-11 https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392117736310 ince, m. a., & meier, g. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 97 khatwani, m. k., & panhwar, f. y. (2019). objectivity in social research: a critical analysis. asia pacific 37, 126142. lau, s. m. c. (2016). language, identity, and emotionality: exploring the potential of language portraits in preparing teachers for diverse learners. the new educator, 12(2), 147-170. https://doi.org/10.1080/1547688x.2015.1062583. lytra, v., & barac, t. (2008). language practices, language ideologies and identity construction in london turkish complementary schools. in v. lytra & j. n. jorgensen (eds.), multilingualism and identities across contexts: cross-disciplinary perspectives on turkish-speaking youth in europe (pp. 15-43). copenhagen studies in bilingualism volume 45. lytra, v., & jorgensen, j. n. (eds.). (2008). multilingualism and identities across contexts: cross-disciplinary perspectives on turkish-speaking youth in europe. copenhagen studies in bilingualism volume 45. maguire, m., & delahunt, b. (2017). doing a thematic analysis: a practical, step-by-step guide for learning and teaching scholars. all ireland journal of higher education (aishe-j), 9, 3351. https://ojs.aishe.org/index.php/aishe-j/article/view/335/553 meier, g. (2017). the multilingual turn as a critical movement in education: assumptions, challenges and a need for reflection. applied linguistics review, 8(1), 131-161. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2016-2010. meier, g., & smala, s. (2022). languages and social cohesion: an interdisciplinary literature review. routledge, advances in sociology. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003120384. norton, b., & mckinney, c. (2011). an identity approach to second language acquisition. in d. atkinson (ed.), alternative approaches to second language acquisition (pp.7394). routledge. oneill, g. t. (2017). "it's not comfortable being who i am" multilingual identity in superdiverse dubai. multilingua, 36(3), 215-245. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2016-0048. oriyama, k. (2010). heritage language maintenance and japanese identity formation: what role can schooling and ethnic community contact play? heritage language journal, 7(2), 76-111. https://doi.org/10.46538/hlj.7.2.5. peters, a., & coetzee-van-rooy, s. (2020). exploring the interplay of language and body in south african youth: a portrait-corpus study. cognitive linguistics, 31(4), 579-608. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2019-010. prasad, g. (2014). portraits of plurilingualism in a french international school in toronto: exploring the role of visual methods to access students' representations of their linguistically diverse identities. the canadian journal of applied linguistics, 17(1), 27. yıldırım, f. ç. (2020). language choice and identity: an investigation based on the comparison of language attitudes from two different localities. journal of language and linguistic studies, 16(2), 1032-1042. https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.759361. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1080/1547688x.2015.1062583 https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2016-2010 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003120384 https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2016-0048 https://doi.org/10.46538/hlj.7.2.5 https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2019-010 https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.759361 focus on elt journal focus on elt journal vol 3, issue 1, 2021 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: ebekes@yahoo.co.uk copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. book review ‘‘developing language teacher autonomy through action research’’ erzsébet ágnes békés volunteer teacher-research mentor (affiliated to the universidad nacional de educación, cañar, ecuador), ebekes@yahoo.co.uk apa citation: békés, e. á. (2021). book review: developing language teacher autonomy through action research, focus on elt journal, 3(2), 69-73. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.6 developing language teacher autonomy through action research, kenan dikilitaş & carol griffiths. palgrave macmillan. (2017). 304 pp., paperback: € 99.99, isbn: 978-3-319-50739-2. action research, as a form of teacher research, has gained more ground in english language teaching (elt) contexts in the past several decades. thanks to authors who have been working on propagating reflective practice (rp) and action research (ar) consistently for many years now (burns, 2010; freeman, 1998; wallace, 1991) and a number of initiatives run by institutions, such as the british council (smith & rebolledo, 2018), there are now a growing number of publications that are available for teachers, teacher educators and mentors on how to start and sustain classroom research for the benefit of teachers and learners. the dissemination of teacher research reports and accounts has also risen exponentially owing to, among others, the consistent efforts of iatefl’s research special interest group (see especially the freely downloadable books published between 2015 and 2020 at http://resig.weebly.com/books.html ). the volume written by kenan dikilitaş and carol griffiths stands out from the wealth of such resources in two aspects. one is the depth and breadth of presenting the concept of ar mailto:ebekes@yahoo.co.uk mailto:ebekes@yahoo.co.uk https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.6 http://resig.weebly.com/books.html https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6169-7468 békés e. á. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 70 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com among the various kinds of research that practitioners may conduct, and the other is the focus on one specific aspect, namely, how ar can develop teacher autonomy. the book is innovative in the sense that it encourages teachers to start engaging with ar while reading the book since the authors supply examples, list down questions for discussion and reflection, and set specific tasks related to each stage of the ar process. the authors themselves have long been involved in action research, teacher education and support, with their professional pathways leading to ever-extending teacher-research mentoring activities. the material for the book itself was collected and subsequently written up at a time when both kenan dikilitaş and carol griffiths were based in turkey and were actively engaged in ar projects mentored by the first author in collaboration with iatefl’s research sig. they identified a gap for a resource that could guide and empower language teachers to engage in ar to develop their autonomy in doing research and, as a result, in teaching english. a quick note might be required here: even though the title says, “language teachers”, the authors’ professional background and experience are firmly rooted in and pertain to english language teaching (elt). the book is especially relevant in the context of turkey because it was the first publication that emerged from local experiences, which were then successfully transformed into formalised knowledge. the volume builds on many teachers’ voices from the turkish local context and encourages english teachers to gain the confidence that they can conduct research into their practices and have the means to disseminate the results even under circumstances when such goals do not appear to be easily reachable. so, let us now have a look at how the book, which is divided into 11 chapters, provides a step-by-step practical approach and an array of hands-on activities for (english) language teachers on their journey to develop autonomy. chapter 1 provides an introduction to ar, presenting it as a kind of “active investigation” (p.1) that focuses on examining issues that teachers might perceive as problems or puzzles, or may be uncertain about. ar is treated as a “cyclical and spiral-based process” (p. 3) that consists of planning, acting, observing and reflecting. an important part of this chapter is the clear and detailed explanation of how ar is different from academic research. as a teacher-research mentor myself, i am aware why this issue is highly relevant, especially in tertiary education contexts, where teachers tend to be more familiar with academic research. another element that i found useful was the description of collaborative ar including its advantages and disadvantages. in many contexts, working collaboratively can benefit teacher researchers for “a healthy co-construction of new knowledge” (p.15), but working collaboratively can create tensions and lead to fraught relationships as well. this introductory chapter also lays out the authors’ thoughts about teacher autonomy. they emphasize that there are various activities that create opportunities for teacher development. these can, in turn, lead to autonomy, which is understood as “a teacher’s capacity to engage in self-directed teaching” (p.35). dikilitaş and griffiths stress that ar is eminently useful in this regard, since “it has the potential to help teachers build … self-confidence to deal with critical questions and problematic issues in the classroom through going deeper into the issue on the basis of data collection and analysis” (p.36). chapters 2-7 describe the various stages of ar starting with how research questions can be clarified, and hypotheses formulated. chapter 3 provides a detailed presentation of research methods describing the options that teacher researchers may have and discussing the issues that békés e. á. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 71 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com often arise in classroom research contexts. such is the explanation of how and why quasiexperimental forms of research can be more appropriate in teaching/learning situations where ‘true’ experiments would be difficult to set up and might raise ethical concerns. chapter 4 deals with how the research context, namely, where the research is carried out and who the participants are, will define the way the ar project is designed. a particularly meaningful section is the description of how teachers may develop new roles while carrying out their classroom research. these emerging roles highlight how teachers researching their practice can build rapport with their students (involved as co-researchers), which can lead to enhanced interaction and collaboration in their future classrooms. chapter 5 describes the data collections process starting with the basics of research ethics and then presents the types of data, (often from multiple sources for triangulation), and the tools for data collection. there is an especially useful list of questionnaires that action researchers may wish to administer, proving that beginning teacher researchers do not need to reinvent the wheel and can rely on trusted surveys whose use has been replicated over the years in different contexts. chapter 6 dwells on the analysis of the data gathered. the methodology employed for processing and analysing the data is probably one of the most challenging parts for teacher researchers, but the authors contend that familiarity with some of the statistical procedures adds to the validity of the research, since it is teachers themselves that have the deepest understanding of their data. i must confess that this part of the book seemed quite daunting to me, but the data analysis processes are broken down to steps (commands in software programs), and are bound to reveal findings that can help interpret the data with a high degree of validity. the same applies to the coding of qualitative data, a process i find both engaging and compelling. chapter 7 looks at the discussion phase, namely, the interpretation of the data the teacher researcher has gathered, as well as the limitations that may need to be taken into account. one limitation in the case of action research is the issue of generalizability, since in ar the number of participants is usually relatively low, but this can be helped by stating that “the generalization is … confined to a particular sampling group” (p.165). in the section on the implications of ar projects, the authors emphasize that these can lead to practical and pedagogical considerations resulting in improved instructional practices. this takes us back to the issue of teacher autonomy, because “rather than teaching with the results of professional researchers’ recipes or top-down curriculum decisions, or coursebooks, teachers can enjoy taking the control of their own learning and teaching process” (p.166). the rest of the volume takes a different turn: there are example studies included a chapter on how to present and write up action research followed by researcher narratives. the four example studies (quasi-experimental, a case study, a questionnaire study, and a mixedmethods study) provide clear guidance as to how rigorously conducted ar “… can add … to the depth and breadth of accumulated knowledge” (p.172). the authors encourage teacher researchers to replicate these studies, for which they provide two reasons: first, replication studies constitute a helpful way of allowing teacher researchers to gain confidence in conducting research and second, their findings “could add to or reduce the generalizability of the conclusions” reached in previous studies (p.172). in my understanding of how the findings of ar projects can be disseminated, the layout (headings) of the example studies largely follows the ‘classic’ structure of academic research papers in second language acquisition, which is justified, because most journals in applied békés e. á. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 72 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com linguistics or elt require this format (often even supplying a template and strict word limits). however, in my experience, such write-ups might be more ambitious than what many teacher researchers would commit to. nevertheless, it is a bonus to have such high-standard examples that one might wish to emulate. chapter 9 is closely related to the dilemma of whether teacher researchers have the support and the resources to write up their ar in the form of fully-fledged academic research articles. the authors are careful enough to ‘start small’, namely, mentioning a number of ways how the results can be reported by using small-scale and non-threatening ways of dissemination, such as presenting the results in a staff meeting or giving a poster presentation. for the less faint-hearted, this chapter provides detailed and useful guidance for formal write-ups, including journal articles or even a book chapter. how formal and informal ways of writing up research can differ is neatly summarised in two tables (pp. 231-232), which make it easy to grasp the level of complexity (of structure, not necessarily depth of thinking) that sets research articles and ar reports and accounts apart. chapter 10 contains several narratives provided by researchers on their attitudes and opinions regarding action research. this is a very engaging part and i thoroughly enjoyed the ‘stories’, which provide a glimpse into the teacher researchers’ way of thinking. mumford’s narrative, for example, shows that ar is often not linear, that there might be dead ends and one can gain unexpected insights by exploring a topic such as spoken grammar. i found the inclusion of narratives about why teachers are reluctant to engage in ar especially enlightening. these three short narratives summarize the arguments that are most often heard with regard to ar, for example, that teachers should not be obliged to do research, that ar cannot be of a quality that is required in academia and, therefore, it is not worth pursuing. the issues raised are such that any self-respecting teacher researcher or mentor would want to do an ar project on it! finally, chapter 11 contains the authors’ conclusions with special regard to how ar can develop teacher autonomy. they discuss the cognitive impact that may result in changes in the mindset of teacher researchers, such as growing self-confidence, knowledge increase and widening perspectives. the practical impact can bring about the employment of new teaching practices, the generating of new materials and modifications in one’s instructional decisions. last, but not least, ar can have an impact on interactions between teachers and learners, teachers and other teachers, and teachers and the administrative bodies, the latter leading to new perspectives and improved effectiveness of the institutions where the teacher researchers have conducted their studies. as a practicing teacher-research mentor, i found kenan dikilitaş and carol griffiths’ book invaluable because everything one wishes to know about ar is included with sufficient guidance and detail to help beginning teacher researchers and their mentors to start on an ar journey. irrespective of its focus on ar and teacher autonomy, the volume could easily function as a course book at tertiary level (“introduction into educational research”) since it provides sufficient direction for conducting academic research, too. however, the greatest benefit is that the book goes far beyond the theoretical tenets of action research. it functions as a practical guide for beginning teacher researchers and their mentors, for whom plentiful ‘grounded’ theory is provided to get started – and act. békés e. á. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 73 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. references dikilitaş, k., & griffiths, c. (2017). developing language teacher autonomy through action research. palgrave macmillan. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). focus on elt www.focusonelt.com focus on elt journal volume 3 issue 1 june 2021 editors-in-chief dr. ahmet başal yıldız technical university dr. ceyhun yükselir osmaniye korkut ata university dr. erdem akbaş erciyes university issn: 2687-5381 www.focusonelt.com copyright © 2021 by focus on elt journal https://focusonelt.com/index.php/foe/index https://focusonelt.com/index.php/foe/index focus on elt www.focusonelt.com copyright policy all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher and the author(s), except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. copyrights for the articles are retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. focus on elt journal has the right to freely distribute and share the articles by all means with interested parties (e.g., readers, scientists and institutions). the articles can be used under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommercialnoderivatives 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd) license. open access policy focus on elt journal adopts an open-access approach to remove the barriers of reaching scientific studies rather than subscription-based model of scholarly publishing. principal contact dr. ahmet başal, yıldız technical university publisher, focus on elt journal phone: +90 505 572 33 80 email: ahmetbasal@gmail.com mailto:ahmetbasal@gmail.com focus on elt www.focusonelt.com about the journal editors-in-chief dr. ahmet başal yıldız technical university dr. ceyhun yükselir osmaniye korkut ata university dr. erdem akbaş erciyes university section editors dr. ali karakaş burdur mehmet akif ersoy university dr. ece zehir topkaya çanakkale onsekiz mart university dr. i̇rem çomoğlu dokuz eylül university dr. sedat akayoğlu bolu abant i̇zzet baysal university book review editor dr. betül bal-gezegin ondokuz mayıs university statistical editor dr. emine yavuz erciyes university editorial assistant mustafa özer abdullah gül university editorial/advisory board dr. ali fuad selvi middle east technical university, northern cyprus campus dr. ece zehir topkaya çanakkale onsekiz mart university dr. dr. jan hardman university of york dr. isabel herrando-rodrigo university of zaragoza dr. kenan dikilitaş university of stavanger dr. olcay sert mälardalen university dr. selami aydın istanbul medeniyet university focus on elt www.focusonelt.com editorial & technical office lecturer muhammet toraman yıldız technical university lecturer fatih ercan osmaniye korkut ata university reviewers of the current issue dr. asuman aşık dr. fatma şeyma doğan dr. hakan demiröz dr. handan çelik dr. kürşat cesur dr. mehmet kılıç dr. sedat akayoğlu dr. semin kazazoğlu dr. sezen arslan dr. şeyda selen çimen dr. yunus emre akbana focus on elt journal is currently abstracted/indexed by: https://journals.indexcopernicus.com/search/journal/issue?issueid=all&journalid=64195 https://search.crossref.org/?q=2687-5381&container-title=focus+on+elt+journal https://portal.issn.org/resource/issn/2687-5381 http://www.idealonline.com.tr/idealonline/lookatpublications/journaldetail.xhtml?uid=815 http://journalseeker.researchbib.com/view/issn/2687-5381 http://esjindex.org/search.php?id=3948 https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1123627827?and_facet_journal=jour.1145432 https://asosindex.com.tr/index.jsp?modul=journals&keyword=focus+on+elt+journal&secenekler=dergi_adi&page=1 http://www.linguistlist.org/pubs/journals/get-journals.cfm?journalid=69542 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com volume 3 issue 1 (2021) editorial editorial note: letter from editors-in-chief ahmet başal, ceyhun yükselir, erdem akbaş 1-4 articles cross-linguistic influence in learning english as a third language: the case of l1 arabic, l2 turkish learners and their attitudes towards learning foreign languages mehmet saraç & derin atay 5-17 a telecollaborative approach to foster students' critical thinking skills aysel saricaoglu 18-32 the opinions of elt students on technology-based classroom approach i̇brahim yasar kazu & yakubu issaku 33-42 turkish in-service and pre-service efl teachers’ views on professional development and related activities nilüfer evişen 43-64 is tutoring a benefit for tutees only, or is it a mutual benefit? mine gündüz kartal & derin atay 65-80 book review book review: language teacher educator identity rabia i̇rem demirci 81-83 focus on elt journal vol 3, issue 1, 2021 issn: 2687-5381 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com editorial: letter from editors-in-chief https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00050 aahmet başal b ceyhun yükselir and c erdem akbaş a assoc. prof. dr., yıldız technical university, i̇stanbul, turkey, abasal@yildiz.edu.tr b assoc. prof. dr., osmaniye korkut ata university, osmaniye, turkey, ceyhunyukselir@osmaniye.edu.tr c asst. prof. dr., erciyes university, kayseri, turkey, erdemakbas@erciyes.edu.tr dear focus on elt journal readers, we are truly excited to announce that the first issue in 2021 of focus on elt journal brings together six contributions, five of which report valuable insights into the process of teaching and learning. in this issue, we also publish a book review, featuring one of the recently published books in the field. we are happy that our journal is steadily gaining recognition in the field of elt since we have started receiving a higher number of submissions from different contexts, which simply makes our editorial tasks more challenging. yet, not only does this help us understand the significance of our efforts in making our journal one of the resourceful and reliable venues for people of academic interest, but also it makes us much more motivated to pursue our goal to be recognized in the field. to do this, we ensure that during the editorial decision-making processes for the manuscripts submitted to our journal, we follow stringent publication ethics and rigorous external and internal reviewing cycles with the help of our editorial team and dedicated reviewers. here, we cordially would like to express our gratitude to our esteemed editorial board members and eleven respected reviewers of this issue as featured above in ‘reviewers of the current issue’ section. as an international journal, to better serve our goal of becoming a focal point for the elt community, we believe that collaboration and cooperation with our colleagues in the field is of utmost importance. one of the decisions we have made is also linked to this. we would like to announce that focus on elt journal will start publishing ‘special issues’ dedicated to the field of elt along with our regular issues in june and december. with this in mind, we would like to encourage researchers/guest editors across the world to submit a special issue proposal to be considered by our editors and advisory board. in line with this, it is our privilege and great pride to announce that our first special issue is now being handled by two of the respected colleagues and prominent figures in the field of computer assisted language teaching, prof. dr. ferit kılıçkaya (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3534-0924) and assoc. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00050 mailto:abasal@yildiz.edu.tr mailto:ceyhunyukselir@osmaniye.edu.tr mailto:erdemakbas@erciyes.edu.tr https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3534-0924 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4295-4577 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4781-3183 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2204-3119 başal, a., yükselir, c., & akbaş, e. (2021). focus on elt journal, 3(1) 2 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com prof. dr. sedat akayoğlu (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9865-2546), whom we do not hesitate to call our friends. dr. kılıçkaya and dr. akayoğlu, as our guest editors, have already started inviting contributors to send their proposals for the special issue to be published in the second quarter of 2022 following the submission, reviewing and publication processes via our journal management system. with the articles included in our june 2021 issue, we are confident that our community, specifically practitioners, researchers, and academicians in the field of english language teaching and learning shall greatly benefit from them. the issue features five research articles investigating various topics with respect to the field and shares detailed findings for particular cases and a book review on language teacher education. the first paper of the current issue by saraç and atay (2021) investigates the attitudes of learners of english as a third language coming from l1 (arabic) dominant setting and l2 (turkish) dominant setting towards learning a foreign language. furthermore, the authors attempted to determine whether l1 or l2 is the source of syntactic and lexical transfer for learning english as l3. data coming from the attitude questionnaire shows that attitudes of l2 dominant group are more positive than that of l1 dominant group towards learning l3. the researchers also used think-aloud protocols and found syntactic transfers to l3 in participants’ writing productions, but could not determine whether these transfers stem from l1 or l2 and found nearly no lexical transfers. however, strikingly, they noted that the majority of the participants used l1 in think-aloud protocols regardless of the dominance of l1 or l2 in their everyday life, showing the profound effect of their mother tongue, arabic. in a world where multilingualism gains importance more than ever, this article may catch the attention of those who want to see the effect of l1 and l2 on third language acquisition and/or learning. in her research article, saricaoglu (2021) explores how telecollaboration could be effective in terms of improving the critical thinking skills of tertiary level students. inspired by the previous reports on the positive outcomes and benefits of telecollaborative learning, she designed a collaborative task and found a counterpart from a public us university to investigate the perceptions of students with respect to the learning experiences via telecollaboration. the quantitative analyses of written argument grades by students and their responses to the survey administered by the author showed that telecollaboration appears to be a very beneficial and pedagogical tool in the context of higher education in that students were able to come up with three education-related arguments about the roles of (1) higher education, (2) learning technologies and (3) cultural diversity in learning contexts in fostering critical thinking skills. she concludes her article with an in-depth discussion on how collaborative implementations in classrooms could be better designed for increasing the effectiveness of the process and reaching substantial outcomes. kazu and issaku (2021) in their research article shed light on the opinions of elt students regarding the use of technology-based classrooms. the authors believe that in such classes, the opinions of the students are of great importance for successful outcomes in student learning. based on the results of a likert scale survey of 303 students from an elt department of a state university, the authors found that the participants have mostly positive opinions about the technology-based classrooms. one significant finding of the study is that technology-based classrooms open windows of opportunities for self-directed and https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9865-2546 başal, a., yükselir, c., & akbaş, e. (2021). focus on elt journal, 3(1) 3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com autonomous learning, an important skill set in in a world of information influx. however, despite numerous studies showing the benefits of technology-based classrooms in elt classes, the authors also highlight and list some important reasons for the relatively rare use of technology-based classrooms, one of which that may attract the attention of possible readers of this article is the need for training tech-effective teachers. the authors wrap up their study with several suggestions that may contribute to enhance the effectiveness of the use of technology-based classrooms in elt departments. as is known, professional development activities are of paramount importance to foster the teaching practices of teachers. in the research article entitled “turkish in-service and preservice efl teachers’ views on professional development and related activities”, evişen (2021) attempts to show how in-service and pre-service teachers see professional activities by comparing the perceptions of in-service and pre-service teachers regarding professional development. to this end, the author collected data via open-ended questions including a predetermined list of professional activities from six in-service and six pre-service efl teachers at a turkish state university. the content analysis of the responses shows that both groups have similar positive perceptions regarding professional activities asked and have a high level of awareness of the importance of professional development. the participants were also aware of other professional activities not asked with the open-ended questions, indicating their willingness to pursue professional development. conducted by gündüz kartal and atay (2021), the fifth and last research article of the current issue titled “is tutoring a benefit for tutees only, or is it a mutual benefit?” is about the opinions of the elt pre-service teachers and the efl learners, who participated in a tutoring program as tutors and tutees respectively. in this study, the data were collected through face-to-face interviews from tutors and a questionnaire sent via e-mail from tutees the researchers analyzed the data by coding the responses of both groups according to predetermined themes including advantages of the tutoring program, challenges of the program, self-efficacy evaluation, communication between tutors and tutees, perceptions, and suggestions of both parties. as is known one-on-one tutoring is beneficial for the tutees. the current article not only supports the existing literature in terms of the benefits of tutoring for the tutees but for the tutors as well. the study hints that tutoring helps developing content and pedagogical knowledge of the pre-service teachers and prepares them for their future practices. potential readers of this study, we believe, could see in what ways tutoring can contribute to the development of pre-service teachers along the lines of the article. the sixth paper of the issue is a book review by rabia i̇rem demirci on the book titled ‘‘language teacher educator identity’’ authored by barkhuizen (2021) and published by cambridge university press. in this review, demirci (2021) discusses key features of the book (i.e., organization, content) in relation to its significance in language teacher education. as an example, she finds it substantially engaging for the target audience since the book offers a notable contribution by focusing on the dynamic nature of language teacher educator identities in professional and institutional contexts. at the end of her review, demirci (2021) concludes that the researchers and practitioners will greatly benefit from the book detailing various aspects related to language teacher identities. here, we need to introduce our section editors and statistical editor. the section editors include four well-known and distinguished scholars from the field of english language teaching. dr. ece zehir topkaya is a full professor with a wide variety of academic başal, a., yükselir, c., & akbaş, e. (2021). focus on elt journal, 3(1) 4 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com interests ranging from educational technologies, intercultural communication and program evaluation to teacher education. dr. i̇rem çomoğlu is an associate professor exploring issues in language teacher education, i.e., reflective teaching, and mainly focuses on qualitative paradagims in her research. dr. ali karakaş works as an associate professor and focuses on issues such as language teacher education, global englishes, language policy and english as a lingua franca. our last section editor is dr. sedat akayoğlu who is also an associate professor interested in research related to educational technologies (call) and teacher education as well as the implementation of telecollaborative initiatives to enhance intercultural communicative competence. dr. emine yavuz joined our team in early 2021 and contributed to the articles published in the current issue as our statistical editor, and she will review statistical appropriateness of the submitted manuscripts for the forthcoming issues during the editorial decision-making processes for the betterment of the studies before/after they are sent to the reviewers. before we finalize our editorial for the first issue of 2021, let us express that focus on elt journal is now accepting original articles and book reviews for december 2021 issue. once again, we are truly confident that the future of our journal is promising and we will continue to reach a wider international audience for disseminating academic knowledge. we look forward to welcoming you to the second issue of 2021 in december. references barkhuizen, g. (2021). language teacher educator identity. cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108874083 demirci, r. i̇. (2021). book review: language teacher educator identity. focus on elt journal, 3(1), 81-83. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00049 evişen, n. (2021). turkish in-service and pre-service efl teachers’ views on professional development and related activities. focus on elt journal, 3(1), 43-64. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00048 kazu, i̇. y., & issaku, y. (2021). the opinions of elt students on technology-based classroom approach. focus on elt journal, 3(1), 33-42. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00036 gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. (2021). is tutoring a benefit for tutees only, or is it a mutual benefit? focus on elt journal, 3(1), 65-80. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00041 saraç, m., & atay, d. (2021). cross-linguistic influence in learning english as a third language: the case of l1 arabic, l2 turkish learners and their attitudes towards learning foreign languages. focus on elt journal, 3(1), 5-17. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00026 saricaoglu, a. (2021). a telecollaborative approach to foster students' critical thinking skills. focus on elt journal, 3(1), 18-32. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00043 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108874083 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00049 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00048 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00036 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00041 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00026 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00043 ejal article template focus on elt journal vol 3, issue 1, 2021 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: iykazu@firat.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. the opinions of elt students on technology-based classroom approach ai̇brahim yaşar kazu and b yakubu issaku aassoc. prof. dr., fırat university, turkey, iykazu@firat.edu.tr bma student, fırat university, turkey yakubuissak7@gmail.com apa citation: kazu, i̇. y., & issaku, y. (2021). the opinions of elt students on technology-based classroom approach. focus on elt journal, 3(1), 33-42. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00036 abstract technology integration into the classroom has been a growing area of research for more than two decades but both qualitative and quantitative studies in this area revealed varied effects on the use of technology in the classes. the opinions of students can probably affect the use of technology in a class. this study, therefore, aims to investigate the opinions of elt students about a technology-based classroom via a likert scale survey. a total of 303 elt students from a state university in turkey participated in the study conducted in the 2019-2020 academic year. the outcome of this study established that students’ opinions about a technology-based classroom are mostly positive. furthermore, the use of a technology-based classroom is not common due to challenges such as inadequate technology-based classrooms, insufficient information about the use of the various types of devices and programs, lack of courses for the effective training of teachers, and limited knowledge of students on how to use this approach. the study also offers suggestions about using the technology-based classroom with modern technological tools and materials and its implementation in elt settings in universities. keywords english language learning, opinions of elt students, technology-based classroom, technology integration, university setting article history received : 02.02.2021 revised : 02.06.2021 accepted : 08.06.2021 published : 25.06.2021 type research article introduction the english language has gradually become the lingua franca of the world. it is now a commonly used language in the world of business, education, and science. there are more speakers of english in the world of education, commerce, and science than in any language. the role of ict in the process of globalization is vital and technology-based countries have progressed successfully in all facets of human development especially the economic benefit (newby et al., 2013). in the sphere of education, technology-based instruction has changed pedagogy and its practices in the classroom. this has raised the fruitfulness and extensiveness of pedagogy (al harbi, 2014; howard & mozejko, 2015). as happening in many developed and developing countries, turkey is swiftly changing and revising its routine particularly in the sphere of education. several pieces of research attest to the fact that integrating technology in the curriculum increases students' results in the learning process. teachers who see technology as a tool for solving problems tend to change their methodology. they change their pedagogy from a behavioral approach to a more constructionist approach. interactive learning with the use of multimedia through technology is more conducive to project-based learning. scholars mailto:iykazu@firat.edu.tr mailto:iykazu@firat.edu.tr mailto:yakubuissak7@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00036 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1039-0482 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0461-1995 kazu, i̇. y., & issaku, y. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 34 are involved in learning via the use of these tools. by doing so, they end up becoming originators and critical thinkers, not just users. technology-based classroom the role of technology in education is increasing significantly due to the opportunities it presents to students to interact with a varied kind of content in english which could not be possible earlier. the usage of technology in studies is vital and is gradually taking center stage in the professional and higher education system (almekhlafi & almeqdadi, 2010). for more than two decades, the attention of educators on the role of technology in foreign/second language processes of instruction has increased. in recent times, the use of technology-based learning has delivered valuable and powerful ways with amelioration of educational materials for literature learning and teaching from both teachers and scholars of efl (gilakjani, 2012; mohammed, 2012; sa’d, 2014; sadeghi, 2013). figure 1. a photo of a technology-based classroom perceptions of technology in daily life it is a fact that the use of cell phones by students for purposes other than education may interrupt the classroom routine and impede learning. in addition, most teachers agree that the use of electronic devices by students in the classroom is not necessary. however, this does not mean that cell phone use should be banned in classrooms. students consider technology as part of daily routines (thomas et al., 2013). some teachers still use outdated pedagogy such as sticking to the lecturing method throughout the lectures which result in limited interaction in the classroom. in such a classroom, students feel disconnected from the ‘real world’ and think that this type of classroom is false and artificial (baker et al., 2012). integrating technology into the classroom the technology-based classroom has come to help remove the ineffective and outdated methods of teaching and techniques by giving teachers the chance to plan a curriculum according to the differentiation instruction (mulrine, 2007). in terms of its use in the classroom, not all technology upholds the purpose of the curriculum, but teachers maneuver to introduce technology into their classroom to help support teaching and learning (zimlich, 2015). a digital tool such as google docs provides a scholar with a chance to work on a writing task collaboratively with their colleagues in distant locations (eckstein, 2009). kazu, i̇. y., & issaku, y. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 35 technology integration in language education technology-based classrooms are identified as classrooms where teaching and learning procedures depend on the use of all learning technologies comprising cd-roms programs on multi-media, teaching and learning resources on the web, objects, or materials that promote students learning. competencies exhibited by teachers to develop, manage, use and assess technology-based tools, systems, and processes are very important to the successful classroom implementation (sani, 2014). earlier research on language teachers’ use of technology-based classrooms recommends that technology-based learning is used in a classroom to help teachers to design effective lessons. for instance, studies conducted by hassanzadeh et al. (2012), and nim park and son (2009) established that teachers use basic technology materials such as software ‘apps’ as tools of communication, teaching, and administration. keengwe and kang (2013) and dang (2011) claim that lecturers of english as a foreign language used only basic technological applications for presentation and preparation. challenges and benefits of technology-based ıntegration in language education studies on efficient use of the technology-based classroom in education have shown positive results, not only for english language learning but other language settings with the creation of authenticity (nguyen, 2019). another important benefit mentioned is learning independently (houcine, 2011). a technology-based classroom promotes independent learning among students. it provides ways for students to have access to other foreign language learning materials. interaction and communication in language education in a technology-based environment promotes students’ confidence level, demonstrating that the knowledge in technology promotes both self-standing and collaborative approaches to international language acquisition skill and practice. a certain population of teachers is turning towards the use of games in the classes. even though using technology-based approaches has many benefits, their use in the classroom and education has also posed many challenges such as their effects on students’ thinking and learning as well as their intellectual abilities (carr, 2010). for example, instant access to materials by students through technology lures them to believe and accept any knowledge provided via the internet. students use this information without verification, acknowledgment, and evaluation (keen, 2011). according to parker et al., (2011), plagiarism and academic dishonesty behaviors by some students are a result of computers, the internet, and technology. digital natives, tech-savvy students, find it difficult to pay attention in class when they find themselves in a class where a lot of digital devices are within their reach. students’ dependence on technology as posited by carr (2010) shortens the attention span of students and their ability to study independently and concentrate. this situation does not promote ‘deep learning’. students in this era of technology, study less effectively than students of a pre-technology era (kolikant, 2010). factors influencing the implementation of technology-based classroom fullan (2007) claimed that changes in education happen at all levels: institutes of education, national and state levels, teachers, and students. for more than one-century introducing technology in teaching and learning has a connection to the changes in education. the role it kazu, i̇. y., & issaku, y. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 36 plays has become more pertinent and technology resources have been rapidly revealed (howard & mozejko, 2015). hu and mcgrath (2011) asserted that these factors stretch from administrative dynamics through institutions and individuals. the identification of the physical environment in which the participants operated becomes important together with the influences of social and historical factors that affect individuals’ reasons and deeds (murphy & ivinson, 2003). the following research question guided the study: what are the opinions of elt students on the technology-based classroom? methodology the current descriptive research was conducted in a survey model. the survey model is intended to create statistics around a target populace. how this is done rests on gathering the characteristics of the aimed population from a section of respondents provided answers (fowler, 2014). the survey includes five-point likert items (‘strongly agree’ (5) to ‘strongly disagree’ (1)) to obtain the responses from the participants to given statements. population and sampling the study was conducted on the students of the english language teaching department at a state university in turkey. the participants of the study were undergraduate students in the preparatory, first, second, thirdand fourth-year classes. there were 583 students in the department. the number of students who participated in this study was 303. table 1 below shows the distribution of participants in terms of gender, age, their class level. as seen in the table below, 118 (38.9%) of the participants are male while 185 of them (61.1%). there are 113 students under the age of 20 and their distribution percentage is 37.4%, and 184 students between the ages of 21-29 whose distribution percentage is 60.9%. six students are between the ages of 30-39 and the distribution percentage of them is 1.7%. table 1. frequency and percentage of gender, age, and class level gender frequency percentage male 118 38.9 female 185 61.1 age under 20 113 37.4 21-29 184 60.9 30-39 6 1.7 class level of participants preparatory class 69 22.7 first-class 88 29.1 second class 53 17.5 third class 54 17.8 fourth class 39 12.9 total 303 100.0 from the table, it can be seen that 69 of the participants are prep class students and the distribution percentage of these participants is 22.7%. eighty-eight first-year students participated and the distribution percentage of these participants is 29.1%. fifty-three secondyear students participated and the distribution percentage of these participants is 17.5%. fiftyfour third-year students participated and the distribution percentage of these participants is kazu, i̇. y., & issaku, y. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 37 17.8%. finally, 39 fourth-grade students participated and the distribution percentage of these participants is 12.9%. data collection tools and data analysis the survey was used as the data collection tool in the study. the survey with 30 items was delivered to all students in hard copy, and through google forms. the survey was reviewed for validity and reliability. based on the analysis, the kaser-meyer-olkin (kmo) measure of sampling adequacy was found 0.87, and the bartlett test 13202,921. accordingly, the result of the bartlett was found significant at the 0.05 level (p=0.001). the cronbach alpha coefficients stipulate that a reliability coefficient of .70 or higher is considered ‘acceptable’ in most situations of research. the cronbach alpha coefficient of this scale is 0.85. quantitative research methods and techniques were used to examine the opinions of university students about the technology-based classroom approach in terms of various variables. ibm, statistical package for social sciences (spss) 22 was used in the analysis of the collected quantitative data. findings in this study, the opinions of elt students on the technology-based classroom were investigated. table 2 shows the results of the survey. table 2. opinions of students about the use of technology-based classroom in english language departments the use of technology-based classroom in english language departments x̄ ss i can learn english on my own. 3.93 1.01 i can direct my own learning without a lecturer’s supervision. 3.87 1.04 i can pronounce words correctly on my own. 3.90 1.05 i can think on my own without a teacher’s guidance. 3.87 1.05 i can do microsoft excel and word on my own. 4.33 0.89 i can send and receive email on my own. 4.33 0.93 i can use social networking sites. 4.33 0.88 i can use excel to analyze data. 3.48 1.11 i can search for information from the internet on my own. 4.27 0.91 i can solve english language problem on my own. 3.74 0.89 i understand the video watched in a technology-based classroom. 3.72 0.89 i developed speaking skills on my own. 3.67 0.92 i am sure about my ability to do my class exercise. 3.71 0.90 i am certain i can understand, do given the assignment on my own. 3.74 0.88 i am certain i can learn the concept and ideas of the english language in a technology-based classroom. 3.65 0.94 students are motivated to come up with new ideas in technology-based classroom. 3.96 0.93 the use of technology devices motivates you to learn fast. 3.96 0.97 doing your homework with the internet motivates you to be a creative learner. 3.94 0.97 i am not motivated to learn english when my teacher use technology while teaching english. 2.61 1.26 lecturers can adopt skills for special needs by using technology to ensure equity. 2.58 0.99 lecturers can use technology to translate english text for non-native speakers. 2.60 1.01 lecturers can diversify their teaching by providing options for students who finish classwork early. 2.57 0.98 lecturers can use online sign-up for conferences, parents’ helper s and project presentation. 2.64 1.03 lecturers can provide feedback on students’ success and challenges. 2.37 1.01 i can access homework and projects via technology device online. 4.09 0.84 i can see my grades online immediately. 4.07 0.87 i can follow my class through class websites when am absent from class. 4.01 0.98 i can take digital notes on my tablets or ipad. 3.88 0.99 when the results are examined, it is seen that the average mean of the first variable ‘i can learn english on my own’ is x̄=3.93. students agreed on a high level that they can study english on their own in a technology-based classroom. students participating in the study agree with the statement of the item ‘i can direct my own learning without the lecturers’ supervision’ kazu, i̇. y., & issaku, y. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 38 (x̄=3.87). this result portrayed that students feel comfortable in a technology-based classroom and can direct their own learning when teachers are absent. students approved the statement of the item ‘i can pronounce words correctly on my own’ (x̄=3.90), indicating that students improve their pronunciation skills in the technology-based classroom. participants agree with the statement of ‘i can think on my own without a lecturer’s guidance’ (x̄=3.87). from this result, it can be inferred that student in a technology-based classroom can initiate their thinking to solve their english language problems since technologybased classrooms offered various opportunities for students to solve their problems. the students agreed with the statement of ‘i can do microsoft excel and word on my own’ (x̄=4.33). it is clear that students’ use of technology-based gadgets in the technology-based classroom was positive and students improved their computer competency. participants agree with the statements of ‘i can send and receive email on my own’ (x̄=4.33), ‘i can use social networking sites’ (x̄=4.33), and ‘i can use excel to analyze data’ (x̄=3.48), showing that they improved their computer use competence. it is seen that the average mean of the ninth variable ‘i can search for information from the internet on my own’ is (x̄=4.27). with the item, students agreed that when teachers make use of technology-based classrooms in english lessons it helps them to improve their internetsearch skills. it was revealed that they agree with the statement of the item ‘i can solve english language problems on my own’ (x̄=3.74). technology-based helps develop students’ ability to solve their english language problems on their own. the use of video in a technology-based classroom was also found beneficial by the students when the high level of agreement (x̄=3.72) ‘on the statement i understand the videos watched in technology-based classroom’ is considered. when their responses to the statements ‘i develop speaking skills on my own’ (x̄=3.67), ‘i am sure about my ability to do my exercise’ (x̄=3.71), ‘i am certain i can understand and do given assignments on my own’ (x̄=3.74), ‘i am certain i can learn the concept and ideas of english language in a technology-based classroom’. based on the results of the mean (x̄=3.65) are considered, it can be inferred that a technology-based classroom helps them to develop their speaking skills, enables them to work independently on exercises and assignments, and increase their english comprehension levels on the concepts and ideas. when their responses to the statements “students are motivated to come out with new ideas in a technology-based classroom’ (x̄=3.96), ‘the use of technology devices motivates students to learn fast (x̄=3.96) and ‘doing homework with internet motivates learners to be creative learners’ (x̄=3.94) are analyzed, it can be seen that the technology-based classroom motivates them to come up with new ideas and learn faster and helps them to become creative thinkers and learners. when their responses to the statement of ‘we are not motivated to learn english when our teachers use technology while teaching english’ (x̄=2.61), it can be inferred that they preferred to see their teachers using technology in teaching english to them for them to become more motivated and to perform better. klopfer et al., (2009) also claim that a technology-based classroom motivates students to do better in an english language lesson. when the statements ‘lecturers can diversify their teaching by providing options for students to finish class early’ (x̄=2.57), ‘lecturers can use online sign-up for a conference, parents’ helpers and project presentation’ (x̄=2.64) and ‘lecturer can provide feedback on students’ success and challenges’ (x̄=2.37) are analyses, it is seen that the participants remained neutral in their responses to these statements. when considered the importance of kazu, i̇. y., & issaku, y. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 39 teacher feedback on students' success and challenges, it is interesting to note that the participants remained neutral. when their responses to the statements ‘i can access homework and projects via technology devices online’ (x̄=4.09), ‘i can see my grades online immediately’, with the mean value of (x̄=4.07), ‘i can follow my lesson through class websites even if am absent in from class’, ‘i can take digital notes on my tablet or ipad’ (x̄=3.88) and ‘i can have access to my digital portfolio (x̄=3.84) are considered, it is seen that several benefits of learning english in a technology-based classroom were approved by the participants. the students think that they have easy access to their homework and projects, see their exam results in a short time, follow the lesson from the class website when they are absent, take notes digitally, and access to their digital portfolio to see what they learned and produced in the lessons. discussion students of elt departments think that technology-based classroom contributes to their english learning. they believe that the use of technology-based classroom helps them to become self-directed learners and the majority of the students believe that with the technology they can learn english on their own. also, they think that they can direct their learning without a teacher’s supervision. the outcomes portrayed by respondents in this study demonstrated that even though technology-based classroom in the university is good, more things need to be done to increase their benefits; improving the equipment, installing modern devices and gadgets, introducing efficient courses for the training of teachers as well as educating students on the importance of technology-based classroom in language learning settings. a very important area of this study showcased is the one opined by selwyn (2016), who believes that for technology to thrive in the classroom teachers and students ought to be ‘technicians' instead of educators. the majority of the students agree that they could direct their learning by searching for information on the internet for a given homework or assignment. moreover, students revealed that a technology-based classroom develops their computer competence. this opinion of students agrees with the work of mohammed (2015) which emphasized that students who study in the technology-based classroom developed their computer competence. they also indicated the important role of educational technology tools such as computers, smart boards, lcd projectors played in sustaining their interest in lessons extending their attention span in the classroom. these materials helped them to focus on what they were learning in the classroom. these findings are in line with those of studies conducted by ahmed (2012) and mohammed (2015) that revealed that in computer applications in the educational field, there are two ‘cognition enhance’; the first one deals with computer materials which aid students to focus their task of learning on constructing the skills of thinking called ‘empowering environments’. this promotes critical thinking in students through the use of technology. the second part of ‘cognitive enhances’ talks about interactive media which combines all communications of the media like videos, pictures, cds, dvds, interactive games, animations, present lessons in the classroom, and impact knowledge. each of these cognitions helps students improve their learning of the english language and develop their knowledge and experience. students are motivated and encouraged to give out their best in a technology-based classroom with the integration of technology in the teaching of language in the classrooms (almekhlafi & almeqdadi, 2010; han, 2008; kumar et al., 2008). in addition, we can deduce that students and teachers who have a better knowledge of the various types of technological kazu, i̇. y., & issaku, y. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 40 instruments will implement and use technology more in their language learning and teaching. the results of this study show that students’ perceptions of the use of technology-based classrooms are mostly positive independent of their class levels. conclusion the study provides important information about the opinions of students on the technologybased classroom. firstly, a high percentage of the students has positive perceptions regarding the use of the technology-based classroom in the teaching and learning process of the english language. furthermore, the departments of elt should implement educational technology into their lessons via the use of technology-based classrooms. this can include the use of smart boards, computers dvds, and cd players as well as educational sites like khan academy in their learning and technology-oriented learning and teaching materials. even though the attitudes of learners are critical towards the success of technology integration, teachers must encourage them to use technology in their everyday learning. in the literature, many studies revealed the students' positive perceptions towards the use of technology and technology-based classroom. a study conducted by hawkar (2010) established that students' opinions and attitudes towards the implementation of technology in teaching and learning of language were encouraging, but the frequency of technology use in english language learning classrooms was inadequate because of insufficient technological materials. durdu (2003) investigated the perceptions of students and teachers towards a webbased learning instrument for english courses as a second language at the elementary level. it was a website developed as supplementary materials for students of 8th grade. the outcome of the study revealed that the majority of the participants enjoyed the lesson and their performance increased in terms of vocabulary learning and speaking skills with the chat page. also, students feel relax and well-composed with little anxiousness when they study in a technology-based classroom with materials and tools such as a computer (önsoy, 2004). another study by ateş et al. (2006) came to the conclusion that implementing computer-assisted english instruction (caei) in an english language learning lesson had a bigger impact on the attitudes and opinions of high school students towards educational technology. the research revealed that because technology is part of students' life, they give more attention to lessons conducted with technology. students of english language learning think that the use of technology helps them to improve their skills in speaking, listening, reading, and writing (kasapoglu-akyol, 2010). the findings of this study also provided the following suggestion to improve the use of technology-based classrooms in elt settings at the university level. first of all, technical support about the use of technology-based classrooms must be improved and amplified in the department of elt of state universities. also, stakeholders and the government should financially support the technology implementation in elt departments. moreover, teachers should teach students how to use internet resources to aid their english language learning through the use of technology and the sources on the internet. kazu, i̇. y., & issaku, y. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 41 disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. notes this study is based on the master thesis of the second author supervised under the guidance of the first author. references ahmed, j. 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(2015). using technology in gifted and talented education classrooms: the teachers’ perspective. journal of information technology education: innovations in practice, 14, 101-124. https://doi.org/10.28945/2209 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). http://education.mit.edu/papers/gamessimesocnets_edarcade.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2010.04.012 https://doi.org/10.4219/gct-2007-30 https://doi.org/10.1080/14681360300200157 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-011-9180-x https://doi.org/10.5172/ijpl.5.2.80 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed524306 https://doi.org/10.1080/07380569.2013.844637 https://doi.org/10.28945/2209 ejal article template focus on elt journal (felt) vol 1, issue 1, 2019 issn: 2687-5381  contact: serpilmeri@gmail.com learning in scaffolded autonomous e-learning environments amongst eap students in a uk university aserpil meri-yılan a assistant prof. dr., ağrı i̇brahim çeçen university, ağrı, turkey, serpilmeri@gmail.com to cite this article: meri-yilan, s. (2019). learning in scaffolded autonomous e-learning environments amongst eap students in a uk university. focus on elt journal (felt), 1(1), 70-85. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2019.00002 abstract as learners are working individually in e-learning environments, research has moved to focus on providing guidance for learners and helping them to take responsibility for their own learning. therefore, this study aimed to shed light on both learner autonomy and scaffolding in e-learning environments. 35 international english as a foreign language (efl) students who were taking a course supported with online learning resources (olrs) including the english for academic purposes (eap) toolkit participated in the study voluntarily. before taking the course, they filled a pre-questionnaire about their perceptions of learning, whilst a post-questionnaire at the end of the course. in the meantime, they were observed three times while carrying out activities in the toolkit, and interviewed afterwards. data from observations, interviews and questionnaires have shown that e-learning through scaffolding facilitates efl learners’ language learning and scaffolding has a significant impact on learner autonomy and vice versa. this study sets the grounds for learners to use scaffolding, teachers to implement scaffolding, institutions to provide a scaffolded autonomous e-learning environment and designers to set up that kind of environment in order to enable the educational equality and opportunity for all learners. keywords: scaffolding e-learning learner autonomy efl learners the eap toolkit introduction the diversity in learners has caused institutions to implement advanced e-learning tools in order to enhance language learning. bray, brown and green (2004) argue that cultural differences have a great impact on english language learning, especially in terms of learners’ socioeconomic status, to use the technology. mahinda (2014) furthers that both cultural and linguistic diversities can be detrimental in a shared language learning classroom. without regard to these differences, all learners can benefit from the technology in the same way, for instance, to access an online material or play video games (ibid.), when they are provided with an e-learning tool in a virtual e-learning environment. therefore, higher educational institutions have started offering virtual self-access centres (vsacs) that are institutional websites to facilitate ‘independent language learning’ (gui & northern, 2013, p.1). vsacs are effective because it provides the following:  ‘resources for self-study’ (ibid., p.1), https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1132-568x mailto:serpilmeri@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2019.00002 meri-yilan, s. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 71  ‘forums or message boards to encourage interaction’ (ibid., p.1),  ‘affordances for autonomous learning’ (reinders & white, 2011, p.1),  an environment, where a learner can plan, improve and assess his or her learning (lázaro & reinders, 2007),  scaffolding for learners not to ‘feel isolated and lost’ (shen, cho, tsai & marra, 2013, p. 10). according to universities uk (2018) report, there is a high demand of international students in coming to study in the uk. having left their countries, students from different backgrounds, cultures and languages become minority in the country where the language is spoken. in this kind of a learning environment, educational institutions should prepare them for the diverse and advanced learning challenges ensuring ‘equitable access to technology’ (chisholm, 1998, p.250). by this way, students can have the equal opportunity to reach the knowledge and information. kelly (1991) puts forward two views on education. one states that ‘education is access to that which is worthwhile in a culture or an opportunity to develop one's intellect and extend one's scope’ (ibid., p.30). this ensures educational access and opportunity to all students. the other view discusses that it cannot be available for everyone but for capable students, especially when it is in its initial stage as these students can make a profit. the present study does not regard the discrimination of the students coming from different backgrounds and cultures and embraces all students equally to see their process in language learning. considering the discussion about the social equality in education (kelly, 1991) and technology access (chishom, 1998) above, this paper deals with language learning of english as a foreign language (efl) learners in a scaffolded e-learning environment. the aims of the study are to see what actions each student carried out in the eap toolkit and other olrs, examine what students thought of the learning online, and look at their autonomous learning. this paper covers the description of scaffolding in e-learning environments and its relationship with learner autonomy as well as the discussion of laurillard’s conversational framework. netx, it introduces empirical findings from efl learners’ learning of olrs. ultimately, the findings from this study will help to conceptualize how e-learning environment can contribute to different newcomer students’ language learning when provided with equal and accessible technology. literature review scaffolding in e-learning environments e-learning environments is advantageous as it provides learners to collaborate, interact and learn synchronously or asynchronously, and teachers to adapt their teaching methods considering convenient accomplishment of the task (mouzakitis, 2010; pandey, 2013), different learning styles, ‘timing, delivery, and accessibility’ (johnson, hornik & salas, 2008, p.357). however, they potentially impede learning since learners may be alone, feel isolated and encounter inappropriate contents with regard to their culture and inappropriate learning approaches (pandey, 2013). this makes learners need supporting and guiding, especially when they work and handle their learning alone. correspondingly, this has led to draw attention to scaffolding in e-learning environments. meri-yilan, s. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 72 focus on elt journal (felt) scaffolding in the educational sense is referred to vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (zpd), which is related to the distance between what learners can do independently and with guidance from teachers or peers (vygotsky, 1978 cited in lantolf & thorne, 2006). with the advance of the technology and change of learning, scaffolding has evolved in elearning environments (puntambekar & hübscher, 2005). in this evolved sense, scaffolding can be permanent, whereas it fades in the original or traditional sense as learners become more capable of independent learning. scaffolders can be provided by tools or resources in the former while teachers or peers provide scaffolding in the latter. blanket scaffolding, which is the same for every student, and passive support, which does not spot mistakes apparently, can be offered, while the latter gives dynamic scaffolding with an ongoing diagnosis and adaptive scaffolding with a calibrated support. as there may be no human helper, a student forms a shared understanding with authentic tasks in the former, whilst teachers or peers do in the latter. researchers (i.e. azevedo, cromley, thomas, seibert & tron, 2003; hannafin, land & oliver, 1999; tait, 2000; yelland & masters, 2007) have also grouped scaffolding. yelland and masters (2007) categorise scaffolding into three types. cognitive scaffolding is linked to ‘those activities which pertain to the development of conceptual and procedural understandings which involve wither techniques or devices to assist the learner’ (ibid., p.367). technical scaffolding refers to using computers. affective scaffolding refers to motivational help to further learning and increase learning abilities. hannafin et al. (1999) give a deeper categorisation: conceptual scaffolding helps ‘what to consider’ (ibid., p.132). metacognitive scaffolding tells ‘how to think during learning’ (ibid., p.132). procedural scaffolding shows the ways to implement resources. strategic scaffolding guides to analyse, plan, make strategies and decide learning. these types have a possible impact on the learner motivation to use materials and tools (tiantong & teemuangsai, 2013). learner autonomy and scaffolded e-learning environments learner autonomy has been accepted as the ability to take responsibility for one’s learning (benson, 2011; dickinson, 1987; holec, 1981; little, 1991). this paper draws on the relationship between learner autonomy and its dimensions such as learning strategies, selfmanagement, self-regulation and motivation in terms of attribution theory and self-efficacy (benson, 2007). therefore, this section first discusses these dimensions and then deals with learner autonomy in scaffolded e-learning environments. self-regulated learners can work independently by implementing, adjusting and preserving their learning ways in both collaborative and individual learning situations (zimmerman, 2002). similarly, self-managed learners can handle their learning by planning, monitoring and evaluating their learning processes (lamb, 2010). learning strategies regarded ‘as the operations or processes which are consciously selected and employed by the learner to learn the tl [target language] or facilitate a language task’ (white, 2008, p.9) can enable learners to accomplish the activities independently (cohen, 2011). oxford (2011) classifies learning strategies: cognitive strategies are related to implementing learning by such as ‘repetition, resourcing, translation, grouping, note taking, deduction, recombination, imagery, auditory representation, key word, contextualization, elaboration, transfer, inferencing’ (hismanoglu, 2000, n.p.). metacognitive strategies refer to cognitive processes which is to plan’ monitor, evaluate and manage learning, identify the problems meri-yilan, s. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 73 and pay attention to the problem (o’malley & cohen, 1990 cited in benson, 2011). social/affective strategies are the ways to contact with others such as collaborating with others or decreasing anxiety or supporting oneself for affective strategies (ibid.). these learning strategies can encourage learners to realise their learning (allwright, 1990 cited in oxford, 2003; little, 1991). besides, learners’ attributions to success and failure (i.e. attribution theory) and beliefs and confidence in their learning (i.e. self-efficacy) can affect them to handle the tasks on their own (aliegro, 2006; bandura, 1986; banks & woolfson, 2008). although there has not been enough research on the relationship between the concepts of e-learning, scaffolding and learner autonomy (jarvis, 2012; yelland & masters, 2007), some studies have looked at them to some extent (chen & law, 2016; delen, liew & willson, 2014; nielsen, 2012). a study by nielsen (2012) examined e-learning tools to foster learner autonomy in foreign language learning by conducting a case study to 24 international students. data from the use of e-learning tools (i.e. individual plans, selfassessment, portfolio and online tests) showed that foreign language learning classrooms should include e-learning tools compulsorily for the student participation into learning. it also indicated the contrast use of tools between different backgrounds and genders. it concluded that the more they used the tools, the more autonomous and motivated they became. delen et al. (2014) explored the impacts of e-learning but in terms of the use of videos and made a comparison between scaffolded and unscaffolded online video learning platforms. data from a self-regulation strategy inventory survey, a recall test and the frequency of students’ use of the functions showed that the scaffolded online video learning platform with ‘note-taking, supplemental resources, and practice questions’ (ibid., p.314) increased participants’ learning performance. the students in the scaffolded group outperformed others in the unscafffolded group. delen et al. (2014) showed the scaffolding functions in e-learning environments. however, chen and law (2016) put stress on the comparison between collaboration and individual learning. the performance test and intrinsic motivation survey-indicated that ‘scaffolding had an impact on students’ motivation and learning performance’ (ibid., p.1201) without regard to their individual or collaboration studies. although these studies are crucial to see learner autonomy and scaffolding in elearning environments, they do not give a knowledge of these concepts together in elearning environments in terms of learning design. therefore, laurillard’s conversational framework has been discussed and used to implement scaffolding and in turn, promote learner autonomy in these environments. laurillard’s conversational framework laurillard (2012) designed the conversational framework based on learning as conversation. this framework intends to promote the understanding of ‘how to design teaching and learning now that digital technologies are making more impact on education’ (ibid., pp. 94-5). according to the conversational framework, learning takes place via the interaction between the teacher and learner, or the learner and peer (ibid.). the framework was established on the research of laurillard (1998, 2002) and highlights four essential components as follows:  ‘discussion between teacher and learner at the level of descriptions; meri-yilan, s. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 74 focus on elt journal (felt)  ‘interaction between the learner and some special aspect of the world defined by the teacher;  ‘adaptation of that special world by teacher, and of action by learner;  ‘reflection on learner's performance by teacher and learner’ (laurillard, 1998, p.230). laurillard’s conversational framework has been used by a number of researchers looking at the interaction between peers or peers and their teacher (see fotouhi-ghazvini, earnshaw, robison, moeini & excell, 2011; neo, neo & lim, 2013; quinn & reid, 2003). however, the present study is significant as it investigates the interaction learners and a tool when there is no any human helper in a learning environment. therefore, this paper answers the following research questions: 1. what actions do efl learners carry out in the eap toolkit and other olrs? 2. what do efl learners think of learning in scaffolded e-learning environments? 3. what is the relationship between scaffolding and learner autonomy in e-learning environments? research methodology participants thirty-five international students aged between 20 and 45 years old volunteered to take part in the study. they came from the middle eastern (i.e. iraq, saudi arabia, jordan, yemen and libya) and central asian countries (i.e. china and thailand). despite these differences, they shared the same aim: they left their countries for the u.k. first to have and develop their academic skills and language learning and then to undertake undergraduate or postgraduate studies there. their countries and institutions supported all of them except some chinese students economically in order for them to study in the english for academic study (eas) course at the university of southampton and further their study if they could pass the course. during their course, they were supported to use the eap toolkit, so these participants were chosen. the researcher contacted them in person. before conducting the study, all of the participants were informed about the study and its aims. each of them agreed and volunteered in the participation by signing the consent form. the anonymity was assured by excluding any question asking their name. the data were kept safe in passwordprotected devices and platforms. context of the research the eas course aims to improve international students’ academic language, for example, by increasing overall ielts score of 4.5 or 5.5 to 6.5 or 7.0 to enter the university in the uk. depending on their level of english, students take the course for either one semester (14 weeks) or two semesters (28 weeks). the participants in this study mostly took one semester although a few of them were mixed. they had a blended learning approach. during the course, they were encouraged to use online facilities suggested by teachers or decided on their own and in the university’s language resources. they had a compulsory module named as independent study, where they were introduced the eap toolkit and other olrs (online learning resources). although the course was aimed at fostering independent learning and making them understand its place and importance in the british meri-yilan, s. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 75 education system, they were free to choose this way and this potentially depended on the student’s choice. the eap toolkit was designed to potentially scaffold learning (watson, 2010). therefore, this toolkit was chosen for the study. based on the literature review and the researcher’s analysis of the toolkit, there were some scaffolders and scaffolding types found as explained below:  the introduction section as a scaffolder first helps the user to have the basic idea about the learning topic.  the explanation/information section as a scaffolder gives a detailed knowledge about what to grasp.  the instruction section as a scaffolder tells how to perform and benefit from the activities.  the feedback section provides explicit or implicit replies as a scaffolder.  the self-scaffolder happens (holton & clarke, 2006) when the user gives scaffolding to her or his learning on her or his own.  conceptual scaffolding is supplied when the toolkit guides users to deal with problems by telling ‘what to consider’ (hannafin et al., 1999, p.132).  metacognitive scaffolding gives an assistance on ‘how to think during learning’ (ibid., p.132).  procedural scaffolding gives the ways on how to carry out the activities (ibid.).  technical scaffolding is related to the guidance from e-learning tools (yelland & masters, 2007). web links, dictionary and glossary in the toolkit can be examples of this scaffolding type. as for the potential use of other olrs, the participants were provided freely by accessing them in both the university laptops and at home. apart from the advice by the university and teachers, there was a potential help from world wide web (kirkwood, 2008). data collection procedure and analysis this study used a mixed methods approach to collect and analyse data. in order to increase the validity and reliability of the research and research instruments (dörnyei, 2007), the study first conducted a pilot study to 12 students who took an eas course at the university of southampton during the summer term. as research instruments of the pilot study, a questionnaire and observation were trialed in the pilot study. data from the pilot study showed that some questions needed adding and revising in the questionnaire, and a pre and post-questionnaires were necessary, whereas observation needed to be recorded rather than directly observing. considering the results from the data in the pilot study, the main study was conducted as follows: as a quantitative research instrument, a questionnaire consisting of five sections (i.e. background information, rating the eap toolkit and online language learning resources, attribution items, self-efficacy items and learner autonomy and support scale items) was prepared based on the literature review. it was conducted to 35 students in the beginning and end of the academic semester with the aim of understanding students’ beliefs about learning in a scaffolded e-learning environment. meri-yilan, s. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 76 focus on elt journal (felt) as for qualitative research instruments, direct observation with the think-aloud protocol method and the digital screen capturing with video, and follow-up interviews were implemented to 10 volunteers of 35 students in the beginning, middle and end of the academic semester. ‘a pre-task orientation’ (gibson, 1997, p.58) was given to the students to be familiarised with the study (van someren, barnard & sandberg, 1994). each of them was told which activities in the eap toolkit to carry out in the first and second observation times but were free in the last one. the researcher directly observed by sitting behind each of them without intervening in them when they were doing the activities in the toolkit for half of an hour. as resulted from the pilot study, noting their behaviours when they were performing the activities distracted them, so this was excluded. a silent room was prepared with a laptop to ensure them to feel comfortable like home. during the learning process, each of them was captured via camtasia because of its easiness and efficiency (lauffer, 2002; silva, 2012). camtasia recorded the full screen of the laptop, the webcam, elapsed time and the audio including the think-aloud protocol verbalisations. during observation sessions, the think-aloud protocol methods were applied in order to have an in-depth data about their learning (blummer & kenton, 2014). the researcher told each of them to speak aloud what they were thinking and doing and stated that this study did not focus on whether they succeeded or failed but how they went through the information while doing the activities. after the observation, follow-up interview questions were asked to each student to understand their feelings, perceptions and use of olrs. as for data analysis, statistical package for the social sciences (spss) program helped to analyse quantitative data with descriptive statistics (i.e. frequencies and percentages of the variables) and inferential statistics (i.e. spearman’s rank-order correlation, mcnemar’s test and wilcoxon signed-rank test) to see the relationship between the variables and whether there was a statistical change in preand post-questionnaires. qualitative data was analysed within both deductive and inductive approaches based on pre-defined codes and codes generated from data through ‘opening (unrestricted) coding’ (gale, heath, cameron, rashid & redwood, 2013; p.3), respectively. the interviews and observations of each student were transcribed. in total, 29 interview transcripts and 29 observation transcripts including both think-aloud protocols and camtasia recordings were collected from 10 students. as one of the students (tase) could not attend the last interview and observation sessions, the number was 29 instead of 30. she was included in the study because her data seemed valuable. each transcript was stored in nvivo software and analysed with codes generated based on the literature review and research aims. intercoder reliability (campbell, quincy, osserman & pederson, 2013; lombard, snyder-duch & bracken, 2010) was assured with the discussion and agreement on the codes with two experts and one supervisor. results and discussion learning actions in scaffolded e-learning environments data from qualitative and quantitative research instruments showed that there were different learning actions in a scaffolded e-learning environment. they differed in using scaffolding types, scaffolders, spending time in the activities and performing the activities. corroborating the analysis of the eap toolkit which provided different scaffolding types based on the studies (azevedo et al., 2003; hannafin et al., 1999; tait, 2000; yelland & masters, 2007), it was observed that the participants used procedural, metacognitive, meri-yilan, s. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 77 strategic, conceptual, technical and motivational scaffolding. participants used at least three scaffolding types in one observation time. the most used ones were metacognitive, procedural and conceptual scaffolding, which was dependent on not only what the toolkit offered but also their preferences. it seemed that there was no motivational scaffolding but participants self-scaffolded themselves motivationally by thinking aloud. for example, they used the utterances such as ‘good! i did very well.’ or ‘congratulation for myself!’ independently from the toolkit. more than half of them improved their learning through strategic scaffolding. for example, they compared their understanding and reply with the one shown in the feedback and told the future behaviour to themselves. however, all of them used procedural scaffolding to understand how they could accomplish the tasks. some showed their understanding by speaking aloud ‘i understand it really.’ in addition, they used conceptual and metacognitive scaffolding to further in the activities. for instance, they expressed their understanding of learning objects and corrected their misknowledge. the way they told themselves how to think, for instance, to select crucial words to grasp the topic shows metacognitive scaffolding. even though one of them used technical scaffolding provided in the toolkit, nearly half of them preferred to go beyond this help and used other olrs such as google and online dictionaries for further information. this shows that scaffolding types can help learning (tiantong & teemuangsai, 2013). although the toolkit does not provide motivational scaffolding, the study argues that self-scaffolding can lead to motivational scaffolding. additionally, learners can handle their learning on their own through scaffolding instead of teachers or peers (hannafin et al., 1999; luckin, 2001; wood & wood, 1996). likewise, they differed in using scaffolders during the observations. all of them used at least three scaffolders. the most used were the information/explanation section, the instruction section and feedback. by this, they could have the further information about the activity and the ways to perform the activity and evaluate their learning (puntambekar & hübscher, 2005). none of them used hyperlinks and dictionaries except one of them but other olrs when they needed help. the use of feedback increased over time as seen with the comparison between the preand post-questionnaires. they also put stress on feedback as the most helpful scaffolder (pea, 2004; quintana, et al., 2004) in the interview sessions. also, all of them showed contrasting learning preferences in terms of spending time on the activities in the toolkit based on their answers to the questionnaire. however, all of them spent less than 20 minutes during the observation sessions despite the differences and stated the same in the questionnaires contrasting with the study by watson (2010), which claims that learners can spend between 20 and 40 minutes for one learning activity. this should be taken into account that they might be affected negatively when spending more time. learning differences happened in a scaffolded e-learning environment because of their learning preferences. data from observations showed that they sometimes skipped the activity without completing it. or they sometimes just read scaffolders without performing the activity or read them again and again to take the grasp of the information in the activity. some behaved like that because they were affected with ‘frustration, anxiety and confusion’ (zhang, zhao, zhou & nunamaker, 2004, p.76). this shows that the interaction between a learner and a tool depends on the learner himself or herself. however, it draws meri-yilan, s. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 78 focus on elt journal (felt) the attention to the design that is constructed with ‘an integration of learning styles and preferences with strategies’ (sadler-smith & smith, 2004, p.408). data from questionnaires showed that they performed more activities over time. mcnemar’s test indicated that there was a significantly statistical change in the eap toolkit use between questionnaires with .004 of p-value, but not in the use of other olrs with .625 of p-value. the wilcoxon signed-rank test also showed the significantly statistical change in less time spent on the activities. they mostly preferred writing and vocabulary activities as shown in data from both questionnaires and observations. all of them also uttered the use of other olrs, most of which were engvid, ted.com, the british council resources including word on the street, apps on mobile phones, online journals and newspapers, e-books, google and google scholar (meri-yilan, 2017). questionnaires indicated that the decrease of the daily use of other olrs but the increase of the weekly use of olrs over time. as stated by them, the decrease in use happened because of the homework load and hectic exam period in the classroom. however, participants mostly preferred to use scaffolding olrs with subtitles, instruction and information. they pointed out the need and improvement of speaking activities. therefore, a few of them uttered that they used discussion forums, social networking websites and communicating with native people such as ‘a driver’ in daily conversations. learners’ beliefs about their learning in scaffolded e-learning environments data from open-ended questions in each questionnaire and interview questions show that participants had both positive and negative beliefs about learning in scaffolded e-learning environments. the data from both instruments indicated similar views, so they were not categorised based on data from either questionnaires or interviews. however, their views on learning via the eap toolkit and other olrs differed, as shown in figures 1 and 2 illustrated below respectively. figure 1 shows their positive and negative views according to three interview times. the figure also indicates that the participants expressed more positive views than negative ones about learning in the eap toolkit. figure 1. participants’ feelings about their experience of learning in the eap toolkit from interview data meri-yilan, s. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 79 however, they seemed to have both positive and negative views on learning through other olrs equally. figure 2 illustrates their perceptions of other olrs stated during all three interview times. figure 2. participants’ perceptions of other olrs reported in interviews all in all, they believed that they increased their learning because of the following features of olrs:  the replacement and representation of the tutor (hannafin et al., 1999; luckin, 2001; wood & wood, 1996);  the interactivity;  independent learning (watson, 2010);  learning skills except speaking skills;  the provision of a variety of resources; and  learning anytime and anywhere. they thought that they could increase their learning if olrs:  provided more scaffolding and scaffolder but enough scaffolding and unclear scaffolder;  enabled collaboration;  included more resources which can be adaptable to different learners (conole & dyke, 2004); and  considered intercultural differences and academic skills. the above mentioned suggestions can be seen as a criticism for olrs to cover scaffolding, cooperation, engagement and diversity. indication of the relationship between learner autonomy and scaffolding in elearning environments based on the findings from both qualitative and quantitative data, this study discusses the relationship between scaffolding and learner autonomy in e-learning environments (meri-yilan, 2017). data present that students exercised their autonomy with its related dimensions in e-learning environments. as shown in observations, they regulated and managed learning with the plan, goal making and assessment, evaluation, adjustment and implementation of learning independently. meri-yilan, s. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 80 focus on elt journal (felt) the findings from all instruments indicated their internal attributions towards their success and failure. gobel, thang, sidhu, oon & chan (2013) suggest that they are autonomous if students make internal attributions such as strategy, effort and ability. in this sense, they looked like to have learner autonomy. a spearman’s rank-order correlation showed a positive correlation between self-efficacy and attribution theory in the use of the toolkit bot not in the use of other olrs. success, interaction and scaffolding seemed the preceding factors for confidence. nevertheless, a wilcoxon signed-rank test showed no difference between their feelings about online learning resources, their confidence in computer use, their daily computer uses and their use of computer and online applications between questionnaires. above all, they were observed that scaffolding from olrs facilitated their learning, so participants:  planned, paid attention, organised, obtained and used resources, monitored and evaluated their knowledge metacognitively,  covered knowledge with their prediction and inference, conceptualised gradually with summarisation, gave a deductive and inductive reasoning and made a use of feelings for understanding cognitively,  planned, paid attention, organised, obtained and used resources, monitored and evaluated feelings meta-affectively,  activated encouraging feelings and perceptions affectively,  planned, obtained and benefited from facilities for connection and cultural purposes metasociocultural-interactively,  interacted to gain knowledge and connect sociocultural-interactively. the analysis of preand post-questionnaire items in learner autonomy and support scale section finds out that scaffolding had an effect on learner autonomy. referring to interviews, as well, participants needed a help from the tutor in e-learning environments due to the lack of scaffolding, particularly, which indicates the relationship between learner autonomy and scaffolding in e-learning environments. based on the findings, figure 3 shows the adapted model of laurillard’s (2012) conversational framework to consider this relationship. meri-yilan, s. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 81 figure 3. the adapted model of laurillard’s conversational framework (meri-yilan, 2017) the exercise of learner autonomy without any help from a tutor or peers but scaffolding from olrs discusses that learning can take place through adaptation of learning on one’s own and interaction between a learner and olrs as shown in figure 3. in this sense, scaffolding can serve as a tutor (luckin, 2001; wood & wood, 1996). it can be inferred from the model that the more they interact with olrs, the more they adapt themselves to learning and the more learning takes place. conclusion this research has shed light on learner autonomy, scaffolding and their relationship in elearning environments where efl learners aimed to improve their academic english without the help of any human. scaffolding has a significant effect on learning accomplishment and enhancement, especially when learning alone without the support from any human beings. this also promotes learner autonomy, by which they can interact and adapt their learning with different learning strategies. this paper shows that what learners can do at the moment is facilitated through scaffolding types, scaffolders and selfscaffolding in order them to gain the understanding of what they can do independently in the future. therefore, this paper suggests for learners to consider the use of scaffolding in e-learning environments. the teachers should implement more scaffolding to decrease the tutor need in the classroom or online learning. the institutions should integrate more olrs, particularly for their minority or international learners to enable the educational opportunity and equality. however, the designers have a big responsibility, as they are the ones who decide what to include and how to design. they should take into account the provision of different learning activities, learning skills and learning styles, appropriate colour of olrs (weinreich, obendorf & lamersdorf, 2001), flexible learning, different scaffolding and scaffolders and implicit and explicit feedback. meri-yilan, s. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 82 focus on 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(2002). becoming a self-regulated learner: an overview. theory into practice, 41(2), 6470. doi: 10.1207/s15430421tip4102_2. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). about the journal focus on elt journal (felt) editors-in-chief dr. ahmet başal yıldız technical university dr. ceyhun yükselir osmaniye korkut ata university dr. erdem akbaş erciyes university editorial advisory board dr. abdurrazzag alghammas qassim university dr. ali erarslan alanya alaaddin keykubat university dr. ali sorayyaei azar management and science university dr. arda arıkan akdeniz university dr. arif bakla ankara yıldırım beyazıt university dr. arif sarıçoban selçuk university dr. begüm saçak ohio university dr. buğra zengin namık kemal university dr. cihat atar sakarya university dr. emrah cinkara gaziantep university dr. emrah ekmekçi 19 mayıs university dr. erdoğan bada çukurova university dr. fatma yuvayapan kahramanmaraş i̇stiklal university dr. gökhan öztürk anadolu university dr. greg kesler ohio university dr. gölge seferoğlu middle east technical university dr. i̇rem çomoğlu dokuz eylül university dr. isabel herrando university of zaragoza dr. i̇smail hakkı mirici near east university dr. jan hardman university of york dr. kenan dikilitaş university of stavanger dr. leyla harputlu alanya alaaddin keykubat university dr. martha nyikos indiana university dr. mehmet takkaç atatürk university dr. mehmet bardakçı gaziantep university dr. nemira mačianskienė vytautas magnus university dr. neslihan önder özdemir uludağ university dr. rana yıldırım çukurova university dr. reyhan ağçam kahramanmaraş sütçü i̇mam university dr. richard smith the university of warwick dr. saadet korucu kış necmettin erbakan university dr. selami aydın i̇stanbul medeniyet university dr. servet çelik trabzon university dr. şevki kömür muğla sıtkı koçman university dr. turan paker pamukkale university dr. turgay han ordu university dr. vilma bijeikienė vytautas magnus university dr. yasemin kırkgöz çukurova university editorial & technical office instructor fatih ercan osmaniye korkut ata university instructor muhammet toraman yıldız techncial university reviewers of the issue dr. ali erarslan dr. betül bal gezegin dr. devrim höl dr. emrah ekmekçi dr. fatma yuvayapan dr. fatih güngör dr. gökhan öztürk dr. i̇smail yaman dr. kürşat cesur dr. mehmet bardakçı dr. mehmet kılıç dr. nihan erdemir dr. ömer gökhan ulum table of contents the linguistic dimension of l2 interviews: a multidimensional analysis of native speaker language pascual pérez-paredes & maría sánchez-tornel 4-26 high school language division students’ perceptions of english as a lingua franca zeynep yücedağ & ali karakaş 27-42 a meta-analysis of the effect of bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning among adult efl learners reem jaber & yeşim keşli dollar 43-52 effects of writing portfolio assessment at tertiary level intensive english program: an action research emrah cinkara & hong yu connie au ede 53-69 learning in scaffolded autonomous e-learning environments amongst eap students in a uk university serpil meri-yilan 70-85 how effective is tprs for adult efl learners with limited english proficiency? mehmet asmalı 86-95 focus on elt journal (felt) vol 1, issue 1, 2019 issn: 2687-5381 editorial note: letter from editors-in-chief for the launch of felt 1 aahmet başal bceyhun yükselir and cerdem akbaş a associate. prof. dr., yıldız technical university, turkey, abasal@yildiz.edu.tr b assistant. prof. dr., osmaniye korkut ata university, turkey, ceyhunyukselir@osmaniye.edu.tr c assistant. prof. dr., erciyes university, turkey, erdemakbas@erciyes.edu.tr on behalf of the editorial board, it is our privilege and great pride to announce the launch and the very first issue of our journal 'focus on elt' (felt). devoted to and focused on solely to the english language teaching and learning, felt is an open source journal and accepts articles written from a theoretical or applied perspective with the possible applications to the field of english language teaching and learning. to make felt a high-calibre scientific publication venue, we have the following principles while accepting studies to the journal:  felt publishes fully refereed high-quality original research articles and studies for the benefit of teachers and researchers in the field of english language teaching.  felt accepts articles written from a theoretical or applied perspective with the possible applications to the field of english language teaching and learning.  felt follows stringent publication ethics and all submissions are undergone rigorous plagiarism check. if there is an issue with plagiarism in any of the submissions, these papers are withdrawn at any state of the publication process. the editors-in-chief and the editorial board dedicated a huge amount of time and energy to the publication of this first issue. it would be impossible to manage peer review 1 we dedicate the first issue of our ‘fledgling journal’ to the humane, sympathetic, constructive, and professional identity of our very own prof. dr. ismail hakkı erten whose sudden death has deeply saddened us. mailto:abasal@yildiz.edu.tr mailto:ceyhunyukselir@osmaniye.edu.tr mailto:erdemakbas@erciyes.edu.tr https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4295-4577 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4781-3183 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2204-3119 başal, a., yükselir c. & akbaş, e. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 2 process and publish a successful issue without reviewers’ contributions. thus, we would like to thank wholeheartedly to the reviewers of our first issue. the present issue features six articles investigating various topics with respect to the field and shares detailed findings for particular cases. the first paper of the issue titled “the linguistic dimension of l2 interviews: a multidimensional analysis of native speaker language” and authored by pascual pérezparedes and maría sánchez-tornel looks at the linguistic nature of the tasks employed to assess general “proficiency” in a given language. the results indicate that l2 interviews are found to be effective in paving the way for a more complex assessment the proficiency of language learners. in addition, with the help of examination of different speaking tasks, the authors discuss how the speaking tasks influence the way interviews could be profiled. the second paper of the issue titled “high school language division students’ perceptions of english as a lingua franca” and authored by zeynep yücedağ and ali karakaş zooms in on turkish context to discover the perceptions of high school language division students towards english as a lingua franca. the study has some interesting results about the perception of english as a lingua franca, including the differences between the expectations of students and their teachers. the third paper of the issue titled “a meta-analysis of the effect of bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning among adult efl learners” and authored by reem ali jaber and yeşim keşli dollar is a meta-analysis study conducted to investigate the impact of english subtitling on efl learners’ vocabulary improvement. the results of the study shows a positive effect of the bimodal subtitling on vocabulary learning among adult efl learners. the fourth paper of the issue titled “effects of writing portfolio assessments at tertiary level intensive english program: an action research” and authored by emrah cinkara and hong yu connie au is a study exploring students’ attitudes toward the use of writing portfolio assessment and examined the effects of writing portfolio in a module course. the results reveal that most students generally possessed positive attitudes toward the use of portfolio. based on the findings, this study also suggests that performances on writing portfolio assessments may be predictive of students’ writing performance on writing exams. the fifth paper of the issue titled “learning in scaffolded autonomous in e-learning environments amongst eap students in a uk university” and authored by serpil meriyılan examines learner autonomy, scaffolding and their relationship in e-learning environments where efl learners in the uk aimed to improve their academic english without the help of any human. as a conclusion, scaffolding plays an important role in learning achievement thereby promoting learner autonomy. the sixth and the last of the paper of the issue titled “how effective is tprs for adult efl learners with limited english proficiency?” by mehmet asmalı focuses on başal, a., yükselir c. & akbaş, e. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 3 examining the ‘teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling’ (tprs) on students’ grammar and vocabulary performance as well as their attitude toward learning english. the results of the study indicate that tprs had an effective role in learners’ improvement in grammar as well as vocabulary learning. one of the objectives of this journal is to encourage publication from various contexts addressing issues from different perspectives as is outlined above. we therefore would like to welcome submissions to discuss the latest developments in the field of english language teaching and learning for the future issues of felt journal. before we finish the letter from editors-in-chief, it is with extremely deep and genuine sadness that we bring the news of the recent death of prof. dr. ismail hakkı erten (hacettepe university, turkey), an exceptional and supportive academic in the field of elt. having his phd from university of exeter, he has contributed to various topics ranging from academic motivation and l2 achievement to vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension. his research has appeared in many reputable and leading journals such as system, european journal of teacher education as well as the tesol encyclopedia of english language teaching (wiley). he was also editor-in-chief of eurasian journal of applied linguistics (ejal) for which he worked day and night to make the ‘fledgling journal’ (as he said) a leading journal in the field of applied linguistics. not only did we lose a positive and thoughtful person leading professionals and students but also we lost a great man of integrity in our academic circle. he will be greatly missed and remembered by his colleagues across the world, by his students, and by his family with love and respect. we therefore dedicate the first issue of our ‘fledgling journal’ to his humane, sympathetic, constructive, and professional identity. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 4, issue 2, 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: yildiraykurnaz@gmail.com copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. book review “new perspectives on willingness to communicate in a second language” yıldıray kurnaz instructor, trabzon university, trabzon, turkey, email: yildiraykurnaz@gmail.com apa citation: kurnaz, y. (2022). book review: new perspectives on willingness to communicate in a second language. focus on elt journal, 4(2), 101-106. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.7 new perspectives on willingness to communicate in a second language, zarrinabadi, nourollah, and mirosław pawlak (eds.). springer, (2022). 264 pages. isbn: 978-3-03067634-6, the term willingness to communicate (wtc), which has an important place in the foreign language learning, teaching, and performing process, was first used in mother tongue teaching (mccroskey & baer, 1985). later, macintyre and charos (1996) first used this term in second language teaching. then macintyre et al. (1998) defined wtc as the effects of various psychological components on linguistics in foreign language teaching with the model they developed. in the following years, there has been a rapid increase in the number of studies on wtc in foreign language teaching. in these studies, motivation, self-confidence, anxiety, and personality have been observed to have significant effects on wtc (alishah, 2015; mahmoodi mailto:yildiraykurnaz@gmail.com mailto:yildiraykurnaz@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.7 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8762-9749 102 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com & moazam, 2014; peng, 2013; şener, 2014; tan et al., 2016; vongsila & reinders, 2016; watanabe, 2011, etc.). on the other hand, there are also studies claiming that there is no direct relationship between motivation and wtc (öz et al., 2015). after all, there are various perspectives and claims regarding not only the background of wtc but also the influence it has on using a foreign language. in this context, the editors of the book “new perspectives on willingness to communicate in a second language”, zarrinabadi and pawlak (2022) have made a significant contribution to the field by bringing together eleven different qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-type studies carried out by different researchers on wtc, which has an increasingly important place in second language learning and teaching process in recent years. as a whole, the book consists of thirteen chapters including one introduction chapter in the beginning by zarrinabadi and pawlak to give brief information about the book’s content. there is also an implication chapter in the end by zarrinabadi aiming to make further suggestions for further research on the topic in the light of the information provided by the studies included in the rest of the book. to begin with, in the chapter “second language willingness to communicate as a complex dynamic system (cds)” by nematizadeh and wood, readers are provided with discussions based on a specific literature review on wtc from the point of the linear and nonlinear dimensions comprising it. in the chapter, the authors define wtc as a complex dynamic system as a result of making inferences from the definitions and claims made for wtc in the literature. in this context, the dynamics of wtc are examined to make implications for further research on the topic. eventually, the authors argue that wtc is just one dimension of personal differences that can vary with the influence of other language skills. in this respect, focusing on the “end-point” product with a “from-till” view is unacceptable. on the contrary, “fromthrough” should be the point to be focused on. finally, despite its contribution to the topic, there is a lot more to be contributed by cds to wtc. in chapter “case studies of iranian migrants’ wtc within an ecosystems framework: the influence of past and present language learning experiences”, cameron makes inferences from a qualitative and longitudinal view into iranian migrants' wtc. the migrants’ linguistic presence in their past iranian english classrooms, present new zealand pre-university classrooms, and community outside are investigated from the perspective of wtc. for this aim, questionnaires, observations, stimulated recall, and multiple interviews with not only learners but also their teachers are consulted. in this regard, the possible influence of their past learning experiences on their present wtc, and response of their readiness to speak to the elements of classroom and community context are questioned. based on the results found, the authors claim that numerous factors stem from both past and present educational and personal experiences in the participants' home countries and the countries they migrated to. ultimately, they say, all of these factors dynamically contribute to the likelihood of these students’ oral participation on any occasion, not only in but also out of the classroom. when this issue is considered in terms of cds, it is emphasized once again that there are strong connections between the linguistic, social, cognitive, and emotional systems that produce wtc. in chapter “building dialogue between cultures: expats’ way of coping in a foreign country and their willingness to communicate in a foreign language”, gertrud tarp deals with wtc in german, an issue less discussed in comparison to english, from the point of mobility. in her study, in which qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were 103 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com applied, tarp worked with expatriates. by including expatriates working and/or studying in germany, all members of the network “expats in germany” in the study, tarp attempts to lean over expatriates’ statements and their experiences about their stay in germany, intercultural communication, and foreign language learning. again claiming and implicating the emphasis of not underestimating individual differences, the study reports the constructive influence of cultural immersion on wtc depending on the individual determinants such as age, education, gender, language skills, occupation, and country of origin while it is also claimed that the existence of english as a lingua franca still plays an important role in various situations. in chapter “the mediating effect of culture on the relationship between fl selfassessment and l2 willingness to communicate: the polish and italian efl context” by baran-lucaz, it is deduced that the relationship between students' self-assessment of fl skills and l2wtc is related to students' past experiences and cultural perceptions. the data of the mixed study were collected through three questionnaires: an fl self-assessment measure, a measure of wtc in the fl classroom, and a measure of wtc outside the fl classroom. the participants of the study are polish and italian learners. the results of the analysis showed that the wtc levels of the italian participants were at higher levels than the polish participants. the reason behind this is argued to be that italian participants tend to use their english sub-skills more effectively. depending on their cultural background, polish speakers were found to care more about how they speak rather than what they speak. the author rationalizes this situation with the words: “not only might some cultures benefit more than others from training leading to opening the students to communication, encouraging risk-taking and raising their self-worth as a nation, but also from changing the culturally-based attitudes towards and views upon the importance of learning particular subskills” (p. 112). still, the limited number of the group of participants from both countries suggests we consider the results more carefully when generalizing them to two cultures. the chapter “what does students’ willingness to communicate or reticence signify to teachers?” by negah allahyar provided us with the chance of reviewing wtc or reticence of learners through the eyes of their teachers. the authors’ claim is the presence of an increase in teachers' prejudiced perceptions of students’ attitudes and behaviors in this sense. as a result of the thematic analysis made upon data collection through semi-structured interviews with six iranian teachers, the authors of the chapter claims that reticent students are not appreciated by the participant teachers. the author implicates that the findings of the research can be benefitted by teacher educators to prevent the undesired influence of teachers’ negative perceptions of students' wtc or reticence. ewa piechurska-kuciel in chapter “positive predictive value of extraversion in diagnosing l2 wtc” reports on a quantitative study carried out with 494 randomly selected polish students. the instruments are divided into 6 parts for measuring collecting information, measuring participants' wtc levels in and outside the classroom, their extraversion levels, their anxiousness during classes, and their real and self-expected grades. the findings again revealed the strong positive influence of extraversion on learners’ wtc levels. even though the study lacks the multifaceted nature of a complex dynamic system, the author still argues that investigating such a relationship could be beneficial to offer significant data about the interference of distinctive personalities in the process of language learning. zarrinabadi, khodarahmi, and shahbazi, in chapter “on the effect of using a flipped classroom methodology on iranian efl learners’ willingness to communicate”, make 104 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com implications about the positive influence of using flipped classrooms on students’ willingness wtc. the results of their qualitative and quantitative analysis show that flipped classroom motivates learners, makes language learning more enjoyable, and decreases students’ anxiety. as an implication, the authors suggest teachers provide students with chances of integrating their smartphones, tabs, and laptops, which are already with them all the time, into the learning and teaching process through technology-integrated tasks activities such as the flipped classroom. khajavi, macintyre, taherian, and ross, in chapter, “examining the dynamic relationships between willingness to communicate, anxiety and enjoyment using the experience sampling method”, used the experience sampling method to examine the dynamic relationship between wtc, foreign language anxiety, and foreign language enjoyment. the results of multiple correlation analysis showed that while moving correlations between wtc and anxiety, and anxiety and enjoyment are inconsistent and the majority of them are negative, correlations between wtc and enjoyment are remarkably consistent, strong, and positive. the authors implicate in the light of the findings that language teachers can be the source of enjoyment in the language classrooms even though they are not often the source of anxiety in the classroom. although there are various unpreventable reasons behind the learners’ anxiety, anxiety could be managed through a carefully created classroom atmosphere that fosters enjoyment. in chapter “the opportunity to communicate: a social network approach to l2 wtc and classroom-based research”, gallager and zarrinabadi combine l2 wtc and the social network approach. the chapter includes the introduction and definition of the social network approach with its various aspects and its integration with l2 wtc research. in this sense, the concept of “opportunity” in l2 wtc research is discussed from perspectives of opportunities as group boundaries, opportunity in talk, and opportunity as a system. in conclusion, longstanding concepts related to groups, classes, social categories, and individual differences are argued to be further developed, refined, and re-conceptualized with the theoretical integration of a network approach properly into l2 research. the chapter entitled “teachers’ immediacy, self-disclosure, and technology policy as predictors of willingness to communicate: a structural equational modeling analysis” by amirian, rezazadeh, and rahimi-dashti report an investigation of the effects of teachers’ immediacy, self-disclosure, and technology policy on developing students’ wtc. the study carried out in iran included 220 efl learners attending a private language institute. the participants answered a questionnaire measuring their wtc and three questionnaires measuring their teachers’ immediacy, self-disclosure, and technology policy. as a result of the analysis, the authors implicate that those language teachers should never ignore how important their understanding and empathy for learners promote their wtc. at this point, technology, the inevitable dimension of learners’ daily life, should not be ignored. on the contrary, technology integration should be increased as much as possible for more stress-free and enjoyable classroom environments. to conclude, the authors argue the importance of multi-dimensional future research on the role of teacher variables on learners' wtc. sen and oz, in chapter “vocabulary size as a predictor of willingness to communicate inside the classroom”, report a qualitative study carried out with 100 pre-service efl teachers in turkey to analyze the learners’ vocabulary size and in-class l2 wtc. although the focus of the study is on vocabulary size, personal, psychological, and educational factors are also 105 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com discussed in the theoretical background considering their influence on l2 wtc. not being a surprising but a supporting result, the findings of the study revealed a significant relationship between learners’ vocabulary levels and l2 wtc regarding their classroom performances. upon making implications to language teachers, pre-service language teachers, curriculum designers, and teacher trainers, the authors emphasize the importance of lexical knowledge for a higher level of willingness and better performance in l2. the final chapter “some directions for future research on willingness to communicate” by zarrinabadi provides a guideline for sustaining the production of research on l2 wtc. the author focuses on willingness to communicate in other skills, pedagogical practices and wtc, psychological interventions and wtc, examining wtc in l3-lx, and finally wtc and technology. this book, contributed by many different researchers and edited by zarrinabadi and pawlak, has made very important contributions to the present and future of wtc, which is a dimension that should not be ignored in foreign language teaching. presenting similar contents with different methods (quantitative, qualitative, mixed) has increased the book’s contribution to the field. on the other hand, the inclusion of studies on the attitudes, perceptions, and qualifications of both students and teachers has provided the reader with the opportunity to look at the subject from different aspects. however, besides the fact that the book includes studies that deal with classroom learning environments or out-of-class experiences, it can be considered a weakness of the book that it does not include studies that specifically address online learning environments, which have increased in importance and prevalence with the pandemic process. so, it would be much better to add a chapter(s) focusing on wtc in online learning, as well. to conclude, as i have mentioned above, the book makes a significant contribution to the field by providing crucial support to both language teaching and research into language teaching through the perceptive of wtc. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. references alishah, a. r. (2015). a study of factors affecting turkish efl learners’ willingness to speak in english (thesis no: 381463) [doctoral dissertation, gazi üniversitesi]. ulusal tez merkezi/national thesis center macintyre, p. d., & charos, c. (1996). personality, attitudes, and affect as predictors of second language communication. journal of language and social psychology, 15, 326. macintyre, p. d., clément, r., dörnyei, z., & noels, k. a. (1998). conceptualizing willingness to communicate in an l2: a situational model of l2 confidence and affiliation. the modern language journal, 82(4), 545-562. mahmoodi, m. h., & moazam, i. (2014). willingness to communicate (wtc) and l2 achievement: the case of arabic language learners. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 98, 1069-1076. mccroskey, j. c., & baer, j. e. (1985). willingness to communicate: the construct and its measurement. paper presented at the annual convention of the speech communication association, denver, co. öz, h., demirezen, m. & pourfeız, j. (2015). willingness to communicate of efl learners in turkish context. learning and individual differences, 37, 269-275. peng, j. (2013). the challenge of measuring willingness to communicate in efl contexts. the asia-pacific education researcher, 22(3), 281-290. şener, s. (2014). turkish elt students' willingness to communicate in english. elt research journal, 3(2), 91109. tan, s. m., ong, c. s. b., sim, c. p., hoi, w. w. y., & sia, p. c. (2016). willingness to communicate in english and motivation level among chinese secondary students in northern malaysia. international journal of humanities and management sciences, 4(3), 283-287. 106 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com vongsila, v., & reinders, h. (2016). making asian learners talk: encouraging willingness to communicate. relc journal, 47(3), 331-347. watanabe, m. (2011). motivation, self-determination, and willingness to communicate by english learners at a japanese high school (thesis no: 3477796) [doctoral dissertation, temple university]. proquest. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. ejal article template focus on elt journal (felt) vol 1, issue 1, 2019 issn: 2687-5381  contact: asmalimehmet@gmail.com how effective is tprs for adult efl learners with limited english proficiency? amehmet asmalı a instructor, alanya alaaddin keykubat university, alanya, antalya turkey, asmalimehmet@gmail.com to cite this article: asmalı, m. (2019). how effective is tprs for adult efl learners with limited english proficiency? focus on elt journal (felt), 1(1), 86-95. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2019.00005 abstract this study examines the impact of ‘teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling’ (tprs) on students’ grammar and vocabulary performance as well as their attitude toward learning english. the participants are 38 freshmen, 14 in experimental and 24 in control group, studying in the department of tourism and hospitality services of a 2-year vocational school at a state university in turkey. a pre-test including grammar and vocabulary questions as well as an attitude questionnaire was used as pre-test and post-test in the beginning and end of a four-week intervention as the data gathering tool. tprs technique was implemented for four sessions in the experimental group to teach target vocabulary and structures. while the mann-whitney u test was run to find out the differences between pre-test and post-test scores of control and experimental groups, wilcoxon signed rank test was employed to find out the differences between the pre-test and the post-test scores of experimental group. the results indicated that tprs technique had positive impact on students’ grammar and vocabulary performance as the students in the experimental group outperformed the ones in the control group in the posttest. tprs technique was also found to be effective in creating positive attitudes toward learning english. some implications to employ tprs in english classes as well as suggestions for further research were also provided. keywords: attitude toward language learning grammar ‘teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling’ vocabulary introduction finding an effective teaching method has always been a hard task for language teachers. ‘teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling’ (hereafter tprs), once known as ‘total physical response storytelling’, has been one of the most popular recent attempts of the endeavor to find an effective language teaching method (li, 2013). this technique was developed by a spanish teacher blaine ray in california in 1990s to let the students master the basic vocabulary and structures of the target foreign language with the ultimate aim of fluency and accuracy in language learning (ray & seely, 2012). considering these two elements of language learning, turkish university students have had several problems. they consider themselves as unsuccessful in being accurate and fluent in learning english despite spending several years of study (yurtsever bodur & arıkan, 2017). this failure stems from various reasons, such as inability of students’ parents to https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4899-1179 mailto:asmalimehmet@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2019.00005 asmalı, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 87 focus on elt journal (felt) speak english, lack of english programs on tv or radio, or lack of chance to go abroad to practice it (yurtsever bodur & arıkan, 2017). the students also criticize the fact that specifically speaking skill is mostly ignored in english classes (yurtsever bodur & arıkan, 2017). despite mostly attributing their failure in fluency and accuracy to external factors, turkish university students predominantly have moderate or high motivation to learn english (başaran & hayta, 2013; bektaş çetinkaya & oruç, 2010). therefore, employing an intriguing method in foreign language teaching classes may be a step toward success of the learners. tprs, which does not only focus on developing learners’ fluency and accuracy through comprehensible and interesting stories, but also helps students to have more positive attitudes toward language learning (türkeş, 2011). although a consensus has not been reached among the scholars for tprs method to be the best compared to other existing ones, a brief overview of the existing literature gives us insight that it increases the likelihood of having better results on several aspects, such as vocabulary acquisition (kara & eveyik-aydın, 2019; türkeş, 2011), speaking skill (muzammil & andy, 2017), listening (susan, 2013), and lexical competence (demir & cubukçu, 2014). it cannot be claimed that this newly emerging technique has come to light suddenly and expanded rapidly. it has roots in universally accepted language teaching methods. specifically, tprs is based on the principles of asher’s total physical response (hereafter tpr) and krashen’s natural approach (hereafter na). asher first demonstrated tpr in 1965 (ray & seely, 2012). this approach as a method for language teaching predominantly focuses on developing learners’ listening skill through modelling and uttering the commands which is followed by students’ imitation of the action and repetition of the word (harrasi, 2014). however, the effectiveness of tpr was highly controversial as there was a general consensus that all abstract ideas cannot be taught (byram, 2004). although blaine ray had positive results with the use of tpr in his spanish classes initially, students’ motivation and willingness to attend the command-based activities showed a decrease (ray & seely, 2012). in order to overcome this major challenge, ray attempted to combine this method with na through which language is aimed to be acquired subconsciously (ray & seely, 2012). in this approach, learners learn second language as children learn their first language (krashen & terrel, 1983). five hypotheses of na affected tprs (shrum & glisan, 2005). these are as follows:  ‘the acquisition-learning hypothesis’ explains acquisition as the subconscious form of learning which allows learners to communicate spontaneously and creatively.  ‘the monitor hypothesis’ states that with the acquisition of the language, students have oral production fluently and, at this point, learning monitors and corrects the production with the conscious learned rules of the language.  ‘the natural order hypothesis’ claims that learners follow a predictable sequence of acquisition.  ‘the input hypothesis’ states that learning occurs when the learners receive comprehensible input that is slightly beyond their level of comprehension. asmalı, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 88 focus on elt journal (felt)  ‘the affective filter hypothesis’ claims that learning can occur in a stress free atmosphere where learners’ affective filter is low. both tpr and na are acquisitionist approaches, in that they focus on meaning rather than form (nunan, 2005). these two approaches have received considerable criticism with the changes in language teaching. as the educators’ individual creativity and beliefs play a vital role in the development of classroom practice, varieties in individual practices exist and tprs is one example of these varieties (alley & overfield, 2008). ray was satisfied with the results of neither tpr nor na, hence he combined these two approaches and created a unique method (ray & seely, 2012). tprs relies on the common and familiar communicative device of the story which is a way for the learners to engage with each other (de costa, 2015). the input in tprs technique should be ‘comprehensible’ to internalize the language, ‘interesting’ to expand the attention span of the learners, and ‘repetitive’ to help the retention of the structures (ray & seely, 2012). taking its roots from these two approaches, the tprs method has three main steps to follow in its unique way (ray & seely, 2012): ‘establishing the meaning’in this step, the new target vocabulary or structures are introduced to the learners through gestures, personalized questions, and translation. translation helps learners to check the meaning if they forget. the teacher practices the structures and the vocabulary until the students become familiar with them (ray & seely, 2012). one of the main aims of this step is to create a stress-free atmosphere where the learners would feel comfortable enough to respond the questions (de costa, 2015). ‘asking the story’before starting this step, the teacher needs to be sure that all the structures and vocabulary have been written on the board or provided to the learners with the translations. in this step, the teacher creates a story or brings a story including the target structures and vocabulary that serves as a guide for that class. the stories are mostly bizarre and exaggerated (alley & overfield, 2008). the story provides three locations. in the first location, a problem that could be solved is presented. in the second location, the character is not able to solve the problem. in this point, either the problem is changed or the information regarding why the problem cannot be solved is provided. finally, the problem is solved in the last location (ray & seely, 2012). providing different locations helps students remember the details in the story. the teacher asks several different questions in this step, such as ‘yes-no questions’, ‘either/or question’, and ‘wh question’. the teacher uses false statements to encourage engagement as well. ‘reading’during this step, learners read and translate the story into their native language. with the younger learners, the teacher may ask the learners to draw the story as well. during all these steps, the teacher needs to make it sure that all the students in the class, even the middle or low-performing ones in the 20th to 40th percentile, have comprehended the language used. the pace of the class could even be set according to these lower level students (ray & seely, 1998). according to the criteria of the tprs class, the input should asmalı, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 89 focus on elt journal (felt) be comprehensible, repetitive, and interesting which would help learners feel comfortable in the class so that they have more benefits with higher motivation, joy, and fun (williyanti, 2008). a brief overview of the related literature addressing the impact of tprs on different language skills of the learners in the context of turkey shows that the implementation of this method has been mostly preferred for younger learners. these recent studies have been conducted in the context of young learners in turkey investigating whether tprs should be employed with the young learners or not (demir & cubukçu, 2014), the effect of tprs on vocabulary acquisition (çubukçu, 2014; kara & eveyik-aydın, 2019; türkeş, 2011), and oral performance of the students (yıldız akyüz, 2018). the effects of tprs method have been examined in different contexts with the adult learners as well. muzammil and andy (2017) investigated tprs in a quasi-experimental quantitative study using pre-test and post-test design with the freshmen at university in indonesia in order to compare traditional method and tprs in terms of developing speaking skills of the learners. they found out that the experimental group outperformed the control group in speaking performance. the results also indicated that while the implementation of the method made students happy, encouraged them to listen to partner’s story and communicate using english in class, it was also a source for lecturers to make the class livelier to introduce new vocabulary. in another study, braunstein (2006) investigated adult latino esl learners’ attitudes toward tpr and tprs in class. the students received five-hour teaching combined of tpr and tprs. despite the students’ expectations for more traditional approaches for language learning, they showed positive attitudes toward these two methods. they felt interested and happy in their tprs classes. specifically, about learning nouns and verbs, listening comprehension, and understanding the story when it is acted out impressed the learners. the other study comparing the effectiveness of tprs and grammar translation strategy in vocabulary acquisition among hispanic adult esl learners was conducted by castro (2010). 25 participants took three classes. pre-test and post-test comparison of the two techniques in vocabulary acquisition and retention showed that, contrary to other studies favoring tprs, students who had grammar translation strategy outperformed the ones received tprs training. de costa (2015) also investigated the effectiveness of tprs and a method which does not include story context in a french immersion classroom. this quasi-experimental quantitative study using pre-test and post-test design measured french listening, vocabulary, culture, grammar, and writing improvements of the students in two groups. the results showed that in all aspects there was an improvement for both groups. however, although in vocabulary and culture there was not a statistically significant difference between the groups; in listening, grammar, and writing there was significant difference. an overview of the existing literature shows that despite the abundancy of studies investigating tprs from different perspectives, there has been a shortage on the studies examining tprs with the adult learners in turkish context. moreover, the studies conducted with the young learners in turkish context largely confined to vocabulary asmalı, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 90 focus on elt journal (felt) acquisition and oral performance of the students. the effect of tprs on the other elements of language learning, such as grammar and listening have been neglected. therefore, this study addresses the following research questions:  how does tprs affect adult efl learners’ vocabulary acquisition and grammar performance?  what are the experimental group students’ attitudes toward the use of tprs? method setting and participants the participants of the present experimental study were two classes of the department of tourism and hospitality services of a 2-year vocational school at a state university in turkey. these two freshman intact classes were randomly assigned as ‘control group’ and ‘experimental group’. the control group and the experimental group consisted of 24 (14 females and 10 males) and 14 (8 females and 6 males) participants respectively. the ages of the participants ranged from 19 to 24. the students of this department do not have a year-long-preparatory english language program before they start their first year. the students receive compulsory general english classes in the first year for four hours for 28 weeks with a total of 112 classes. the aim of the general english class is to let the students have elementary level english language skills. design of the study this experimental study was conducted in two intact classes that were regarded as control and experimental groups. a pre-test was administered in the beginning of the 4-week treatment to both control and experimental groups. the pre-test, which was also used as post-test in this study, included 30 questions in total. the questions were prepared in line with the target structures and vocabulary included in 4 stories that served as a guide in tprs classes. while the vocabulary section consisted of 20 questions, grammar section included 10 questions. vocabulary and grammar sections included fill in the gaps and matching type questions. students’ attitude was also measured along with the pre-test through the use of attitude questionnaire including 10 items (pae & shin, 2011). the attitude-related items used in the study of pae and shin (2011) were translated into turkish and the internal consistency of the scale was 𝑎= .90. the target vocabulary and structures aimed to be taught with tprs method and distribution of them through the weeks are illustrated in table 1 below: asmalı, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 91 focus on elt journal (felt) table 1. the stories and the target vocabulary and structures week 1 week 2 week 3 week 4 name of the story movie star fat man green tea baseball pig target vocabulary and structures movie star, bump into, delayed, pissed off, recognize, book, boarding pass, gate, catch your flight, security frustrated, exhausted, give up, date, make a difference, really, in fact, extremely, thrilled safe, first-class, shop, get into, are you crazy?, why don’t you..?, for sure direct flight, get a grip, hire, raise, reject, come on, find out, big hitter, home run, try out for, impressed with total number of target structures or vocabulary 10 9 7 11 total number of words in the story 376 234 286 245 the treatment was integrated into the regular english classes the students were receiving for four weeks. in each week, the students in the experimental group received three hours of tprs technique. the learners in the control group learnt the same structures and the vocabulary following pre-reading, on reading, and post-reading activities. the treatment in the experimental group, data collection and data analysis of the study were carried out by the researcher of the present study. the use of tprs in this study followed the three main steps of this technique. step 1: establishing the meaning the target vocabulary and the structures were introduced to the students in the experimental group by writing them on the board and showing the pictures on the screen. the translations of them were also provided on the board. following this, personalized questions were employed to help the learners internalize them. some personalized questions were used in the classes, such as “who is your favorite movie star?” or “when are you frustrated?”. the words and the structures were repeated several times in this step. step 2: asking the story the stories served as a guide in all four weeks. they included the target vocabulary and the structures. the stories involved bizarre information to take students’ attention, such as 500 pounds as the man’s weight or 85 cups of tea drunk by a frog every day. the stories were asked in three locations. in the first location, the problem was introduced (the fat man wants to lose weight, but he cannot). in the second location, the character tries to find a solution for the problem (he tries to go on a diet and do exercise). the third location offers a solution to the problem (he meets a girl and she cooks healthy food). during this step, before moving to the question phase, the stories were listened three times in the class. following listening, the teacher asked several questions to encourage the learners to speak, such as “is the man fat?”, “does he want to lose weight or eat more?”, asmalı, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 92 focus on elt journal (felt) and “what does he eat in his diet?”. the details were asked repetitively. the students can also create a parallel story that resembles to the main story in this step. step 3: reading in this step, the students read the story along with the teacher. they translated the story into turkish on a pair work. the volunteer students acted out the story to have fun in the class as well. a post-test including the same questions with the pre-test as well as the attitude questionnaire used before the treatment were administered in both experimental and control groups at the end of the 4-week implementation of tprs technique with the experimental group learners. data analysis as the participants in the groups were not randomly assigned to the groups and the sample size was small, non-parametric tests were employed in this study (tailor, 2005). the mann-whitney u test was run to find out the potential differences between pre-test and post-test scores of the control and experimental groups. similarly, wilcoxon signed rank test was also conducted to find out the differences between the pre-test and the post-test scores of the experimental group. results firstly, in order to assess the knowledge of both control and experimental groups prior to the treatment in the experimental group, a pre-test, which was also used as the post-test, was administered. an attitude questionnaire added at the end of the pre-test was also conducted to check the current feelings of the students toward english language. the mean ranks of the groups and the mann-whitney u test results are presented below in table 2. table 2. pre-test results of the experimental and control groups tests groups mean rank sum of ranks u p pre-test (grammar) experimental 18.57 260.0 155.000 .692 control 20.04 481.0 pre-test (vocabulary) experimental 18.64 261.0 156.000 .723 control 20.00 480.0 attitude questionnaire experimental 23.00 322.0 119.000 .141 control 17.46 419.0 the results concerning the differences between the control and the experimental groups showed that there was not a significant difference between these two groups in the pre-test (u = 155.000, p = .692 for grammar; u = 156.000, p = .723 for vocabulary; and u = 119.000, p = .141 for attitude questionnaire). therefore, it could be claimed for both groups to have statistically equal knowledge regarding the target vocabulary and structures. in order to assess the impact of tprs on the students in the experimental group compared to the learners in the control group who were trained with the communicative approach as asmalı, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 93 focus on elt journal (felt) they were used to, the mann-whitney u test was run one more time for the post-test scores after the treatment with the experimental group for four weeks. the results as presented in table 3 above indicated statistically significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in terms of grammar (u = 48.000, p = .000), vocabulary (u = 54.000, p = .000), and their attitude toward learning english (u = 3.000, p = .000). table 3. post-test results of the experimental and control groups tests groups mean rank sum of ranks u p post-test (grammar) experimental 28.07 393.0 48.000 .000 control 14.50 348.0 post-test (vocabulary) experimental 27.64 354.0 54.000 .000 control 14.75 387.0 attitude questionnaire experimental 31.29 438.0 3.000 .000 control 12.63 303.0 as both groups were statistically equal in both vocabulary and grammar knowledge as well as their attitude toward english language learning in the beginning of the study as the pretest results indicated, wilcoxon signed rank test results comparing the potential differences between pre-test and post-test performances of the students in the experimental group showed significant changes. the implementation of tprs in the experimental group for four sessions elicited significant change in grammar, z = -3.466, p = .001, vocabulary performance z = -3.858, p = .000, and their attitude toward learning english, z = -5.007, p = .000. discussion and conclusion the findings of this study supported the effectiveness of tprs on the vocabulary and grammar performance as well as developing positive attitudes of elementary level adult efl learners’ toward learning english. considering the existing literature in the context of adult learners, the results of this study regarding the impact of tprs on learners’ grammar performance are in line with those of de costa (2015). although his study was conducted in a french immersion classroom, the scores of the learners in the experimental group were statistically different from the ones in the control group as in the present study. his findings also indicated improvement in the vocabulary performance of the learners in the experimental group as well, but there was not a statistically significant difference between the groups which contradicts with the results of the current study concerning vocabulary acquisition. regarding the findings about learners’ attitude toward learning english, the results of this study are in accordance with those of braunstein (2006). the adult latino esl learners’ attitudes were positive toward tprs implementation in the class. the interest and happiness of the learners in braunstein’s study (2006) were also observed in the experimental group learners in the present study. specifically, personalization, which is provided through the personalized questions during ‘establishing the meaning’ step of tprs, helps learners to establish interest, curiosity, and stimulation (ray & seely, 2012). the comprehensible input that the students receive through the stories and the questions asmalı, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 94 focus on elt journal (felt) are considered interesting by the learners and their positive attitude toward the class becomes immediately apparent. as the tprs method is based on the use of stories in efl classes to develop fluency with the help of grammar structures and vocabulary learnt by getting exposed to comprehensible, repetitive, and interesting input, the learners in tprs classes have fun and learn in a natural and inductive way (ray & seely, 2004). therefore, as it is presented in the literature section above, the studies addressing the issue of the impact of tprs on several language skills and the attitudes of the learners presented mostly positive results as in this study. considering the results of this study as well as the ones in the literature, tprs method may be used in efl classes with the learners who perform poorly due to their limited english proficiency to let them fully engage with the topic and enhance their learning. as it is an intriguing method, it may also be employed with the learners who are not much interested in english classes to develop their performance by eliminating the distractors and to let them focus on the story. some limitations of the current study need to be addressed in further research. to start with, both groups in this study were intact classes. although not typical of experimental research, these classes may have the advantage of enhancing face validity, but at the same time, as it is universally accepted, randomization enhances the experimental validity of the study (mackey & gass, 2005). hence, further research may involve randomly assigned groups with larger samples to assess the impact of tprs on adult learners’ language learning with a higher experimental validity. a delayed-post-test may be employed to examine the longitudinal effect of tprs on different skills. moreover, instructors’ views through interviews and students’ ideas through journals may provide significant results for the researchers. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references alley, d., & overfield, d. 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(2019). high school language division students’ perceptions of english as a lingua franca. focus on elt journal (felt), 1(1), 27-42. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2019.00003 abstract this study aims to discover the perceptions of high school language division students towards english as a lingua franca in a turkish province. for this purpose, a descriptive survey method was chosen via using a questionnaire consisting of 13 questions. the responses were rated on a 4-point likert scale. the data were gathered from 85 students of three high schools in the fall term of the 2018/19 school year. being analysed descriptively, the data revealed that most students believed in the importance of teachers’ teaching standard english pronunciation to students and that language teachers should teach good grammar to their students. in spite of the students’ strong-willed attitude towards pronunciation, they reported that their teachers seemed to have a higher expectation of their performance in grammar. the results also showcased that language division students desired their teachers to attach much importance to both pronunciation and grammar. furthermore, as far as gender is concerned, more females than males perceived that native english speaking teachers (nests) are more effective teachers for language students, suggesting that government hire nests to teach english in turkey. in conclusion, the findings suggest that the students strongly cling to normative perceptions about english as if it was still the language spoken primarily by native english speakers. keywords: english as a lingua franca native english speakers non-native english speakers ownership of english standard language ideology introduction in recent years, english has gained true value in the globalizing world as an international language used as a means of communication mostly among non-native english speakers (nness). after world war ii, english has started to transform into a lingua franca throughout the world. it has become a necessity for nations to learn the world language of ‘english’ in addition to their own languages (kesgin & arslan, 2015). when the growth of english as a global lingua franca is considered, how swiftly english has encroached into educational systems worldwide is evidently seen. thus, most countries have introduced educational policies, aimed at offering english as a second or foreign language as part of their national curricula (gómez & pérez, 2015). the status of english as a lingua franca in most communication situations requires reconsidering the teaching of english as a foreign language from different perspectives due https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1720-3731 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9790-8562 mailto:xeyneopu85@gmail.com akarakas@mehmetakif.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2019.00003 yücedağ, z. & karakaş, a. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 28 focus on elt journal (felt) to the far-reaching consequences of globalization on the speaker profile and divergent uses of english. so, against this backdrop, language teachers are supposed to help their students improve their linguistic skills in a way in which they can cope with several kinds of familiar and unfamiliar accents and render themselves comprehensible to others. besides, they should be cognizant of the speakers of english from other countries and learn to use it for communication not only in locations where english is used as a native language but also all around the world with speakers from different races and cultures (mansfield & poppi, 2012). not surprisingly, albeit english spreading as a lingua franca, many learners still aim at reaching the level of inner circle speakers’ pronunciation and tend to favour teachers on the basis of their holding a nes or nnes status (buckingham, 2014). a review of literature shows examination of these issues by language researchers from diverse geographical settings, who roughly observed similar tendencies among learners of english, with a strong desire for ness as their role models for language use and a strong wish for their pronunciation and accent to be like those of ness (e.g., barrett, 2009; dweik & al-barghouthi 2014; karakaş et al., 2016; pilus, 2013; walkinshaw & oanh, 2014). even worse, in some studies, students were aware of the fact that the majority of their future interlocutors would be nness, and most students were pleased with the way they sounded while using english, yet still they insisted on the idea that standard or native english pronunciation should be taught at schools since they could give up on setting nes accents and pronunciation as the ultimate goal of speaking (e.g. coşkun, 2011; pilus, 2013). indeed, such orientations to english among learners go against english as a lingua franca (elf) tenets as it does not favour any speaker over the others in communication. rather, it gives increased value to communicative effectiveness in interaction and the ways in which speakers meet their linguistic needs in their own terms by implementing different communicative strategies. it is widely known that the majority of english language teachers do not come from a native english background. they are mostly nnes, who learned english during different stages of their lives, such as in childhood and adulthood, and in different settings, e.g. formal, academic settings, informal immersion with ness (dweik & al-barghouthi, 2014). as nness currently outdo nesss in number, elf interactions most frequently occur among nness (de meerleer, 2012). the increase in the number of nness, and their changing lingua-cultural needs because of largely having contacts with nness and the transference of ownership of english to any users of it regardless of the users’ firstlanguage backgrounds have driven researchers to consider the implications of elf in language teaching classrooms (coskun, 2011). since its birth as a field of research, elf has greatly influenced the field of language learning and teaching, especially when it comes to speaking and listening skills as well as pronunciation (calvo-benzies, 2017). one major setback in teaching english worldwide is that there seems to be little time allocated for teaching speaking for real-world communication in classrooms when compared with other elements of the language system, such as reading, grammar and vocabulary. even, previous research provides evidence for this conclusion, as students yücedağ, z. & karakaş, a. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 29 focus on elt journal (felt) were found to value learning grammar more than learning productive skills (e.g. shahzadi & janjua, 2016; umo-udofia & andera, 2018). for instance, to clarify what lies behind the favorable attitudes towards grammatical competence among students in certain contexts, researchers argue that most students are into learning the rules of grammar since learning grammar is viewed as crucial and basic not only to communicate effectively in english but also to improve language proficiency (shazadi & janjua, 2016). moreover, in many settings like pakistan and turkey, students are more interested to learn grammar deductively than inductively as it is the way they got used to while learning english starting from the onset of their language learning trajectory. pronunciation often loses ground as something unneeded to pass major language exams (waniek-klimczak, 2015). since speaking is such an important aspect of communication, most scholars and even laymen would concede that good second language (l2) learners should not ignore pronunciation. rightly or wrongly, people often judge a speaker’s level of language competence by his/her pronunciation in terms of fluency and accuracy. in this respect, creating a positive first impression on one’s interlocutors really counts, particularly in the professional world (almaqrn & alshabeb, 2017). in spite of the socalled emphasis on speaking in policy documents and classroom materials, it has been ignored in schools and universities because of various reasons, yet mostly due to the exaggerated feelings of grammar and vocabulary being of significant value in language teaching practices (leong & ahmadi, 2017). english pronunciation is seen as one of the most difficult skills to be acquired and improved. this may be owing to factors, such as the irregular correspondence between spelling and pronunciation and the impact factors, such as age, motivation and amount of exposure to the target language on the learning process (calvo-benzies, 2013). it is widely assumed that in order to master a second language, it is necessary to know and apply the correct grammatical rules used in any particular language, even if nobody observes such rules while using their own mother tongue in real-life communication (shahzadi & janjua, 2016). affective factors like attitudes, orientations, motivation and anxiety which are seen among the different factors influence language learning outstandingly. the attitudes of the learners towards language learning are seen as one of the crucial factors in stimulating the learners to learn the language (soleimani & hanafi, 2013). as attitudes of the learners influencing the learning process may not be explicit, the shareholders of education perhaps ignore the potential effects of such factors on learners’ perceptions about language, its use and their own learning experiences. hence, learners’ engagement with the learning process can take different forms depending on how they feel about and perceive it. hence, the display of their attitudes towards the language negatively or positively can influence the amount of struggle one has to cope with (umo-udofia & andera, 2018). learners’ attitude plays a vital role in maximizing learning and teaching output. learners’ attitude can be defined as a collection of feelings regarding language use and its status in society (crystal, 2008). the yücedağ, z. & karakaş, a. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 30 focus on elt journal (felt) perceptions which are good, bad and neutral may develop or prevent the learning process effectively (ahmed, 2015). however, it should also be noted that language learning is affected by both attitudes and motivation, since learners with a negative attitude are unlikely to produce satisfactory results (almaqrn & alshabeb, 2017). there is no denying the fact that teachers who take an important role in developing students’ language skills in foreign language classrooms are often the first agent in forming how students view language-related constructs, such as grammar and speech patterns, in the target language. thus, they may either motivate their students towards learning languages by providing a suitable classroom environment or discourage them through their manners and practices that ore out-dated and of no use anymore (mat & soon, 2010). english is a prestigious foreign language in many countries, including turkey. although it is not an official language in turkey policy-wise, it is the most widely taught foreign language in the education system. actually, english language has a crucial role in turkey and is considered to be the most important and functional language for the technological and scientific development of the country (cetinkaya, 2009). it is a compulsory school subject that students begin to learn from the 2nd grade and continue to learn preferably even after they graduate from the university. the extant research into attitudes towards english in turkey indicates how welcome english is by students, teachers and even parents in schools (e.g. karahan, 2007; şentürk, 2019; nilay, 2018). however, elf awareness does not seem to have reached a satisfactory level in turkey as researchers have observed that the majority of students and teachers cannot still adopt elf principles in practice wholeheartedly due to some perceived constraints, including primarily assessment and measurement (e.g. bayyurt et al., 2019; jenkins, cogo & dewey, 2011; i̇nceçay & akyel, 2014; griffiths & soruç, 2019; kanık, 2013). considering the increasing need and ceaseless interest in learning english as an additional language, the main objective of the current study is to explore the attitudes of language division students towards english at three high schools in a small province. investigation of language division students’ attitudes is salient in that these students mostly prefer language-related programs when they are placed into universities and most of them wish to be language teachers. in a sense, they constitute the antecedents of pre-service teachers group. as their beliefs, opinions and feelings mostly take forms when they are still students, examination of their attitudes towards elf can enable them to reflect on the current issues around english, and consequently inform their practices and broaden their views as regards the current face of english. thus, the present study is expected to contribute to the field of english language teaching and learning in turkey via helping language division students to become more aware of hotly debated issues surrounding english, its use and the ways in which it is taught and learned. yücedağ, z. & karakaş, a. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 31 focus on elt journal (felt) method research questions in this research, we sought answers to the following research questions: 1. what are high school language division students’ perceptions and attitudes about elf? 2. are there any differences in their perceptions and attitudes about english as a lingua franca depending on certain variables, i.e. gender, years of study, and schools attended? design this study, which aimed to explore high school language department students’ perceptions of elf, was in the form of a descriptive survey study. the survey research in this study included closed-ended questionnaires that were designed to elicit specific information from the participants. through this design, we wished to learn about the population of high school language department students who were rarely treated as respondents in previous studies with respect to the current issues around the contemporary face of english as a global lingua franca by surveying a sample of that population in a small turkish city. overall, our ultimate objective was to describe the patterns of perceptions, thoughts and attitudes among a group of language department students as regards the current role of english being a lingua franca and its diverse implications for language use and education. sample the sample of the study was comprised of 85 language department students studying at three high schools in the province of burdur at the time of data collection. the number of students from each high school is as follows: cumhuriyet (47), burdur uso (23) and burdur 15 temmuz şehitler (15) anatolian high schools. the reason behind targeting the language department group is that these students are taking intensive english lessons per week and language is the basic purpose for them in terms of their career prospects. students placed in such language departments often choose english-major programs such as english language teacher education, english language and literature, linguistics, and philology after taking the centralized university exam. while recruiting the participants, a purposeful sampling method was employed in the study with an eye to reaching the participants who could provide the most pertinent information on the research topic (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2007; dörnyei, 2007; patton, 2002). the criterion for purposive sampling was that only those who were enrolled in language departments at their schools had to take place in the study as the focus of the investigation was specifically on this particular group of students. the participation in the study was on a voluntary basis. in terms of their gender breakdown, a total number of 43 participants were male and the remaining 42 students were female. as for their years of study, 37 students were in the 11th grade and 48 were in the 12th grade. their age range was between 17 and 18. we included the 11th and 12th-year students in our study as high school students are placed yücedağ, z. & karakaş, a. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 32 focus on elt journal (felt) into discipline-specific departments upon successfully completing the 10th grade in their schools. data collection and analysis the data were collected by a 4-point likert scale questionnaire (1= strongly agree, 2= agree, 3= disagree, and 4 = strongly disagree) which was originally developed by liou (2007) to evaluate the attitudes of high school language students and teachers towards english. it was practical for us to choose a 4-point likert scale in order to encourage the participants to form an opinion on the items without giving them any safe ‘neutral’ option. the questions were modified when necessary to make it more suitable for the sample. the questionnaire with reliability value .85 consisted of 13 questions. to ensure the content and face validity of the questionnaire, three experts in a language teacher education program were asked to evaluate the questionnaire. overall, the experts’ content validity ratio emerged as 75%. the ratio was increased to 100% after the items in the questionnaire were reworded and clarified in accordance with the experts’ suggestions. the revised statements are given in the appendix in the order in which they appeared in the questionnaire (see appendix a). in the questionnaire, the first group of questions (q1 to q8) was designed to explore language department students’ perceptions about and attitude towards language proficiency of different users in different contexts, particularly in relation to the issues of grammar and pronunciation. question q9 was developed to determine students’ perceptions about integrating anglo-american culture into english language teaching content. through questions from q10 to q13, we sought to look into students’ attitudes towards english proficiency and pedagogical competence in teaching english, and their attitudes towards ns teachers’ professional competences. seeing as the study adopted a descriptive survey method, the analysis of the data contained an amalgam of descriptive and inferential statistics. with a purpose to limit our generalization to the study group, i.e. high school language students from three different schools, descriptive statistics consisting of frequency analysis and percentages were run. additionally, inferential statistics such as anova and independent samples t-tests were carried out to find out whether the students’ responses show divergence depending on variables like the schools they are based, gender and year of study. for these tests, statistical analyses were performed by means of computer software, i.e. statistical package for the social sciences (spss), version 22. results and discussion perceptions about elf-related issues it emerged from the analysis of the questionnaire data that almost all of the students (99%) believed that teaching standard pronunciation to students is a crucial teacher task (q1). in parallel to this response, according to 96% of the respondents, teaching good grammar to the students is perceived to be among the core tasks of language teachers (q2). this yücedağ, z. & karakaş, a. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 33 focus on elt journal (felt) finding slightly differs from what has been previously found in similar studies. for instance, calvo-benzies (2013) observed that although spanish efl university students generally considered the teaching of pronunciation to be crucial, it was reported that it only plays a minor role in their efl classes and teaching materials. however, in other studies, such as those of nowacka (2012), many students stated that pronunciation is very important to them. what is unclear in those studies is whose pronunciation the respondents took as a benchmark in their perceptions. although this is not explicitly articulated in the studies, it is very likely that by pronunciation, those studies allude to the standard versions of english, predominantly those of british english and american english. furthermore, almaqrn and alshabeb (2017) reported that 52% of respondents stated that learning vocabulary and grammar was more important than good pronunciation skills. in spite of the students’ strong-willed attitude towards pronunciation, most participants had a higher expectation of students’ performance in grammar, with 85% of them expecting students to use english with correct grammar (q6). in the studies of shahzadi and janjua (2016) and umo-udofia and andera (2018), it was discovered that students relatively held positive attitudes towards grammar. the results obtained for q1, q2, and q6 were consistent with those reported by liou (2007). table 1. students’ perceptions of elf-related issues (n = 85) questionnaire items s. a. agree disagree s. d. percentage % q1. elt teachers should teach good pronunciation to students. 71 28 1 q2. elt teachers should teach good grammar to the students. 58 38 4 1 q3. elt teachers must try to obtain accent-free language proficiency at all times. 26 38 33 4 q4. elt teachers must try to speak english without grammatical errors at all times. 21 41 38 q5. students’ pronunciation should sound like standard english. 24 38 27 12 q6. students should use correct grammar. 32 53 14 1 q7. people using english should try to speak accent-free english. 27 46 21 6 q8. people using english should try to avoid grammatical errors. 22 42 29 6 q9. if cultural materials are to be integrated into english language classes, they should focus on the english speaking countries’ cultures. 32 34 24 11 q10. elt teachers should focus more on language knowledge than on the pedagogy. 20 40 33 7 q11. nests are more effective teachers for language students. 53 26 16 5 q12. the government should hire nests from english speaking countries to teach english in turkey. 38 40 15 7 q13. bilingual nnes teachers are better models for students to learn english. 22 45 26 7 drawing on the results obtained from these items, the students in the study can be said to have prioritized teaching grammar and pronunciation in a normative manner, suggesting that teachers are the primary agents to help students master good english grammar and yücedağ, z. & karakaş, a. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 34 focus on elt journal (felt) pronunciation. nevertheless, what is meant by good english and good grammar by the participants is left to the reader. previous studies on the perceptions of good english by english-major students demonstrated that these terms are often associated with standard english and native-like english of the educated british or american speakers (karakaş, 2017). the descriptive statistics of each item on the questionnaire is presented in the table above. a close inspection of items relating to the status of teachers showed that 67% of the students perceived nes teachers to be more effective than nnes teachers in teaching english (q11). in accordance with this perception, more than half of the students (66%) suggested that the government adopt a policy of hiring nes teachers to teach english in the official schooling system in turkey (q12). this finding shows how positive the students are about nes teachers when it comes to teacher preferences for language classes. additionally, this finding reflects the governmental stance on solutions to the problem of low english proficiency among turkish people as the ministry of national education (mone) attempted to introduce a project, entitled development of foreign language teaching, in 2011 through hiring 40.000 nes teachers to be employed alongside turkish teachers of english though the project was not put into practice due to its high cost ("40 bin yabancı öğretmen" [40 thousands foreign teachers], 2019). in the literature, there are studies that contradict this finding. for example, although liou (2007) reached similar results to those obtained from the q11 and q12 of the current study, she indicated that 84% of the respondents agreed that local english teachers were better role models in learning english (q13). when the results of the frequency analysis were considered as a whole, the questions, i.e. q1, q2, q6, q11 and q12, are highly supported by the students whereas the remaining questions did get lower support. however, the literature abounds in studies that support our finding which indicates that nes teachers and nnes teachers are perceived to be preferable depending on the perceived advantages they hold over each other. for instance, barrett (2009) pointed out that second language learners in an american institution of higher education placed higher value on having nes teachers in the areas of speaking skills, pronunciation, accent, and knowledge of target culture, but at the same time, they valued nnes teachers for their sympathy and ability to explain language rules explicitly. similar results were also obtained in other contexts, with different study groups, e.g. teachers, pre-service teachers, non-english major students, and english-major students (e.g. karakaş et al., 2016). differences in students’ perceptions of elf depending on certain variables in order to investigate whether the students’ perceptions differ from one another depending on the schools they are based at, we used an analysis of variance (anova; see appendix b for the test results). the test results showed significant differences in students’ perceptions according to their schools at the 0.05 probability level for the questions q3 and q9 (see table 2 below). accordingly, the students studying at 15 temmuz high school highly supported the questions q3, i.e. elt teachers must try to obtain accent-free yücedağ, z. & karakaş, a. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 35 focus on elt journal (felt) language proficiency at all times, and q9, i.e. if cultural materials are to be integrated into english language classes, they should focus on the english speaking countries’ cultures. a possible explanation for these differences might be the influence of the english language teacher(s) at 15 temmuz anatolian high school who are perhaps good at imitating nes accents in their speaking and integrating elements of target culture in their classes. the modelling principle suggests that students are inclined to imitate the acts of individuals whom they see as role models for themselves. considering the fact that in language divisions of high schools, the role models are often the language teachers of students, this conclusion seems feasible. table 2. the degree of difference in students’ perceptions according to schools (n = 85) questionnaire items schools cum uso 15tem q1. elt teachers should teach good pronunciation to students. 1.34 1.17 1.40 q2. elt teachers should teach good grammar to the students. 1.45 1.43 1.67 q3. elt teachers must try to obtain accent-free language proficiency at all times. 2.36a*1 1.96ab 1.73b q4. elt teachers must try to speak english without grammatical errors at all times. 2.09 2.35 2.13 q5. students’ pronunciation should sound like standard english. 2.38 2.26 1.93 q6. students should use correct grammar. 1.81 1.96 1.80 q7. people using english should try to speak accent-free english. 1.96 2.26 2.07 q8. people using english should try to avoid grammatical errors. 2.09 2.35 2.27 q9. if cultural materials are to be integrated into english language classes, they should focus on the english speaking countries’ cultures. 2.19a* 2.35a 1.60b q10. elt teachers should focus more on language knowledge than on the pedagogy. 2.45 2.13 1.93 q11. nests are more effective teachers for language students. 1.81 1.52 1.80 q12. the government should hire nests from english speaking countries to teach english in turkey. 1.85 2.13 1.80 q13. bilingual nnes teachers are better models for students to learn english. 2.30 1.91 2.20 1: means within each row followed by the different letter are not significantly equal at 0.05 (*) and 0.001 (***) to be able to identify the impact of gender on students’ perceptions, we ran an independent samples t-test, the results of which revealed significant differences at the 0.05 probability for the q6, q11 and q12 (see table 3 below and appendix c for the test results). that is, females highly supported q6, i.e. student should use correct grammar, q11, i.e. nests are more effective teachers for language students, and q12, i.e. the government should hire nests from english speaking countries to teach english in turkey. when it comes to the likely influence of their year of study in their departments, the t-test results showed that the means of 11th and 12th-grade students were significantly different on some questionnaire items (see table 3 and appendix d for the test results). while students at the 12th grade more strongly agreed with q9, i.e. if cultural materials are to be integrated in english language classes, they should focus on the english speaking countries’ cultures, and q10, i.e. elt teachers should focus more on language knowledge than on the pedagogy, those at the 11th grade highly supported q11, i.e. nests are more yücedağ, z. & karakaş, a. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 36 focus on elt journal (felt) effective teachers for language students, and q12, i.e. the government should hire nests from english speaking countries to teach in turkey. table 3. the degree of difference in students’ perceptions according to gender and class (n = 85) questionnaire items gender class f m 11th 12th q1. elt teachers should teach good pronunciation to students. 1.29 1.33 1.32 1.29 q2. elt teachers should teach good grammar to the students. 1.55 1.42 1.43 1.52 q3. elt teachers must try to obtain accent-free language proficiency at all times. 2.26 2.02 1.95 2.29 q4. elt teachers must try to speak english without grammatical errors at all times. 2.12 2.21 2.19 2.15 q5. students’ pronunciation should sound like standard english. 2.31 2.23 2.16 2.35 q6. students should use correct grammar. 1.69* 2.00 1.70 1.96 q7. people using english should try to speak accent-free english. 2.14 1.98 2.11 2.02 q8. people using english should try to avoid grammatical errors. 2.21 2.16 2.32 2.08 q9. if cultural materials are to be integrated into english language classes, they should focus on the english speaking countries’ cultures. 2.00 2.26 2.43* 1.90 q10. elt teachers should focus more on language knowledge than on the pedagogy. 2.21 2.33 2.51* 2.08 q11. nests are more effective teachers for language students. 1.52* 1.93 1.27** * 2.08 q12. the government should hire nests from english speaking countries to teach english in turkey. 1.71* 2.12 1.65* 2.12 q13. bilingual nnes teachers are better models for students to learn english. 2.26 2.09 2.24 2.12 from these results, it is evident that more students in the 11th grade perceived target language cultural artefacts to be valuable assets in language teaching and conceived of linguistic competence to be of top priority for language teachers compared to the students in the 12th grade. however, the main concern of the 12th-grade students was with the nationality background of language teachers, with great desire for the recruitment of nests in language classes. this finding is at odds with the findings of some previous studies. for example, ballar and winke (2017) found that in the minds of students, accentedness does not translate to unacceptability as a teacher. namely, whether teachers speak english as their mother tongue was not a decisive criterion for these students. nonetheless, there are plentiful studies that nearly share the same results with those of this study. to illustrate, a research study completed by calvo-benzies (2013) indicated that the law students tended to value nes accents more than nnes ones, whereas students of tourism broadly appreciated both nes and nnes accents. conclusion the main issue under investigation in this study was how a young group of english-major students perceived elf and its main principles about language and language education. the investigation did not concern itself with whether students knew the term elf by name. rather, the focal attention was paid to the matters elf has dealt with for a long time, such as awareness of elf paradigm, perceptions about standard english norms, the yücedağ, z. & karakaş, a. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 37 focus on elt journal (felt) role of culture in language instruction, and accents used regionally and globally in diverse settings. the findings revealed that high school language department students’ perceptions and attitudes towards elf are very norm-oriented, with great appreciation of the aspects of standard and native englishes (e.g. grammatical accuracy) as well as speakers of inner circle englishes. we can presume that these students will hold on to these views in their future engagement with english regardless of whether they use it or teach it. therefore, it is imperative that language teachers in such language-intensive programs at high schools introduce the diversity of english into their classes through various thought-provoking and awareness-raising tasks so that the students can make better-informed decisions about their linguistic acts and set realistic linguistic goals for themselves. being one of the rare studies into the perceptions of high school language department students about elf, this study has some limitations, primarily due to its analytical framework for data collection and sample. we collected the data through quantitative tools, which do not let us explore the issues under investigation in an in-depth fashion, yet allow us to generalise our results to the students sharing similar characteristics with the study sample. hence, we recommend that researchers study high school language division students’ attitudes and perceptions by means of quantitative and qualitative tools. most importantly, as preliminary research, this study sheds light on the fact that most perceptions and attitudes are shaped through students’ early educational experiences with language learning. keeping this in mind, the stakeholders of language teaching should make efforts to help students become aware of the current sociolinguistic reality of english and its speaker profile, and how they can exploit their linguistic resources to be effective and skilled language users rather than making futile attempts to use english in conformity with certain ways followed by a particular group of speakers, i.e. ness. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references 40 bin yabancı öğretmen geliyor (2019, march). 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(2015). correctness in pronunciation instruction: teachers’ and learners’ views. konin language studies, 3(1), 75-88. widdowson h. g., (1994). the ownership of english. tesol quarterly, 28(2), 377-389. yücedağ, z. & karakaş, a. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 40 focus on elt journal (felt) appendix a: questionnaire items (q1) elt teachers should teach good pronunciation to students. (q2) elt teachers should teach good grammar to the students. (q3) elt teachers must try to obtain accent-free language proficiency at all times. (q4) elt teachers must try to speak english without grammatical errors at all times. (q5) students’ pronunciation should sound like standard english. (q6) students should use correct grammar. (q7) people using english should try to speak accent-free english. (q8) people using english should try to avoid grammatical errors. (q9) if cultural materials are to be integrated into english language classes, they should focus on the english speaking countries’ cultures. (q10) elt teachers should focus more on language knowledge than on the pedagogy. (q11) nests are more effective teachers for language students. (q12) the government should hire nests from english speaking countries to teach english in turkey. (q13) bilingual nnes teachers are better models for students to learn english appendix b: anova test results anova sum of squares df mean square f sig. q1 between groups ,590 2 ,295 1,242 ,294 within groups 19,458 82 ,237 total 20,047 84 q2 between groups ,621 2 ,311 ,781 ,461 within groups 32,603 82 ,398 total 33,224 84 q3 between groups 5,565 2 2,782 4,168 ,019 within groups 54,741 82 ,668 total 60,306 84 q4 between groups 1,084 2 ,542 ,953 ,390 within groups 46,610 82 ,568 total 47,694 84 q5 between groups 2,302 2 1,151 1,267 ,287 within groups 74,474 82 ,908 total 76,776 84 q6 between groups ,379 2 ,189 ,382 ,684 within groups 40,633 82 ,496 total 41,012 84 q7 between groups 1,423 2 ,711 ,984 ,378 within groups 59,283 82 ,723 total 60,706 84 q8 between groups 1,178 2 ,589 ,807 ,449 within groups 59,810 82 ,729 total 60,988 84 q9 between groups 5,482 2 2,741 2,954 ,050 within groups 76,094 82 ,928 total 81,576 84 yücedağ, z. & karakaş, a. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 41 focus on elt journal (felt) q10 between groups 3,617 2 1,809 2,507 ,088 within groups 59,159 82 ,721 total 62,776 84 q11 between groups 1,361 2 ,680 ,828 ,441 within groups 67,416 82 ,822 total 68,776 84 q12 between groups 1,457 2 ,729 ,892 ,414 within groups 66,966 82 ,817 total 68,424 84 q13 between groups 2,297 2 1,149 1,568 ,215 within groups 60,056 82 ,732 appendix c: independent samples t-test results according to gender levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2tailed) q1 equal variances assumed ,906 ,344 -,374 83 ,709 equal variances not assumed -,375 82,043 ,709 q2 equal variances assumed 2,289 ,134 ,945 83 ,347 equal variances not assumed ,942 77,129 ,349 q3 equal variances assumed ,524 ,471 1,304 83 ,196 equal variances not assumed 1,304 82,987 ,196 q4 equal variances assumed ,881 ,351 -,550 83 ,584 equal variances not assumed -,549 81,249 ,585 q5 equal variances assumed ,613 ,436 ,369 83 ,713 equal variances not assumed ,369 82,097 ,713 q6 equal variances assumed ,938 ,336 -2,082 83 ,040 equal variances not assumed -2,082 82,992 ,040 q7 equal variances assumed 2,140 ,147 ,900 83 ,371 equal variances not assumed ,898 79,678 ,372 q8 equal variances assumed 1,286 ,260 ,277 83 ,782 equal variances not assumed ,276 80,213 ,783 q9 equal variances assumed ,081 ,777 -1,200 83 ,234 equal variances not assumed -1,198 81,557 ,234 q10 equal variances assumed 1,716 ,194 -,591 83 ,556 equal variances not assumed -,590 79,136 ,557 q11 equal variances assumed 6,158 ,015 -2,113 83 ,038 equal variances not assumed -2,122 74,407 ,037 q12 equal variances assumed ,122 ,728 -2,094 83 ,039 equal variances not assumed -2,097 82,402 ,039 q13 equal variances assumed 3,525 ,064 ,903 83 ,369 equal variances not assumed ,901 81,389 ,370 yücedağ, z. & karakaş, a. / focus on elt journal, 1(1) (2019) 42 focus on elt journal (felt) appendix d: independent samples t-test results according to the years of study levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2tailed) q1 equal variances assumed ,068 ,794 ,304 83 ,762 equal variances not assumed ,306 79,648 ,760 q2 equal variances assumed 1,312 ,255 -,640 83 ,524 equal variances not assumed -,658 82,757 ,513 q3 equal variances assumed ,262 ,610 -1,894 83 ,062 equal variances not assumed -1,904 79,084 ,061 q4 equal variances assumed ,090 ,764 ,262 83 ,794 equal variances not assumed ,263 79,112 ,793 q5 equal variances assumed 15,041 ,000 -,917 83 ,362 equal variances not assumed -,966 81,262 ,337 q6 equal variances assumed ,017 ,896 -1,691 83 ,095 equal variances not assumed -1,708 80,164 ,092 q7 equal variances assumed ,036 ,850 ,467 83 ,642 equal variances not assumed ,469 78,444 ,641 q8 equal variances assumed 4,137 ,045 1,298 83 ,198 equal variances not assumed 1,359 82,190 ,178 q9 equal variances assumed ,766 ,384 2,571 83 ,012 equal variances not assumed 2,550 75,072 ,013 q10 equal variances assumed 4,295 ,041 2,334 83 ,022 equal variances not assumed 2,276 69,031 ,026 q11 equal variances assumed 17,078 ,000 -4,567 83 ,000 equal variances not assumed -4,928 73,580 ,000 q12 equal variances assumed 6,472 ,013 -2,486 83 ,015 equal variances not assumed -2,611 81,678 ,011 q13 equal variances assumed ,419 ,519 ,625 83 ,534 equal variances not assumed ,636 81,708 ,526 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). ejal article template focus on elt journal vol 3, issue 1, 2021 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: aysel.saricaogluaygan@asbu.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. a telecollaborative approach to foster students' critical thinking skills aysel saricaoglu asst. prof. dr., social sciences university of ankara, turkey, aysel.saricaogluaygan@asbu.edu.tr apa citation: saricaoglu, a. (2021). a telecollaborative approach to foster students' critical thinking skills. focus on elt journal, 3(1), 18-32. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00043 abstract this study reports on a telecollaborative approach to foster students' critical thinking skills, more specifically to help them gain knowledge about a different educational culture and develop a critical perspective upon their own educational culture at the university. the study specifically examines the extent to which participation in telecollaboration enabled students to complete a critical thinking task and how students perceived their telecollaborative learning experiences. undergraduate students taking a critical thinking course at a university in turkey telecollaborated with undergraduate students at a university in the usa for three weeks. they were given a critical thinking task in which they exchanged information with their us partners, compared their education with the us education and analyzed their education from a critical thinking perspective, developed three written arguments based on the telecollaboratively-exchanged information as their final product, and reflected upon their telecollaborative learning experiences. according to the analysis of their written arguments and survey responses, telecollaboration provided students with an effective medium to complete the critical thinking task, although some students reported experiencing some problems. suggestions are offered for better learning experiences in future telecollaborative implementations. keywords telecollaboration, critical thinking skills, developing arguments, student perceptions article history received : 13.04.2021 revised : 08.06.2021 accepted : 11.06.2021 published : 25.06.2021 type research article introduction in training students as responsible global citizens, it is important to help them see their world with a critical eye so that they can consider problems from a range of perspectives (leask, 2015). one way to achieve this at the higher education level is through intercultural exchange and communication. in contexts where students do not have an opportunity for physical mobility, technological advances create new learning spaces that allow them to engage in virtual exchange or telecollaboration1. with teacher guidance, learners from geographically distant cultural contexts can come together to interact and collaborate in pairs or groups using synchronous and/or asynchronous online communication tools (chun, 2015; o’dowd & o’rourke, 2019). these exchanges have become so widespread among language classrooms as to have grown into a subfield of foreign language learning (dooly & o’dowd, 2012). 1 in this study, the terms “virtual exchange” and “telecollaboration” are used interchangeably. for a discussion of how the terms relate to or depart from each other, see colpaert (2020) and o’dowd (2021a). mailto:saricaogluaysel@gmail.com mailto:saricaogluaysel@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00043 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5315-018x saricaoglu, a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 19 telecollaborative efforts of teachers and researchers are often directed towards linguistic and intercultural abilities of learners (belz, 2005; chun, 2011; hauck, 2007; schenker, 2012). the most commonly promoted language-related aspect is grammar (akiyama, 2017; lee, 2011; vinagre, & muñoz, 2011; wach et al., 2021; ware, & o’dowd, 2008). evidence from such studies has affirmed positive outcomes connected to linguistic and intercultural development of students as a result of engagement in telecollaborative learning. following the recent calls for engaging students in more critically-oriented exchanges (helm, 2013; o’dowd, 2016), the developmental focus of telecollaboration has expanded beyond language learning and intercultural development to teacher training (bilki et al., 2019; dooly & sadler, 2013; üzüm et al., 2020), content knowledge development (cunningham, 2019; saricaoglu, & geluso, 2020) or development of digital literacies or global perspectives (duffy et al., 2020; gonzález, 2020; helm, 2013; lenkaitis & loranc-paszylk, 2021; oskoz & gimeno-sanz, 2019; priego & liaw, 2017). while there has been scant research on the latter, telecollaboration has the potential to contribute to the development of students' critical perspectives, which is the concern of this study. the present study reports on a telecollaboration project, in which turkish undergraduate students taking a critical thinking class telecollaborated with undergraduate students in the usa for three weeks. the critical thinking course provides a potentially fertile ground for telecollaborative learning, in which learners can gain an understanding of other cultural perspectives and become more self-reflective about their own culture (i.e., educational culture in this study). although telecollaboration has been practiced for many years, turkey has only recently responded to the upsurge of interest in telecollaboration. with an aim of enhancing students' critical thinking skills, this study contributes to documenting such an effort. it specifically examines the extent to which participation in telecollaboration enabled students to complete the critical thinking task and explores students' perceptions regarding their telecollaborative learning experiences. effectiveness of telecollaborative learning effectiveness of telecollaborative learning is often assessed through gathering evidence about student perceptions regarding specific aspects of the implementation such as affordances, topics, challenges, learning outcomes or overall experiences. some researchers also gather information about students' selfor peer-assessment of preparation for the exchanges or participation in the exchanges (e.g., saricaoglu & geluso, 2020; vahed & rodriguez, 2020). most studies make use of both qualitative and quantitative data (e.g., akiyama, 2017; basharina, 2007; fuchs, 2019; ryshina-pankova, 2018). in collecting quantitative data, researchers frequently use preand post-survey design and likert-scale items. common qualitative data sources are open-ended survey items, asynchronous written interaction, online social media or blog posts, synchronous interaction transcripts, interviews, and written reflections or journal entries. despite some reported challenges and frustration (see the following section), several studies suggest positive outcomes associated with student engagement in telecollaboration, including improved grammatical competence (akiyama, 2017; wach et al., 2021; ware, & o’dowd, 2008), intercultural competence (chun, 2011; hauck, 2007; schenker, 2012), or pragmatic competence (belz & kinginger, 2003; belz & vyatkina, 2005; cunningham, 2016). saricaoglu, a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 20 belz and kinginger (2003) found out that participating in telecollaboration with expert speakers increased learners' appropriate pronoun use in german over time. chun (2011) found that synchronous text chats engaged learners more in dialogues and demonstrated more evidence of developing learners' intercultural competence than the asynchronous forum postings. akiyama (2017) documented successful uptake of corrective feedback by learners when there was a match between the corrective feedback and their feedback preferences. positive outcomes of telecollaborative learning have also been reported for developing students' global competencies. duffy et al. (2020) qualitatively explored whether a nine-month virtual exchange between the usa and thailand led to an increase in global competencies (cross-cultural communication and global awareness and mindfulness), critical thinking, and transformative learning of undergraduate students from the usa. working telecollaboratively, students completed two assignments: getting to know each other using a series of questions and discussing critical questions about the topics of disability, inclusion, and adaptive sport and writing a joint paper on their collective thoughts. the qualitative analysis of data from students' written reflections and focus groups revealed an increase in all areas. using a preand postsurvey design, lenkaitis and loranc-paszylk (2021) examined the effect of a six-week synchronous virtual exchange on the development of university students' global citizenship competences. students met weekly and had discussions on the topics of sports, patriotism, advertising, crime, and natural disasters. the survey included both likert-scale items asking students to rate their self-identification as global citizens and the changes in their global citizenship identities as a result of the virtual exchange and an open-ended item asking what global citizenship is. results demonstrated a significant increase in the participants' selfreported identification of global citizenship, which was also supported by the qualitative results indicating that their understanding of global citizenship developed as well. similar to the studies by duffy et al. (2020) and lenkaitis and loranc-paszylk (2021), this study also benefits from telecollaboration in enhancing students' critical thinking skills. it assesses the effectiveness of telecollaboration based on two data sources: students' written arguments and responses to the survey items. building an effective argument that is wellsupported with sound reasons is one of the primary components of critical thinking skills (allen, 2004; bassham et al., 2011; mayfield, 2014). thus, in line with the objectives of the critical thinking course (i.e., understanding, recognizing, evaluating, and developing arguments), the product creation component of the telecollaboration in this study was designed around arguments, asking students to develop three written arguments on three education-related topics based on the telecollaboratively-exchanged information. factors influencing the effectiveness of telecollaborative learning because telecollaborative exchanges frequently ended in failures in the past (o'dowd & ritter, 2006), many practitioners and researchers turned their attention to identifying the factors that hinder the success of telecollaborative learning experiences, especially by examining students' perceptions. ware and kramsch (2005) determined that cultural stereotypes were a prominent source of misunderstandings between u.s. and german peers who discussed historical, cultural, and political issues involving the usa and germany. in a 12-week telecollaborative project among learners from japan, mexico and russia, basharina (2007) identified three types of contradictions: intra-cultural contradictions (i.e., to post or not to post, and to sound formal or informal; inter-cultural contradictions (i.e., unequal contribution, genre clash/plagiarism, and saricaoglu, a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 21 clash of topic choice); and technology-related contradictions (i.e., overload, speed, and confusion). figure 1. areas of dysfunction in telecollaborative exchanges as identified by o'dowd and ritter (2006) with an aim of offering educators a comprehensive overview of areas of dysfunction in telecollaborative exchanges, o'dowd and ritter (2006) produced a structured inventory consisting of 10 different factors at four different levels: two factors at the individual level (learners' current level of icc & learners' motivation and expectations), five factors at the classroom/methodological level (local group dynamics, teacher-teacher relationship, task design, learner matching procedures & preexchange briefing), three factors at the socioinstitutional level (technology tools and access, general organization of course of study, & prestige of target language and culture), and the interaction level at which factors from other levels interact and influence each other. some of the factors in the inventory of o'dowd and ritter (2006) are less relevant today as a result of the developmental changes throughout the years, such as institutions and individuals having more technological resources, practitioners getting more experienced in pre-exchange briefing or matching learners, and individuals having increased intercultural competence levels and more respect towards other languages and cultures. however, some factors continue to be sources of failure in telecollaborative exchanges, as demonstrated in some recent studies. in a large-scale survey study involving language teachers and students from 23 different european countries encountered in telecollaboration, helm (2015) reported seven barriers: differences in institutional calendars, differences in language proficiency levels of student groups, differences in the aims and saricaoglu, a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 22 approaches of teachers, lack of time for the project, lack of student motivation, cultural clashes and misunderstandings, and lack of institutional support (from the most commonly reported to the least). in wach et al.'s (2021) study, students' negative perceptions were associated with the asynchronous communication through emails and unequal and irregular participation. because students can provide the most valuable feedback on the quality of telecollaboration, understanding their perceptions is important to make better instructional decisions in future implementations. thus, this study also gives voice to student perspectives concerning their telecollaborative learning experiences in the critical thinking class. the reviewed literature shows the strong potential of telecollaboration for pedagogical use. the findings of this study are expected to increase our understanding of this potential for enhancing students' critical thinking skills in higher education. given that successful implementation of telecollaboration is still a challenge, the affordable and challenging aspects are also of primary interest in this study. particularly, answers to the following research questions are sought: 1) to what extent does participation in telecollaboration enable students to complete a critical thinking task? 2) how do students perceive their telecollaborative learning experiences? methodology context and participants the telecollaboration took place at a public turkish university. participants were 53 2nd-year undergraduate students (34 females & 19 males) who were enrolled in two sections of a critical thinking course. they were all non-native speakers of english majoring in the english language and literature program. the aim of the critical thinking course was to help students gain the knowledge and skills required for critical thinking. the telecollaborative exchange project was designed as a required assignment in the course, and students' final products (written arguments) constituted 30% of their final course grade. the researcher was the instructor of the course. based on her previous telecollaborative experiences, she believed that this course provided a unique context in which students could exchange ideas with students from a different culture on some educational issues. the instructor found her counterpart, who was working in a large public university in the midwest usa, through a virtual exchange fair that was organized by unicollaboration, an inter-disciplinary organization for telecollaboration and virtual exchange in higher education (https://www.unicollaboration.org/). the counterpart students (n=36) were undergraduate secondary education students enrolled in three sections of the digital learning in the secondary classroom class. the tasks for the u.s. students was to communicate with turkish students and gather information about the self-selected topics related to turkish school systems and the educational technologies used in turkey, to record their ve progress in journal entries, and to submit individual reports and reflections. because no data were collected from the counterpart students, no other details are available. due to the difference in the number of students from partnering classes, some students worked in pairs (tr-usa) and some students worked in groups (tr-tr-usa or tr-tr-trusa). in total, there were 24 pairs, seven groups including three students, and five groups https://www.unicollaboration.org/ saricaoglu, a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 23 including four students. all tr students, whether they telecollaborated with their usa partners in pairs or groups, completed the production task of developing written arguments individually. tasks the telecollaboration was implemented over three weeks (see table 1 for the structure of the telecollaborative critical thinking task). the tasks were designed following the three task categories identified by o'dowd (2017): information exchange, comparison and analysis, and product creation. in the first week, students' task was to get to know each other by posting selfintroductory videos on flipgrid (http://www.flipgrid.com/) and watching their partners' videos, and to contact their partners asynchronously to schedule meetings and determine the communication tools. in week 1, students were also given the topics for the written arguments and were asked to generate a set of questions that would help them garner the information from their partners to develop their arguments. paying attention to the curricular requirements of the teaching context, as o'dowd and ritter (2006) suggest, the topics were pre-determined by the instructor in line with the focus of the critical thinking course as the following: (1) the role of higher education in fostering students' critical thinking skills, (2) the role of learning technologies in fostering students' critical thinking skills, and (3) the role of cultural diversity in learning environments in fostering students' critical thinking skills. generating their information exchange questions provided students with freedom to decide on what aspects to base their arguments on. in order to complete the telecollaborative critical thinking task, students needed to learn about u.s. students' educational culture and landscape and to make comparisons between the tr and usa so as to take a critical perspective on their own university education. table 1. structure of the telecollaborative critical thinking task step week sub-task mode 1 week 1 get to know each other schedule meetings determine communication tools telecollaborative & asynchronous 2 week 1 generate information exchange questions individual 3 week 2 exchange information telecollaborative & synchronous or asynchronous 4 week 2 compare and analyze telecollaborative synchronous or asynchronous 5 week 3 develop written arguments individual 6 week 3 reflect upon the experience individual in the second week, the task for the students was to telecollaborate with their partners either synchronously or asynchronously to exchange information as well as to make comparisons between each other's educational cultures and critically analyze their own education in terms of its potential for developing their critical thinking skills. because students had to collaborate under the constraint of the 8-hour time difference between the two countries, they were provided flexibility in how to communicate (synchronously or asynchronously). in the last week, students individually worked on their final products, in which they developed three http://www.flipgrid.com/ saricaoglu, a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 24 written arguments using the exchanged information. they also reflected upon the telecollaboration by completing the post-telecollaboration survey. data collection and analysis data were collected through students' written argument grades, and a post-telecollaboration survey. as a part of the classroom procedures, each argument was graded out of 10 using a rubric developed by the instructor based on the features of good arguments (bassham et al., 2011) and the assignment requirements: whether the argument was in the given topics, whether it met the word limit requirement (around 100-150 words), whether the premises were clear, whether the conclusion was clear, and whether all the premises were true for the conclusion, and they provided good reasons to accept the conclusion. for the purposes of this study, grades were transferred to 100. the survey was administered online outside class using a google form. it consisted of 10 items, including six close-ended items and four open-ended items. the items were adopted from saricaoglu and geluso (2020). the close-ended items asked students about their telecollaboration experiences: whether this was their first telecollaboration, whether they communicated asynchronously or synchronously, how many questions they asked to their partners, whether their communication with the partners was effective or not, and whether they would want to have more telecollaborative experiences in their future courses. there was also a multiple-choice question asking if the telecollaboration contributed to any of their skills (language, learning technologies, critical thinking, intercultural, communication, or none). the open-ended questions asked students to express their overall impressions of the telecollaboration, to explain any difficulties they had, to comment on equal participation, and to share their suggestions for more effective telecollaborative learning experiences. forty-eight out of 53 students completed the survey. students' written argument grades and responses to close-ended survey items were quantitatively analyzed using descriptive statistics. students' grades across the three arguments were compared conducting a one-way analysis of variance (anova). their responses to openended survey items were qualitatively analyzed through content analysis. students' overall impressions were coded as positive and negative. responses to the question regarding the difficulties encountered were coded in three categories as no problems, problems with poor communication, and problems with the technology. responses to the question about students' suggestions for more effective telecollaborative learning experiences were coded in four categories as more telecollaborative opportunities, longer telecollaborative experiences, better communication, and common tasks. to establish the reliability of the coding process, an additional researcher, an english language instructor who is doing her phd in english language teaching, rated 10% of the data independently. inter-coder reliability was calculated using percentage agreement and was found to be 92%. all discrepancies were resolved through discussion until agreement was reached. saricaoglu, a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 25 results completion of the telecollaborative critical thinking task this telecollaboration was the first telecollaboration for almost all students (n=45, 94%). a slightly higher number of students (n=26, 54%) preferred asynchronous communication (i.e., through texting or emailing) with their partners than those who communicated synchronously (i.e., phone or video calls) (n=22, 46%). we do not know how five students communicated with their partners because they did not respond to this item. prior to the information exchange task, students were asked to develop a minimum of five questions to ask their partners. however, after the telecollaboration, they reported that they asked 12 questions on average, with 12 (25%) students asking fewer than 10 questions and 36 (75%) students asking more than 10 questions. most students (n=37, 77%) responded positively to the question regarding whether they communicated with their partner effectively while responses from 11 (21%) students were negative. table 2. descriptive statistics across arguments argument n m sd ci 95% argument 1 50 82.80 15.12 78.50 87.10 argument 2 50 74.40 13.43 70.59 78.22 argument 3 50 75.60 18.20 70.43 80.77 out of 53 students, only three (6%) did not submit written arguments. fifty students were able to complete the critical thinking task through participating in this telecollaboration. table 2 displays the descriptive findings regarding students' grades for each argument. students received higher grades for argument 1 (m=82.80, sd=15.12) than argument 2 (m=74.40, sd=13.43) and argument 3(m=75.60, sd=18.20). the analysis of variance showed a significant difference in grades between arguments, f(2, 147)=4.18, p=.017. post-hoc comparisons using the tukey hsd test showed that the mean score for argument 1 was significantly different from argument 2. table 3. post-hoc comparison results argument argument mean difference std. error sig. ci 95% 1 2 8.400 3.142 .023 .96 15.84 3 7.200 3.142 .060 -.24 14.64 2 1 -8.400 3.142 .023 -15.84 -.96 3 -1.200 3.142 .923 -8.64 6.24 3 1 -7.200 3.142 .060 -14.64 .24 2 1.200 3.142 .923 -6.24 8.64 students' perceptions of their telecollaborative learning experience overall, most students (n=39, 81%) had positive impressions of their telecollaborative learning experiences. in their responses, some students briefly referred to the learning experience in general as "it was a great experience," or "it was informative." some other students focused on saricaoglu, a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 26 the fact that they communicated with a native speaker ("we had the chance to communicate with a native student"). they also stated that they learned about a different culture ("i learnt so many things about their culture and their education system as well"). responses from some students focused on the fact that the learning experience was fun. there were also a few students who mentioned about their partners: "she was nice to us and answered all of our questions." regarding the contributions of the telecollaboration to developing students' skills, only a few students (n=6, 13%) thought that the telecollaboration did not contribute to developing any of the language skills, learning technologies skills, critical thinking skills, and communication skills. less than half of the students (n=17, 31%) believed that it contributed to their critical thinking skills. only four students (8%) reported contribution to learning technologies skills. the rest of the students reported positive perceptions regarding contributions to their language skills, intercultural skills, or communication skills. regarding equal participation, most students (n=38, 79%) thought that they and their partners participated equally. the following comments exemplify students' positive perceptions regarding equal participation: "yes, everyone contributed equally. i believe we all tried our best." or "i think everybody participated equally." those students who believed that their partners did not contribute equally commented on the late or simple responses they received or no questions asked by the partners, as demonstrated by the following student remarks: "i answered my partner's questions much faster; besides, i generally explained many details about my answers. most of my partner's answers were short." "my questions were much more informative then his. he asked simple questions." "he did not ask any question." despite a few students, probably those who felt some frustration, the majority of students (n=39, 81%) expressed interest in participating in telecollaboration in their future courses. out of 48 students, 37 responded to the open-ended question regarding the difficulties encountered in their telecollaborative experiences. three distinct themes emerged from the analysis: (1) no problems (reported by 13 students, 35%), (2) problems associated with poor communication between the partners (n=16, 43%), mainly due to the time zone difference or late (i.e., days later) response from the u.s. partners, and (3) problems with the technology (n=8, 22%), most of the time an issue of losing connection. below are some student comments reflecting such difficulties: "i had to wait my partner's answer for a very long time. therefore, i worried about my project." "we couldn't communicate. she gave late responses." "there was one technical problem where we our messages weren't forwarded in whatsapp." "there was a[n] internet problem for a while, except that it was really well." students' responses to the question about more effective telecollaborative learning experiences centered around four main suggestions: (1) more telecollaborative opportunities for students (" it might be more common in the universities because it is nice to learn about other universities and other countries"), (2) longer telecollaborative experiences ("having a longer time for the projects like this might be better. because it takes a lot of time to organize things and complete everything"), (3) better communication between the partners in terms of more timely responses ("students must do their works on time"), better attitudes ("in my opinion, our partners' should take the project more serious"), and synchronous communication rather than asynchronous communication ("video call or audio call should be a must"), and (4) common tasks for both groups of students ("participants could argue a certain subject. our saricaoglu, a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 27 partner did not ask us anything related to critical thinking. we asked our questions but she said they do not have to hand in our answers about critical thinking. so, she just asked random questions. it was kind of confusing"). discussion this study explored the use of telecollaboration to enhance students' critical thinking skills, in particular, the extent to which students were able to complete the critical thinking task through participating in telecollaboration, and students' perceptions of their telecollaborative learning experiences. findings showed that the majority of students completed the critical thinking task through telecollaboration, developing the questions that would elicit the information they needed for their arguments, exchanging information with their partners, comparing their educational culture with the usa education and analyzing their own education with a critical perspective, and developing their education-related arguments as a result. students would not have been able to develop a critical perspective of their own educational culture without awareness and knowledge of a different educational culture. thus, telecollaboration offered the means to exercise critical thinking skills within the context of this study. students developed three education-related arguments based on the telecollaborativelyexchanged information: the first one on the role of higher education in fostering students' critical thinking skills, the second one on the role of learning technologies in fostering students' critical thinking skills, and the third one on the role of cultural diversity in learning environments in fostering students' critical thinking skills. students developed better arguments for the first topic than the other topics, with the first arguments receiving significantly higher scores than the second arguments. the lack of qualitative data from the students' telecollaboration process unfortunately limits our understanding of the underlying reason behind why they developed better arguments for the first topic. for example, did students ask more questions about the first topic than the others? yet, a manual qualitative examination of students' second and third arguments provided some insights. a major problem in the second and third arguments of some students was the lack of a specific connection to the critical thinking skills. in the example argument below (university names have been anonymized), the student wrote about the advantage of being a student at a small new university, with students having easier access to the technological resources, and the advantage of a non-technological classroom environment. however, there is no explicit discussion of how these features of the turkish high educational culture contribute to developing students’ critical thinking skills. the argument demonstrates that through telecollaboration, the student was able to gather the information needed and to compare and analyze their high education in terms of the potential for developing students' critical thinking skills. however, it appears that within the process of individual argument development, the student was not able to connect all ideas specifically to the theme of the critical thinking skills. in a school environment where students can easily access the technology opportunities, searching, creating and analysing are easier and more advantageous. as a newly established university, [our university] has less students than [the american university]. that’s why students [at our university] have higher chance to use computers and they do not have to wait for queue in order to benefit from library environment and other technological devices. moreover, having less classmates in classroom creates an environment which is more suitable to think critical because everyone has enough time to point out and argue his\her ideas. these chances are lower in [the american university] than [our university]. i believe saricaoglu, a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 28 that writing, highlighting and pointing out the specific points of the topic that arguing on paper is effective while thinking. in this context, using hardcopy books is beneficial like students do [in our university]. the findings showed that most students had positive impressions of the telecollaboration. positive impressions of some students were associated with the opportunity to communicate with a native speaker and learn about a different culture. the chance to have access to and communicate with native speakers of english appears to have become the main motivation for students and to have gotten ahead of the main pedagogical goal in this telecollaboration. this was also obvious in the survey responses to the question on the contribution of this learning experience to students' different skills. only less than half of the students recognized contributions to their critical thinking skills. most students believed that this telecollaboration contributed to their language skills, intercultural skills, or communication skills. even though they were able to complete their critical thinking task through participation in telecollaboration, they were not aware of the main goal of this collaboration: to give them an understanding of a different educational culture and to help them gain a critical perspective of their own educational culture. one of the biggest problems some students encountered in this telecollaboration was the delay in communication with their partners, which was partly due to the asynchronous mode with some students waiting responses to their emails or messages for days. while asynchronous communication "has the advantage of being space and time independent" (helm, 2013, p. 30) and may work well for some specific telecollaborative tasks, the lack of instant interaction caused some frustration for the students in this study. for asynchronous communication, chun (2011, p. 415) comments that it "often lack[s] true interaction" and that students will need constant and repeated reminders unless they are trained for asynchronous communication. verifying that, upon the students' request in this study, we needed to ask the u.s. instructor for a few reminders. the lack of the feeling of interacting with real people and the feeling of depersonalized collaboration was reported by students in previous text-based telecollaborations (the evaluate group, 2019). to avoid such feelings of students, the evaluate group (2019) recommends balancing synchronous interaction (through videoconferencing) with asynchronous interaction so that videoconferencing can help build the relationship between student exchangers. in this study, except for the problems arising from the time zone difference or technological issues, a particularly challenging aspect of the telecollaboration was for the students to effectively communicate with their partners. because of receiving late or simple responses as well as simpler questions or no questions from the partners, some students negatively perceived their telecollaborative learning experiences. the differences in the timing or depth of responses or questions might be due to the fact that the counterpart groups had different tasks to complete within this telecollaboration. engagement in different types of activities as a source of contradiction was observed in earlier studies (e.g., basharina, 2007). to develop strong arguments in the production task, the turkish students needed to gather detailed information, which might explain why simple responses from the partners caused frustration among them. in perspective-based studies, students often talk about the effort and time they devote to the telecollaborative tasks (helm, 2015; lee, 2009; saricaoglu & geluso, 2020). in this study, a few students also commented on the time-consuming aspect of the telecollaboration and suggested that future telecollaborative experiences be designed for a longer time span. with saricaoglu, a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 29 regard to the time commitment involved in telecollaboration, giving some space and time to the telecollaboration within the course syllabus and attaching some academic weighting to it are among the factors that o'dowd (2013) suggests teachers should consider. telecollaborative projects are time consuming for instructors to design (guth et al., 2012) as well as for students to complete, but are essential for several reasons from internationalization to learning gains and professional development. limitations although this study contributes to the telecollaboration literature with a focus on critical thinking skills, it has limitations that future studies should build upon. first, the telecollaboration in this study lasted for only three weeks. although short implementations are common in telecollaborative practices, such exchanges should provide learners with prolonged opportunities and engagement. second, this study is one-sided reporting on the turkish class. studies analyzing data only from one of the classes are not rare in the virtual exchange literature (chen & yang, 2016; dooly, 2011; ware & kessler, 2016). in fact, o'dowd (2021b) acknowledges this as the hard reality for most researchers and advises that this type of studies should not be undervalued. yet, two-sided studies can certainly provide a bigger picture, thus a better understanding of students' engagement in telecollaborative learning behaviour and outcomes. in order to find out students' impressions of the telecollaborative learning experience, this study administered only a post-telecollaboration survey. tracking change in students' perspectives through a pre-telecollaboration and post-telecollaboration survey design would have yielded deeper insights into the effectiveness of the telecollaborative learning experience. while this study relied upon students’ final product data (written arguments) and their perspectives (survey data), collecting data from the telecollaboration process would have better informed our understanding of their task completion. for example, analyzing the recordings of the synchronous meetings or asynchronous communication posts would have shed light on the differences between the qualities of their written arguments. finally, because the telecollaboration in this study included a short time span and both synchronous and asynchronous communication, the researcher's primary intention as the instructor was to provide students with a safe environment and safe critical-discussion topics. however, for a more meaningful critical thinking-oriented telecollaboration, a dialogic model, as helm (2013) calls it, including divisive topics (e.g., religion, media, stereotypes) can be pedagogically more consistent with the objectives of a critical thinking course. conclusions although the wide adoption of telecollaboration by educational institutions has led to changes in educational policies, especially in the european context, telecollaboration still has not been integrated into regular curricula at most higher education institutions, including those in turkey. it is practiced mainly at the individual level where teachers find partners to facilitate collaboration between their students, this study being an example. when used effectively though, telecollaboration can function as a very useful pedagogical tool in higher education courses. especially in an era in which physical mobility of students is restricted by global challenges such as covid-19, virtual exchange deserves to be integral to curricular models. this study is one small attempt at demonstrating that telecollaborative spaces can help to overcome saricaoglu, a. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 30 the inadequacy of traditional classroom-based instruction in developing students' critical thinking skills through an understanding of other cultures. the findings of this study offer some implications for telecollaborative practices. most researchers tend to focus on critical success factors that operate during the telecollaboration process, but i believe that those factors actually stem from the pre-implementation or design phase of the telecollaboration, which requires a very effective collaboration between the two instructors and a common understanding of successful telecollaboration by both. as o'dowd and ritter (2006) put stress on, a good teacher-teacher relationship is significant for the outcome of telecollaboration. the fact that partner teachers do not know each other prior to the telecollaboration has an undeniably adverse impact on building that good relationship. thus, one of the instructors' primary objectives should be to build a common understanding of effective telecollaborative practices, which is only possible with a close communication sharing established beliefs, plans, and expectations. "virtual exchange may be mediated by digital technologies but its success depends on person-to-person [teachers and students] engagement" (the evaluate group, 2019, p. 109). rather than focusing on "the logistics of the exchanges and the pedagogical tasks which students will work on", telecollaborative practitioners should "establish good working relationships together, to get to know their partners as real people, and not merely as anonymous names and avatars on a computer screen" (p. 110). a second key objective should involve a joint or common task for all participating students, rather than bringing them together for different tasks. this will give students a shared responsibility for adhering to the task and process, engaging actively, making equal contributions to the task completion, and respecting each other. third, the time-independent asynchronous communication mode allows students to spend more time on the input they receive and the output they send (heift & vyatkina, 2017); however, students who are accustomed to a faceto-face class's typical synchronous atmosphere may seek more social interaction, thus may benefit more from a synchronous learning environment in telecollaboration. in asynchronous implementations, either decided by the instructors or preferred by the students, following chun's (2011) advice, students should be well trained for communicating with their partners in a timely manner or be provided with constant reminders for that. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references akiyama, y. 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(2008). peer feedback on language form in telecollaboration. language learning & technology, 12(1), 43–63. https://doi.org/10125/44130 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2013.02.001 https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.v33i3.30747 https://doi.org/10.4995/eurocall.2017.7636 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2021.1902201 http://hdl.handle.net/10125/44690 https://dx.doi.org/10.1558/cj.v23i3.623-642 http://hdl.handle.net/10125/44700 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2017.1306567 https://dx.doi.org/10125/44587 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429435096-6 https://www.jstor.org/stable/calicojournal.29.3.449 https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2019.29.9782490057337 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0958344019000235 https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2020.1792331 https://doi.org/10125/44238 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0958344021000112 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2014.961481 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2005.00274.x https://doi.org/10125/44130 ejal article template focus on elt journal vol 3, issue 1, 2021 issn: 2687-5381 corresponding author: gunduzmine@gmail.com copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. is tutoring a benefit for tutees only, or is it a mutual benefit? amine gündüz kartal and bderin atay alecturer, özyeğin university, i̇stanbul, turkey, gunduzmine@gmail.com bprof. dr., bahçeşehir university, i̇stanbul, turkey, dyatay@yahoo.com apa citation: gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. (2021). is tutoring a benefit for tutees only, or is it a mutual benefit? focus on elt journal, 3(1), 65-80. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00041 abstract this study was conducted to investigate the opinions of the elt (english language teaching) pre-service teachers who attended a tutoring program as tutors and the opinions of the efl learners who were the tutees of this program. thirteen pre-service teachers provided tutoring to thirty efl learners in the spring semester at one of the private universities in turkey. out of thirty, 22 efl learners were volunteers to participate in this study. data from the tutors (pre-service teachers) were collected through face-to-face interviews, and from the tutees through a questionnaire sent as an e-mail. as there were pre-existing themes in the interview questions and the questionnaire, data were analysed and coded deductively. these themes were: advantages of the tutoring program, challenges of the program, self-efficacy evaluation, communication between tutors and tutees, perceptions, and suggestions of both parties. the findings of the study revealed that not only tutees but also tutors had many gains during this program. in other words, while the tutees learnt the structures they did not understand very well in class and increased their exam scores, the tutors had a chance to study with different age group (adults), practice the theories they were taught in their departments, and they could test their content and pedagogy knowledge efficacy. despite the abundance of studies carried out to examine the effects of tutoring programs on tutors and tutees in the literature (cohen et al., 1982; elbaum et al., 2000), the studies conducted to investigate the tutoring programs on both parties (tutors and tutees) in english language education at tertiary level is rare. this study aimed to contribute to the relevant literature with its findings and implications by taking this scarcity into account. keywords efl learners, language learning, one-on-one tutoring, pre-service teachers, tutoring program article history received : 14.02.2021 revised : 19.05.2021 accepted : 06.06.2021 published : 25.06.2021 type research article introduction most of the teachers do not have an opportunity to provide their students one-on-one support, possibly due to a high number of students in the classrooms and not having enough time after the classes. however, in the literature, one-on-one tutoring is thought to be the most effective way of improving students' academic achievement (elbaum et al., 2000). this effect may come from the high engagement of learners in the learning process (juel, 1996). although most teachers generally cannot support their students individually, pre-service teachers may give this support to gain teaching experience before they graduate from their departments. in another saying, pre-service teachers can take the role of tutors, who can be the other participants of the learning process, and through this experience, tutors may "learn as much as or more than" the mailto:gunduzmine@gmail.com mailto:gunduzmine@gmail.com mailto:dyatay@yahoo.com https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00041 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9963-1990 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4147-7177 gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 66 students who are tutored (annis, 1983). in addition, as haverback and parault (2008) indicated, “tutoring differs from other practicum experiences in that it offers the pre-service teachers an opportunity to assess their teaching ability and hone in on the theories they are learning in their university courses” (p. 238). besides, it is possible to assert that if pre-service teachers have a chance to practice the theories they learnt in a natural teaching setting, they may improve themselves in terms of content knowledge and their learning as much as or more than the tutees may turn into an advantage for both parties. in other words, while tutees are improving their academic skills, the tutors may also enhance their existing field knowledge, and this process carries a high potential to become a mutual benefit. by taking this high potential into account, the relevant literature was analysed meticulously, and two comprehensive meta-analyses by cohen et al. (1982) and by elbaum et al. (2000) were found and analysed in a detailed way. the main focus of the studies in these meta-analyses is mainly on the positive effects of tutoring programs on tutored school children and tutors who were generally volunteer teachers or volunteer college students. a study that specifically investigated a tutoring program provided by pre-service teachers to english language learners at the tertiary level was not found, which would be accepted as a gap to be filled in through this current study. with this purpose, this study was set to investigate the possible benefits of a tutoring program on the pre-service teachers (tutors) in an elt department at one of the private universities located in i̇stanbul, turkey, and the possible benefits of this program on the efl learners (tutees) in the school of foreign languages department of the same university. in the first place, the paper starts with stating the theory behind this study and reviewing the related literature. then, it describes the methodology part, and it continues with presenting the results and the discussion sections. finally, the study ends with the conclusion part along with some implications. literature review besides the benefits of tutoring programs, the positive effects of these programs on students who were tutored and tutors who provided one-on-one lessons were very well documented in a meta-analysis by cohen et al., 1982). in this meta-analysis, including 65 tutoring studies, it was put forward that while tutees were outperforming their controls on examinations, tutors' attitudes toward subject matter knowledge developed positively. nevertheless, most of these studies mainly focused on teaching reading to elementary and secondary school students. in other words, the purpose of these studies was to improve the early graders' reading efficacy in their native language. in another meta-analysis on tutoring by elbaum et al. (2000), 29 studies conducted between 1975-1998 were collected and documented in a detailed way, and these details were summarised in a chart in this study. when the details of these studies were analysed, it was seen that the tutoring lessons were provided by mostly volunteer teachers. only in a few studies, the tutoring lessons were given by college students (pre-service teachers). after reviewing these two meta-analyses, the scarcity of research on tutoring provided to english learners (els) by pre-service teachers stands out. in some studies, (hedrick, 1998; hedrick et al., 2000; juel, 1996), the tutoring lessons were provided by pre-service teachers; however, to our best gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 67 knowledge, there was only one study (al otaiba, 2005) in which pre-service teachers gave the tutoring lessons to els, and all these mentioned studies were summarised below with their findings. in 1996, juel researched the effectiveness of a literacy tutoring program. university students tutored elementary school children two times a week for one school year, and there was a control group that got mentoring from the same university students. in this tutoring program, tutors did various activities (reading children’s literature, writing, introducing highfrequency words from the basal readers, journal, alphabet book, hearing word sounds, and letter-sound activities) with experimental group students. in the control group, mentoring was done through only one activity which was reading to students. data came from reading test scores, tape recordings, and videotapes. results revealed that both tutors and tutees showed literacy growth, which was significantly higher than the control group. hedrick (1998) conducted a study with forty senior pre-service teachers and 3rd, 4th, and 5th elementary graders (n=30) to investigate the effects of one-on-one tutoring. tutors attended the tutoring program as part of their coursework requirement. data were collected through a portfolio consisting of daily running records, comprehension assessments, writing samples, and the basic reading inventory results. the findings presented that the benefits of this study twofold. elementary graders improved their reading level significantly, and the pre-service teachers had an opportunity to practice teaching and assessment before they started their profession. a similar study was carried out by hedrick et al. (2000) to search for the effectiveness of one-on-one tutoring and its effects on tutors. the tutors were senior pre-service teachers who provided mathematics and reading tutoring to the elementary graders who were at risk of dropping out of school. it was a qualitative-based study; therefore, the data were gained through a questionnaire sent by e-mail. the results showed that tutors learnt more while tutoring, which stressed the importance of having field-based experiences for pre-service teachers. al otaiba (2005) investigated the effects of tutoring program on the english learners’ (el) reading skills and the tutors’ (pre-service teachers) knowledge about language structure. eight pre-service teacher-tutors who attended the project were third-year undergraduate students. eight tutees, two of them were arabic, and the rest was hispanic, were chosen by the esl teacher working at the tutees' school. pre-service teachers provided tutoring lessons twice a week until they completed 15 hours, which was the requirement of the project they attended. pre-tests and post-tests were applied to gather the data. the findings demonstrated that both parties benefited from the tutoring program. while tutees’ (els’) raw scores on word attack, passage comprehension, and sound identification improved significantly, tutors’ (pre-service teachers’) knowledge about literacy and language structure improved from %57 to %99, which was nearly two times more. significance and aim of the study in the literature, there are many studies conducted to investigate the effects of tutoring programs, their impact on tutors and tutored students, and these studies were collected and very well documented in the meta-analyses by cohen et al. (1982) and by elbaum et al. (2000). when these studies were examined in terms of pre-service teachers’ tutoring, only a few studies gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 68 (hedrick, 1998; hedrick et al., 2000; juel, 1996) were found, and to our best knowledge, the study by al otaiba (2005) is the only one which investigated the effects of tutoring program on the english learners, and the tutors (pre-service teachers). therefore, this current study aims to contribute to the relevant literature by searching for the opinions of the elt pre-service teachers who attended the tutoring program as tutors and the efl learners' opinions who were tutees of this program. research questions in this present study, the following questions were addressed: what are the opinions of tutors (pre-service teachers) about the one-on-one program they attended? what are the opinions of tutees (turkish efl learners) about the one-on-one program they attended? methodology setting this present study took place in one of the private universities in turkey. there are nine faculties and one foreign languages school in this university. as the english language teaching (elt) department and the school of foreign languages (sfl) collaborated in this study, information regarding these two is given briefly. elt department is one of the departments of education faculty, and it lasts four years. this department provides students with english language and literacy, methodology, first and second language acquisition, educational sciences, and linguistics to make them qualified english teachers in primary, secondary, and tertiary educational institutions. sfl is the first program for all students who win different departments of this private university, and the medium of instruction in all departments is english. this program lasts one year and provides both english and turkish language education. most of the students are turkish efl learners, while about %10 come from eastern countries. in sfl, a modular system is in effect. an academic year comprises five modules (a1, a2, b1, b2, c1), and each module lasts eight weeks. after efl learners finish this language school successfully, they start their departments the following year. participants the participants of this study are tutors (elt pre-service teachers), tutees (efl turkish learners), and the researchers of this study. the information about these three group participants is given separately. gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 69 tutors in total, 14 elt pre-service teachers were giving a one-on-one tutorial to the sfl students. all these pre-service teachers voluntarily attended this program, and some studied with more than one tutee. they mainly studied grammar, reading, speaking, writing, and vocabulary skills with their tutees. one of the tutors could not attend the face-to-face interviews; therefore, the data were collected from 13 pre-service teachers whose ages range between 19-34. the number of female pre-service teachers was 11, and two of them were male. except for one of the preservice teachers, who is from afghanistan, all of them were turkish. out of thirteen, 6 of them were seniors, four were juniors, and 3 of them were sophomores. the pre-service teachers were coded as tutors and by numbers for anonymity (e.g. tutor 1, tutor 2, tutor 3, etc.). table 1 below presents the demographic data of tutors along with their total tutoring hours. (in this study, pre-service teachers and tutors are used interchangeably). table 1: demographic data of the pre-service teachers tutees sfl management identified fifty students who needed to attend this one-on-one tutoring program. these students were having academic difficulties, they were not attending the lessons regularly, and because of these issues, they were at risk of dropping out of school. therefore, the school management reached these students by calling them to explain this program, and the students were asked whether they want to attend this one-on-one tutoring. after this procedure, thirty of these students started to participate in this program voluntarily. as they generally showed absenteeism during school hours, the questionnaire was sent via e-mail to collect the data from the tutees. out of thirty students, 22 replied to the questionnaire, and 9 of twenty-two students were female, and thirteen were male. all of them were turkish efl learners whose ages range between 18-31. out of twenty-two, one of the tutees was a2, eighteen of them were b1, three were b2 english level students. as tutors, all tutees were coded by numbers (e.g., tutee 1, tutee 2, tutee 3, etc.). (in this study, efl learners and tutees are used interchangeably). pre-service teachers gender year age total tutoring hours tutor 1 female senior 21 60 tutor 2 female senior 22 12 tutor 3 female senior 22 25 tutor 4 female senior 24 18 tutor 5 female senior 22 20 tutor 6 female senior 23 18 tutor 7 male junior 20 20 tutor 8 female junior 23 30 tutor 9 female junior 21 3 tutor 10 female junior 34 55 tutor 11 female sophomore 19 8 tutor 12 female sophomore 19 6 tutor 13 male sophomore 24 13 gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 70 researchers the other participants are the researchers of this study. one of the researchers is a ph.d. student and an efl instructor for 12 years. she carried out the face-to-face interviews with the tutors and sent an e-mail to the tutees. the other researcher is a professor in the elt department of this private university. research design the participants of the study are members of one institution, and their opinions were collected to gain a better understanding of their experiences during this tutoring program. therefore, the design of this study is a case study, which is one of the qualitative research designs, “focuses on an issue with the case (individual, multiple individuals, program, or activity) selected to provide insight into the issue” (creswell et al., 2007, p. 245). tutoring program in the spring semester of the academic year 2018-2019, the sfl management started a tutoring program named lead (learner academic development), a student-follow-up program. its primary aim was to identify the students with high absenteeism, poor academic performance, lack of motivation, and implement early intervention strategies to generate increased school attendance, continued academic success, and comprehensive student support to reduce dropout rates. as a first step, the sfl management contacted elt department professors and proposed this tutoring program. after the approval of elt professors, a call was made to the pre-service teachers whether they were volunteer to participate in this one-on-one tutoring program. at the same time, the sfl management administered some elt instructors (named as lead teachers) who were in charge of following up the process of the one-on-one tutoring program. these teachers were responsible for matching the tutors with tutees, providing necessary materials, keeping the record of the absenteeism, and solving any problem regarding the tutoring program. afterward, lead teachers identified and contacted the students at risk. then these students were informed about the program and asked whether they want to attend one-onone tutorials given by elt pre-service teachers. right after the volunteer students were identified, they were matched with one of the elt pre-service teachers. as a final step, the tutors and tutees arranged the time and place to start their one-on-one tutoring. generally, a student studied with his/her tutors two hours a week; however, if the tutor and tutee had much more available time, they studied more than two hours a week. the content of the tutoring lessons was identified according to the tutees’ needs. if a tutee wanted to study a specific skill like grammar, reading, or writing, s/he informed her/his tutor beforehand. when the tutors had information on what to study, they asked for the necessary materials from the lead teachers. after the materials were provided, the tutors made their preparations, and they studied and practiced the specified skill with their tutees during the tutoring lessons. this tutoring program (lead), which was in the trial period during this study, also aimed to set an example for the other faculties and be implemented university-wide in the following academic years. gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 71 procedure at the beginning of the spring semester of the academic year 2018-2019, the tutors and the tutees were matched with each other by the lead program administrators, and the tutors started to study with their tutees. however, when the total hours of tutoring are checked in table 1, it is seen that all tutors had a different number of tutoring hours. the reason for this difference is that some tutors started this program at the very beginning of the semester, but some others started later. also, some of the tutors and tutees could not arrange a suitable time and place, so there were times that tutoring lessons were canceled. at the end of the spring semester, both tutors and tutees had their final exams in their departments; therefore, both parties ended the tutoring program. when the program finished, one of the researchers started to collect the data of this study. she contacted all the tutors to interview them. after scheduling the dates, the researcher began to meet with the tutors and held the interviews in a quiet office room. all the interviews were audio-recorded, and these recordings were transcribed verbatim. the average time of each interview was 18 min 65 s. the turkish language was spoken in the interviews; however, all the data were translated into english by the researchers. after the interviews with tutors finished, the researcher started to collect the data from the tutees. however, as it was the students’ final exam week, and these students were generally absent even during the regular school time, a face-to-face interview was not possible; therefore, a questionnaire was sent through e-mail, and the data of the tutees were collected through the written answers to the questions. all the questions and answers were written in turkish, and the responses of the tutees used in the results section were translated into english by the researchers. data collection instruments in this study, the qualitativecase study design was in use; therefore, the data were gathered through face-to-face interviews and a questionnaire sent by e-mail. the researchers developed the questions of the interview held with pre-service teachers and the questionnaire sent to the efl learners by benefiting from the scales by hedrick et al. (2000) and tschannen-moran and hoy (2001). in this study, some specific themes were intended to be searched; that is why semistructured questions were used during the interviews and in the questionnaire. the tutors' interview consisting of eleven open-ended questions included five themes, which were turned into topical themes, and these are advantages of the tutoring program, challenges during the tutoring program, self-efficacy, communication, and perceptions-suggestions, which were given in appendix a. the tutees’ questionnaire had the same five themes, and this questionnaire included seven open-ended questions, and they were presented in appendix b. data analysis data were collected through face-to-face interviews and questionnaires sent by e-mails; therefore, qualitative analysis was used to answer this study's research questions. as the interview questions and the questionnaire had pre-existing themes, content analysis was used gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 72 while analysing the data. as joffe and yardley (2004) addresses, content analysis “determines the frequencies of the occurrences of particular categories” (p. 56). while applying the content analysis, a summative approach was adopted. to illustrate, while the researchers were analysing the advantages of the tutoring program for the tutors, they created a column named ‘advantages for tutors’ on a document and wrote the statements (words, chunks, phrases) said by each pre-service teacher in that column one by one. when the ‘advantages’ section was over, they counted the most frequent statements (e.g. job experience, practising the theories, etc.), and these frequent statements were presented under the ‘advantages of the tutoring program’ title with some of the relevant quotations told by the preservice teachers. then, the researchers moved on with the other themes. when the data from pre-service teachers were finalised, the researchers applied the same coding approach to the data gathered from the efl learners. to be precise and concise, the statements that appeared less than two times were not presented in the results section. as for the interrater reliability, cohen’s kappa value was computed and it was found to be .83. results the researchers read the transcribed data three times to identify the recurring statements. these statements were presented under five specified topical themes. some of the tutors’ quotations and the tutees’ answers were given in italics to exemplify the findings. first, the tutors’ interview results were given, then the results gained from the tutees’ questionnaire were presented. however, it is necessary to mention that the responses collected from the tutees were generally very short and repetitive; therefore, the results and the quotations regarding the tutees' opinions usually are limited. advantages of the tutoring program tutors. nearly all the tutors stated that this one-on-one tutoring program provided them with many advantages, and they had a chance to benefit from this program in many ways. one of the most stated advantages was the experience of one-on-one teaching. although most of them did micro and macro teaching in their practicum schools, they stated that it was the first time they experienced one-on-one teaching, and they found it different from teaching in class. tutor 4 said that "it was the first time i taught one-on-one. in this program, i had a chance to focus on my student's weaknesses more. in class, i may not have this chance, but in one-on-one tutoring lessons, i had, and i gained much experience." besides, most of the tutors enjoyed teaching adult learners rather than teaching young learners with whom they studied in their practicum schools. some of them expressed that they had concerns about studying with adults, but after this program, they pointed out that their mindset had changed. tutor 6 highlighted this by saying, “i had doubts about studying with adult learners. after this program, i liked to study with adults.” another advantage regarding studying with adult learners was that the tutors had better communication thanks to the closed ages, and this was stated by tutor 9 as "i always studied with young learners, and this is the first time i studied with adult learners. i realised that studying with them is better because it is easier to communicate as our ages are close.” the tutors had a chance to practice whether the theories work they learnt in their department courses. while some of them found that theories were helpful in practice, some gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 73 others indicated that they did not use the theories a lot; instead, they used their creativity while they were teaching, and tutor 1 stressed that "i did not use the theories a lot; instead i tried to find my way in the lessons because when the students asked me a question, i could not remember those theories, and i needed to answer their questions in a short time." on the other hand, tutor 8 had a chance to internalise some theories in this one-on-one tutoring program, and in the interview, she reflected that “i had a chance to practice the theories that i learnt in my department. i learnt that there are many different student profiles. in my department lessons, we always talked that the learners have individual differences, but i experienced what individual differences really mean through this program.” besides, tutors emphasised that they improved their language skills (i.e. grammar, and vocabulary) as they were responsible for teaching the language accurately. tutor 1 explained that “before the lessons, i made preparations on the topics, and in this way, my grammar teaching and learning improved as well. i thought that 'what' is one of the relative pronouns, but i realised that i did not know enough when my student asked. then i studied and learnt that 'what' is used in noun clauses, not relative clauses. my other skills (vocab, reading) improved as well." an increase in self-confidence was one of the other benefits for tutors in this program. they indicated that the more they realised that they could teach, the more they believed in themselves. tutor 7 summed it up by saying, "i did not have enough self-confidence at the beginning, but later i realised that i could teach. i learnt that i could do this job. i am happy that i learnt this before i graduate." and tutor 12 expressed her belief as "in this program, i realised that i really want to be a teacher. when i saw that i could teach, i enjoyed it. when my student learnt, i liked it. i have good opinions about being a teacher." most of the tutors also stated that they observed improvement in their tutees' language skills and academic success. tutees. in the tutees' questionnaire results, it was found that all of them benefited from this program. they pointed out that they had a chance to revise the topics they did not understand in the classroom. they could identify their weak areas and focus on these areas in a detailed way. also, they indicated that they improved their grammar, vocabulary, and reading skills mainly, and some stated that their exam scores increased as they improved their language skills in these one-on-one tutoring lessons. “i learnt the topics that i could not understand in class, which made me more successful in the exams" (tutee 12). challenges during the tutoring program tutors. the main challenge the tutors experienced in this one-on-one tutoring program was teaching language skills appropriately. although it was mentioned as one of the advantages of this program above, it was also stated as a challenge by the tutors. they indicated that they learnt about teaching techniques and strategies in their department courses, but they did not practice their knowledge for years; therefore, they needed to get prepared before the lessons. tutor 6 explained her thought as "we did not learn about grammar or vocabulary during those four years (in the department). we mainly learned about teaching styles and techniques, so i needed to practice the topics before the lessons. it did not make me tired, but it took a little time. i know how to use grammar and vocabulary, but i needed to get prepared for how to teach. sometimes i could not remember some of the words, and i got worried about my students' gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 74 thoughts about me, but it did not cause any problem." some tutors expressed they could not decide whether they should teach in english or turkish, and tutor 7 reflected it as a challenge and a concern. he said that “at the beginning, i planned to teach the lessons in english, then i realised that they did not understand me. then, i started to teach in turkish, which is not right, i think." other than these two challenges, motivating the students was another challenge for the tutors. these students were the ones who were at-risk group, and lack of motivation was one of the reasons why they were not successful in their lessons. according to the tutors’ observations, some tutees showed the same unwillingness in tutoring lessons as well. in the interviews, tutors were asked to rank the teaching language skills from the most challenging one to the easiest one. according to most of the tutors' answers, teaching productive skills, mainly writing skill, was the most challenging skill to teach. most of the tutors found teaching writing skill difficult due to their lack of teaching practice in writing or the students' lack of organisation and content knowledge. tutor 3 stated that “teaching writing is the hardest because it heavily depends on the knowledge of the students. if they do not know the necessary knowledge about how to compose a paragraph or an essay, they cannot write.” on the other hand, grammar teaching was accepted as the most effortless skill to teach, and most of the tutors stated that when they taught grammar, they felt relaxed and comfortable themselves. “grammar is easy to teach because it has set rules.” (tutor 7). tutees. except for three tutees, all of them stated that they were quite satisfied with the program, and no challenges or problems were experienced. two tutees stated that they could not arrange an appropriate time to study with their tutors. as it was stated before, the tutors and tutees were responsible for arranging the time and date. while this flexibility was an advantage for most of the tutees, for these two, it was not. the other tutee indicated that he needed a more experienced tutor, especially for the writing lessons, which was also found as one of the challenges of tutees. self-efficacy tutors. most of the tutors remarked that their self-efficacy in language knowledge and teaching skills was at a moderate level. nearly all stated that during this tutoring program, they progressed and showed improvement in terms of their language knowledge and teaching skills; however, they did not see themselves enough. it was obvious from their responses that their awareness of testing their knowledge and teaching skills increased as they taught and experienced. tutor 12 summarised her thoughts about teaching efficacy as “my knowledge and teaching efficacy levels are moderate, i think. if i taught a grammar topic that i did not know, i would have difficulties. i think i need to get more professional." besides, some of the tutors put forth that when their tutees asked questions about the topics that the tutors did not get prepared before the lessons, they felt panicked and anxious, and at those times, some tutors stated that it was not easy for them to cope with not being able to answer their tutees' questions. however, some tutors said that although they had times that they could not answer random questions, they were able to control these situations. tutor 11 described her experience as "while teaching vocabulary, sometimes i had difficulties in explaining the meanings of the words, and i had some concerns. i thought that my student would gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 75 judge me, but later i normalised this situation, and after a while, when there were words that i did not know the meanings, i checked them with my student." tutees. most of the tutees found their tutors efficient in terms of their content knowledge and teaching ability. some tutees also found their tutors' teaching so fluent that they never got bored in the tutoring lessons. "my tutor was quite effective. if i evaluate her teaching ability, i can easily say that whenever we studied, i never realised how time passed" (tutee 1). especially in teaching grammar, tutors were found quite enough, and this result corresponded with the tutors’ interview results in which the tutors stated that grammar skill was the one they taught comfortably. communication tutors. half of the tutors said that their communication and relationship were held in a friendly manner with tutees as their ages were close. they did not want their tutees to call them as a teacher, or when their tutees did not call them as a teacher, tutors did not think that it would be a problem. one of the tutors (tutor 13) explained the rationale behind it as “our communication was friendly. i never tried to be a traditional teacher, and i always told them that i was their friend. if i behave like a traditional teacher, what is the purpose of the tutorial? a private tutor should be well-connected as a friend.” on the other hand, half of the tutors stated that their relationship with their tutees had limits. in other words, tutors were the teachers, tutees were the students, and both sides behaved accordingly. tutor 3’s statement supports this finding, "our relationship was respectful. i was in the position of their teacher, and they were in the position of my students." in addition to communication between tutors and tutees, the communication between tutors and their professors during this tutoring program was asked to understand whether they discussed the process or asked for help. except for four tutors, all of them said that they did not talk about the tutoring program’s process or any details with their professors. four tutors indicated that they took some advice about teaching tips like using l1 or l2 in the tutoring lessons. tutees. statements of tutees were in parallel with what tutors said in their interviews. some of the tutees indicated that their relationship was more than a student-teacher relationship; it was like a friendship. “it was like i was listening to a lesson from one of my friends” (tutor 9). on the other hand, some of the tutees expressed that the communication with their tutors was a respectful student-teacher relationship. “our relationship was as it was supposed to be. she was my teacher; i was her student” (tutor 6). perceptions and suggestions tutors. the most frequently changing perception about being a teacher was the profile the tutors wanted to study. before this tutoring program, most of them indicated that they thought they could only teach young learners as they did their practicum in elementary or secondary schools; however, after this program, their perception changed, and they wanted to keep teaching to adult learners. tutor 4 summed it up by saying, "i thought that teaching young students were better, but this program changed my mind. i felt more relaxed with adult students because they gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 76 listen and understand more and better. it was not like i thought. i learnt that teaching does not only mean studying with young learners; it is also possible to teach adults." some tutors stated that being a teacher was not as easy as they thought, and they added that being a teacher meant being able to deal with many things at the same time. tutor 11 defined it as “being teacher is experiencing many feelings together. it is both fear and pride. fear of being insufficient and pride of being enough. being a teacher is transforming your feelings, your mindset, actually it is transforming yourself." as for the suggestions, tutors wanted to study with more motivated and disciplined students. according to their statements, nearly all of them complained about the students' cancellation of the lessons. as the tutorials were provided by the school management for free, and as the tutees and tutors were allowed to decide about the time and place on their own, it turned out that some tutees did not attend the lessons regularly; therefore, it was suggested by some tutors that these lessons should be controlled in a more disciplined way by the school management and the tutees should feel more responsible for tutoring lessons. tutor 7 explained that "the students did not come to the lessons regularly. sometimes i delayed my lessons, projects for this program, but some students cancelled the lessons at the last minute. it should be controlled by the management.” one another suggestion by tutors was that they needed more information about the students they were going to study. as tutors did not have enough information about their students’ weaknesses, they spent too much time understanding their students’ needs. tutor 5 stressed this need as "there should have been a report about the students' weaknesses. i should not have asked my students which skills or topics they needed to study. i should have known these before we started the lessons." tutees. under the category of perceptions, tutees' awareness about their weaknesses in specific language skills and academic improvements was aimed to be searched if there were any. all tutees' needs were various; however, the most needed language skills were vocabulary and writing. in this language school, students have weekly vocabulary exams. the average vocabulary item they are responsible for every week is about fifty; therefore, efl learners need to study vocabulary items (with their definitions, antonyms, synonyms, other word forms, etc.) regularly. their statements in the questionnaire showed that they could study vocabulary items with their tutors, and their improvements positively affected their weekly vocabulary exams. however, the second most needed language skill, which was writing skill, was not improved according to tutees’ expressions. as stated earlier, not only tutors had some challenges in teaching this skill, but also tutees had some problems in learning it. thus, it was found that while tutees improved themselves in vocabulary, grammar, reading skills, they could not show the same improvement in the writing skill as they needed. “i needed help in writing skills, but our school requirements for writing tasks are different, and i thought that my tutor could not be helpful about this, so we did not study it. instead, we mainly studied grammar" (tutee, 13). apart from weekly vocabulary exams, efl learners have various exams for each skill, and the tutees' statements indicated that their exam scores got increased and they could pass another language level more easily. “this program affected my grades, and it helped me pass the exams” (tutor 6). some of the tutees indicated that their motivation increased and their attitudes toward school and lessons changed as they were involved in this program. “when our school gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 77 included me in this program, my thoughts about school changed positively. i got motivated a lot, and i studied more on the things that i could not understand” (tutee 6). some of the tutees suggested that they needed more hours to study with their tutors as they needed support in nearly each language skill. another suggestion was about the involvement of the students in this program. some stated that they started this program in the middle of the semester or when the semester was about the finish; therefore, they wished they were included or informed about the tutoring program at the very beginning of the semester. besides, one of the tutees suggested what the tutors suggested. they wanted their tutors to be informed about the language school program and the tutees' weaknesses beforehand. “it would be better if the tutors had known about the language school program and us more” (tutee 22). discussion and conclusion the interview results of the pre-service teachers showed that despite some challenges like difficulty in teaching writing, moderate level of self-efficacy, they all benefited from the program. although nearly all of them practised teaching in their practicum schools, it was the first time they had a chance to teach one-on-one, and the findings indicated that their experiences in these lessons were different from the class teaching. this finding supports the statement by haverback and parault (2008), who mentioned in their study that tutoring is a different experience than the practicum experiences for pre-service teachers as they have more chance to focus on the theories they are learning in their departments. some could use and internalise the theories, whereas others tried to apply their techniques to help their tutees. it can be said that they could test the theories' usefulness and practicality by doing hands-on activities, which was also concluded in the study by hedrick et al. (2000). moreover, in this tutoring process, it was found that pre-service teachers extended their content knowledge. this finding is in parallel with al otaiba (2005) results, in which the pre-service teachers almost doubled their language structure knowledge after 15 hours of tutoring experiences. another finding from the interviews of pre-service teachers showed that most of them had a moderate level of selfefficacy. bandura (2007) describes that perceived self-efficacy is “concerned not with what one has but with belief in what one can do with whatever resources one can muster" (p. 6). this description helps to understand that the pre-service teachers' belief is between what they can do and what they cannot. the questionnaire results of the tutees demonstrated that they were quite optimistic about the tutoring program. they improved their language skills and increased their exam scores. in another saying, their academic achievements were levelled up, which was one of the aims of the stakeholders. this finding is in line with the studies by al otaiba (2005), hedrick (1998), and juel (1996); in all these, the academic achievements of the tutees improved significantly. as concluding remarks, studies regarding tutoring one-on-one in language education are scarce within the literature; therefore, the researchers of this study wanted to contribute to the knowledge of tutoring in this field and conducted this study to investigate the opinions of the tutors (the pre-service teachers) and the tutees (the efl learners) who were involved in a tutoring program held by one of the private university's elt department and its foreign language school as a collaboration project. besides, inspired by the theory of zone of proximal gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 78 development (vygotsky, 1978), it was aimed to investigate whether only less experienced individuals learn better when they work in collaboration with more skilled persons. the findings of this study enabled the researchers to conclude that not only less experienced individuals (efl learners) but also more skilled persons (elt pre-service teachers) learnt a lot and improved their actual development level through this collaboration. for further research, setting a wellstructured (ellson,1976; rosenshine & furst, 1969) and controlled tutoring program may be suggested to contribute to the regarding literature richly. implications and limitations one of the implications of this study is that one-on-one support might have a high potential to increase the academic achievements of students who may have difficulties in understanding the topics taught in classrooms. however, expecting this individual support from teachers having full-time responsibilities may not be possible. as this is the case, institutions may provide some other solutions such as providing tutoring lessons with the collaboration of other parties to decrease the dropout risk and increase students' academic success. another implication is that education faculties may create opportunities for their preservice teachers to practice their teaching skills with different age groups and in different contexts before they graduate from their departments. in this way, pre-service teachers may have a chance to expand their teaching experiences and decide their future teaching groups accordingly. as stated, pre-service teachers generally do their practicums with elementary or secondary students; however, if they have an opportunity to study with adult learners, they may benefit from their teaching repertoire while shaping their careers. the final implication is that pre-service teachers are generally engaged with learning theories and techniques to improve their teaching skills during their university education years. however, as one of the tutors indicated that when they are asked questions that they are not prepared for, knowing and explaining the content knowledge becomes much more valuable. besides, not being able to answer the questions of their students may influence their selfefficacy adversely. that is why, rather than relying on the practicum experiences only, providing more and diverse teaching opportunities may contribute to pre-service teachers’ content knowledge and self-efficacy. as for the limitations, the results of this study are limited to this tutoring program held in this private university. to have a broad and deeper understanding of such programs' possible benefits and challenges, such tutoring programs should be implemented in more universities by including state ones. another limitation is that this tutoring program was carried out as a project and only once. by considering this, turning this project into a permanent program would be reasonable to understand whether it has consistent results in the following semesters. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 79 references al otaiba, s. 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(1978) mind in society. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1177/07419325050260040701 https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2007.26.6.641 https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312019002237 https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000006287390 https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000006287390 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.92.4.605 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.92.4.605 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-008-9077-4 https://doi.org/10.1080/19388079909558290 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0742-051x(99)00033-5 https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732305276687 https://doi.org/10.1598/rrq.31.3.3 https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v3n4p237 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0742-051x(01)00036-1 gündüz kartal, m., & atay, d. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 80 appendix a interview questions of pre-service teachers (tutors) appendix b the questionnaire of efl learners (tutees) advantages 1. did you have any benefits during this program? if so, what are they? challenges 2. did you have any challenges during this program? if so, what are they? efficacy 3. how do you evaluate your tutor’s knowledge and teaching efficacy during these one-on-one tutoring lessons? communication 4. how do you evaluate the communication between you and your tutor in terms of the teacher-student relationship? perceptions& suggestions 5. did this one to one tutoring program affect your academic success (i.e. exams)? if so, how? 6. in which skill (i.e. grammar, reading) did you need help most? was this program helpful for your needs? 7. do you have any suggestions? advantages 1. as a pre-service teacher, did you have any advantages during this one-on-one tutoring program? if so, what are they? 2. do you think your student had any benefits through this program? if so, what are they? challenges 3. did you experience any challenges? if so, what are they? 4. in which areas did you have problems? (i.e. vocab teaching, grammar teaching) 5. do you think your student had any problems during this one to one tutoring lessons? if so, what are they? self-efficacy 6. how do you evaluate your knowledge and self-efficacy during these lessons? 7. how efficient were you while answering your student’s questions? communication 8. how do you evaluate the communication between you and your student in terms of the teacher-student relationship? 9. how do you evaluate the communication between you and your professor, your instructor in charge? perceptions& suggestions 10. did these lessons affect your perceptions about being a teacher? if so, how? 11. do you have any suggestions for this program? focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 4, issue 2, 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: mertcanuney@gmail.com copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. efl teachers’ professional experiences in the southeastern türkiye amertcan üney bkenan dikilitaş aenglish language teacher, ministry of national education, düzce, türkiye, mertcanuney@gmail.com bprof. dr., university of stavanger, norway, kenan.dikilitas@uis.no apa citation: üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. (2022). efl teachers’ professional experiences in the southeastern türkiye. focus on elt journal, 4(2), 18-31. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.2 abstract although a number of english language teachers commence their professional careers in under-resourced and underprivileged regions, far too little attention has been paid to their experiences as an area of research, particularly in türkiye. this qualitative study investigates the concerns and challenges that english language teachers experience in the southeastern region of türkiye. the participants consisted of nine novice english language teachers in different school grades in state schools. interviews were used as a data collection tool. participants’ reflections and comments revealed teachers’ sociological and pedagogical negative or positive experiences after their appointment to şırnak in the southeastern region of türkiye. the findings of the study revealed context-specific challenges these teachers experience and how they deal with these challanges. implications are presented in line with the findings to guide administrators, teacher educators, and policymakers. keywords context-specific teacher challenges, underprivileged contexts, teacher development article history received : 31.03.2022 revised : 27.05.2022 accepted : 16.06.2022 published : 30.06.2022 type research article introduction when novice teachers are alone in the classroom, they experience “reality shock”, and/or “culture shock” (veenman, 1984). it is almost impossible to find a classroom or school environment exactly as described in books or by university instructors. most novice teachers struggle to adapt themselves to an unfamiliar professional environment (akcan, 2016) and some teachers may decide to leave the profession during this transition period. after their theoretical education and some practice at university, novice teachers are faced with the real world and “real” teaching life. lee (2017) observed that teachers might leave their profession because of adaptation and context-related problems, such as challenges with adapting to new school culture, or problems with colleagues or administration. darlinghammond (2003) mentions four major factors, which lead teachers to quit: salaries, working conditions, lack of preparation, and lack of mentoring support in the early years. flores and day (2006) mentioned the effects of experiences on novice teachers, stating that novice teachers’ former teachers play a key role in their career choice and their behavior. they take mailto:mertcanuney@gmail.com file:///g:/drive'ım/focus%20on%20elt%20(formlar%20ve%20makaleler)/felt%204(2)%202022%20haziran/kenan.dikilitas@uis.no https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.2 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8890-0799 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9387-8696 üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 19 former teachers as role models, which might shape their first teaching experiences, although this may have positive or negative influences. in contrast to these past influences, in-service teachers may believe that their more recent university education was not adequate to prepare them for different classroom environments and student profiles (akcan, 2016). the study seeks to understand novice teachers’ thoughts, expectations, and experiences, their views of support needed, their perceptions of their schools, and their plans. a qualitative approach has been employed; the interview is the only tool for data collection and findings leading to implications for administrators, teacher educators, and policymakers. challenges of teachers çakmak (2013) emphasizes the importance of the first and subsequent years. most research on the first years reveals specific problems, which can be categorized as; culture shock, instruction, students, parents, administrators, fellow teachers, and extreme feelings of isolation (ryan, 1974). the transition period affects personal and professional growth, and class management experiences are essential to survival and effectiveness during the first days (mcdonald & elias, 1983). in the final year of training, student teachers have the chance to experience how to teach, observed by a supervisor, an experienced teacher. however, this ‘controlled class’ environment is not a real classroom, because students are aware that the supervisor teacher has the control, and that misbehavior will be seen by the supervisor, who is also their ‘real’ teacher. also, there is a classroom culture already established by the supervisor, and the student-teacher will find it impossible to establish a new culture or new classroom routines and therefore has to continue with this pre-existing culture (ryan, 1986). it is important, therefore, that teacher education programs should be able to prepare teachers for any possible settings that they may encounter. challenges inside the class feedback from our participants shows that the general expectation from novice teachers is to be able to implement the knowledge gained from teacher training immediately on beginning teaching. however, faez and valeo (2012) argue that it takes time to apply the theoretical knowledge. after graduation, teachers encounter a different environment and a wide range of students. in akcan’s (2016) study participants mostly cite being inadequately informed or prepared for such workplaces. uztosun (2016) compared pre-service and in-service english language teachers’ efficiency beliefs in türkiye, finding that 50 participants out of 157 held negative beliefs about the effectiveness of their pre-service education. this study reflects the broader turkish context, but in this study, our is to find problems specific to south-eastern türkiye; there are cultural differences, and students’ and parents’ perspectives of english different compared with other regions. challenges outside the class in addition to educational problems such as motivating students, and classroom discipline, teachers can also experience some administrational problems. one of the problems veenman (1984) mentioned is inadequate or insufficient teaching materials, and teachers need the support üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 20 of the administration to resolve this, but principals might be indifferent or unconcerned towards this problem; on the other hand, administration expectations might be unrealistic, and teachers’ efforts may be overlooked, creating tensions (öztürk & yıldırım, 2013) which may affect teachers’ behavior inside and even outside of the school. kardos et al. (2001) discuss factors that affect the integration of novice teachers into the school culture. first, colleagues’ behaviors, and their interest in novices’ needs and concerns, can affect the degree to which the novice teacher feels welcome professionally. second, an important role in professional culture is played by how well the school is established. in a new school, they can contribute to the process of creating professional culture, but in a well-established school, their contributions may be ignored, and they may feel isolated. the third is how the novice teacher is introduced to school culture. support for novice teachers when efl teachers start to work in a different culture, whether in their own country or abroad, they mostly face students with different understanding levels, and need to adapt approaches accordingly. sometimes they may need to abandon the theoretical knowledge from the teacher training program and create completely new techniques and approaches. for this approach to succeed, experienced teachers should be involved in the process as mentors. according to feiman-nemser et al.’s (1999) research, mentoring is the most popular induction system, but unfortunately may only perpetuate traditional norms and practices, rather than promote highquality teaching (pp. 3-4). novice teachers who are left alone to cope with the problems of adaptation may give up on their careers (crookes, 1997; peacock, 2009). winter and mcghierichmond (2005) suggest that novice teachers and experienced teachers should collaborate. methodology research design and data collection tools this study employs a qualitative approach and case study to reveal the experiences, thoughts, feelings, and experiences of teachers in silopi about teaching english in underprivileged circumstances. grounded theory is implemented in the research, which provides researchers with methods consisting of systematic but flexible guidelines for collecting and analyzing qualitative data thus researchers can construct theories from the data (charmaz, 2014). this research is an in-depth analysis of participants’ teaching experiences; therefore, the case study method is followed. listening to participants’ stories was only part of the process, the stories needed to be put into context. by contextualizing the experiences, thoughts, and behaviors, we were able to understand their actions (seidman, 2006). we used the standardized open-ended interview method to gain “in-depth information pertaining to participants’ experiences and viewpoints” (turner, 2010, p. 754). we conducted three different interviews divided into different themes: first, teachers’ thoughts and experiences, second, the support they were provided and expectation they had, and third, their school contexts and future plans, which were conducted a month apart with each participant (see appendix). the most important thing in the interviews is how participants convey their stories. the language they use points to their degree of sincerity. teachers’ stories of their experiences üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 21 reveal their consciousness, and “it gives access to the most complicated social and educational issue because social and educational issues are abstractions based on the concrete experience of people.” (seidman, 2006, p. 7). we focused on the individual experiences and personal stories of the participants’ professional life. professional stories have great effects on reflective and interpretative thinking, regarding novice teacher’s educational life, especially when they share their thoughts and experiences with more experienced teachers (schatz-oppenheimer & dvir, 2014). for the ethics part of the research, the provincial directorate of national education granted permission for these teachers currently working in state schools. the participants were informed about the anonymity of the research. most of those approached were unwilling to be involved in the research, having doubts about sharing their experience in their workplace. interviews were conducted and recorded via phone calls from home, as this created a more relaxed and flexible atmosphere, and made it easier to converse. some participants preferred to send their reflections and comments by audio recording. three different interviews were conducted a month apart with each participant. this allowed participants time to reflect on their behaviors, which made the data more meaningful and understandable (seidman, 2006). interviews lasted approximately 20-25 minutes each. context and participants the study was conducted in silopi, which is a province of the city of şırnak in southeastern türkiye. silopi borders iraq and syria, and most of the people work in the commercial sector, e.g. in transport. the mother tongue in silopi is kurdish, and people learn turkish at school. the province does have many immigrants; in fact, local people resist immigration. there are direct flights only to ankara and istanbul, and there is one university in şırnak. people’s perspective on school and teachers has become more positive over the years. tourism attractions and opportunities for entertainment in silopi are very limited. the participants were chosen among newly appointed english language teachers experiencing a new culture and different living standards. the participants in this research can be categorized as novices according to farrell’s (2012) observation that those “who enter a new cultural context for the first time could also be considered novice teachers.” (p. 437). new assigned nine english teachers (4 male, 5 female) who have 0-4 years of experience have contributed to the research by sharing their valuable experiences. they teach at secondary school and high school levels. the number of the participants had to be restricted to nine due to compelling conditions of interviews that are conducted face to face and via phone because of the global covid-19 pandemic. data analysis in the research, grounded theory was used to explain the educational process of participants (creswell, 2012) to gain insight into teachers’ thoughts and experiences. audio recordings of in-depth interviews were transcribed for an accurate analysis. the first aim of this study is to gain insight into teachers’ thoughts and experiences and in-depth interviews are used to understand participant’s perspectives, meanings, and experiences, participants were chosen üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 22 from active teachers who have their first experience with the research topic that is one of the key characteristics according to charmaz (2014). while analyzing the transcribed data, redundancies were removed such as repetitive words or stumbles of the participants. however, the participants’ words remained unchanged. in-depth interviews created a great amount of transcribed texts out of 27 different interviews, which were transcribed approximately in two weeks. open, axial, and selective coding were used for the development of themes (cohen et al., 2005). transcribed data were coded to identify interviewees’ responses, feelings, and thoughts. codes were induced from the interviews to thematize overall findings. we first segmented data for the open coding phase, and then other categories were clustered with one central category in the axial coding phase, and finally, identified axial codes reduced to one core theme, which is the experiences of the participants (creswell, 2012). a three-stage interview we adopted in the data collection improved credibility, interviews were conducted in different months (seidman, 2006). the truthfulness and consistency in the answers of the participants in this study for the three different interviews provide very clear evidence of the situation of the participants (ary et al., 2010). three interviews are divided into different themes: teachers’ thoughts and experiences, their support and expectation, and their schools and plans to make it easier to focus on participants’ stories and experiences. three different interviews were conducted a month apart with each participant. this allowed participants time to reflect on their behaviors, which made the data more meaningful and understandable (seidman, 2006). interviews lasted approximately 20-25 minutes each. participants’ expressions are mentioned as “t1” which stands for “teacher1” and the interview number is mentioned as “int.1” in the findings section. findings challenges in the classroom after the participants were appointed, they started a new life in silopi. participants expressed that they encountered very different student profiles and schools than their expectations and experienced a range of professional challenges inside and outside the classroom. the novice teachers stated that their teacher education in the university was mostly based on theoretical knowledge. in the elt course books, classrooms were depicted with well-behaved, quiet students who are willing and motivated to learn english as a second language. however, after the teachers experienced real teaching, they saw the ideal classroom environment and students do not exist. t1, for example, reports that the experience was very different from the one shown in the university. in the university, they need you to feel like everything is so easy, teaching english is so simple, and you can use technology and everything but in reality, it is so much more different. there is a whole world between these two. “in the district, i am teaching there is no smartboard, there is no electricity at all, and there are always electricity cut-offs, i have many difficulties while trying to use technology because i cannot use smartboard or things that can be used with electricity. i mostly used whiteboards and some materials that i have prepared, and they do not teach this in college. this is the biggest difference.” (int. 1) for students, silopi does not offer good job opportunities unless students escape from the city. students’ world is their village, with little interaction with those beyond their local community. üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 23 televisions play a crucial role in their knowledge of the world. most of them lack ambition. male students are most likely to follow their fathers’ occupations, but female students are more likely to get married and look after children. as t2 expresses, students’ perceptions of learning english: they always want to graduate the middle and secondary school and they love going on. the family told them so because of that they take idols, their father, their mothers, their uncles, etc. so english is not the second plan for them it is the third or fourth plan actually in our society that is the people things that english is not an ok lesson. it's not an important one because we don't need it in every aspect of life, they say. (int. 1) student profiles may not match those in the university textbooks. every country, city, or region has its unique sociocultural structure, and approach to schools; lessons have variations across contexts. language education is seen as different from subjects like math and science because language is not generally a requirement for university entrance. this situation affects students’ motivation on learning a foreign language. teachers can feel frustrated when they try to use inappropriate techniques and approaches. in silopi, students’ motivation is very low, english is seen as an unnecessary burden, and consequently, the proficiency level is low. the teachers, making classroom management harder, also identified overcrowded classrooms as a problem. t7 has some complaints about the number of students “there is too much noise because of the crowd. there are forty students” (int. 1). t5 stresses overloaded classrooms in his school and the negative effects of crowded classrooms on his teaching: i have in one classroom more than 50 students. i have over 50 students. so, the techniques and the method you are taught at university sometimes can be useless during your teaching. so, you have to give feedback to the students individually and your lack of time. and you cannot achieve your plan in a very perfect way. sometimes you have to skip something. (int. 1) the biggest challenge in the classroom was the language barrier according to almost all of the novice teachers. silopi is in southeastern türkiye where the mother tongue is kurdish. kurdish-speaking children do not start to learn turkish until they begin school. this makes teaching english harder because most students cannot understand turkish. english language teachers appointed to this region start their career with this disadvantage. t1 says that “the biggest challenge for me is the language barrier because students always talk among themselves in kurdish” and she continues: i am a teacher in the elementary school and kids in this district learn turkish when they start school, they speak kurdish beforehand, so in the elementary school english language starts in second grade, but children don’t even know turkish well. so, trying to teach them english is much harder because i use english and turkish in the classroom, but they don’t understand turkish well. for example, last day i asked students open to their notebooks, i also mimic them, and showed them my gestures but they didn’t understand it. when i say notebook, they understand the student book and they open that. this is the biggest problem. (int.1) participants’ statements show that overloaded classrooms, unmotivated students, and lack of physical conditions are general problems while teaching in silopi. these languagerelated issues should not be seen as soft problems; on the contrary, they can pose disadvantages in education. üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 24 challenges outside of the classroom teacher education provides a great deal of useful knowledge about teaching for pre-service teachers, but there could be issues and topics that cannot be learned in university, including adapting to the environment of the workplace. pedagogy, teaching techniques, and methods can be learned to some extent, but culture, habits, traditions, social life, and people will always vary according to country, city, or village, which teachers need to adapt. this affects their professional life. şırnak is an underdeveloped city as is its district, silopi. political conflicts in this region have a major effect on the people; it has borders with iraq and syria, with their ongoing political upheavals. unfortunately, silopi is the first place to be affected by problems in these countries. most of the schools operate double-shift schooling; morning schools which are for secondary schools start at around 7 o’clock and finish at 12:30, and afternoon schools, which are for primary schools start around 1 o’clock and finish at 17:30, using the same building for both levels, especially in the villages. the study reveals how teachers spend their lives in silopi and how their working hours affect them and their thoughts on working in silopi in the future. almost all expressed their reluctance, and a desire to return to their hometown was very common. t1 does not intend to teach in silopi in the future because the environment is not suitable for her, after a long teaching day she has to attend seminars to finish her teacher candidate education: i get up mostly at five a.m. because i have to prepare for school and classes. i do not like to prepare in the evenings, do not have time for that. after preparing and getting ready, i go out at 7:20 and we go to school. at 7:40, the classes start a kind of tiring because we have to stay at school until 4 a.m. after school, we go to seminars, and workshops. they start at 6; it is a full program for me. i do not have much time to rest and go out, i just go to school, then eat something and go to seminars and just sleep actually. (int. 1) t8 does not complain about the working conditions or lack of facilities in silopi, but he is intending to return to his hometown: in my opinion, regardless of where who, and what you teach, the essence of the work never changes. if a teacher sees the eyes of their students light up and feel a sense of fulfillment, he/she can teach everywhere. as for me, in the future, i plan to teach in my hometown, isparta. because all of my family members and friends live there. (int. 3) t9 has developed a career plan, which involves remaining in silopi, she says “i want to be the headmaster in silopi. i believe that management has a very important role in increasing success.” (int. 3) none of the teachers thinks about continuing their career in silopi for different reasons. the reason behind this decision should be examined carefully for possible solutions. administration plays a key role in the school, responsible for the management of school, class and lesson arrangements, teacher adaptation, parent collaboration, and security. according to participants’ statements, an interesting administration is very valuable for them. they did not heavily criticize their administration, but noted some drawbacks, for example, ‘lots of paperwork’ is one of the problems frequently encountered. according to the findings, participants mentioned challenges including ‘lack of support’, ‘lack of understanding of the nature of language teaching’, and ‘heavy workloads with crowded classrooms. one of the critics of excessive paperwork is t5. he stresses the overcrowded classes and the paperwork this entailed: üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 25 i have told you before that i have more than 50 students in one classroom and dealing with all the students individually is a big problem with these things, you have to do paperwork. you have to prepare many documents and many things, and it makes an extra burden and extra stuff, too, that all these things. i think it should be limited. the teachers should do less paperwork to be more efficient in the classroom. (int. 3) farrell (2006) uses ‘collegial relationship” to describe teachers’ relationships with the administration and their colleagues. this study also focuses on teachers’ thoughts on their colleagues through the interviews. teachers’ room behavior example, is most likely to be noticed by novice teachers. colleagues play an important role in someone’s working environment. participants’ sentences are the proof of this statement. even a small grouping may disturb and cause a feeling of exclusion. t1 remarked that although some teachers are helpful, not all are so welcoming: the teacher’s room is a little bit more dramatic; i think. because there are mostly groups. people sit and talk with whom they get along, but you can see the groups very clearly and because i have just come to school, i am not just getting along with them that much because they have already built their groups. i just have to go there and talk to someone but they are not so friendly….there are some people i liked from the first moment, they try to be helpful also they’ve experienced the same things, they know what i feel, they are trying to help me to get over with. however, there are some people like the one who do not even say good morning, they do not just look at you and this just makes me feel angry. (int. 1) parents should be loyal supporters f teachers, because, without their support, the teaching process will be more challenging. they are responsible for students’ education after school hours, and this support can also affect teachers’ performance. in silopi, large families with relatively uneducated parents are common, resulting in neglected students in most schools. the mothers especially lack education because of their position in the culture of the southeastern region. t1 has a comment about women and mothers in silopi: local women don’t have a lot of respect in front of the local people because they treat women differently like the woman only works for giving birth. and these things always bother you. they don't treat teachers and other people who work there like that. but you can see that every day. and this always bothers you. (int. 3) as a result of crowded families and uneducated parents, there are many disadvantaged students, especially in the villages. sometimes students cannot buy the lesson materials or even a pair of shoes. t5 teaches in a poor district school and he says that: i have told you before that find the materials. they may not find any shop to buy the materials to buy some readers or something that you need…. the financial situation of the family is not that good sometimes. moreover, some children actually of them have no shoes to wear. (int. 3) answers of the participants to the parent-related questions show that they need and expect parents’ collaboration. it can be concluded that conscious parents can help to raise the quality of education. strategies to cope with these challenges and concerns teachers need to overcome the challenges to create a healthy learning environment with their limited sources. support is very important while dealing with these challenges. this support may come from families, administration, colleagues, and mentors. teachers’ professional development and shaping of their professional identity emerge from their coping strategies. after finishing university, taking exams, and passing interviews, a person is appointed to a state üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 26 school somewhere in the country. in this situation, the person looks for support from the environment. other than teachers’ families, the people in the teachers’ new school should be the first to offer help. without this, the adaptation phase could be very difficult. participants’ reflections and comments show much support was given during this adaptation phase. t4 indicates the helpfulness of the vice principal “if i want to ask something the first person that i usually go to vice-principal of the school. if he is not busy, he helps me and explains everything in detail that i need to know” (int. 2). this kind of management understanding is the key to the working environment, which will allow contented teachers; t8 also highlighted the positive effect of his administration: my school administrator has had a positive effect on me. if i make any mistake, he tries to be supportive, and friendly and he shows me how to struggle with a problem before they develop. for example, sometimes students’ parents behave rudely in an unexpected way, so i learn how to balance the needs and desires of parents. (int. 1) motivation is one of the problems mentioned. students of this region plan to start working rather than further studying. most students plan to follow their fathers into jobs such as truck drivers or tradesmen. this affects their motivation in the class because they see school as an obstacle. some see the benefits of graduating at least from high school, but even for these students, english is less important than math and science. to overcome this problem of low motivation, teachers try different techniques. one of these is to talk with parents, who are highly influential on students. another approach, taken by t8, is to give a motivational talk in the classroom: i talk to them about their futures and their goals, guiding them through their education route if they want to become a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher. they all have different goals, but no matter what their age or level, students must understand that they should try to speak english as much as they can, even if it is for simple greetings, requests, or statements. i want my all students to know english to increase their chances of getting a good job. (int. 1) mentors are another important group who can help a teacher to adapt to the working environment. when a teacher is first appointed, they seek help and support for adaptation. every school has its system and culture, which a newly appointed teacher must adapt. this includes the students, their habits even sometimes their language, like in silopi, which is kurdish, and not turkish. thus, if someone is new in this job, classroom management could be very demanding. teachers appreciate the efficiency of the mentor system in türkiye, but some have complaints about the paperwork involved. at this point, they also appreciate the help of their mentors. t5 says he was happy with his mentor, and t1’s candidate process is still continuing despite the burdensome paperwork, she is positive about the experience: my relationship with my mentor was good. moreover, he was a nice man and he did not cause so much trouble for me, he helped me, especially he helped me with some paperwork and with the process and he informed me of many things that i was not accustomed to. therefore, it was a nice process. (t5, int. 2) i am still a teacher candidate. moreover, it is frustrating because we have to fill a teacher candidate file and it is exhausting, and it takes a lot of time. besides that, my mentor is good at guiding and answering all my questions. moreover, she is not a strict person. this is a good thing for me because it just makes me more relaxed and it just helps me in any way. (t1, int. 2) in conclusion, we can understand that a mentor program is beneficial for novice teachers’ adaptation. although extra paperwork was a drawback, the support of the mentors üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 27 was a clear benefit for all the teacher candidates and novice teachers. professional development is a lifelong learning process, which leads to teachers adjusting their teaching according to the needs of their students with a significant effect on their professional growth (daloglu, 2004). teachers’ professional development begins when start shaping their teaching techniques and methods according to theories learned at university. after practicing in their pre-service training, they begin as novice teachers. in this process, they gradually shape their teaching and their professional development. teachers indicate differences between university practices and state school teaching experience. t8, for example, describes one of his practices in his university class: when i was a university student, i gave a lesson to my classmates. everybody was quiet, eager to learn and understand everything, as they know english very well. however, teaching english now, i mean in reality, teaching to your real students, i come across some teaching problems in the courses now, as i have never experienced this kind of thing before. (int. 2) it is understood that not all the practices prepare teachers for every type of student in türkiye. teachers from the west can experience unexpected events and meet with a very different student profile when they start their teaching careers. pre-service programs should therefore prepare teachers for every teaching environment. all participants try to survive and shape their teaching accordingly. their answers show that well-prepared and applied teacher education is very helpful for faster and better improvements. discussion teachers’ thoughts and expectations participants were nine english language teachers from different grades in state schools. their reflections and comments on three different interviews helped to portray the feeling of being an english language teacher in silopi. regarding the inside of the classroom, teachers mentioned different problems. they were disappointed with the real classroom conditions after their teacher education, finding that their imagined classrooms do not exist in real-life state schools. this finding shows a resemblance with akcan’s (2016) study, which indicates the need for comprehensive preparation of teacher candidates in teacher education programs. teachers realized that the expectation of motivated students in an ideal classroom environment conflicts with real-life (veenman, 1984). insufficient equipment is another problem, especially in the rural regions there are teaching material problems like lack of smart boards, projectors and even electricity cuts are not unusual. the success rate in underprivileged schools is lower than expected. teachers note the difficulty of classroom management and following students’ progress. they try to find novel ways to manage students in classes with approximately 50 students, where it is common to see students walking around and talking. we cannot expect motivated students in this kind of class, where even hardworking students lose interest. in öztürk and yıldırım (2013), almost half of the participant teachers in 8 provinces of türkiye identified classroom management as the most challenging aspect of teaching. all teachers mentioned language problems in the classroom, as an additional classroom management issue. all participants mentioned language as a challenge to healthy student-teacher communication. participants’ reflections and comments show that language challenge hinders interaction in the üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 28 class. since their mother tongue is kurdish, most students do not learn turkish until they start their formal education. teaching policies in türkiye are based on the average student and do not consider that student profile in this region is likely to be hindered because of the mother tongue. events outside the classroom are equally important as the inside. teachers’ social life, working conditions, working hours, and parents’ involvement in student progress can affect the classroom indirectly. the double-shift schooling system is very common, especially in the rural areas of silopi and most of the participants teach in the morning shift, which means getting up at around 6 o’clock to travel approximately ten kilometers to their village school, even though their school finishes at noon, they suffer from this uncomfortable routine. one of the biggest challenges is parents’ interest and attitude. participants expressed that parents ignore their children’s education, do not attend parent meetings, help with homework or follow students’ progress. teachers did not mention many challenges with colleagues, except being excluded from the conversation by groups of teachers. one of the teachers expressed discomfort about the lack of communication among teachers at her school, even regarding morning greetings. support and teachers’ plans all teachers attested the administration did their best to help with students or other school issues. other than administrators and colleagues, seminars are given by the district directorate of national education and mentor programs contributed to adaptation to the life in province and state school systems. the biggest complaints about this system were the paperwork for candidate teachers and the length of seminars after school in the evening. participants were happy to collaborate with their mentors and learn from their experiences. regarding professional identity, teachers tend to create their path in the struggle with the particular teaching environment and students. using english while teaching is emphasized in university, but is prevented by the language barrier mentioned before. because of insufficient opportunities and lack of space to develop themselves, most do not intend to continue their teaching career in silopi. they indicated their desire to move to other cities, and experience different teaching environments. lastly, findings revealed their perspectives on professional development and professional identity. silopi provides little opportunity for professional development. to study for m.a teachers need to get acceptance from a university in another city, and transportation from silopi to other cities is not regular. concluding remarks in this study, some implications are deduced from the experiences, thoughts, and ideas of participants currently teaching in the southeastern region of türkiye. according to teachers’ statements, administrators should be fair and equal to everyone in the school. their presence in the school provides confidence to deal with problems teachers encounter. findings show that a teacher finds a direct solution from an administrator, the teacher’s motivation increases, and their attitude to the environment improves. teachers’ expectation from administrators is to decrease the workload and create more time to prepare lessons and constitute a less stressful working environment. they should be the bridge between teacher and parent and be aware of üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 29 beginning teachers’ need for adaptation. participants revealed the importance of teacher education and that pre-service training was not sufficient for real teaching experience. findings show that participants were not prepared for their student profiles in the southeastern region. teacher trainers should consider that pre-service teachers should be prepared for teaching across the country or even, the world, and they need to be ready for any difficulties that could arise. teacher trainers should give more time and space for teaching practices and material development lectures to increase teacher confidence. findings of the research show that the mother tongue undermines progress when taking turkish language high school and university exams. this situation creates an unequal environment for students of the southeastern region. the illiterate student profile is relatively common in this region therefore; policymakers should focus on more appropriate curriculum and exam methods. moreover, greater parental awareness of the importance of education is necessary. policymakers need to consider this while deciding on education policies and they should consider teachers’ experiences and opinions. novice teachers can be trained to be equipped with speaking survival classroom kurdish language or arabic language in other districts of türkiye. this education can be provided as part of inservice training. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references akcan, s. 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(1997). what influences what and how second and foreign language teachers teach? the modern language journal, 81(1), 67-79. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1997.tb01627.x daloglu, a. (2004). a professional development program for primary school english language teachers in turkey: designing a materials bank. international journal of educational development, 24(6), 677-690. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2004.04.001 darling-hammond, l. (2003). keeping good teachers: why it matters, what leaders can do. educational leadership, 60(8), 6-13. faez, f., & valeo, a. (2012). tesol teacher education: novice teachers' perceptions of their preparedness and efficacy in the classroom. tesol quarterly, 46(3), 450-471. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.37 farrell, t. s. (2006). the first year of language teaching: imposing order. system, 34(2), 211-221. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2005.12.001 farrell, t. s. (2012). novice‐service language teacher development: bridging the gap between preservice and in‐ service education and development. tesol quarterly, 46(3), 435-449. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.36 üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 30 feiman-nemser, s., carver, c., schwille, s., & yusko, b. (1999). beyond support: taking new teachers seriously as learners. in m. scherer (ed.), a better beginning: support and mentoring new teachers (pp. 3-12), virginia: ascd. flores, m. a., & day, c. (2006). contexts which shape and reshape new teachers’ identities: a multi-perspective study. teaching and teacher education, 22(2), 219-232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2005.09.002 kardos, s. m., johnson, s. m., peske, h. g., kauffman, d., & liu, e. 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(1974). survival is not good enough: overcoming the problems of beginning teachers. ryan, k. (1986). the induction of new teachers. fastback 237. phi delta kappa, eighth and union. schatz-oppenheimer, o., & dvir, n. (2014). from ugly duckling to swan: stories of novice teachers. teaching and teacher education, 37, 140-149. seidman, i. (2006). interviewing as qualitative research: a guide for researchers in education and the social sciences. teachers college press. turner, d. w. (2010). qualitative interview design: a practical guide for novice investigators. the qualitative report, 15(3), 754-760. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2010.1178 uztosun, m. s. (2016). pre-service and in-service english teachers’ efficacy beliefs about teaching english at primary schools. i̇lköğretim online, 15(4), 1191-1205 https://doi.org/10.17051/io.2016.80068 veenman, s. (1984). perceived problems of beginning teachers. review of educational research, 54(2), 143-178. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543054002143 winter, e. c., & mcghie‐richmond, d. (2005). using computer conferencing and case studies to enable collaboration between expert and novice teachers. journal of computer assisted learning, 21(2), 118129. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2005.00119.x copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ üney, m., & dikilitaş, k. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(2) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 31 appendix interview questions teachers’ thoughts and experiences 1. please tell me about your journey from being a student to becoming an english teacher. 2. what were your thoughts to become a teacher in the past? did you always want it? what did affect your decision to be an english teacher? 3. how long have you worked in this district? 4. can you compare your teaching practices at university and teaching experiences in silopi? please explain with specific examples. 5. can you tell me your typical day at school? from the time you woke up till the time you sleep. 6. have you ever experienced any unexpected or striking event? 7. how is your relationship with your students, colleagues, and administration? 8. can you talk about difficulties inside and outside the classroom you experience? how do you overcome these difficulties? support and expectations 1. can you please give information about your student profile? what are your expectations from your students at the end of the year? 2. what kind of support do you get from your administration, colleagues, and parents? please give a detailed and specific example. 3. has your perspective changed on teaching english after you have appointed silopi? what were your expectations when you were a university student and what are your thoughts on teaching english now? could you mention some of your specific thoughts? 4. are you still a teacher candidate, if so how is your relationship with your mentor? if you were a candidate, how was your relationship? 5. what kind of school and administration would be an ideal one for you? please explain it with examples. 6. you get a bunch of seminars or you did in the past. does/did it have any effects on your adaptation to silopi? teachers’ schools and plans 1. what is it like to be an english teacher in silopi? 2. how do you express your thoughts on school culture? how do you describe your school when other people ask you about it? 3. every principle has a different management understanding. how would you describe your principal’s management and if you had a chance to give any piece of advice to him/her what would it be? 4. do you plan to teach in silopi in the future? if not, why? 5. what are your plans for teaching? how long do you plan to sustain this occupation? 6. would you recommend other teacher candidates to work in your school and silopi? do you have any advice to them? focus on elt journal vol 3, issue 2, 2021 issn: 2687-5381 🖂 corresponding author: sibelcanacar@gmail.com copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. an investigation into gender representations in an english coursebook sibel can acar ma, çanakkale onsekiz mart university, çanakkale, turkey, sibelcanacar@gmail.com apa citation: acar, s. c. (2021). an investigation into gender representations in an english coursebook. focus on elt journal, 3(2), 51-64. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.4 abstract since the stereotypical gender representations in coursebooks produce inequalities and lead to keep the existing inequalities in society, this issue of hidden curriculum was the focus of this study. this study aimed to investigate the four units of the elt coursebook “progress” in order to find out what occupational roles, leisure time activities and household activities are assigned to male and female characters, the proportion of male characters to female characters in images and how gender is positioned in the visual discourse. the results of the analysis reveal that the coursebook has positive messages in relation to gender representations but still has a sexist point of view in terms of the categories that were examined throughout the study. this indicates that there is an improvement regarding gender representations; yet, it does not present a fair representation of female and male characters in all categories. keywords gender, gender representation, elt coursebook, gender equality, gender stereotypes article history received: 16.09.2021 revised: 15.11.2021 accepted: 19.12.2021 published: 30.12.2021 type research article introduction “every human being is born with a sex and into a gender, which is a formation of roles molded by society and culture” (söylemez, 2010, p. 751). biological sex is formed by genetic and anatomical features, whereas gender is an acquired identity that is learned (yılmaz, 2012). gender identity is under everlasting construction with the influence of the factors such as family, school, media, and language we are exposed to (aydınoğlu, 2014). throughout the socialization process in society and culture, gender roles assigned to men and women by society form the basis of the development of gender identity. some of the psychological theories of gender identity development and gender roles are evolutionary theory (buss, 1995; shields, 1975), object relations theory (chodorow, 1989), gender schema theory (bem, 1981) and social role theory (eagly, 1987). according to evolutionary theories, gender identity development is related to the genetic differences between men and women. according to functionalists like shields (1975), the function of women is different from and complementary to the function of men. to fulfil these different and complementary functions which are necessary for their survival, men and women have evolved differently. as for sociobiologists (e.g., buss, 1995), different sexual and reproductive strategies lead to behavioural differences among genders. this scientific sexism gives the socially determined subservient and domesticated roles to women (bohan,1992). in contrast to evolutionary theorists, object-relations theorists put emphasis upon the effects of socialization on gender development. the early relationship between mailto:sibelcanacar@gmail.com https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.4 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5185-1807 acar, s. c. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 52 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com mother and child affects boys and girls differently (yılmaz, 2012). all infants “identify” with the female parent. the qualities the mother has are internalized by the infants to form their personality. thus, the feminine qualities of the women which reveal in their relationships with their infants form the core of the infant’s identity. also, since the mother fulfils the baby’s desires, the child associates all gratification with their mother’s presence (williams, 1993). however, to be able to learn the male role in the society and personality attributes related to that role, boys are forced to replace their identification with the mother with a masculine identification. they have to define masculinity as what is not feminine because adult men are absent during the walking hours of young children. thus, boys decry everything associated with the female role as inferior. this leads to the loss of their original, fulfilling attachment to their mother. this separation to develop gender identity as male devalues women’s role in the society (parsons, 1952). on the other hand, since fathers are rarely in intimate contact with their daughters and their mothers provide erotic gratification to them, femininity and heterosexuality lead to problems for girls. they have to accept men’s negative perception of their feminine identification and have to agree with financial dependency on men. (parsons, 1952). as for gender schema theory (bem, 1981), children develop their perceptions of gender roles depending how their cultures and societies define the roles of women and men. they internalize their perceptions which have become unchallenged core beliefs or a gender schema. eventually, to be able to incorporate their self-concepts into their gender schema, children will try to have the traits and behaviours that they consider suitable for their gender (yılmaz, 2012). finally, according to social role theory, there are communal and agentic dimensions of gender-stereotyped characteristics. domestic roles are generally regarded as communal and less agentic. women are seen in more communion. however, public activities are regarded as more agentic, less communal. this agentic attribute is associated with men (eagle,1987). all these psychological theories of gender identity development and gender roles give females and males gender-stereotyped traits, role behaviours, physical characteristics and occupations which affect men and women differently. for example, women are expected to work in domestic and less interesting jobs, to be passive, cooperative, caretakers, beautiful, slim and attractive whereas men are expected to do various adventurous, interesting and socially respectable jobs, to be aggressive, competitive and they do not need to look after themselves and pay attention to their physical appearances. both genders might be judged by how well they adapt these stereotypes, which leads to social and psychological pressure upon both males and females (yılmaz, 2012). in relation to the gender representations and roles, the feminist movement brought the concept of sexism into use to identify discriminatory practices and ideologies against women. in doing so, feminist theory aims to investigate how the representational systems of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class are mutually constructed in a given context, community, society or a field of study (demir & yavuz, 2017), and also aims to find out the instances of sexism which women are consistently disturbed (lakoff, 1975). schools as agencies of socialization have an important role in the process of gender identity development through modelling behaviours and skills (yılmaz, 2012). however, educational institutions and their teaching and learning materials are prone to sexism. therefore, the visual, verbal and other kinds of informational contents may change consciously or unconsciously the learners’ opinions and beliefs about their future roles and their choice of professional goals. for instance, if gender is presented through genderstereotyped images and verbal symbols, this modelled attitude may limit the potential of the children and what they want to be and to do. (bandura, 1971). these gender-stereotyped acar, s. c. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 53 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com images and verbal symbols might reinforce the existing inequality in society (sivaslıgil, 2006). as in the role of schools in forming gender perceptions, teaching materials, especially coursebooks, which are a significant part of curriculum and course development, have an impact on gender perceptions. coursebooks present the ideological content, genderbiased representations, and stereotypical features, which affect both learners and teachers’ values, behaviours, worldviews, and mindsets (söğüt, 2018). more specifically, elt coursebooks are considered as ideal tools for the embodiment and transmission of these contents through illustrations, subjects, example sentences, reading passages, questions and other activities (khalid & ghania, 2019). studies on gender representations in elt coursebooks show that there is widespread discrimination in favour of males who are presented as dominant, strong emotionally and physically and in a wider variety of social and occupational roles. in contrast to male representation, the female is presented as weak and inferior (khalid & ghania, 2019). since the 1970s, how gender is represented in coursebooks has been examined by many scholars in western countries (cincotta, 1970; hartman & judd, 1978; helinger, 1980, as cited in sivaslıgil, 2006). the findings of studies show that women and men are presented in traditional roles (sivaslıgil, 2006). yet, gender representation in coursebooks is an issue that has been recently paid attention to in turkey (sivaslıgil, 2006). the turkish ministry of education tries to exclude gender stereotyping and negative imaging of genders from the curriculum and coursebooks due to the fact that gender representations have a significant impact on the process of meaning-making and the development of the concept “gender” in children’s mind (demir & yavuz, 2017). to be able to examine how gender is portrayed in the elt coursebooks published by the turkish ministry of education, several researchers conducted studies (arslan özer, karataş & ruken ergün, 2019; aydınoğlu, 2014; bilgin, 2013; demir & yavuz, 2017; sivaslıgil, 2006; söğüt, 2018; yılmaz, 2012). sivaslıgil (2006) conducted a study that aims to investigate how gender ideology is presented through gender representations in 6th, 7th and 8thgrade coursebooks published by the ministry of education. the findings show that there is an imbalance in terms of the depiction of gender roles. nearly in all categories used in content analysis such as frequency of appearance, amount of talk, representations in family roles and other social and occupational roles, distribution of household responsibilities and spare time and leisure time activities, females were underrepresented. on the other hand, both genders performed an equal amount of strategies of turn-taking and initiating new conservation. yılmaz (2012) conducted a study on whether the textbook writers and publishers take the gender issues into consideration while revising the coursebooks. for this purpose, the recently revised elt coursebooks were analysed through comparing with their first editions in terms of presence of female and male characters, the number of characters represented as family members, distribution of occupational activities, division of household activities, variety of leisure activities and adjectives used to describe genders” (p. 79). the results show that the first editions of the coursebooks are prone to sexism whereas gender representations in the last editions are more balanced in all investigated categories. in the first editions, the imbalanced representation of gender might be the result of how people perceive the women in patriarchal societies. the balanced gender representation in the last editions may be the result of the changing perception of women in society due to the increase in educational level of women (yılmaz, 2012). according to the results of the study conducted by bilgin (2013), gender representations in the 6th, 7th and 8th grade elt coursebooks published by the turkish ministry of education are imbalanced in terms of occupational roles, power issues, and acar, s. c. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 54 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com domestic roles. this imbalance may affect the students’ self-esteem and self-image. similarly, the research results of demir and yavuz’s study (2017) show that there is no indicator of gender inequality in the coursebook series yes, you can published by the ministry of education. as for the study conducted by söğüt (2018), the high school english workbooks and coursebooks published by the turkish ministry of education were examined. the findings show that adjectives with negative connotations such as anti-social, alone, and stressful mostly are attributed to females and jobs related to indoor jobs such as waitress, housekeeper, nurse, and teacher are assigned to the female. male mostly perform more prestigious outdoor jobs such as astronomer, executive director, researcher, and climber. according to the report of the turkish statistics institute in 2013, 31.5% of human labour belongs to women whereas 71.6% belongs to men. the attribution of a narrower range of roles to females may be the result of these social facts and statistics which shape the values and viewpoints of members of the society. finally, arslan özer et al. (2019) investigated text characters and pictures of the primary school turkish textbooks through document analysis to find out how messages are given about gender. the results indicate that both genders are presented with both masculine and feminine roles. all colours are used for both genders. female characters are mostly depicted with dress, skirt, shirt and t-shirt. male characters are mostly worn with trousers, shirt and t-shirt. yet, the female wears trousers in their daily life. thus, the characters are presented with gender stereotypes. the number of male characters is more than the number of female characters in the primary school turkish textbooks. also, female characters are portrayed in more home-related pictures, which shows the division of labour is not presented enough in textbooks. in terms of physical appearance, females and males are depicted as not different among themselves. this may limit the gender perceptions of children and may cause them to act negatively and in a biased way towards individuals with different physical appearances. the findings of all these studies show that coursebooks are prone to sexism in terms of different categories and generally favour male characters in all categories. considering the upturn in gender stereotypes in the recently published elt coursebooks, there should be fresh research studies to show how gender is portrayed in elt coursebooks. for this purpose, the present study aims to investigate gender representations in the elt preparatory class coursebook “progress” published by the turkish ministry of education in 2019. in the light of this aim, the following research questions are answered within the scope of the study: rq 1: what occupational roles, leisure time activities and household activities are depicted for male and female characters? rq 2: what is the proportion of male characters to female in images? rq 3: how is gender positioned in the visual discourse? methodology research design to answer these research questions, a qualitative research method was conducted. the qualitative research method presents descriptive data which includes the detailed analysis of documents, photographs and scripts. bogdan and biklen (2007) state that “the data collected take the forms of words or pictures rather than numbers” in qualitative research (p. 5). in this regard, qualitative content analysis of visual and textual materials in the coursebook was employed for analysing the collected data. the content analysis presents information about acar, s. c. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 55 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com the written and visual materials through analysis, interpretation, summary, description and examination of those materials. materials the data of the present study was collected from the prep-year elt coursebook “progress” published by the turkish ministry of education in 2019. this coursebook was chosen because it has to be used by the prep-year classes at all state schools in turkey. the coursebook provides a data set of 413 pages. it has 20 units. however, since the time was limited to conduct content analysis for the whole book, in this present study, four units were chosen through purposeful sampling in the light of research questions due to the representation of samples for the particular categories such as occupational roles, leisure time activities and household activities. these units were unit 3a action (pp. 54-59), unit 5 celebrities (pp. 92-109), unit 15 sports (pp. 290-307) and unit 16c for household chores (pp. 322-327). data analysis content analysis was used to examine the gender representations in progress. content analysis is defined as the counting of the words, phrases, or grammatical structures within particular categories (dörnyei, 2007, as cited in söylemez, 2010). for this purpose, the four units of the coursebook were scanned for occupational roles, leisure time activities and household activities. these categories were based on the categories that were used in the previous studies mentioned in the literature review section of the present study. “leisure time activities or free time activities can be defined as activities which are performed in one’s spare time after work/school or at weekends” (yılmaz, 2012). the activities assigned to men and women might be stereotypical representations such as taking care of children, or performing indoor activities (reading, watching tv, cooking, etc.) for female characters; outdoor activities (playing football, riding bicycle and driving car) for male characters (yılmaz, 2012). in this study, the gender distribution of the activities was investigated. helvacıoğlu (1996) stated that female characters are assigned to domestic activities such as cleaning, cooking, shopping, child care whereas male characters are assigned to gardening and mending, which are outside activities. while investigating the distribution of household activities that are assigned to men and women, the statistics of tisk (turkish statistical institute, 2013) were also taken into consideration. occupational roles are also part of gender stereotypes. the results of other studies show that the female characters are generally presented as cooks, cleaners, housewives, nurses, teachers, etc. (bilgin, 2013). male characters are presented in high-status occupations as engineers, architects, athletes, writers, journalists (helvacıoğlu, 1996). in this present study, the occupations were categorized as traditional and non-traditional regarding the classifications by helvacıoglu (1996), arslan (2000) and the list provided by the united states department of labour (usdl) women’s bureau (2018). as for visuals, content analysis was conducted through analysing and detecting pictures and illustrations in all four units. content analysis was used for examining the proportion of the male characters to female depicted in pictures of the coursebook. for the third research question, gender presented in images was expected to be detectable. if the image did not show the gender of the character, this image was excluded from the analysis. acar, s. c. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 56 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com also, the activity was expected to be detectable to categorize the images. the images were entered into spss version 22.0 so that the frequencies can be analysed. the images were categorized in terms of sports, leisure time activities, work, and studies and research as they were categorized by the previous studies in the field, and in terms of female, male and together representations of the characters. findings and discussion rq 1: what occupational roles, leisure time activities and household activities are depicted for male and female characters? as it is seen in table 1, there are 38 occupations mentioned throughout the four units. twenty-four of these occupations are assigned to men whereas fourteen of them are assigned to women. the findings show that limited occupational roles are assigned to female characters in the coursebook when compared to male characters. similarly, demir and yavuz (2017) also reports that men are overrepresented in terms of quantity of occupations. according to the results of the study conducted by yılmaz (2012), male characters are presented to have more opportunities than female characters in the business. the findings of bilgin’s study (2013) also reveal that female characters in the coursebook are underrepresented when compared to males in terms of occupation. the number of female characters depicted as working women are less than male characters in coursebooks. according to social cognitive theory (bandura, 1971), modelling of female and male characters in the coursebook has an impact on the learners’ perceptions of their roles in society. therefore, this underestimation of female characters in the coursebook may lead learners to have misleading perceptions of the place of women in society. these misleading perceptions cause a lack of recognition of women in society, which makes most women still invisible (yılmaz, 2012). as it is seen in table 1, female characters are portrayed in more non-traditional occupational roles. the male characters are assigned to more traditional occupational roles than females. the findings indicate that non-traditional roles assigned to female characters outnumber those assigned to males. however, when these non-traditional roles of female characters are compared with occupational roles assigned to males, female characters are presented in occupations that are less paid and less professional. on the other hand, occupations such as doctor, soldier, scientist, author, basketball player and the other occupations traditionally assigned to males are still associated only with men. in the study conducted by yılmaz (2012), the findings demonstrate that female characters are presented in more non-traditional occupational roles compared to male characters in the coursebook. similar to the findings of the current study, these nontraditional occupations are less professional and less interesting than the occupations that are assigned to male characters. in another study, demir and yavuz (2017) found out similar findings in terms of the quality of occupations. table 1. occupations assigned to female and male acar, s. c. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 57 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com female male 1. student *** 1. student * 15. football player * 2. cabin crew *** 2. soldier* 16. wrestler * 3. musician **** 3. famous vlogger ***** 17. climber * 4. actress **** 4. scientist (x2) * 18. athlete ***** 5. model *** 5. molecular biologist * 19. weightlifter * 6. historian ***** 6. cosmologists ***** 20. author * 7. physics engineering **** 7. astrophysicist ***** 21. physician* 8. figure skater ***** 8. basketball player * 22. head of team * 9. sports analyst **** 9. child actor * 23. coach * 10. tennis player *** 10. photographer * 24. doctor* 11. athlete **** 11. choreographer ***** 12. traveller **** 12. costume designer ***** 13. lawyer **** 13. boxer * 14. gymnast **** 14. marathon runner * careers defined as „traditional‟ for males ** careers defined as „non-traditional‟ for males *** careers defined as „traditional‟ for females **** careers defined as „non-traditional‟ for females ***** careers that were not able to be defined for not being included in any of the classification tools. the reason for some of the occupations not to be able to be classified is that when the base (total employed, both sexes) is less than 50k, data pertaining to occupations are not shown by the usdl. leisure time activity is another category that is set to analyse coursebooks in terms of gender-based stereotypical representation of females and males (yılmaz, 2012). as it is seen in table 2, female characters do fewer activities to spend their free time than male characters. female characters do 17 activities and male characters do 25 activities in total. when the list of leisure time activities is examined, ‘playing football, basketball’ which are traditionally assigned to male characters in coursebooks are again assigned to male characters. ‘playing tennis’ which is usually associated with women wearing miniskirts (demir & yavuz, 2017; yılmaz, 2012), is associated with male characters in the current study. that makes it a common activity for females and males. yılmaz (2012) states that male tennis players who have been recently famous may be the cause of this change in coursebooks. female characters are presented to do ‘korean martial arts and karate’ which requires physical power. these non-traditional leisure time activities give positive indirect messages to the learners so that they can perceive these sports as preferable by both genders. ‘playing a musical instrument’ is an activity that is assigned to both genders. nonetheless, female characters are presented more to play a musical instrument or sing a song in the present study. according to yılmaz (2012), this is because of the fact that the female is generally accepted as more romantic and emotional in a gender-biased way. in the current study, ‘reading’ is assigned to male characters. contrary to that representation of males, the findings of another study (yılmaz, 2012) show that female characters are acar, s. c. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 58 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com presented to read because reading can take a person away from the problems of the world and female is the one who has the problems in society and family life. table 2. leisure time activities assigned to female and male interests genre female male sports 1. korean martial arts sports 1. riding a bike 2. roller skating 2. playing tennis (x2) 3. doing karate (x2) 3. swimming 4. exercising 4. gymnastics 5. combat sports 5. playing volleyball 6. riding horse 6. playing football 7. hiking (x2) 7. doing fitness 8. going to gym 8. racing as sprinter 9. climbing 10. riding a horse (x4) 11. hiking 12. doing exercise music 9. playing the piano (x2) music 13. playing piano or guitar 10. playing the cello 11. singing 12. keening on classical music books books 14. like reading hobbies 13. playing chess hobbies 15. discovering new places 14. dancing 16. visiting new countries 15. going to cinema 17. taking photographs 16. acting 18. trying out new cuisines 17. fishing 19. learning how to cook 20. collecting postcards from different countries 21. love sending postcards to friends and family members 22. playing video games acar, s. c. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 59 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 23. painting 24. dancing (x2) 25. rowing in the river (x3) as it is seen in table 2, female characters are presented to go to the gym. ‘going to gym’ is perceived as a sport which is performed by females to lose weight and to keep fit. yılmaz (2012) states that coursebooks present indirect messages supporting the gender-biased representation of women as giving importance to and taking special care of their physical appearance by aiming to be physically appealing. ‘swimming and doing exercise’ are generally assigned to female characters due to the same cause of going to the gym; however, the current findings show that male characters also perform these activities in the coursebook. activities such as ‘hiking, roller skating, going fishing’ are assigned to male characters in other elt coursebooks. the findings of the current study indicate that both female characters and male characters are able to perform these activities. on the other hand, dancing is an activity generally presented to be done by female characters; but in this coursebook, male characters are also presented to go dancing. similarly, cooking is associated with female characters in the coursebooks since it is accepted as a household activity for females (yılmaz, 2012). yet, the present study shows that ‘learning to cook’ can be assigned to male characters. riding a bike, which can be performed both to lose weight, and just to have fun, is shown to be performed by both genders. in contrast to the results of yılmaz’s study (2012), discovering new places and visiting new countries are only the social activities performed by male characters. finally, playing board games like chess is generally accepted as games played by family members. in these specific units of the coursebook, it is only assigned to female characters. however, the other units should be examined to reach a general conclusion. the last category to analyse the coursebook in terms of gender representation is household chores. the activities performed by the female and male characters are given in table 3. according to mkuchu (2004), the stereotypical household chores performed by female characters involve tasks such as cooking, cleaning and taking care of children whereas male characters carry activities out of the house; gardening, and mending (as cited in sivaslıgil, 2006). table 3. household chores assigned to female and male female male 1. cleaning kitchen 1. vacuuming carpets 2. cooking dinner 2. cleaning windows 3. doing laundry 3. watering all plants 4. cleaning cloths 4. changing cat’s lifter 5. folding the dried ones 5. ironing clothes 6. dusting shelves 6. taking out the garbage 7. setting the table 7. setting the table acar, s. c. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 60 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 8. tidying up bedrooms 8. tidying up bedrooms 9. changing beddings 9. changing beddings 10. cleaning house 10. sweeping the pathway 11. taking care of a baby at home 12. mopping the floor 13. mowing the lawn the results in table 3 demonstrate that household chores performed by female characters are approximately equal to those performed by male characters. when compared to the tasks of female characters, male characters are involved in activities outside the house; such as ‘mowing the lawn, watering all plants, taking out the garbage, and sweeping the pathway’. this distribution of household chores is also seen in real life according to the report of the turkish statistical institute (2013). the report proves that in real life, the male spends more time for gardening, repairing and construction, and also shopping than the female does. ‘changing the beddings, tidying up bedrooms and setting the table’ are the responsibilities of both male and female characters. similarly, sivaslıgil (2006) reports that these responsibilities belong to both female and male characters in the coursebooks. all tasks such as ‘dusting, cooking, doing laundry, cleaning clothes, etc.’ related to cleaning the house, are assigned to females. as for ‘taking care of a baby at home’, it is also assigned only to female characters. this shows that taking care of a baby is presented as the domain of female (mothers). finally, contrary to gender stereotypes, ‘vacuuming carpets, cleaning windows and ironing clothes’ are presented as the domain of the male. this may be the result of the involvement of women in the business world and changing roles of women and men in real life. rq 2: what is the proportion of male characters to female in images? porreca (1984) states that low visibility is one of the most analysed indicators of sexism (as cited in demir & yavuz, 2017). since illustrations are powerful tools for people to make sense of the world, the proportion of the illustrations make an important contribution to this process (vandergrift, 1997; as cited in sivaslıgil, 2006). according to the reports of the united nations population fund (2019), the world population has reached 7.7 billion. 49.6% of the total population in the world is female whereas 50.4% of the total population is male. more specifically, 50.1% of the total population in turkey is female whereas 49.9% of the population is male. these percentages of the total population in turkey and the world show that the number of the female population and the male population is almost equal to each other. in order to avoid a sexist point of view in the representation of females and males in the coursebooks, the visibility of the female and male characters should be approximately equal to each other (yılmaz, 2012). the analysis of four units indicates that there are 77 pictures which include human being. thirty-seven of them were excluded from the study since gender or activity was not detected. there are 40 pictures left to be analysed. fourteen of these pictures are female characters (35%) whereas 15 of them are male characters (37.5%). eleven pictures include both female and male characters together (27.5%). the visibility of both genders in visual discourse is approximately equal in terms of the number of pictures. similarly, demir and yavuz (2017) report that in terms of visibility in illustrations, both males and females are equally accepted as important and there is a balance. the findings of the study conducted by acar, s. c. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 61 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com söylemez (2010) also show that there is a near balance in the visibility of both genders in the coursebooks. rq 3: how is gender positioned in the visual discourse? 40 pictures were categorized according to the categories used in previous studies. table 4 demonstrates that male characters are presented to do sports more than female characters in the visual discourse. in these pictures, male characters are depicted as windsurfing, skiing, boxing, playing football, and running, which are traditionally assigned to males. cycling, riding a horse, and free-diving are performed by female characters. yet, in another picture, a woman is riding a horse while a man is walking beside the horse by holding the horse rein. the position of the man symbolizes the possession or the control over power in the picture (söylemez, 2010). male and female characters jointly perform sports such as skating, doing exercise, and hiking. table 4. the activities assigned to female and male in visual discourse gender total female male together activities sports 3 10 4 17 leisure time 5 0 2 7 domestic works 4 4 3 11 work 1 0 2 3 studies and research 1 1 0 2 total 14 19 15 40 in terms of leisure time activities, female characters are presented to knit, paint, do shopping and take photographs. similarly, söylemez (2010) reports that ‘painting, knitting and doing shopping’ are classified as only female activities. it is clear that the coursebook in question presents a sexist view in terms of assigning these activities only to female characters. yet, although ‘fishing’ is generally accepted as a male activity, this activity is presented with female characters. ‘going to the cinema and walking’ are jointly performed by female and male characters. however, as it is seen in table 4, male characters are not presented to do any leisure time activities. according to the report of the turkish statistical institute (2013), in turkey, the female spends 5.28 hours each day for domestic work whereas the male just spends 51 minutes for domestic work. in addition, the male is not involved in domestic works such as ironing, washing, and sewing. however, as it is seen in table 4, domestic roles are equally assigned to male and female characters. in the visuals, ‘cooking, gardening and taking care of children’ are jointly performed by male and female characters. there is just one picture that presents the role of the female as a mother and the role of the male as a father. laundry, dusting and cleaning windows are pictured with only female characters whereas mopping the floor and vacuuming the carpet are presented with male characters. in the distribution of domestic roles, it is seen that responsibilities are equally shared by both genders. yılmaz (2012) states that in spite of the fact that household responsibilities generally are associated acar, s. c. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 62 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com with female, male characters are depicted as helping with these responsibilities more frequently. as for the category ‘work’, in two visuals used in the coursebook, female and male characters are given together and are presented as radio reporters. the body posture and the position of characters such as sitting, and standing are important for the visual discourse because they are the indications of possible meanings (khalid & ghania, 2019). in one of those pictures, a male character and a female character are sitting next to each other and the male character engages in a conversation with the female character who seems to be listening. this may be due to males accepted as more sociable in terms of starting a conversation (bilgin, 2013). in the second picture which includes radio reports, the female character is directly looking at the viewer and her posture shows self-confidence whereas the male character is blurred and is positioned at the back of the female character. khalid and ghania (2019) state that only female characters are directing their eyes towards the viewer to create a demand for interaction. in another picture, female characters are presented as fashion models, which is traditionally assigned to female characters. finally, female characters are presented to be happy to do study or research whereas male characters are presented to be exhausted. conclusion the present study aimed to examine whether the elt coursebook published by the ministry of education presented any sexist point of view as a part of the hidden curriculum through text and visual discourse. to this end, the coursebook was analysed in the light of several categories such as occupations, leisure time activities, household chores, the proportion of female and male characters in the visual discourse and the activities depicted in the visuals. the findings show that there is inequality in terms of the quantity of occupations assigned to female and male characters. male characters are presented to be involved in occupational roles more than female characters. yet, female characters are presented to do more non-traditional occupations than male characters. as for the quality of the occupations, those who are assigned to female characters are less paid and less professional than the male characters. similar to the other studies (demir & yavuz, 2017; yılmaz, 2012), male characters are again associated with occupations that are traditionally assigned to them, and more professional. in the category of leisure time activities, male characters are presented to do more activities than male characters. in terms of sports, hobbies, music and books, female and male characters are depicted to do activities that are both non-traditional and traditional. some of the activities which are generally assigned to either females or males are performed jointly. this shows that there is a change in the representations of females and males in a positive way. the number of household chores done by either female characters or male characters is approximately equal to each other. although male characters are depicted in doing household chores than they were depicted in the other coursebooks, in terms of quality, they generally do tasks related to outside of the house such as gardening and mowing the lawn. similar to the findings of sivaslıgil’s study (2006), female characters are again under the burden of cleaning the whole house even if some of the responsibilities are shared by male characters. as for the analysis of the visual discourse, the proportion of the distribution of male and female characters are approximately equal to each other. the coursebook does not show acar, s. c. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 63 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com any sexist tendencies in terms of the visibility of both genders. however, the activities depicted in the pictures present some sexist point of view. in terms of sports, male characters perform sports that require physical power or are traditionally assigned. female characters are presented to do both traditionally and non-traditionally assigned sports. as for leisure time activities, female characters are presented to knit, paint and do shopping. this representation of females in the coursebook is part of a sexist point of view. yet, male and female characters are presented to go to the cinema and to walk together. there is no picture including only a male who performs leisure time activity. fishing is performed by female characters although it is seen as a male activity. there is an equal distribution of domestic roles in visual discourse. in the whole units that were examined in this study, there is just one picture that includes a mother and a father. they are depicted as sharing the responsibility of taking care of children. in terms of the category of ‘work’, males and females are depicted together; however, the postures of them in the picture gain importance. in one of the pictures, the male character seems more dominant whereas, in the other, the female seems dominant. when these pictures were examined in terms of the way that they look at the viewer, the female character is looking directly at the viewer because they demand for interaction. this representation is also part of a sexist point of view. the present study investigated four units of the elt coursebook called ‘progress’. the rest of the units should be investigated to be able to portray the overall state of sexism in the whole coursebook. since the current study examined the coursebook through limited categories such as occupations, leisure time activities, domestic roles and visuals, further research might investigate how the amount of talk and turn-taking are distributed. on the other hand, the teachers and students’ evaluation of activities in terms of gender representation might be the focus of further studies. school is an institution where our identity, skills, and characteristic features are developed. this place reinforces and constructs feminine and masculine gender roles. the materials and the curriculum used in that institution present these roles in a hidden and complicated way (arslan, 2000; as cited in söylemez, 2010). the coursebooks have an important role in forming our view of self, society, culture, and a country. they reflect political and social states of the culture and needs, norms and values of a society and educational priorities. in doing so, the coursebooks present a point of view to their readers. the stereotypical gender representations in coursebooks produce inequalities and help to maintain the existing inequalities in society. as can be depicted from the findings, coursebooks still have stereotypical gender messages. to be able to exclude these sexist points of views from the coursebooks, the ministry can train the coursebook writers to consider gender stereotyping, how it is presented in visual and text discourse, how the proportion of male and female characters depicted in the coursebooks affects the sexual stereotyping. these studies that rely on the subject of gender representations in the coursebooks can be a guideline for the training programmes. references arslan, ş. a. 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(master thesis). the graduate school of social sciences of middle east technical university, ankara. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.88.4.354 https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.50.3.164 https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.631510 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0076948 https://doi.org/10.17240/aibuefd.2018.18.39790-471184 http://kasaum.ankara.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/sites/34/2013/02/toplumsal-cinsiyet-istatistikleri-2013-tuik.pdf http://kasaum.ankara.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/sites/34/2013/02/toplumsal-cinsiyet-istatistikleri-2013-tuik.pdf https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm focus on elt journal vol 4, issue 3, 2022 issn: 2687-5381 🖂corresponding author: ersin.balci@ogr.deu.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. economics keyword lists: a comparative corpus study for esp1 ªersin balcı bi̇rem çomoğlu a phd candidate, dokuz eylül university, i̇zmir, türkiye, ersin.balci@ogr.deu.edu.tr b assoc. prof. dr., dokuz eylül university, i̇zmir, türkiye, irem.kaslan@deu.edu.tr apa citation: balcı, e. & çomoğlu, i̇. (2022). economic keyword lists: a comparative corpus study for esp. focus on elt journal, 4(3), 34-45. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.3.3 abstract english-medium instruction (emi) and english for specific purposes (esp) go hand in hand in higher education, and the demand for those has risen significantly over the last two decades. studying in an emi economics program requires a certain level of language proficiency. in most cases, students in these programs are provided with additional language support in the form of an esp program. mastering in an emi economics program challenges students with a number of new and often technical words. corpus linguistics is, therefore, one of the great tools to answer the vocabulary needs of esp students. while coxhead’s (2000) academic word list (awl) has been a satisfactory source for academic programs, its being too limited for diverse academic fields has also been criticized. in the current corpus-based study, two separate field-specific keyword lists – (1) economics textbook keyword list (etwl) and (2) the economist magazine keyword list (emwl) were created and the coverage of the awl in these lists was measured. the correspondence ratio between the etwl and the emwl was also measured and reported by percentages. in the light of the results, it is argued that the awl on its own may not be a sufficient source for students of economics and language given in non-academic authentic materials should also be placed in corpus and curriculum design. thus, for the vocabulary needs of esp students in an emi economics program, it is substantially important that a keyword list covering both academic and non-academic contexts be provided. keywords english for specific purposes, students of economics, corpus linguistics article history received : 31.08.2022 revised : 10.10.2022 accepted : 07.11.2022 published : 30.12.2022 type research article introduction the englishization (kirkpatrick, 2011) of higher education is not a new phenomenon but a growing trend in the era of globalization. more english-medium instruction (emi) programs have tremendous gains for the universities. beyond its educational benefits, emi – the use of english (for example, sole use, partial use, code-switching, and so on) to teach academic subjects in countries where the first language of the majority of the population is not english (macaro & akincioglu, 2018, p. 254) is often driven by economic, political and social forces (wilkinson, 2013). along with the bologna process and the erasmus+ program (the eu 1 this study is part of the wider phd thesis conducted by the first author. mailto:ersin.balci@ogr.deu.edu.tr mailto:ersin.balci@ogr.deu.edu.tr mailto:irem.kaslan@deu.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.3.3 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6845-7283 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0186-9122 35 balcı, e. & çomoğlu, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com program for education, training, youth, and sport), the number of universities pursuing to attract international students soared dramatically, which increased competition among universities for international mobility (graddol, 2006; turhan & kirkgöz, 2018). in addition to its political and economic reasons, the hegemony and functional power of the english language is also an incentive force for parents who think that emi results in improved employment opportunities because it improves english proficiency (al-riyami & dayananda, 2022). setting up an emi program or converting existing ones may not always be a simple transition. this shift comes with new challenges and requires thorough preparation and ongoing assistance. in a typical emi program, language-related difficulties are often encountered, and various solutions have been in place. esp (english for specific purposes) programs are prominently one of the methods to assist emi learners in overcoming language-related difficulties and being better equipped for the emi program. esp is about “teaching and learning of english as a second or foreign language where the goal of the learners is to use english in a particular domain” (paltridge & starfield, 2013, p. 2). designing an esp course and other aspects of needs assessment procedures brings up one major question; “what to teach?”. in this vein, the importance of outlining specific lexical and structural elements of targeted language comes to the fore. communication is constructed through four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. however, the required vocabulary is fundamentally indispensable for this cognitive act (laufer & nation, 1995; lestari & hardiyanti, 2020). it is well acknowledged that corpora and (key)word lists are useful resources for teaching students to expand their vocabulary (ma & kelly, 2006; read, 2000; schmitt, 1997). it may even be problematic to design the target vocabulary for general english programs and their coverage in the well-known general service word lists (benson & madarbakus-ring, 2021). therefore, creating a keyword list for a specific program requires careful consideration of a number of factors. the well-known academic word list (awl) (coxhead, 2000) may be expected to cater for the needs of the students at the tertiary level. however, the awl has received harsh criticism for being too general and for limiting the exposure unique to certain subject fields (hyland & tse, 2007; paquot, 2007). within economics, how relevant and sufficient the materials provided by university programs is another question yet to be answered. in other words, it should be asked whether the language the students are engaged in their emi program complies with real-life requirements. the question of whether and to what extent the language introduced in academic programs enables learners to comprehend authentic materials (e.g., the economist or news portals) should also be investigated. thus, this study aims to generate two keyword lists; (1) economics textbook word list-etwl and (2) the economist magazine word list emwl for the economics esp program in a turkish university context. additionally, the coverage of the awl in these keyword lists and the correspondence level between the etwl and the emwl are going to be investigated. esp and needs analysis the acronym esp first surfaced as a brand-new phenomenon for elt researchers in the 1960s. the quick changes in the post-war environment led to its birth and rising popularity. after the second world war, nations underwent significant transformations that ushered in a more globally interconnected world. the advancements in commerce, transportation, science, and technology, as well as the money flowing backwards to oil-rich nations and the economic and scientific advancements in the far-east countries, contributed to the creation of esp. human intelligence needed to expand, and individuals needed to learn the universal language quickly and with a specific concentration (hutchinson & waters, 1987). 36 balcı, e. & çomoğlu, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com esp simply means teaching english to learners whose actual purpose is to use the language in specific educational or vocational settings. when, where, and why learners require the language in academic or professional contexts are the main foci of esp (dudley-evans & st john, 1998). considerations of how language is used in the specific situations the learners will be working or studying in are used to make judgments about what to teach and, in some cases, how it is taught. esp is a comprehensive language teaching approach that goes beyond only being connected with a particular language, teaching style, or course topic (hutchinson & waters, 1987). accordingly, anthony (2015) argues that esp is a complete approach for foreign language teaching targeting learners' future needs (language, skills, discourse, and genre) in both academic and work settings. whether the needs of a tour guide and those of a university student in an english-medium tourism department are the same may need to be addressed in light of the common argument suggesting that esp must be developed around the individual and professional needs of the learners. these two distinct contexts under a specific field may have different practical goals, classroom practices, genres, and language styles. likewise, the acronym eap (english for academic purposes) could also cause some misunderstandings since one could assume that all disciplines at the university level are ultimately academic degrees. as it was in hutchinson and waters (1987), esp is split into two main divisions, eap (english for academic purposes) and eop (english for occupational purposes) (anthony, 2018; robinson 1991). however, since esp is an indefinite phenomenon, these two main divisions can be further subdivided into numerous more (e.g., english for general academic purposes (egap), english for professional purposes (epp) (anthony, 2018). the first phase in the course development circle of esp is the needs analysis, which is the methodical investigation of what learners require to function in the intended communication setting (woodrow, 2018). similarly, brown (2016) suggests that a defensible curriculum must be defined and validated by systematically gathering and evaluating all relevant data, which is what needs analysis entails. in essence, the needs analysis phase forms the basis of the esp course design (anthony, 2018; baştürkmen, 2010; flowerdew, 2013; hutchinson & waters, 1987; robinson, 1991; west, 1997). what distinguishes it from the design of general english courses is undoubtedly the analysis of the clear and particular needs of esp (flowerdew & peacock, 2001). esp needs analysis is evolving into a more specialized and customized phenomenon due to a growing trend (flowerdew, 2013). in other words, a needs analysis should be undertaken case-by-case based on your desired context and the kind of information needed (johns & price-machada, 2001). in an esp course design, “instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, it is more defensible to view every course as involving specific purposes, the difference in each case being simply the precision with which it is possible to identify current or future uses of the l2” (long, 2005, p. 10). as to the question of “what to teach?” in an esp course, the corpus comes to the fore as the cornerstone of the course design. since many ready-made esp materials do not match the learners’ unique or local needs in particular subject areas (baştürkmen & bocanegra-valle, 2018) and large-scale corpora with general characteristics are often unrelated to the needs of students (nelson, 2000), esp instructors are more likely to create their own corpus to meet the demands of students. corpus linguistics as to the question of “what to teach?”, the corpus comes to the fore as one of the pillars of esp course design. since many ready-made esp materials do not match with the learners’ unique 37 balcı, e. & çomoğlu, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com or local needs in particular subject areas (baştürkmen & bocanegra-valle, 2018), and largescale corpora with general characteristics are often unrelated to the needs of the students (nelson 2000), esp instructors are more likely to create their corpus to meet the demands of students. corpus is simply a collection of texts through which one can search for certain word specifications (e.g., frequency, keyness, etc.) for both vocabulary teaching and research. for instance, comprehensive corpus studies may inform the scope of textbooks’ vocabulary and the listings in dictionaries (garcia, 2014). teachers can also develop a tailor-made corpus or use ready-made ones to shape their curriculum and lesson content (bennett, 2010). in short, although its popularity has accelerated in recent years, corpus linguistics has been a fundamental research area guiding foreign language teaching, specifically esp for a long time. generating and organizing a discipline-specific keyword list is of paramount importance for course designers, teachers, and other stakeholders in an esp context. such a keyword list refers to the vocabulary items which are distinctively frequent in certain fields (coxhead & nation, 2001). as a primary example, coxhead’s (2000) academic word list (awl) has been a substantial source for esp/eap programs for almost two decades (schmitt & schmitt, 2005; wells, 2007). the question of how appropriate the awl is for the fields having distinctive lexical items has remained on the agenda of esp, and some criticism has been voiced for its validity and comprehensiveness. for example, in their study, hyland and tse, (2007) argue that “the awl might not be as general as it was intended to be” (p. 235) and the assumption that eap learners only need one set of vocabulary could be misleading. in another study targeting to compare the coverage of the awl in the medical research articles (chen & ge, 2007), the ultimate results suggest that while there is a good degree of match between the awl and the medical research articles, the awl list seems to be far from complete in representing an overall picture of the frequently used academic words in medical research articles. nonetheless, coxhead’s awl has been a cornerstone and reference while developing field-specific word lists (chen & ge, 2007; konstantakis, 2007; o’flynn, 2019; valipouri & nassaji, 2013; vongpumivitch et al., 2009). to cater for the needs of key vocabulary for certain fields, a number of studies have been carried out, and their coverage with the awl has been investigated widely. in particular, konstantakis (2007) conducted a corpus study to generate a keyword list for the field of business, and the results suggested that the awl covers only 4.6% of the business english corpus, while another similar study in the field of agriculture, (martinez et al., 2009) showed a higher degree of correspondence between discipline-specific agricultural corpus and the awl with 9.06%. regarding the social sciences and educational fields, two similar studies in the literature have investigated the coverage of the awl in unique discipline-specific corpora, namely applied linguistics (vongpumivitch et al., 2009) and education research papers (mozaffari & moini, 2014). the coverage levels of these corpora were only 11.17% and 4.94%, respectively. in a more recent study, xodabande and xodabande (2020) investigated the weight of the awl in the specifically designed corpus generated from psychology research articles. the findings revealed that the coverage of the awl is 13.44%. in relation to the current study, the coverage of the awl in the fields of economics and finance has been addressed in a number of corpus-based research studies. tongpoon-patanasorn (2018), for instance, reported that the awl is covered only by 10.52% in khon kaen university business english (kku be) corpus. similarly, the study of li and qian (2010) revealed that the coverage ratio between the awl and hong kong financial services corpus (hkfsc) is 10.46%. o’flynn (2019) reported that the awl is covered by only 13.5% in another corpus study generated from open open-access journals. 38 balcı, e. & çomoğlu, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com there have been efforts to clarify the weight of the awl in several studies, which eventually suggest that while the awl coverage is, to some extent, satisfactory for some fields, for some others, it is nowhere near complete to cover the academic/technical needs of learners. given that the awl is no longer deemed a general word list that fits all academic programs, the need for a tailor-made discipline specific word list has been brought out (hyland & tse, 2007). besides the negative correspondence between the awl and large-scale discipline specific keyword lists, regional and curriculum related differences may also occur. the subject and language scope of academic programs may vary, and whether the students are exposed to the required language throughout their academic program can only be answered through inhouse inquiries or case studies. that is, what a university offers to students in a certain field may or may not be a fully comprehensive source. regarding the nature of the field of economics, the investigation of language features from textbooks, academic journals, and dissertations may not be adequate as the field is innately multi-disciplinary and has close relation with business, political science, sociology, and psychology. therefore, what a tertiary level economics student will come across in the long run of their future career (academic or non-academic) should be on the agenda of a language course design and, naturally corpus development. having all these in mind, this research study aims to investigate the coverage of the awl both in the keyword list generated from the economics course textbook (etwl) used in a state university in turkey and in the one generated from the economist magazine (emwl). additionally, investigating the correspondence level between the etwl and the emwl is also the goal of the current study. in this corpus-based study, the following research questions are going to be addressed: 1. what is the coverage of the awl in the economics textbook keyword list (etwl)? 2. what is the coverage of the awl in the economist magazine keyword list (emwl)? 3. what is the correspondence ratio between the etwl and the emwl? methodology the context and compiling of the corpora the corpora used in this study were developed to inform the esp program for the englishmedium economics program in a state university in the west of turkey. developing a satisfactory corpus requires meticulous organization of several steps. as for the first step in this current study, selecting and collecting the text data was guided by the overall needs analysis process and by subject specialists as an informant. after consultation with the professors in the economics program, the main textbook used in the introduction to economics course was decided to be a comprehensive source to base the corpus analysis for the esp program. with regards to issues of representativeness and sampling, in light of the instruction of the course professors, the economics textbook the principles of economics (case et al., 2012) with 501.136-word tokens was considered to be sufficient to cater for the vocabulary needs of economics students. given that the research and context range of economics is not solely limited to university course materials, and in line with the recommendations of the professors in the related department, we decided to construct another corpus to provide more inclusive language support and comprise the features of the living language of economics (refers to the language presented in magazines and news). to provide more up-to-date language patterns, we compiled 101 issues of the economist magazine from 2019, 2020, 2021 with 6.731.602 tokens. the final step of compilation was to convert the collected content into a set of data to be processed in the corpus analysis program antconc v.4.1.1 (anthony, 2022). before converting the pdf files into 39 balcı, e. & çomoğlu, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com analyzable txt formats, we excluded the noise, removing the irrelevant part of the data (for instance, ads, bibliography, etc.). this enabled us to gather more accurate data fitting for the scope of our research questions. data analysis and creating word lists the corpus analyzer program's keyness feature was utilized to create the two keyword lists (etwl and emwl). the corpus analysis software antconc v.4.1.1 (anthony, 2022) was used to generate a word list based on frequency given in the data collected. antconc is a free corpus analysis program to create word lists based on frequency/keyness etc. and to reveal vocabulary patterns in given electronic text data. once the txt format data files were uploaded to the program, an extensive word list was generated. as for the goal of the study, to be able to create a keyword list, that is, listing down the unusually frequent words compared to a general word list or corpora the british national corpus (bnc) as the reference corpus was uploaded. by having the bnc as the reference, the program sought for the unusually frequent words in the uploaded data and came up with two unique keyword lists, namely economics textbook keyword list (etwl) and the economist magazine keyword list (emwl). this is a statistical technique which is simply based on log-likelihood statistics of the words. before finalizing the keyword lists, we ran through a manual filtering process which allows tossing out practically irrelevant words even though they statistically seem unusually frequent (e.g., country names, politician names, acronyms). when the large keyword lists are made available to use, the key question is to decide the cut-off point of the lists. in other words, setting a cut-off point is to decide on the lowest level of frequency or keyness. the words which were listed below that level are to be excluded from the ultimate keyword lists. as the size of corpora varies, deciding a threshold level is problematic and often arbitrary. the most common method is to pick highest ranking words in terms of either keyness or frequency (pojanapunya & todd, 2016). in this study, considering the scope and length of the esp program and based on the keyness values, we selected the top 250 words to be in the ultimate keyword lists. as to the investigation of the coverage of the awl in the etwl and the emwl, antwordprofiler v.2.0.1 (anthony, 2022) was used. it is a free software available to analyze the vocabulary level and text complexity. in the program, the general service word list (gsl most frequent 1000 and 2000 sets) and coxhead’s awl are readily embedded. the program enables researchers to compare any corpus or keyword lists against the gsl/ awl or any other reference corpus. as for the current study's research questions, the awl coverage in the etwl and the emwl was analyzed and reported by percentages. results to answer the study's research questions, the initial task was to generate keyword lists for two separate text data, namely, the economics textbook of the academic program and 101 issues of the economist magazine. as for the etwl, a sizable keyword list was created out of 501.136 word tokens, and the top ranked 250 words were selected to be in the final form of the keyword list. finally, some examples of the etwl were presented with keyness values in table 1. 40 balcı, e. & çomoğlu, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com table 1. examples of keyword analysis for etwl word keyness value word keyness value output 13625,9 households 4595,94 labour 13433,85 capital 3998,32 curve 9745,43 tax 3241,2 demand 9542,87 consumption 2937,96 supply 7532,36 interest 2932,08 rate 7347,82 downturn 2602,50 marginal 6511,02 intermediary 2502,41 aggregate 6410,55 inflation 2458,68 equilibrium 5456,63 utility 2228,43 goods 4955,68 slope 1250,71 regarding the emwl, a keyword list was generated from the corpus of the economist magazine out of 6.731.602 word tokens, and the top-ranked 250 words were chosen. in addition, some examples of the emwl were also presented with keyness values in table 2. table 2. examples of keyword analysis for the emwl word keyness value word keyness value profit 992,78 demand 822,84 immigration 950,66 equity 813,7 commerce 947,44 subsidy 797,99 vaccinate 908,48 fund 797,97 poverty 904,43 tariff 795,29 capitalization 891,01 tax 755,95 forecast 878,91 conflict 704,55 roughly 871,51 inflation 657,64 boom 858,77 democracy 651,38 regime 844,39 retail 596,52 as for the first research question, the coverage of coxhead’s awl was measured through antwordprofiler, and the weight of the awl in the etwl was reported to be only 19,70%. less than one-fifth of the words listed in the etwl were also included in the awl (see figure 1). 41 balcı, e. & çomoğlu, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com figure 1. the coverage of the awl in the etwl the second research question, likewise, aimed to find out the coverage of the awl in the emwl. as shown in figure 2, the coverage of the awl in the emwl is only 14,40%. in other words, the awl is represented in the emwl by less than 37 words when it is calculated over the top 250 words. figure 2. the coverage of the awl in the emwl the third research question of the study was set to investigate the correspondence level of two discipline-specific keyword lists. as discussed previously in the methodology section, one of the substantial inquiries of this study was to find out how related the corpus of a tertiary level economics program and non-academic real economics contexts (here refers to the corpus of the economist magazine). therefore, two keyword lists were again compared through antwordprofiler by setting one as the reference corpus and measuring correspondence level. the results revealed, as it is shown in figure 3, that the similarity ratio of two discipline-specific keyword lists is 15,24%. figure 3. the correspondence ratio between the emwl and the etwl 42 balcı, e. & çomoğlu, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com discussion the needs of the students in an esp program or a tertiary level academic program are a significant matter to inquire into. relatedly, corpus studies provide very rich data for course developers and enable researchers to unearth what is elusive. while having a list of words that fits the needs of learners in certain fields sounds promising, it should also be questioned whether the level of correspondence is satisfactory. one of the earlier and solid attempts to unveil the key vocabulary for academic context was coxhead’s (2000) academic word list. considering the fact that any tertiary level program has academic roots, the awl is expected to be the core of the language for such programs. therefore, as it was investigated in various studies, the current study questioned the coverage of the awl in the keyword list generated from the textbook of the economics program, and the ratio was reported be 19.70%. several previous studies, for example, tongpoon-patanasorn’s (2018) study found that the awl is covered by 10.52% in khon kaen university business-economics corpus. similarly, o’flynn’s (2019) corpus study on economics open access journals showed that the awl is covered by only 13.5%. although the coverage level of the awl in the etwl is relatively higher compared to similar studies conducted in academic contexts, it would seem evident to any course developer or teacher that one-fifth of coverage is far from being complete to build an esp course on coxhead’s academic word list. therefore, a discipline-specific word list, as hyland and tse, (2007) stated, is desperately needed for distinctive academic programs. clearly, academic textbooks or materials are not what economics students will only cover in their future academic or non-academic lives. thus, what is valid (language-wise) outside the university context was also the current study question. for that purpose, another keyword list was created from the economist, and the correspondence level with the awl was measured and reported to be 14,40%. in the literature, the closest study was conducted by li and qian (2010), and the results revealed that the coverage ratio between the awl and hong kong financial services corpus (hkfsc) was 10.46%. these similar results suggest that for economics students, the awl may not be sufficient to follow global economics matters and that more than what the awl offers is needed. a distinctive aspect of the current study is the comparison of two newly created keyword lists from related but different contexts. the goal was to find out whether what a university economics program introduced to students is congruent with what is presented in the media under the theme of economics. hence, the correspondence level between the etwl and the emwl was measured and reported as 15,25%. this result shows that students of economics should be provided with input dispersed throughout various sources, including economics magazines, news portals, etc., as supported by charteris-black (2000), who compared the frequency of animate and inanimate metaphors in the economist and general magazines. the study's findings revealed the distinctive use of metaphors in the economist, suggesting that lexical items in it would be a valuable addition to an esp course. conclusion globalization of education and the spread of emi programs worldwide has led educators to dwell on the ways to meet specific needs of language learners in academic fields. in this sense, esp methodology, needs assessment, and corpus development are primary procedures that every course designer should contemplate. while there is a sizable body of research, practical teachings, ideas, and materials for english language teaching for general purposes and english for specific purposes as well, more rigorous case studies casting light into local needs can give 43 balcı, e. & çomoğlu, i̇. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com insights about overall esp course design. additionally, the precondition suggesting that academic journals, books, and publishing are what university students need may also mislead the course designers as in today’s world, universities have close relationships with the real sector and business contexts. in the present study, two separate keyword lists (etwl and emwl) were created for an esp course for a tertiary-level economics program in turkey. in addition, the coverage of the awl in these two keyword lists was investigated. the findings revealed that the awl is covered in the etwl and the emwl by no more than 20%. another key aspect of the current study is to compare the correspondence ratio between the etwl and the emwl. the etwl refers to the context in the university-level economics program, and the emwl was constructed from the economist magazine sources. the similarity level between these two separate keyword lists was found to be 15,24% only. the findings of the study clearly show that to meet the esp needs of university-level economics students, neither general-purpose academic keyword lists nor technical word lists based on university course materials are sufficient, and the multidisciplinary nature of the economics program and its close connection with political science, psychology and sociology should not be disregarded. getting back to the question of “what to teach?”, one can assume that besides university course materials, sources representing the living language of economics (e.g., the economist magazine) must be included in a well-designed discipline-specific corpus. in addition, to create better ties with real-life practicewhich eventually enhances the quality of education at universities (depoo et al., 2022) more than what course textbooks or academic papers offer is needed. disclosure statement the authors reported no potential conflict of interest. references al-riyami, t. k., & dayananda, c. s. 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(2020). academic vocabulary in psychology research articles: a corpus-based study. mextesol journal, 44(3), 1-21. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://journal.aall.org.au/index.php/jall/article/view/592 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118339855 http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/76045 https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2015-0030 https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511732942 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2018.03.002 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2013.07.001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2008.08.003 https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.93938 https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847698162-005 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315143279 focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 4, issue 3, 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: email of the corresponding author copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. exploring factors impeding english language instructors from research engagement at tertiary level in türkiye vildan inci-kavak assist. prof. dr., gaziantep islam science and technology university, türkiye, vildan_elt@hotmail.com apa citation: inci-kavak, v. (2022). exploring factors impeding english language instructors from research engagement at tertiary level in türkiye. focus on elt journal, 4(3), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.3.1 abstract resulting from the emerging demands of higher education, university instructors’ roles are extending beyond their supervisory positions to those that require mediating changing conditions and keeping up with new developments. on a daily basis, they have to identify various problems, look for solutions and address them swiftly and methodically. new demands necessitate practicing teachers and instructors to become more research-engaged and informed about challenges, which, however, has aroused controversy over the blurring boundaries between teaching and researching. this study thus investigates english language instructors’ research engagement at a state university in türkiye. the data were collected using a survey developed by borg (2009). 50 language instructors at the school of foreign languages participated in the study, 10% of whom (n=11) volunteered for an interview. the data have been analysed to have a better understanding of whether instructors read and do research and how they justify their preferences. as a result, this paper underlines the potential advantages of guidance for language instructors about being a teacher-researcher in the field of language education. keywords language instructors, research engagement, teacher-researcher, reflection, professional development. article history received : 15.06.2022 revised : 26.08.2022 accepted : 10.09.2022 published : 30.12.2022 type research article introduction teachers’ roles have been significantly extended from managing the curriculum and teaching only, to adapting successfully to the changing demands of education systems and students within. on a daily basis, they have to identify some serious problems, confront them and then address them with painstaking care. therefore, all these demands necessitate teachers to become research-engaged. in this way, they can improve not only themselves but also their teaching skills. yet, the idea of teachers becoming researchers has aroused lively controversy in the field because many scholars claim that teaching and researching are two different areas of expertise. both professions require separate skills and knowledge. the widening gap between practitioners’ and scholars’ engagement with research has attracted increasing attention from academics who devote themselves to comprehending and bettering the dynamics of language teaching in higher education. it is frequently assumed that teaching practices and research on teaching are fundamentally different areas and require distinct forms of expertise (medgyes, 2017). scholars such as maley (2016) assert that the mailto:vildan_elt@hotmail.com https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.3.1 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7249-9048 i̇nci-kavak/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 2 practice of teaching and research do not meet at any point as they move in different directions. borg (2009) reveals that teachers are reluctant to do research due to a lack of time, lack of knowledge, lack of expertise and limited access to resources. however, as larsen-freeman (2015) puts it, not all research has practical implications for class practices. thus, even if some teachers show interest in reading and conducting research, it is difficult for them to find a direct relationship between what they read and what they put into practice. also, teachers who are willing to get involved in a study might end up getting demoralised and demotivated because of the details of the research (borg, 2009). considering the international literature on teachers’ and instructors’ research engagements and attitudes, local studies (inci-kavak, 2020; kutlay, 2013; ustuk & çomoglu, 2019) have shown parallelism, pointing to a greater agreement on the fact that the number of teachers and university instructors reading research and implementing what they learn is rather inadequate. literature review who should undertake the research? the question “whose responsibility is to undertake research in the field of education?” has long been discussed. in general, teachers are expected to teach as their primary responsibility and researchers are employed for research. for teachers, research engagement is mostly a personal preference rather than a professional obligation. in other words, while some teachers do not consider research as a role in their contract (polemeni, 1976), some teachers find it beneficial and thus prefer to be more involved (mckernan, 1988). on the other hand, for most researchers, teachers can only help them collect data and be involved in their studies as subjects, not as the lead person taking important decisions about how to do valid and reliable research. they assume that teachers do not have time, energy and support by their institutions and lack in necessary expertise. it is clear that teachers and researchers are not in the same boat for doing research. while an academic researcher has the entitlement and any support from the university to do it, a teacher has no such encouragement, so many teachers do not prefer taking on new responsibilities. understandably, these two professions in different fields of expertise should be evaluated in their positions. for teachers, moving from a comfortable established professional identity (as teachers) to a new one (as a researcher) is another challenge. hoyle (2001) states that teachers derive work satisfaction mostly from teaching, (not from researching), thus to “carve out a researcher identity as part of their teacher identity” (gewirtz et al. 2009, p. 581) might be challenging. researching can be an extra burden unless they are supported by their institutes. it is the widespread belief that “teachers are paid to get students to learn; their job is to teach effectively. they are not paid to understand, document, and generate public knowledge about how students learn and how best to teach them” (medgyes, 2017, p. 496). in terms of their job titles, teachers’ and researchers’ roles are completely different from each other. thus, comparing them in terms of title, power and superiority is meaningless (medgyes, gomm & hammersley, 2002; medgyes, 2017). these two professions are in charge of “two distinct forms of activity” (maley, 2016, p. 491) so they are considered to be living in two different worlds on different routes, but it is impossible to say that there are “no links to connect them” (p. 491) in contrary, there are working as a link in the chain since they are both engaged with learning activities in the classroom. they have the same major goal: i̇nci-kavak/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 3 better learning and teaching but they have different roles in different contexts for the same ultimate goal (allison & carey, 2007). another point worth mentioning is that teachers’ roles are not limited to the classroom anymore. qualified teachers are expected to deliver the curriculum only, but also notice any problems that can potentially emerge (davis, 1995), respond to them and tailor her/his teaching accordingly (lewis & munn, 1997). all of these skills require teachers to be research-engaged (everton, galton & pell, 2000; mortimore, 2000). despite the increasing expectations on teachers to be research-engaged in many parts of the world, knowledge about their role as a researcher is gradually emerging across the globe (cochran-smith, 2005; erbilgin, 2019). educators wear several hats and combine important roles. a researcher who has teaching experience and has total access to the teaching environments or a teacher who has the skills of conducting research would function more effectively than a researcher with no teaching experience or a teacher with no research knowledge (rose, 2019). these multidimensional identities are highly valued. however, it may not be possible in the real world. in this case, the collaboration between researchers, teachers, practitioner researchers and researcher-teachers can be an option (banegas & consoli 2021; dikilitaş & wyatt, 2018). thus, researchers and teachers are co-workers and their world is interconnected (eisner, 1988). teacher research it is widely known that the majority of teachers are reluctant to do research despite all the benefits they could bring to their teaching abilities and also to the elt world. teachers are unwilling to be research-engaged for some reasons such as  the lack of expectation that teachers should research and write about their professional practice;  the demanding nature of teaching which leaves little time and energy for research;  the current lack of professional confidence and marginalization of teachers from government change agendas; and  the mismatch between many available research methodologies and teachers’ professional ways of working in classrooms (hancock, 2006). for a qualified teacher, every learner matters and so s/he should constantly examine her/his own teaching to the best of her/his abilities. to become up-to-date, teachers should see research as an important component of the classroom and thus be involved in classroom research (carr & kemmis, 1986). mcniff (1988) also comments on the benefit of doing action research: “action research presents an opportunity for teachers to become uniquely involved in their own practice” (p. 13). many scholars such as medgyes (2018) propose that “action without reflection is impossible” because reflection and action are inseparable terms complementing each other. pollard and tann (1987) also stress that “critical reflection and systematic investigation” of teaching practice are integral parts of classroom life (p. 23). teachers engage in reflection and evaluate their own practices, which can inform the improvement of their teaching-learning practices (ping et al., 2018). wyatt and dikilitas (2016) justify why reflection in research practices are vital because it provides “greater criticality, greater flexibility, deeper awareness of and sensitivity towards context-appropriate pedagogical practices” (p. 16). as teacher-researchers carry the advantage of having total access to the research participants, they can amass the detailed data more reliably and accurately. even if researchers, who are experts at scientific research, visited the classroom once or twice a week for a couple of months successively, they would never be involved in teaching as much as a teacherresearcher did. therefore, teacher-researchers can learn more practically in day-to-day teaching i̇nci-kavak/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 4 contexts, which can let them have a better understanding of classroom dynamics and draw more accurate conclusions from them. teacher research can be inevitably subjective but this can be regarded as a strength in practical terms. hanks (2017) calls this kind of research “good enough research” because even if it does not meet all the widely-accepted criteria such as objectivity, testing hypotheses, controllability, having large volume and number, statistical information and so on but is still good enough because it “contribute(s) to understandings in the field, good enough to build upon, good enough to inspire others’ (hanks, 2017, p. 36). for that reason, although it may have some technical and methodological limitations, consoli and dikilitaş (2021) strongly advocate for “good enough research” since it has considerable potential for the fields of education and applied linguistics concerning various forms of language education research. furthermore, only teachers do have the power to make a change in classroom practice, which ultimately matters. even if teachers identify problems and address them, putting them in a research paper and making publicly available are not generally among their priorities. however, these efforts and the results revealed are still practically and academically worthwhile. müjdeci (2020) suggests that modules that can support pre-service teachers’ research awareness can also promote teachers’ research engagement. as opposed to the findings of action research mentioned in the study by allison and carey (2007), action research can develop teachers professionally by increasing their analyzing and problem-solving skills. by training their research skills, teachers improve self-esteem and autonomy in the classroom (bennett, 1993; kincheloe, 2003; kirkwood & christie, 2006; lankshear & knobel, 2004). it feeds directly into their teaching practice (johnson, 1993) and in return, teachers will derive more satisfaction from their jobs (widdowson, 1984). in this way, teachers will have the opportunity to choose the best of their educational practice (whitehead, 1993). there are some studies aimed to understand teachers’ views on educational research. however, research related to teachers’ research engagement with educators has been particularly scarce in turkish contexts. borg (2009) conducted a study with 505 teachers, 67 of which are from türkiye. this study has been referred to many times for this issue and has been a milestone in this topic. in 2010, beycioğlu and his colleagues worked with 300 high-school teachers in malatya, türkiye and found that nearly two-thirds of the participants (68%) took conducting research seriously and wanted to do it since their graduation from university. another study that was carried out in türkiye at the university level was studied by kutlay in 2013. she found out that the reasons why instructors are not research-engaged are the same as the other institutions such as heavy workloads, time constraints and lack of professional support. these studies were aligned with the study done by borg (2009) and yielded similar results in this sense. methodology this study aimed to find out the levels of instructors’ research engagement in a turkish state university. the data were collected via a detailed questionnaire, which was developed by borg (2009) to understand what they think about research. participants 50 english language instructors teaching at the school of foreign languages of gaziantep university in türkiye volunteered to take part in the study. i̇nci-kavak/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 5 data collection and analysis the questionnaire as a quantitative tool was complemented with the interview as a qualitative tool because quantitative data can be misleading if used as the only data collection method. in this way, the data collected via the interview helped us to crosscheck the data collected. the questionnaire was administered as a hard copy for the convenience of the instructors. the information from the surveys was supplemented with follow-up interviews. their answers in the questionnaire were used as the basis of the questions and interviewees were asked to fully elucidate what they meant with their replies. 11 instructors (%22 of the total) volunteered to participate in the interview as the second phase of the study. their profiles are as follows: table 1. profile of interviewees instructors gender nationality qualification experience 1 f american ma in literature 3 yrs 2 f turkish ma in social sciences 8 yrs 3 f turkish ma in elt 9 yrs 4 m turkish ma in elt 10 yrs 5 f turkish ma in business cont. 14 yrs 6 f turkish ba in elt 13 yrs 7 f turkish ma in literature 11 yrs 8 f turkish ma in education 15 yrs 9 f turkish phd in elt 12 yrs 10 f turkish phd in education cont. 12 yrs 11 f turkish phd in elt cont. 24 yrs the face-to-face interviews were conducted at the researcher’s or the instructors’ offices depending on their availability. they often lasted about half an hour. the interviews were also audio recorded so as not to miss important details. the instructors’ l1 was used to secure a sincere and relaxing environment. the follow-up interview was made of a tailored and adapted version of the questions asked in the questionnaire. thus, they had a chance of expanding on any responses they had given to the survey (e.g. you have stated that you sometimes do research, what do you mean by that?). the interview was mainly used to crosscheck, clarify and enrich the data collected by the survey. the interviews were also transcribed and analysed to see whether they are parallel with the survey results. briefly, the whole data collected via each tool -survey and interviewwas brought together to answer the research questions more accurately. research questions in this paper, the following questions were attempted to be answered: 1. to what extent do instructors state they read published research? a. where instructors read research, what resources do they read? b. where instructors do not read research, what reasons do they cite? 2. to what extent do instructors say they do research? a. what are their reasons for engaging in research? b. where instructors do not do research, what reasons do they cite? i̇nci-kavak/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 6 3. to what extent are instructors’ reported levels of research engagement associated with specific background variables such as qualifications and experience? results background information a total of 50 instructors who are teaching english participated in this study. 48 questionnaires were completed in hard copy (note that 2 of them were not used because of missing data in some parts). as shown in table 2, the majority of the instructors have between 5-14 years of teaching experience in english in this state university. table 2. elt instructors by years of experience years number % 0–4 1 2% 5–9 11 23% 10–14 18 38% 15–19 6 13% 20–24 4 8% 25+ 8 17% total 48* 100% table 3. respondents by highest elt qualification qualification number % certificate 0 0% diploma 1 2% bachelor’s 20 42% master’s 23 48% doctorate 4 8% other 0 0% total 48* 100% *the total number does not count up to 50 because of missing data. table 3 also shows their highest level of elt qualification. nearly half of the participants are master’s graduates (48%). this demographic information will also be used to see whether there are any relations between the level of their qualifications and their research engagement. reading research this section aims to get responses about the frequency of the instructor’s reading research. if they do not, it also asks questions to find the reasons. frequency of reading research 49 instructors reported how often they read published resources. as table 4 shows; 6% said they never read research, 30% said they do it rarely, 42% said they sometimes, and 20% often (rq1). thirty one instructors stated that they ‘sometimes’ or ‘often’ read research (63%). this subgroup was asked what resources they read. the results are listed in table 5 below. the most highly rated answer was ‘web-based sources’ (33%). some reported that they appreciate learning by exchanging and discussing ideas with colleagues and experts in these spaces (castle, 2013; kosnik et al., 2015). in the interviews, many of them mentioned that they use the internet a lot to solve some problems in class or look for new ideas to teach a lesson. they i̇nci-kavak/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 7 stated there are really useful forums, blogs and websites for tips. reading articles or books can be time-consuming but the sources on the web are quite easy to reach and time-saving. table 4. frequency of reading research frequency number % never 3 6,12% rarely 15 30,61% sometimes 21 42,86% often 10 20,41% total 49 100% some also criticized the complex language of some published studies and one said that: “it feels like they are not written for us to read but scholars”. another one said: “i love reading articles but at the end of the day, there is not a lot to take home from what i have read”. reading books and academic journals is almost equally popular among instructors in this school (25% and 24%). they combine what they have learnt through these ways with the pedagogy that they find effective and efficient (marsh, 1987). the ones who said they read academic journals are the instructors who are mostly doing it as a part of the course or diploma such as a master’s, doctorate, or a project for professional development (rq1a). table 5. resources instructors read resources number % web-based sources of research 25 33,78% books 19 25,68% academic journals 18 24,32% professional magazines 11 14,86% other 1 1,35% table 6. reported rates of influence of reading resources number % moderate influence 13 40,63% fairly strong influence 10 31,25% strong influence 7 21,88% slight influence 2 6,25% no influence 0 0,00% these instructors who stated they read research are also asked to what extent their reading affects their teaching in the class. it is listed according to its ratings from the highest to the lowest in table 6. as it is clear from table 6, nearly one-third of the subgroup (n= 32) stated that they think that what they have read has a moderate effect on what they are teaching in the class (n= 13). in the interviews, they mentioned: “what i have read does not change what i do all of a sudden”, some others stressed: “what i have read is not always suitable to my learners’ local needs and context”. however, nearly half of the subgroup thinks that reading research has a ‘strong’ or ‘fairly strong’ influence on their teaching. some instructors mentioned that they do not expect quick changes in their classes, they said: “it is good to be up-to-date and be familiar with the field”. one said who is a phd candidate: “reading raises your awareness about what, how and why i do the things in the class” (rq1a). reasons for not reading research instructors who stated that they ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ (n= 18) read research were also asked what their reasons are for their low motivation. the identified reasons were summarized in table 7. i̇nci-kavak/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 8 table 7. reported reasons for not reading research reasons number % i do not have time 12 34,29% i am not interested in research 10 28,57% published research does not give me practical advice for the classroom 7 2 20,00% i do not have access to books and journals 3 8,57% i find published research hard to understand 3 8,57% lack of time and no interest in research are the main reasons identified. they also stated that published material does not give them practical advice which they need in their teaching on daily basis. as an advantage of teaching at a university, they have access to resources and also they do not have any difficulties in understanding the published materials (rq1b). doing research reasons for doing research forty-nine instructors reported how often they do research. interestingly, the frequency of instructors’ research reading shows parallelism with their research doing engagement. table 8 shows that teachers reported how often they employ research (10% never, 30% rarely, 42% sometimes and 16% often) (rq2). table 8. frequency of doing research frequency number % never 5 10,20% rarely 15 30,61% sometimes 21 42,86% often 8 16,33% total 49 100% the largest proportion here is 42% and nearly half of the instructors stated that they at least ‘sometimes’ do research but as borg (2009) suggested that it needs to be evaluated cautiously because interviews revealed that they do not do it regularly. here are some examples of how instructors clarified what ‘sometimes’ mean: “when i have to do it”; “when i was at uni” (an instructor with 6 years of experience); “when i have time”; “when i face a problem in the class” table 9. reasons for doing research reasons number it is good for my professional development 27 to find better ways of teaching 25 to solve problems in my teaching 20 part of a course i am studying on 16 to contribute to the improvement of the school generally 16 i enjoy it 15 other teachers can learn from the findings of my work 8 it will help me get a promotion 5 my employer expects me to 2 the instructors who said they ‘sometimes’ or ‘often’ do research (n= 29) were also asked why they do research and table 9 illustrates their reasons. as it is clear from the statements ‘sometimes’ does not mean researching regularly. respondents tend to keep away from the polarized views (never and often in this case) and mark the one in the middle not to stand out from the crowd (rq2a). i̇nci-kavak/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 9 reasons for not doing research 20 instructors out of 49 reported that they ‘never’ or ‘rarely’ do research. they were asked what their reasons are for this. their answers are listed in table 10. table 10. reasons for not doing research reasons number i do not have access to the books and journals i need 11 i need someone to advise me but no one is available 8 other teachers would not co-operate if i asked for their help 7 the learners would not co-operate if i did research in class 7 i am not interested in doing research 2 my employer discourages it 2 i do not have time to do research 1 my job is to teach not to do research 1 most of my colleagues do not do research 0 i do not know enough about research methods 0 more than half of this sub-group stated that they do not have access to the resources and lack of guidance. they also claimed that colleagues and learners would not help them if they wanted to do research. interestingly, they do not think that their job is only to teach them not to do research or lack of time is not an excuse, they do not have any discouragement from the school. they do not also have any pressure as most of their colleagues do not research, too (rq2b). the relation between research engagement and instructors’ experience and qualifications there is not much interest in doing research and no direct relation between research engagement and experience (table 11). it is inappropriate to say that the more instructors have experience, the more they are research-engaged or vice versa (rq3). as there are not enough numbers in different experience groups, the chart and any generalization that can be taken out of this data can be misleading. table 12 below illustrates the relationship between instructors’ qualifications and their interest in doing research. in this chart, sometimes, often and rarely/never are separated from each other in two different columns. table 11. relation between instructors’ years of experience and their research engagement levels argument 0-4 years 5-9 years 10-14 years 15-19 years 20-24 years 25+ years more often 0 5 14 1 3 5 less often 1 6 5 4 1 4 table 12. relation between instructors’ qualifications and their research engagement levels research-engaged instructors research-free instructors qualification sometimes often % rarely/never % diploma 0 0 0 1 2% bachelor’s 10 3 26,5% 8 16,5% master’s 10 2 24,5% 11 22,5% doctorate 1 3 8% 0 0 total 59% 41% as explained in the previous sections, it was evidenced in the interviews that ‘sometimes’ should not be interpreted as a frequent activity that is done regularly. here, we can see that instructors who hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees are more research-engaged in this group. interestingly, nearly half of the ma-graduate instructors are not willing to do research. in the interview, a couple of instructors who are holders of masters in elt complained about some issues and they confessed that they lost their interest in the research and the field. they said i̇nci-kavak/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 10 that while they were doing their degrees, they had some challenges such as arrogant, egocentric academics, having to travel for a degree, having good contacts to be able to promote, etc. they also admitted that they did not do it because they enjoy being research-engaged, it was only a requirement. thus, some added that they lost their spirit and so they did not continue their academic studies. discussion and conclusion the results suggest that instructors appear to be research-engaged at a reasonable level at both levels: reading and doing research. nearly half of the group is doing a master’s or master’s graduate. even the instructors who claim that they do research say that it is really hard work and they do not have time and energy left for it. salter and tett (2022) clarify what lack of time means for practitioners: making choices about priorities; setting aside time to explore research and (re)conceptualising their professional identities to incorporate research. the results are also consistent with kyaw’s (2021) findings in myanmar higher education settings. many factors (personal, institutional, policy-related, and system-related factors) at various layers affect educators’ research engagement. they admit that external forces such as course requirements, and academic or financial support help them carry on their academic studies with strengthened motivation levels. dörnyei (2007) and banegas and consoli (2021) also resonated with this statement by lamenting that many teachers get involved in research at the postgraduate level. in other words, echoing what davey (2013) claims, most researcher-teachers conducted research not because they are aware of the benefits of it on their teaching skills, but only to please the system since they consider research as a requirement of top-down systems, thus, davey (2013) and others (passy et al., 2018) believe that unless such initiatives are planned, introduced, conducted and sustained at grass-roots levels, it would not work in the long run. in line with davey’s (2013) claims, even research-engaged instructors claim that they understand why research-free instructors are not interested in research. that can be the reason why 63% state that they read and 59% claim that they conduct research ‘sometimes’ or ‘often’. research-engaged instructors read a range of materials. out of these, web-based materials are the most popular item since they give instructors practical teaching ideas, some of them stated. however, web-based materials are mostly not research-based as the information provided on some educational web pages is not generally retrieved from empirical research. at best, they can be insights from experienced teachers. many researchers consider teachers as practitioners and they do not expect teachers to conduct research. in other words, researchers assume that practice should come first for teachers. watkins (2006) draws an analogy between research and practice and a chicken and egg situation. whichever comes first: research or practice? teachers and academicians at universities cannot ignore the potential value of research to teachers. in fact, teachers should be aware of their lack of proper skillset and get support for them (e.g. organizational, collegial, emotional, intellectual, and practical) (borg, 2009). however, having this kind of support only would not allow them to survive in the research field and they will need to endure and improve themselves gradually to enhance the quality and substance of their work. similarly, some teachers consider research as something only researchers should do. they are not interested in research at all unless the findings affect their lesson practices. good (1989) blames teachers for not being professional since they do not spare time to read research. however, many enthusiastic teachers do research in the classroom and they believe that “ivory towers” where i̇nci-kavak/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 11 researchers are believed to live should be broken down (watkins, 2006) and their efforts and contributions should be appreciated and acknowledged. a definitive point this paper aims to make is not that all teachers should be engaging in research; instead, as discussed before, teachers who will start doing research should be intrinsically motivated. undoubtedly, it would be unreasonable to expect this effort from every teacher. no matter what they are called: a teacher, a practitioner, a teacher-researcher, an “inquiring teacher” (allwright, 2003) or a “teacher-inquirer” (medgyes, 2017), the ones who put the effort in are the ones who foster “researcher spirit” in them. on the other hand, this paper does not direct criticism to the majority of teachers since it is understandable that some have strong justifications for their hesitancy or (un)willingness. that is why, the negative prefixes (un-willingness, dis-ability) have often been used in parenthesis to imply two sides of the issue in this paper. what the future holds for teacher research and its value is rather mysterious, but “effective partnerships” (rose, 2002) between teachers and academicians, in which academics and teacher-researchers respect and value each other’s expertise (gewirtz et al., 2009) can be beneficial. this can allow partners to connect scholarship with practice (cochran-smith, 2005), which can help each party overcome weaknesses and compensate for them. therefore, stakeholders should not be in competition; instead, they should flourish in cooperation. in brief, there is an urgent need for a greater alliance and teamwork in research and its classroom applications. reflection as a teacher myself, i do agree that the teaching profession is devalued and many complaints have been thrown at teachers, especially when expectations are not met. the problems teachers face should be addressed. it can sound easy, yet teaching is rather challenging: teachers do not only motivate learners on a daily basis, but they also need motivation and reward to esteem their job and identify themselves in the professional sense. as ulvik and smith (2019) highlighted, one of the most important cornerstones of teaching is motivation, which highly affects teachers’ attitudes toward research on their research engagement. the initial requirement of engaging in research is the teacher’s (un)willingness and (dis)ability. teachers also need to know what doing research requires: overcoming motivational ups and downs experienced during research projects, personal, professional, expertise and resources support. freeman (1996, p. 90) states that teachers need to “know the story of the classroom well” to be able to tell it, but they do not have the opportunity for the latter. in other words, they cannot get their voices heard. reading studies by academics and researching her/himself more and more will help them develop research skills and in return, increase their understanding of the foundations of the research. more importantly, this would bring opportunities for professional development (watkins, 2006). above all, there are certain benefits of knowing about the intricacies of the research process. to illustrate, teachers can  appreciate the benefits of research;  begin to understand in deeper and richer ways what they know from experience;  be seen as learners rather than functionaries who follow top-down orders without question;  be seen as knowledge workers who reflect on their professional needs and current understandings; i̇nci-kavak/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 12  explore the learning processes occurring in their classrooms and attempt to interpret them. (kincheloe, 2003, p. 18) as it is clear, this process is not a short-term activity, and, therefore, all the support given should be sustainable. extrinsic motivation (e.g. research funding or promotion) will gradually develop intrinsic motivation (e.g. self-directedness, autonomy) in time. for acquiring the necessary skillset, induction programs, and in-service programs, professional development programs, workshops should be offered. all of these supports can enhance teachers’ commitments and encourage them to have “researcherly dispositions” (tack & vanderlinde, 2014) in the long run. to establish a strong research culture, partnerships or cooperative relationships with universities should be created. local and global professional research networks should be set up for exchanging ideas. education is open to continual changes (öztabay, 2017). the main problem is that the controversy over research in language teaching is heating up and there are claims that there is little evidence of research-driven development in language education (medgyes, p. 495). i agree that perhaps not all changes are embellished with trendy concepts and buzzwords, but the radical ones necessitate improvements in the contemporary curriculum. teachers should be aware of the vitality of multi-tasking in teacher education, thus they have to update their skills to survive as learning teachers. teachers should get trained to be able to keep abreast of prospective reforms in the field. borg (2009) claims that these changes require the ministry of national education to embark on a human resource development program for teachers to authenticate their skills. in this way, teachers can upgrade their position from a subservient to a revolutionary one (borg, 2009). disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references allison, d. & carey. j. 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(1993). the growth of educational knowledge: creating your own living educational theories. hyde. widdowson, h.g. (1984). the incentive value of theory in teacher education. english language teaching journal, 38(2), 86-90. wyatt, m., & dikilitaş, k. (2016). english language teachers becoming more efficacious through research engagement at their turkish university. educational action research, 24(4), 550-570. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2015.1076731 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ i̇nci-kavak/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 15 appendix appendix 1. the survey questions questionnaire english language teachers’ views of research what does ‘research’ mean to you and what role does it play in your life as a professional english language teacher? these are important questions in our fieldespecially at a time when in many countries teachers are being encouraged to do research as a form of professional development. this survey asks you for your views on these issues and will take 10-15 minutes to complete. participation in this study is voluntary. thank you for your interest. dr. vildan i̇nci̇ kavak section 1: reading research 1. how frequently do you read published language teaching research? (tick one) never rarely sometimes often if you choose “rarely” or “never”, go straight to question 4 in this section. 2. you said that you read published language teaching research often or sometimes. which of the following do you read? (tick all that apply) books academic/professional journals (e.g. tesol,elt journal) professional magazines/ newsletters (et etc.) web-based sources of research other (please specify) 3. to what extent does the research you read influence your teaching? choose one. it has no influence on what i do in the classroom it has a slight influence on what i do in the classroom it has a moderate influence on what i do in the classroom it has a fairly strong influence on what i do in the classroom it has a strong influence on what i do in the classroom now go to question 2 4. in question 1 of this section you said that you read published research rarely or never. here are some possible reasons for this. tick those that are true for you. i am not interested in research i do not have time i do not have access to books and journals i find published research hard to understand published research does not give me practical advice for the classroom other reasons (please specify) section 2: doing research 1. how frequently do you do research yourself? (tick one) never rarely sometimes often if you choose rarely or never go straight to question 3 in this section. i̇nci-kavak/ focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 16 2. you said you do research often or sometimes. below are a number of possible reasons for doing research. tick those which are true for you. i do research … a. as part of a course i am studying b. because i enjoy it c. because it is good for my professional development d. because it will help me get promotion e. because administration expects me to f. because other teachers can learn from the findings of my work g. to contribute to the improvement of the school generally h. to find better ways of teaching i. to solve problems in my teaching j. others (please specify) now go to section 3 3. you said that you do research rarely or never. below are a number of possible reasons for not doing research. tick those which are true for you. i don’t do research because… a. i do not know enough about research methods b. my job is to teach not to do research c. i do not have time for research d. administration discourages it e. i am not interested in doing research f. i need someone to advise me but no one is available g. most of my colleagues do not do research h. i do not have access to the books and journals i need i. the learners would not co-operate if i asked their help j. other teachers would not co-operate if i asked their help k. other reasons (please specify) section 3: about yourself 1. country where you work: male female 2. years of experience as an english language teacher (tick one) 0-4 5-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25+ 3. highest relevant qualification to elt (tick one) certificate diploma bachelor’s master’s doctorate other this completes the questionnaire. thank you for taking the time to respond. appendix 2. the interview questions semi-structured interview questions 1. you said you x read research in the survey. what does it mean? 2. why do (not) you read research? can you explain? 3. you said you x do research in the survey. what does it mean? 4. why do (not) you read research? can you explain? focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 4, issue 3, 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: mmalrawi@kau.edu.sa copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. is teacher’s english good enough?: a case study of saudi teacher spoken language maather alrawi assoc. prof. dr., king abdulaziz university, jeddah, saudi arabia, mmalrawi@kau.edu.sa apa citation: alrawi, m. (2022). is teacher’s english good enough?: a case study of saudi teacher spoken language. focus on elt journal, 4(3), 63-77. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.3.5 abstract solving the problem of increasing english language output has been the focus of attention in the last decade. while previous research has extensively analyzed two sources of errors, namely the interlingual and intralingual sources, found in spoken language, this qualitative study investigates the teacher’s language as a source of errors for the learners. it analyzes the common grammatical errors committed by 30 saudi teachers in their spoken english during one-to-one interviews. error analysis (ea), linguistic-based classification and linguistic taxonomy of the data reveal seven types of grammatical errors: the wrong use of tenses, errors in the use of prepositions, wrong use of prepositions, errors in the use of articles, omission of a/an, wrong use of articles, and subject-verb inversion in wh-questions, errors due to lack of concord and agreement, and typical arabic constructions. the most dominant errors are due to concord or agreement and the least is errors in the use of prepositions. keywords error analysis, grammatical errors, sources of errors, english as a foreign language, teachers’ language, learner language. article history received : 11.09.2022 revised : 17.11.2022 accepted : 30.11.2022 published : 30.12.2022 type research article introduction speaking english has been a problem that exists not only in saudi arabia and the arab world (al-ghamari, 2004; bacha, 2002; fageeh, 2011; fareh, 2010; heffernan, 2006; hinkel, 2004; kambal, 1980; kharma & hajjaj, 1997; rabab’ah, 2003; tahaineh, 2010; zoghoul, 1987) but also in non-english speaking countries in general (see, among others, jabeen & kazemian, 2015; kim, 2015; kushner, 2003; moss, 2010). there is “general discontentment with regard to the overall output of the arab students learning english in the subject” (suleiman, 1983 as cited in al-nasser, 2015, p. 1615). al-nasser (2015) states that the major problem is that “the outcomes (in the form of language proficiency) [are] painfully dissatisfying” (p. 1616). after completing 9 years of english education, attending language classes four hours a week, the learner is “unable to produce a single error free utterance” (al-nasser, 2015, p. 1616). the language issue became a central topic of discussion in the last decade especially after the decree of the saudi arabian 2030 vision, which now makes it a necessity to solve the english problem mailto:mmalrawi@kau.edu.sa https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.3.5 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8431-4709 alrawi, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 64 (al-zahrani, 2017). despite all the efforts made by the ministry of education, aslaim (2008, p. 60) states that the level of english “lags far behind the ambitions of the saudi ministry of education” and motivates educators, linguists, and teachers to conduct more studies to discussing the difficulties saudis encounter and to propose solutions. among these studies are albalawi (2016), alhaysony (2012), al-nasser (2015), alrabai (2016), al shumaimeri (2003), al-tuwaijri (1982), al-zahrani (2017), asmari & javid (2011), elyas & al grigri (2014), elyas & picard (2010), javid (2010), khan (2011), mahboob & elyas (2014), rahman & alhaisoni (2013), rajab & al-sadi (2015), and sani (2018). given the significance of error analysis (ea) in providing deep insights for understanding of the process of language learning and language acquisition (darus, 2009; ellis, 1995; keshavarz, 2003, 2006; richards, 1971, 1974; 1984; ziahosseiny, 1999), many studies have been conducted to analyze the learners’ errors and to identify the sources of these errors. ea is an essential field of applied linguistics that deals with the problems related to language learning and teaching and attempts to provide solutions to these problems. it treats the errors, firstly, by distinguishing between an error, which results from an incomplete competence, and a mistake, which is not a result of a deficiency in competence, then by categorizing the error and determining its sources. unlike its ancestor, namely the contrastive analysis (ca), ea investigates the various sources of error, be it interlingual or intralingual transfer. that is, in ea, the source of the error is not limited to the interlingual negative transfer from l1 as is the case in ca. although the effect of the l1 arabic system is evident on saudi and the arab speakers of english, in general (abdul rahman, 2021; alahmadi, 2014; alhajailan, 2020; alsahafi, 2017), not all the errors are a result of the l1 negative transfer (albanawi, 2018; alhaysony, 2012; althobaiti, 2014). for example, the omission of the third person singular inflection –s on the verb and the misuse of the auxiliary “do” are not caused by the first language (l1) system (alrawi, 2012; aslaim, 2008). here is where the need of this study becomes necessary. the current study investigates one source of errors that has been neglected in the past. this source is the teacher’s language (or, more specifically, the errors committed by teacher). in ea, errors are of fours sources: interference (or interlingual) transfer, intralingual transfer, context of learning, and communication strategies (brown, 1994; hasyim, 2002; heydari & bagheri, 2012). the interference is the negative transfer of the learner’s mother tongue. the intralingual transfer is the negative transfer within the target language caused by overgeneralization of the rules of the target language (or l2). the context of learning overlaps both types of transfer which, in tutored learning, is the teacher or the textbook, and, in untutored learning, is the social situation. the communication strategies are the “conscious employment of verbal mechanisms for communicating an idea when linguistic forms are not available to the learner for various reasons” (alahmadi, 2014, p. 87). the third source (and, more specifically, the teacher) is highly important to the saudi society. for many families, it is the reason why they prefer to enroll their children in private and international schools where the children are taught by native or native-like speakers in order to acquire correct english. this idea is proven by alqahtani (2021), who argues that the language deficiencies in saudi arabian public schools are caused by incompetent teachers. he concludes that “instructors are at the heart of the issues that affecting students’ growth” (p. 24). a similar conclusion is drawn by almaeena (2014), who asserts that most of the saudi teachers are not proficient speakers of english and have alrawi, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 65 serious language deficiencies that make them not qualified enough to teach english. their poor english is a main cause behind the students’ failure in learning english. sani (2018) proves the same point stating that “if students are taught the english language by capable teachers in schools, they will acquire the necessary skills to understand and participate in the university courses (p. 189)”. therefore, she recommends ensuring the quality of the teacher’s english language in order to “improve the delivery of english language courses in schools”. for this purpose, the current paper focusses on teachers’ weaknesses by analyzing their spoken english through ea. it hopes to contribute to improving the quality of language practiced by the teachers in public schools and ensure the proficiency of the input provided for the students in the classroom. however, it is worth noting that, from the framework of english as a lingua franca, the weaknesses in a foreign (or non-standard) english are viewed as a nativized local variety. being part of kachru’s (1985) expanding circle, the variety of english spoken in saudi arabia has its own features. so, the teachers’ errors tackled in this paper can be more of a local english rather than deviant forms. this is what makes it important to analyze the teacher’s language because the society may accept these forms and practice them as indigenous traits (see al-rawi, 2012; alrawi et al., 2022; mahboob & elyas, 2014) while the saudi arabian 2030 vision aims at developing the language proficiency to the level of standard english (al-zahrani, 2017). therefore, regardless of whether they are deviant forms or nativized features, analyzing them will make the society aware of the non-standard forms which is part of the goals of 2030 vision for language development. to comply with ea implemented in this paper, i will continue using the term ‘error’ rather than ‘feature’. research questions this study is carried out in order to investigate the most common grammatical errors that are committed by saudi teachers in speaking the english language, which may explain why the students commit the same errors and impedes their ability of speak english correctly. according to the main purpose of this study, the researcher attempts to answer the following research question: what are the most dominant grammatical errors in english spoken by saudi teachers? aims and objectives of the study the main aim of the study is to analyze the grammatical errors practiced by some saudi teachers in their speech. this analysis can be good feedback to the teachers to make them aware of the fossilized errors in their competence and to improve the accuracy of the language used to communicate with the students in the classroom. furthermore, analyzing teachers’ errors has a great impact in improving the speaking skill and accordingly in teaching/learning english as a foreign language (efl) as it makes the teachers focus on these deviant structures and give the feedback needed to the students to enable them to speak error-free sentences. alrawi, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 66 literature review as mentioned above, many researchers have shown interest in evaluating the structure of english practiced by saudis and solving the problems behind the low english proficiency of saudi learners. they have carried out various studies to illuminate the grammatical errors the learners make when learning efl and to identify the sources of the errors. the researchers in this respect are of different views. one view is that the errors are mainly the result of l1 interference. for example, alahmadi (2014) conducted a study on analyzing grammatical speaking errors made by saudi students in their foundation year. the findings indicate that they commit nine types of errors: misuse of singular and plural nouns, misuse of verb tenses, misuse of articles, misuse of prepositions, unmarked form of verbs, nonuse of the verb, misuse of third person pronouns, and misuse of regular and irregular verbs. alahmadi (ibid) asserts that the arabic mother tongue is the reason behind seven out of the nine errors. only the last two errors, which are the misuse of regular and irregular verbs, and the sentences with pronoun copy, are the ones that are not caused by the arabic negative transfer. another study conducted by abdul rahman (2021) discovers three syntactic errors made by saudi students. the most frequent errors include the wrong use of tense, prepositions, and articles. these errors are found to be caused by the negative transfer. moreover, alhajailan (2020) investigated the syntactic errors of the noun phrase in written english committed by the saudi female students at princess noura university. the results reveal that the source of the errors is clearly the interlingual transfer from arabic. furthermore, al-sahafi (2017) investigated the orthographic, lexical, and grammatical errors of saudi students in their foundation year. the findings reveal that the errors are mainly interlingual and only some cases are caused by an intralingual transfer. another view shows that the sources are both interlingual and intralingual. for example, albanawi (2018) analyzed the errors in the use of the prepositions, proving that that they are a result of both interlingual and intralingual interferences. another study, conducted by althobaiti (2014), explores the grammatical, lexical, and semantic errors committed by advanced and beginner saudi students. the errors are classified into nine categories: articles, verb tense, prepositions, subject-verb agreement, wrong word selection, singular/plural, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. the findings reveal that the errors are both interlingual and intralingual, but the percentage of errors differs. in the grammatical and semantic domains, the errors resulting from the intralingual sources are higher than those resulting from the interlingual sources while the lexical errors resulting from the interlingual sources are higher than those resulting from intralingual ones. alhaysony (2012) accounts for the types of errors in the use of the article in written texts produced by saudi female students at ha’il university. the results show that 57% of the errors are interlingual while 42.56% of them are intralingual due to “the complicated system of the english articles, which is full of exceptions” (alhaysony, 2012, p. 60). the third view adds other sources related to the context of learning (i.e., the teacher and/or the textbook). for example, ivypanda (2020) studies the subject-verb agreement errors committed in written exams of saudi students in the 12th grade from king saud education complex in riyadh. the study concludes that the errors in subject-verb agreement result from the “lack of adequate [instructional] materials, outdated curriculum, poor training of teachers, alrawi, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 67 and low motivation among other factors [that are] linked to the poor grasp of subject-verb agreement among the students” (ivypanda, 2020, p. 1). al shahrani (2018) analyzed the errors in written essays of the students studying english as a major in their first year at al baha university. the errors detected are the omission of inflectional morphemes (plural –s, third person singular –s, past tense –ed, presenting participle –ing), the misuse categories (determines, prepositions, and conjunctions), and the addition (nouns, pronouns, and adjectives). the results reveal that the mother tongue interference is not the only source of errors but the developmental (or intralingual) as well as the learning process itself constitute other sources. although the percentage of interlingual to the intralingual errors is (60.9%) to (39.1%), only three errors, which are the misuse of the articles, subject-verb agreement, and copula ‘be’, are the result of l1 interference. however, the rest of the errors are caused by the intralingual source and the learning-related factors including incomprehensibility of the target language rules, lack of motivation, teaching methods, lack of vocabulary, lack of writing activities and homework, spelling, and punctuation. aslaim (2008) explored the errors in the use of the auxiliary do by analyzing english written performances of saudi students in the ninth grade, which is the third year in intermediate schools. she concludes that the “high number of observed students’ errors are not attributable to students’ native language but instead to common learning processes generally adopted by learners of divergent language backgrounds” (p. 64). to this end, the current study works in the same vein to explore a possible source of errors in the learning process. significance of the study this research study is very much significant in its subject matter. its significance lies in analyzing the teacher’s spoken english and investigating the quality of the language provided to the students in the classroom which constitutes an inevitable source of errors (shekhzadeh & gheichi, 2011). the teacher or the teaching process (also called “transfer of training” in shekhzadeh & gheichi’s (2011, p. 161) terminology) is a source of errors related to the context of learning (brown, 2007). despite that the teacher plays the main role for english language learning in saudi arabia (al-zahrani, 2017), yet the literature with respect to analyzing the accuracy of the teacher’s language is limited. the focus of the previous studies of ea is the students’ language rather than the teachers’ language and this is where the need of this study becomes necessary. when intending to solve the students’ failure, the linguist/educator should not only “seek the remedy in [the students’] background knowledge of their native language” but should ‘search for many other sources of difficulty as well’ such as the “transfer of training” (shekhzadeh & gheichi, 2011, p. 161). ziahosseiny (1999) states that “teaching creates language rules that are not part of the l2” (p. 126). as discussed in shekhzadeh and gheichi (2011), when students hear their teacher saying, for example, “there is little snow,” they may, by analogy, produce unacceptable sentences illustrated by yarmohammadi (1995, p. 63) like “*the snow is little1” and “*the snow is much”. likewise, students hear their teacher saying, “the man was highly admired”, and “the building was tall”, may automatically utter sentences 1 in linguistics, the asterisk (*) is used to mark the sentence as ungrammatical (see graffi, 2002). alrawi, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 68 like “the man is high” and “the mountain is tall” (shekhzadeh & gheichi, 2011, p. 161). furthermore, an erroneous sentence like “i am liking to continue my studies” is produced by overgeneralizing progressive structures like “i am writing” and “i am reading” (keshavarz, 1994, p. 113). while making errors is a process that every learner passes through, “that process can be impeded through realizing the errors and operating on them according to the feedback given” (erdoğan, 2005, p. 261). however, when the teachers, themselves, are likely to commit these errors and, accordingly, the students seem to receive no or less feedback, it becomes a necessity to analyze the errors in the teacher’s language. to this end, the current paper aims at analyzing teacher’s language especially that some errors (or deviant forms) that are practiced by saudis are proven to be features of the english variety spoken in saudi arabia (or saudi english) from the perspective of world englishes (see al-rawi, 2012; alrawi et al. 2022; alshurafa, 2010; mahboob & elyas, 2014). it specifically focusses on the spoken language for its communicative role in the language learning process. siddiqui (2014) states that speaking provides “the foundation for communication of ideas, intelligent conversation, and the development of other language skills in the target language” (p. 47). ali et al. (2019) believe that “speaking is considered to be not only important but also most immediately sought after by all sections of people” (p. 352). according to ur (1996), speaking is the most important skill among the four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing and “people who know a language are referred to as ‘speakers’ of that language, as if speaking included all other kinds of knowing” (p. 120). additionally, speaking includes essential elements such as pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension (sayuri, 2016). thus, it can be said that the present study is highly significant in its traits as it provides the teachers an opportunity of selfcorrecting by making them aware of their mistakes. in turn, it helps to determine the reason behind the poor performance of the students in the teaching process. methodology this study is qualitative in nature, describing and classifying grammatical errors committed by fresh graduate teachers in their spoken language. data were collected during the academic year of 2020-2021 from 30 female saudi teachers who graduated holding bachelor’s degree in english. the teachers are not native english speakers. they all learned their english in saudi arabia and never lived in any native-speaking countries. their ages range between 22 and 25. in order to provide an accurate analysis, i used interviews to collect the teacher’s data. each interview lasted for 10 minutes. the interviews were audio recorded using the voice recorder feature of samsung galaxy s20. the 5 hours of recorded interviews were more like an informal conversation between me and the teachers discussing their teaching experience in general, the challenges facing the students in learning english, their opinions about the textbook, and suggestions to improve the effectiveness the teaching/learning process. the audio recorded data collected from all the teachers were transcribed in a word document. the total amount of data collected from the interviews is 30,000 words. the collected data (i.e., the teacher’s transcribed interviews) were analyzed using error analysis, which is defined by brown (2007) as a process of identifying and describing the errors in order to reveal the system operated by the speaker. identifying the errors is not an easy task alrawi, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 69 (alahmadi, 2015). differentiating between errors and mistakes can be achieved by either asking the learner to self-correct his/her deviant structures (littlewood, 1984) or by “checking the consistency of [a] learner’s performance” (ellis, 1997, p. 17 as cited in alahmadi, 2015). in this research, i identified the grammatical errors according to the consistency and frequency of the errors during the teacher’s speech. following alahmadi (2015), the errors that were committed not less than five times by all the speakers were taken to be consistent. more than 2,500 spoken grammatical errors were identified. these errors were analyzed and classified into categories and subcategories. because grammar includes both morphology and syntax (sari, 2018), i adopted keshavarz’s (2012, p. 95-102) “linguistic-based classification” and “linguistic taxonomy” of the morpho-syntactic errors in order to analyze and classify the grammatical (or morpho-syntactic) errors into categories; seven categories were identified. to ensure the reliability of the analysis, i consulted a language expert and two linguists regarding the analysis and the interpretation of the data. the expert is a native speaker of british english who is holding phd in tesol. as for the linguists, both are theoretical linguists who are specialized in syntax. the expert was consulted for the grammaticality judgment, identification, and interpretation of the errors, and the linguists were consulted for the analysis and interpretation of the errors. in finding the dominant errors, the frequency and percentage of each category were calculated to answer the first research question using the following formula: frequency of errors in each category x 100% total number of errors the seven grammatical categories and their frequencies and percentages are illustrated in table 1 below. (for the sake of consistency, i referred to the errors as grammatical rather than morpho-syntactic errors). table 1. errors in the linguistic-based classification grammatical errors frequency percentage 1 errors due to lack to concord or agreement 562 22% 2 wrong use of tenses 519 21% 3 errors in the use of articles 473 19% 4 subject-verb inversion in wh-questions 356 14% 5 wrong use of prepositions 272 11% 6 typical arabic constructions 181 7% 7 errors in the use of prepositions 167 7% total 2,530 100% findings and discussion the participants committed seven types of grammatical errors. they are the wrong use of tenses, errors in the use of prepositions, wrong use of prepositions, errors in the use of articles, omission of a/an, wrong use of articles, subject-verb inversion in wh-questions, errors due to lack of concord and agreement, and typical arabic constructions. as indicated in table (1), alrawi, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 70 these errors differ in their frequencies. the most dominant type of error was the errors due to concord or agreement and the least was the errors in the use of prepositions. the first type was errors due to lack of agreement or concord which constitutes the most dominant type produced by the speakers at rate of 22%. the lack of subject-verb agreement is illustrated in (1a) using the symbol ø and the lack of concord within the noun group (or the noun phrase) is illustrated in (1b) using the symbol ø. (1) a. this student speak-ø good english. b. i have two option-ø. the second kind was the wrong use of tenses. this type was one of the most frequent errors with a percentage of 21%. it was sub-classified into the use of present continuous instead of simple present, the use of simple past instead of instead of past perfect, and the wrong sequence of tenses. examples of the speakers’ production were the sentences in (2a), (2b), and (2c), respectively, where the errors are underlined. (2) a. they are repeating the same mistake every class. b. i suggested this idea before i asked for it. c. i told them i will take the final decision later. in (2a), the present continuous tense was used to indicate the habitual action instead of the simple present tense. in (2b), the simple past tense was used instead of the past perfect. in (2c), the future tense is used instead of the past tense. the third type was errors in the use of articles: the redundant use of ‘the’, the omission of ‘a/an’ before both professional titles and indefinite singular nouns, and the redundant use of ‘a/an’ before abstract nouns as illustrated in (3a), (3b), (3c), and (3d) respectively, in which the errors were indicated either by using the ø for the omitted article or by underling the redundant article. this type was among the three most frequent errors that were uttered at a rate of 19%. (3) a. i don’t use the arabic in class. b. i realized this problem since i received my job as ø teacher. c. i had ø headache this morning. d. i have a difficulty implementing this idea. the fourth type of error was subject-verb inversion in wh-questions as manifested in (4) in which the speaker incorrectly placed the auxiliary verb following the subject instead of placing it preceding the subject. this type of errors occurred at a rate of 14%: (4) a. what else i shall do for them? b. why we don’t change the textbook? alrawi, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 71 the fifth type was the wrong use of prepositions: ‘on’ instead of ‘in’ as underlined in (5a), ‘from’ instead of ‘of’ as underlined in (5b), ‘in’ instead of ‘on’ as underlined in (5c), and ‘to’ instead of ‘in’ as underlined in (5d). this type of error was produced by the speakers at a rate of 11%. (5) a. i was on a meeting. b. i am happy from what she is saying. c. it’s in page 2. d. that was the first day when i arrived to school. the sixth type of errors was the typical arabic constructions of topicalization as shown in the following example. the sentence in (6) is a typical arabic sentence structure called nominal sentences (or topic-comment structure (see, among others, fassi fehri, 1993; aoun et al. 2010) where the sentence consists of two main parts: mubtadaɂ ‘topic’ (or left-dislocation’), which is the initial nominal, and xabar ‘comment’, which is a full sentence predicating over the topic as shown in (7). (6) amal, her students liked this technique. (7) ɂamal ṭaalibaat-u-ha yḥib-uun haaḏihi ṭ-ṭariiqat-a. amal students-nom-her 3.like-they this.acc the-technique-acc ‘amal’s students like this technique.’ (lit. ‘amal, her students like this technique.’) in english, on the other hand, the sentence structure is a subject-predicate one (see radford, 2009, among others) rather than a topic-comment one. the initial nominal in english is a subject rather than a topic and the predicate is a verb phrase rather than a full sentence. in other words, sentence (6) must be structured as (8) below rather than as (7) above. so, the speaker’s production in (7) was a typical arabic construction reflecting l1 grammar. this type of errors was least frequent occurring at a rate of 7%. (8) amal’s students liked this technique. the seventh type of error is among the least frequently practiced with a percentage of only 7%. it included the use of the prepositions either by omitting the preposition or inserting a preposition (or “redundant use of prepositions” in keshavarz’s (2012, p. 98) terminology) as shown in the examples (9a) and (9b), respectively, where the speaker omitted the preposition ‘on’ in (7a) as indicated below using the symbol ø. in (9b) the speaker inserted the preposition ‘about’, as indicated by the underline. (9) a. see you ø thursday. b. i believe they shouldn’t discuss about the exam. alrawi, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 72 in sum, this study reported that teachers’ language is not error-free. teachers do commit errors and these errors are of seven categories, which occurred with different frequencies. errors due to lack of agreement or concord showed to be most frequent and the ones in the use of the prepositions were the least. these results can be interpreted in three possible ways. firstly, it shows that the errors committed by teachers, although with different percentages, are neither different from the ones committed by saudi students/learners nor by saudi speakers in general. as for the students’ errors, the teachers’ errors reported in this study were proven by other researchers to be similar to students’ errors. the three most frequent errors in this study, which are errors due to lack to concord or agreement, the wrong use of tenses, and the errors in the use of articles, were proven by alahmadi (2014) to be the top three dominant errors practiced by students. as for the misuse of the prepositions, it was proved by alahmadi (2014) to be committed at an average of 21.33 per student and it was also shown in my study to be committed by the teachers at a rate 11%. in abdul rahman’s (2021) study, the most frequent errors committed by students were the wrong use of tense, prepositions, and articles. these errors were found in my study to be committed by teachers. althobaiti (2014) discovered that the use of articles, verb tense, prepositions, subject-verb agreement, singular/plural were frequent grammatical errors committed by saudi students. these categories were also found in my study to occur frequently in the teachers’ performance. as for the saudi speakers in general, the teachers’ errors discovered in this study were reported by other researchers to be traits of saudi english speakers (al-rawi, 2012; alrawi et al., 2022; mahboob & elyas, 2014). al-rawi (2012) reported that saudi speakers frequently omit the third person agreement on the verb, the indefinite article, and the copula be, and frequently insert the definite article the. similar results were reported by mahboob & elyas (2014), who asserted that the variation in the use of tense markers and the variation in the concord and agreement are features of saudi english. furthermore, all the errors reported in this research, except for the wrong use of tenses, were proven by alrawi et al. (2022) to be practiced by the saudi speakers. the similarity, whether with the students’ errors or with the speakers in general, is an indication of a larger problem/phenomenon about the language practiced and accepted in the saudi society. the second interpretation of the results is that the errors were practiced by teachers whose english was learned and tested locally. none of the subjects attested in this research were required to have a specific score in an english standardized test such as toefl or eilts. upon their enrolment to the university, they were required to get 5.5 in eilts, but their english was not measured after they graduate or before they practice their job as english teachers, a conclusion which is on line with sani’s (2018, p. 189) recommendation that “teachers should have an internationally recognized english language proficiency certification” in addition to a bachelor’s degree. the third interpretation of the results is that these errors are fossilized in the teachers’ minds. they either applied the rules incorrectly or they simply had insufficient knowledge about the grammatical rules. although they stayed in contact with english for 16 years (12 in the school and 4 years in the university), the feedback on their errors might not be negative enough to the extent that made them correct the errors. therefore, for a remedial plan, it is recommended that universities and language institutions that provide a bachelor’s degree in alrawi, m. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 73 english must ensure to give the proper feedback and to graduate students who speak english professionally. conclusion and recommendations the findings showed that saudi teachers commit seven grammatical error categories in their speech. they are the wrong use of tenses, errors in the use of prepositions, wrong use of prepositions, errors in the use of articles, omission of a/an, wrong use of articles, subject-verb inversion in wh-questions, errors due to lack of concord and agreement, and typical arabic constructions. the most prevalent was the errors due to concord or agreement and the least was the errors in the use of prepositions. it can be concluded that these errors are fossilized in the teachers’ minds. therefore, the teachers should be aware of the fossilized errors and should try to work on them so that they can give the proper feedback to the students. this study is alarming to a source of error that can be more destructive than the mother tongue because if the teacher is not aware that he/she is committing an error, he/she will not give the proper feedback to the student. the study can also be a reference to review the curriculum for speaking skill courses at university level especially in english major programs in saudi arabia in order to ensure that their graduates speak correctly. however, the study is not without limitations. one obvious limitation of this study is that the subjects are female only. it would be more adequate if the results are generalized to include subjects of both sexes. another limitation is that the subjects are all fresh graduates. teachers who have experience may not necessarily produce the same errors. therefore, more research is needed to test whether or not experience is a factor that could improve the language proficiency. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. acknowledgment i would like to express my sincere gratitude to nuha al-shurafa and maryam sani for their insightful feedback. i am also grateful to tariq elyas for his invaluable suggestions. finally, special thanks go to the two anonymous reviewers and the editors of this volume for their constructive criticism and editorial improvements. all errors are mine. references abdul rahman, m. a. 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(1987). restructuring the english department in the third world universities: alternative approach for the teaching of english literature. iral, xxv/(3), 221-236. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.21462/ijefll.v1i1.4 ejal article template focus on elt journal vol 3, issue 1, 2021 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: evisen@gaziantep.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. turkish in-service and pre-service efl teachers’ views on professional development and related activities nilüfer evişen lecturer, dr., gaziantep university, gaziantep, turkey, evisen@gaziantep.edu.tr apa citation: evişen, n. (2021). turkish in-service and pre-service efl teachers’ views on professional development and related activities. focus on elt journal, 3(1), 43-64. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00048 abstract a large and growing body of literature has investigated the issue of teacher professional development in the efl context. however, there have been relatively limited studies regarding the comparison of in-service and pre-service teachers’ perceptions of professional development. this study, therefore, aims to present inservice and pre-service teachers’ perceptions of some professional development activities and to investigate whether differences exist between these two groups regarding their attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions. the participants of the study consisted of six in-service and six pre-service efl teachers from a state university in turkey, all of whom participated in the study voluntarily. the participants were emailed and asked about their beliefs about the potential contribution, necessity, and future intention to use professional development activities. their responses were analyzed by content analysis. the findings indicate that both groups of teachers think positively about professional development and professional development activities and are willing to pursue professional development. keywords teachers’ perceptions, professional development, professional development activities article history received : 22.04.2021 revised : 20.06.2021 accepted : 22.06.2021 published : 25.06.2021 type research article introduction teacher professional development has been the focus of a lot of research articles, and efl contexts are no exception to that. to start with, özbilgin et al. (2016) investigated how 12 cypriot efl teachers viewed professional development and what action they took to keep their teaching skills up-to-date. the researchers concluded that the participants’ awareness of professional development was high and that they can pursue their development should the opportunities provided by the ministry of education or school administrations fall short. in a similar vein, topkaraoğlu (2017) made an effort to scrutinize how efl teachers perceived professional development activities and to find out the factors that were so-called obstacles for the participants of his study. similar to özbilgin et al. (2016), topkaraoğlu (2017) concluded by articulating that tertiary level efl practitioners could provide methods for their professional development, but both groups of participants wished they were equipped with these through the governing bodies. although it was carried out in an iranian high school context, alibakhshi and dehvari’s (2015) study presents similar voices as regards efl teachers and their perceptions mailto:evisen@gaziantep.edu.tr mailto:evisen@gaziantep.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.00048 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8661-5249 evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 44 about professional development. namely, alibakhshi and dehvari (2015) reported that the participants of their study believed professional development to be an ongoing process, that they can hone their skills while performing their posts, and that they were eager to attend workshops and formal education if provided. in a like manner, after an immersion professional development program, novozhenina, and lópez pinzón (2018) collected the views of their participants, 35 in-service efl teachers in colombia who expressed few contributions of the project, and stated that the more frequently practitioners are provided with training programs, the better the results will be in the long run. another study on the perceptions of efl teachers was carried out by babanoğlu and yardimci (2017). the researchers’ primary aim was to see whether there was a difference between the ways state and private school efl teachers think of professional development, and they found that there was a significant difference when those practitioners had to cater their journey of professional development. that is to say, while teachers working in state schools anticipated professional development programs to be designed, planned, and delivered to them via third parties, teachers working for private schools were reported to be more autonomous, looking for ways to improve themselves even in the absence of formal training sessions. şener and çokçalışkan (2017) also investigated how turkish efl teachers in different stages of their careers perceived professional development, and what they found seems to be in line with the previous studies in respect to the participants’ awareness about professional development. however, şener and çokçalışkan (2017) also asserted that teachers at different stages of their careers perceived the concept of professional development differently; practitioners in the mature stage, for example, counted more on their experience and tended to attend fewer trainings and seminars as those did not rank among their priorities now. one other study carried out by meng and tajaroensuk (2013) focused on the problems tertiary in-service efl teachers face while they are trying to develop professionally. the participants, 55 efl teachers at guiyang university, china, stated that the activities/programs being disconnected from the real teaching environment, their irregular distribution, the unsustainable nature of most of those activities, and the heavy workload teachers have were the main factors that the participants viewed as obstacles against their desire to continue to develop professionally. there seems to be an abundance of studies available on the professional development of efl teachers (aghabarari, & rahimi, 2020; cinkara, & arslan, 2017; cirocki, & farrell, 2019; önkol, 2011); however, to the best of the researcher’s knowledge, not many of the articles compared what in-service and pre-service teachers thought about professional development in general; namely, whether they had utilized any professional development initiatives on their own, and how, if at all, they would continue to try to develop professionally. the researcher, therefore, decided to investigate the concept from an efl tertiary school and elt departmental context. in-service teachers and pre-service efl teachers were interviewed to find answers to the following research questions: 1. is there a difference between the perceptions of in-service efl teachers and preservice efl teachers in terms of the following as regards professional development: a. general perceptions b. workshops c. self-monitoring/ self-observation evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 45 d. teacher support groups e. teaching journals f. peer observation g. teacher portfolios h. peer coaching i. action research 2. what methods do in-service efl teachers and pre-service efl teachers intend to use for their professional development in the future? literature review professional development has been defined in various ways in educational contexts. darlinghammond et al. (2009) assert that the process that teachers take part in and the activities that they employ to ameliorate their teaching practices, update their knowledge about teaching, and improve their students’ learning are all gathered under the term professional development. similarly, parpucu (2019) states that the goal of professional development is to improve and modernize teachers’ knowledge of teaching and their teaching-related skills. additionally, smith and o’day (1991) state that professional development is considered an essential mechanism for deepening teachers’ content knowledge and developing their teaching practices. they also add that professional development could be a cornerstone of systemic reform efforts designed to increase teachers’ capacity to teach to high standards. hassel (1999) defines it as the process of improving the skills and competencies teachers need to obtain desirable educational results for students. as reported in the 2015 unesco report: “an education system is only as good as its teachers. teachers are essential to universal and quality education for all: they are central to shaping the minds and attitudes of the coming generations to deal with new global challenges and opportunities. innovative, inclusive, and results-focused teaching is crucial … if we are to provide the best possible opportunities for millions of children, youth, and adults worldwide.” (unesco, 2015, p. 3) professional development is a fundamental property for the improvement of the skills of a teacher, the standards of the school they work in, and the success of the learners (pitsoe & letseka, 2014). as such, mizell (2010) asserts that teacher professional development benefits teachers in that they learn new knowledge and skills; use in class what they have learnt from their participation, and increase their students’ learning through the new approach of teaching leadership that they have been immersed with. to support this claim, borko (2004), fullan et al. (2006), nye et al. (2004), and yoon et al. (2007) emphasize that teachers are the most potent agents that contribute to students’ success in a school environment. however, for years, it has been the administrators or policymakers who have decided on what professional development activities teachers should engage in, an attitude stemming from the popular “one-size-fits-all” belief (pitsoe & letseka, 2014, p.373). in a like manner, the one-size-fits-all approach is assumed to ignore teachers’ previous experiences and knowledge, and it often fails to recognize the requirements of the practitioners’ local teaching contexts (galaczi et al., 2017). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09500693.2010.551222 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09500693.2010.551222 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09500693.2010.551222 evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 46 it has been observed that the students of today demand to be taught in more contemporary and personalized ways (archibald et al., 2011). the learning that the students of the 21st century await seems to be more complex and more comprehensive than before (darlinghammond et al., 2017). hence, the quality of teaching is an issue to scrutinize and elaborate on for numerous researchers (darling-hammond, 2000; gore et al., 2017). bellibas, and gumus (2016), just like stronge et al. (2007), claim that teacher quality and student achievement are interwoven. similarly, supovitz and turner (2000) claim that the development of the staff and students of a school are indispensable from each other; thus, the higher the quality of the teachers’ professional development is, the better the students’ achievement will be. there are various types of activities to contribute to language teachers’ professional growth such as workshops, self-monitoring, teacher support groups, keeping teaching journals, peer observation, teacher portfolios, peer coaching, and action research (richards & farrell, 2005). it has been repeated over the literature that using only one will never be enough. possibly due to this reason, önkol (2011) made an effort to depict what instructors and administrators at a tertiary efl setting in turkey understood by the term “professional development,” and the professional development methods suggested by richards and farrell (2005) above. önkol’s (2011) study concludes that the participants preferred collaborative activities to individual ones. examining the professional development activities more in detail, yoon et al. (2007) say that workshops have an abysmal track for changing teacher practice and student achievement. they found that one-shot workshops had no effect on student achievement in the same study. selfmonitoring, also known as micro-teaching, through which teachers observe themselves to obtain a deeper understanding of their behaviors and their consequences on behalf of the students (kpanja, 2001) leaves others out; it gives teachers the chance to reflect on their actions, and it does not require much of an extra effort (kalis et al., 2007). in addition, teacher support groups, through which teachers share some knowledge or experience, would offer practitioners a chance to review and reflect on teaching, to develop materials and research projects, to teach more effectively, to feel more motivated towards the job, to have a greater awareness, to feel less isolated, to enhance self-confidence and to discuss ways of teaching learning strategies (richards & farrell, 2005). another activity to improve oneself in teaching is to keep a teaching journal through which the teacher reflects their feelings and observations throughout that day’s teaching. using a journal “allows us the opportunity to step back from the action to record our impressions, feelings and thoughts" (holly, 2002, p.5). similarly, teaching journals enhance the teacher the chance to reflect on the events and ideas later, and to think deeply about teaching (richards, et al., 1994). peer observation may also be a helpful tool to help teachers improve their teaching practice. it may provide an opportunity for teachers to see different teaching styles and to develop collegiality (lakshmi, 2014; peel, 2005). through peer observation, teachers collaborate and support each other mutually by going over and by exchanging ideas about the lesson they observed; which might all lead to a reflection of every kind of interaction that took place throughout the lesson and the comment part afterwards (bell, 2005). keeping teacher portfolios, documents that prove the accomplishments one has gained as a teacher (seldin, 2006), has been on the rise as another professional development activity. evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 47 along with describing one’s teaching accomplishments and documenting their teaching effectiveness, teacher portfolios can serve as a source of review and reflection, and they can create opportunities for collaboration with other teachers. (richards & farrell, 2005). peer coaching helps teachers examine what they have been doing, what they have learnt and how they feel about it along with the chance to observe another teacher and do the same for them. since all the issues are evaluated with a “peer”, peer coaching is less stressful but more fruitful. peer coaching makes it possible to foster a deeper learning and a much more integrative and applied understanding of learning and development, according to schön (1991), because learners must “reflect-in-action” and “reflect-about action.” what gives peers that chance is the fact that they are sharing an atmosphere in which they feel secure, away from the pressure of a manager (schön, 1991). moreover, showers and joyce (1996) state that teachers who have a coaching relationship practice new skills and strategies more frequently and apply them more appropriately compared to those who prefer to work alone. another useful and popular professional development activity is action research. it is an efficient tool to help teachers overcome their problems and enhance teaching and learning practices (deghan, & sahragard, 2015). it is very helpful since it addresses a local problem or issue, which means that the teacher can research an issue in his classroom without worrying about making generalizations. action research offers many benefits for educators committed to a critical, investigative process of improving school practice, policy, or culture (hine & lavery, 2014). it enables researchers to develop a systematic, inquiring approach toward their practices (frabutt et al., 2008). teachers could also feel more confident, connected to their students, more interested in research, and more valued while and after conducting action research (edwards, 2016). methodology as qualitative research enables researchers to understand “certain attitudes, trends or opinions of a population” (jackson et al., 2007, p. 22), and since the researcher aimed to define the participants’ perceptions and attitudes pertaining to professional development, a descriptive qualitative study design was employed throughout the current study. to elaborate, the randomly chosen participants were asked the same set of questions via e-mail, and because the research population was relatively small compared to those of quantitative studies (fraenkel et al., 1993; vaismoradi et al., 2013), a qualitative research design was employed. the responses of the participants were analyzed through the content analysis method employed by creswell (2012). participants twelve participants constitute the research population of this study. the first group of participants consists of six instructors, three females and three males, who have been teaching english at gaziantep university school of foreign languages. all instructors have a teaching experience of a minimum of four years. the youngest of the instructors was 28 years old, and the most experienced instructor was 41 years old. the second group of participants consists of six fourth-year elt students from gaziantep university faculty of education. three of the pre-service teachers were female, and the other evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 48 three were male. four of the students were 21 years old and two of them were 22. all of the participants expressed their consent to take part in the study verbally. data collection tools the data in this study were collected through e-mails, which are reported to provide the time and logistics needed both on the researcher’s and the participants’ side. data collection and data analysis necessary permission was taken from the administration of the school of foreign languages of gaziantep university and education faculty, department of english language teaching. the participants were asked to answer the questions which were sent to them via e-mail. the minimum word count on the entries to the interview questions was 30 words and the maximum response consisted of 129 words. to identify in-service teachers’ and pre-service teachers’ perceptions of professional development activities that contributed to their learning and to get a general picture of how they intend to continue with their professional development, a qualitative research design was employed in this study. based on constant reading from the relevant literature, the researcher decided on using the list of professional development activities documented by richards and farrell (2005) and asked the participants their general perceptions about those activities. the data collected was analyzed through the qualitative content analysis scheme belonging to creswell (2012). the data analysis started with the researcher reading the data several times and becoming familiar with the data. next, the researcher started coding the data, putting the themes that were assumed to share common meanings in the same category (weber, 1990). for the trustworthiness of the analysis, the researcher then asked a colleague with a doctorate degree in elt to analyze the data for reliability and validity purposes. once the two coders reached a consensus on the coded items, the irrelevant parts were discarded and the final version of the codes was given to another expert in the field, whose coding was taken as the basis in the current research. findings to see whether there was a difference between in-service and pre-service efl teachers’ perceptions about professional development and to see what methods, if any, they were planning to pursue in the future, the data that were collected through the e-mails were scrutinized by content analysis. the findings and the relevant themes are presented as follows: evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 49 findings for research question 1a) general perceptions regarding professional development table 1. views about professional development in-service teachers pre-service teachers categories themes categories themes awareness improvement role modelling developing an understanding of their profession, skills and abilities gaining a wider perspective; continuing to learn; making a conscious effort; improving skills and knowledge on profession being a role model for students awareness improvement understanding that university education is not enough; performing extra studies; following innovations ongoing, not stopping improvement; lifelong learning; improving skills and knowledge on profession the categories and themes that emerged for both in-service teachers and pre-service teachers about the term professional development can be seen in table 1. except for one category, the two categories of awareness and improvement were common for both groups. for the group of in-service teachers, professional development meant improving one’s abilities and skills in teaching. they also agreed on the continuing or ongoing quality of professional development, and they thought that they could have wider perspectives via professional development. in addition, they added that through professional development, teachers could provide good role models for their students. one of the in-service teachers expressed his ideas as follows: “to me, a teacher must continue his/her education all through his teaching experience as a teacher. if a teacher stops learning new things, methods, techniques, etc., he/she can’t teach his/her students anything professionally. teacher development is something beyond simple in-service workshops. teachers themselves should seek out professional development opportunities which are ongoing and aligned with standards and assessments. in other words, continue learning as well as teaching. by this way, you could be a role model for your students and they are taught how to learn” (ist2) similarly, the pre-service teachers thought that professional development was about continuing to improve as a teacher while performing the job. it could be said that the pre-service teachers gained an awareness and understanding about learning to be an ongoing process. to them, professional development also meant to follow the latest trends and innovations in the field, as to be seen in the following excerpts: “learning is an ongoing process. teachers don’t stop learning new things after being teacher. they go on learning to improve themselves.” (pst2) “professional development is an extra study that people do. it is extra but it is really necessary to do their work successfully. people read new articles and news about their field, follow the innovations and form their working style according to those innovations. they don’t think that the education taken in the university is enough and they want to go on learning throughout their life.” (pst5) evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 50 findings for research question 1b) contributions of workshops table 2. contributions of workshops in-service teachers pre-service teachers categories themes categories themes improvement collaboration providing chances for innovation; refreshing their knowledge related with their field opportunities to share and exchange ideas; being able to see what others do improvement collaboration awareness learning about new methods, techniques and changes; keeping knowledge fresh opportunities to interact and share work and ideas gaining an awareness and criticizing themselves and/ or friends; seeing/ realizing their own mistakes as regards workshops, the common categories that emerged for both groups of teachers were improvement and collaboration as can be seen in table 2. to start with, both sides mentioned improvement as workshops helped teachers learn about innovations in pedagogical approaches. both the in-service and pre-service teachers also asserted that workshops could endow them with chances to share knowledge and exchange ideas with colleagues. “professional development is to continue learning about your profession via in-job training, seminars and some other ways that help you improve your knowledge on your profession and have a wider perspective. (ist5) “when teachers attend workshops, they keep their knowledge fresh. they learn the changes and apply these changes to their work. also, they share their work and ideas with their colleagues”. (pst5) the category of awareness, on the other hand, emerged only for the pre-service teachers, who stated that workshops granted teachers the chance to criticize themselves or other teachers thanks to the learning that took place during the workshops. workshops also provided teachers the opportunity of seeing their weaknesses, the pre-service teachers thought. “they contribute to teachers in these ways: teachers can see their mistakes in the teaching process and try to correct them. if there are new methods of teaching, they can be acknowledged via these workshops.” (pst3) evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 51 findings for research question 1c) selfmonitoring / selfobservation table 3. views about self-monitoring in-service teachers pre-service teachers categories themes categories themes awareness objectivity improvement evaluating weak sides; analyzing deficiencies; finding solutions evaluating oneself without being judged no exaggeration facing pluses and minuses developing oneself safely awareness improvement seeing/realizing and correcting students' and own mistakes; realizing own weaknesses empathizing with students learning about students’ needs criticizing themselves deciding on new methods; learning about time management as seen in table 3, the in-service teachers agreed on self-monitoring being a chance for awareness, objectivity, and improvement. according to them, self-monitoring is a tool to help a teacher analyze their teaching skills, abilities, and weaknesses; evaluate themselves as teachers and finding remedies in case of weaknesses. they also stated that self-monitoring is an unbiased way of evaluating themselves. the pre-service teachers foregrounded the category of awareness as a contribution of self-monitoring. to elaborate, the pre-service teachers described self-monitoring as a venue to realize their own mistakes as teachers along with their students’ mistakes. to them, self-monitoring also gave them the chance to realize their liabilities, and it additionally endowed them with the power to empathize with their students, which leads them to change their teaching style accordingly. the following excerpt shows how one of the in-service teachers thinks about selfmonitoring: “evaluating or being evaluated for his/her weak sides in the profession is one of the hardest things for a teacher that represents authority in the classroom. self-observation is one of the safest ways a teacher can use to analyze his/her skills and abilities for the profession and provides a great opportunity for professional development without being judged by others. being appreciated is a thing that every professional wishes, hopes, even craves in some cases, but few people can stand to be told the weaknesses of himself/herself. at that point self-monitoring becomes the best approach to develop yourself safely.” (ist1) another in-service teacher elaborates on this issue as follows: “nobody, i believe, is the one he sees himself. we never want to accept our deficiencies and imperfections both in our character and in our profession. we tend to assume ourselves as the best. may be that is true to some extent because i believe most of us try to do the best and to be the best, but, on the other hand it is not sensible to ignore the reality. if we assume ourselves as perfect, we can never have a chance to develop professionally and to get closer to the perfect. on that point it would be really useful to record our classes to watch our teaching way. i believe it is one of the best ways to analyze the deficiencies in our teaching methods.” (ist4) one of the pre-service teachers expressed his ideas as follows: evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 52 “i think when a teacher makes self-monitoring; he can be able to see what mistake he has made, whether he could down himself to the age of students and whether he could suitably give instructions considering their proficiency levels. he can learn their behaviors and he can get to know them easily. this makes the teacher more professionally developed in that he knows his students and he can act and prepare activities that may be useful for all of them.” (pst6) findings for research question 1d) teacher support groups table 4. views about teacher support groups in-service teachers pre-service teachers categories themes categories themes awareness collaboration seeing strengths and weaknesses; becoming aware of other people’s perspectives; sharing ideas; synergy; seeing different methods; motivating themselves awareness improvement collaboration learning about different perspectives; realizing weaknesses; correcting own mistakes; beneficial results developing effectiveness; gaining motivation; positive reinforcement; learning from human resources sharing experiences; finding solutions as a group table 4 shows that both groups of the participants believed that teacher support groups would cause awareness about their post as teachers and that there was going to be an air of collaboration. the in-service teachers, for example, agreed that teacher support groups help a teacher develop professionally since when teachers come together, they can help each other, share ideas, see and overcome their weaknesses and collaborate. however, they added that teachers in the teacher support group must be well-equipped and share similar personality traits. “well, i guess, it depends on the teacher’s personality because while some people love to be in a group as they are social and outgoing, some others are keen on working alone as they are more introverted. then, i don’t think it is a good idea to push people to collaborate and work in a group. if someone loves to work alone and he believes he can do better a job alone, then we must give him that freedom. i do not have the opinion that working in a group is always effective for everybody. (ist4) “it may be useful if they are both well-equipped teachers. by sharing their experiences and materials, they can create different variations for the same class. on the other hand, if they are working on different skills, such collaboration could create synergy. teaching methods would show a difference so that the students could benefit more. teachers could also motivate themselves better in group work.” (ist6) in a like manner, the pre-service teachers showed that they had some awareness about teacher support groups. teachers who were part of such groups could see different perspectives and become aware of their assets and liabilities. in addition, they thought that teachers could become more motivated and effective via teacher support groups, and they could collaborate and benefit from each other’s experiences. “yes. because colleagues have experiences. we can benefit from their experiences. and a third person can see the events clearer than us.” (pst1) evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 53 “exactly they do. taking help from one or more teachers, especially from a very experienced teacher is a useful way for teachers to develop themselves. especially those who start their teaching career have so many difficulties as they cannot suitably manage the classroom and they will let their students control him. in a condition like that, support from another teacher will be needed. teachers can tell their experiences and problems they have had in the class and discuss them to find a solution. they may not individually deal with them.” (pst6) findings for research question 1e) teaching journals table 5. views about teaching journals in-service teachers pre-service teachers categories themes categories themes reflection storing information improvement guidance helping one improve in his/ her profession; minimizing the number of mistakes one makes; opportunity to identify the problems one lives in teaching his/ her classes good place/ source to keep all the thing rather than in your memory; resource for methods opportunity to get rid of waste practices; guide for the future preventing them from making the same mistakes again awareness improvement guidance having clear goals; seeing and correcting weaknesses; seeing accomplishments; seeing day-by-day improvement becoming more planned; dealing better with problems; having a story to tell preventing them from making the same mistakes again the members of the group of in-service teachers stated that teaching journals could help them remember good and bad things, see their strong and weak sides, and prevent them from making the same mistakes. two of the teachers added that teaching journals save time — they would not waste time on some useless activities or exercises if they kept track of their experiences. “to tell the truth i have never kept one. instead, i try to keep things in my memory but it will be good if you don’t have any space to keep all the things in your memory. as you get older, you need to reset your memory.” (ist2) “the biggest benefit of keeping a teaching journal is that it is the best reminder for us. as teachers, we have to meet and teach in various situations and sometimes we have to deal with problems. it is impossible to remember everything with enough details. a teaching journal might help us remember how we reacted in what situation and analyze it better. it may also become a resource for our teaching methods and strategies. moreover, it might be guides for others.” (ist5) for the pre-service teachers, teaching journals serve as a kind of a guide and a tool for development. a teaching journal is also an assistant in helping the pre-service teachers become aware of some points related to their goals, teaching styles, weaknesses, accomplishments, and daily progress. “this will help teachers develop themselves as they can see, in a written form, how they are in teaching.” (pst4) evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 54 “if a teacher keeps a teaching journal, he\she can deal with the problems in a better way. it is the same in normal life. sharing what you live in a day with someone is something helpful for people. teachers write what they do on that day and in the following days they read that journal and they realize their mistakes. this is a good chance to make their work better.” (pst5) findings for research question 1f) peer observation table 6. views about peer observation in-service teachers pre-service teachers categories themes categories themes awareness collaboration reflection mutual trust between the observer and the teacher; realizing the necessity of being observed; becoming aware about one’s own teaching thanks to the feedback learning from each other; making comparisons seeing weak and strong sides; analyzing teaching methods; learning to see point of focus; seeing missed parts while teaching awareness collaboration reflection seeing friend's mistakes and correcting them; becoming aware about one’s own teaching thanks to the feedback learning mutually; making comparisons seeing weak and strong sides; analyzing teaching methods; learning new things; gaining new perspectives as seen in table 6, the categories that emerged from the ideas the participants had about the professional development tool of peer observation were the same for both groups. namely, both the in-service teachers and the pre-service teachers showed signs of awareness, collaboration, and reflection as asides of peer observation. to illustrate, the in-service teachers expressed that they realized the necessity of regular observation and giving and receiving feedback; yet, they also emphasized that trust was an important component in such a professional activity. the inservice teachers also mentioned that they could learn from each other while observing one another, and they could see their strengths and weaknesses along with the parts they skipped while teaching. one in-service teacher expressed his ideas about peer observation as follows: “while you are teaching you might be focusing on certain things and missing some other aspects. therefore, a pair of extra eyes can view the whole session from a different perspective and give us useful feedback on things we have either missed or overlooked.” (ist3) similarly, the pre-service teachers noted that peer observation would help them become aware of their teaching style along with that of their colleagues. one other contribution for the pre-service teachers was collaboration, through which they could learn reciprocally and make comparisons between teaching styles. finally, just like the in-service teachers, the pre-service teachers stated that peer observation would serve like a mirror for both sides and that it would grant them the opportunity to learn about different approaches and teaching styles. “colleagues can direct us because they also face with same problems.” (pst1) “you can make use of peer observation in developing teaching styles of the teacher. being observed and getting feedback from a trusted teacher can give us a new perspective on teaching.” (pst2) evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 55 “the teacher can observe students and the teacher who is giving the lesson, and evaluate how the lesson was, what the advantages and disadvantages of activities done in the classroom, observe how the teacher responds students’ reaction, mistakes, etc.” (pst4) findings for research question 1g) teacher portfolios table 7. views about teacher portfolios in-service teachers pre-service teachers categories themes categories themes improvement guidance reflection being able to follow and continue with his/ her professional development; having a plan b; becoming more organized preventing from doing the same thing identifying strengths and weaknesses improvement reflection creating self-confidence; making progress; developing and clarifying teaching philosophy, methods & approaches; promotion in academic position; having a desire to develop teaching style; feedback for the future seeing what and how one has taught; seeing one's own work and teaching style; seeing deficiencies and progress; assessing oneself table 7 shows that the emerging categories for the in-service and the pre-service teachers were slightly different as regards teacher portfolios. the in-service teachers thought of teacher portfolios as a chance to develop and guide themselves along with reminding their strengths and weaknesses. although two of the in-service teachers mentioned that they have never seen or experienced teacher portfolios before, the remaining four teachers stated that teacher portfolios might give them a chance to review what they have done up to that day, reflect on their experiences and realize their strong and weak sides thanks to the materials/ documents they keep in that portfolio file. “certainly, yes. keeping pictures, writings, photos, extra materials, and exercises always help a teacher. a teacher must bring something to use as ‘’plan b’’ if his /her first plan fails.” (ist2) “portfolios are helpful especially for being organized and they show the development and the process that we go through. they are also useful because they prevent us from redoing and re-preparing the same things.” (ist5) for the pre-service teachers, the categories that emerged were improvement and reflection. namely, the pre-service teachers believed in the contribution of teacher portfolios in their long journey of professional development. they mainly stated that teacher portfolios can help them develop as they would increase their self-confidence, show them the progress they have made; help them develop their teaching and understanding of teaching; push them forward in academia; motivate them to renew their teaching styles; and be valuable feedback for their future performance. the pre-service teachers also believed that teacher portfolios could show evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 56 them what and how they taught something; what their strengths and weaknesses were, and thus, provide them a chance to evaluate their teaching, as can be seen in the following accounts: “yes. in their portfolios they can see their lacks and progress. they can improve their materials by looking at their portfolios and for their future, they can design a new plan for their methods.” (pst1) “yes, they help. they provide us see what we taught and how we taught. it increases self-confidence when we see our fruitful teaching styles.” (pst2) “collecting documents about teacher’s work help the teacher see his/her teaching style. so that he/she can find his/her mistakes easier as they can be seen easier in that portfolio. and as the teacher sees her/his lacks, he/she wants to develop himself/herself.” (pst4) findings for research question 1h) peer coaching table 8. views about peer coaching in-service teachers pre-service teachers categories themes categories themes improvement collaboration empathy giving and receiving feedback; fostering good personal relationships working in pairs; finding solutions together getting to understand others; making use of their experiences improvement collaboration reflection creating more useful ideas and techniques; learning new things and new skills; giving and receiving feedback sharing ideas; supporting each other identifying areas which need elaboration; clarifying what is known; seeing weak points table 8 shows that both the in-service teachers and the pre-service teachers found peer coaching an effective means of professional development. the categories of improvement and collaboration emerged for both groups, but for the in-service teachers, empathy emerged as the third category. for the pre-service teachers, the last category was reflection. the in-service teachers stated that peer coaching provided teachers with the opportunity to give and receive feedback and maintain good personal relationships. it also was a chance to collaborate and find solutions in case of problems. finally, the in-service teachers believed that peer coaching would help them understand their colleagues and benefit from the experiences of each other, as to be seen in the following lines: “peer coaching can be an effective way to get some feedback and help from our friends. we can observe each other in our classroom environments and give some feedback. we can also share some materials we have prepared for our classes or maybe we can do some brainstorming together to improve our teaching abilities. on that point, it is important to choose a colleague whom you feel closer to have better communication with. i don’t think it will be useful to work together with a colleague your supervisors have chosen for you. it may have adverse effects if we don’t have a good relationship with our partner.” (ist4) “peer coaching helps teachers to understand others better. it provides opportunities to make use of other’s experiences and also find solutions and develop techniques together. that’s why i think it is a good way to work together.” (ist5) evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 57 the pre-service teachers generally mentioned that peer coaching is a good way of supporting one another, learning new things, giving and receiving feedback. it was also a chance for reflection through which they could see their weaknesses and act accordingly to overcome them. three of the pre-service teachers expressed their ideas as seen: “in peer coaching the teachers support each other. thanks to that they create more useful ideas and techniques to use in class.” (pst1) “being observed and getting comment from a colleague can help us identify areas we would like to develop.” (pst2) “i think it is a kind of peer observation and it contributes teachers to support each other and create more useful and interesting ideas or techniques in teaching.” (pst3) findings for research question 1i) action research table 9. views about action research in-service teachers pre-service teachers categories themes categories themes pedagogical knowledge improvement understanding students and their needs; analyzing situations/ problems; helping solve problems; increasing students’ motivation enhancing the process of professional development helping design future classroom activities pedagogical knowledge improvement understanding/ realizing/observing students' needs and weaknesses; understanding the environment, teaching style and how students learn; understanding whether the subject is grasped or not directing the teaching style; creating an opportunity to see the problems; becoming better in problem solving; organizing lessons accordingly; learning to do research and how to organize teaching methods table 9 presents the categories and themes that emerged for both groups of teachers as regards action research. the categories that emerged for action research were the same for both groups. that is to say that both the in-service teachers and the pre-service teachers thought that action research could first enhance their pedagogical knowledge and help them improve as teachers. to explain further, action research would inform both the in-service teachers and the pre-service teachers about the difficulties their students were facing in learning the subject, and it would give them the chance to adapt their teaching style in accordance with their students’ needs. a remarkable point here was that one of the in-service teachers confessed that he does not know this kind of research in detail. two in-service teachers expressed their ideas as can be seen in the following excerpts: “sometimes in order to understand what students need in the classroom teaching and learning process, a teacher can conduct classroom research. according to the findings of the research, teachers can design classroom activities, so they can enhance the efficiency of the process. also, teachers can use this kind of researches to understand what students expect from the teacher. this method can increase students’ motivation and their participation in the learning process. all of these help teachers develop themselves professionally.” (ist1) evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 58 “action research may be useful especially when we have some specific issues and problems to be solved since it is more like a process to analyze a specific problem and to work on it. in fact, to be honest, we come across such problems in teaching frequently, maybe every day, so i think it can be a useful method to handle that kind of problems.” (ist4) three of the pre-service teachers’ beliefs about action research are as follows: “action research is a must in the professional development. you learn to make researches by yourself and that enables us to be creative in problem-solving.” (pst2) “thanks to action research, the teacher sees the problems in teaching and sets her/his lessons because every child is unique and every classroom is unique. as there are many kinds of people in the classroom and the teacher considers them, this helps the teacher develop herself/himself.” (pst4) “teachers can see the students’ weak points and needs in a better way. they can understand whether students get the subject or not.” (pst5) findings for research question 2 the second research question focused on the professional development methods that in-service efl teachers and pre-service efl teachers thought of utilizing in their future careers. the themes regarding that question for both groups are to be seen as follows: table 10. views about future engagement in professional development in-service teachers pre-service teachers categories themes categories themes awareness efforts for future professional growth knowing that there is no magicno "onesize fits all model available; importance of willingness; ongoing teaching/ learning; being a constant observer in life changing methods; following youtube/ online teachers; creating a suitable learning atmosphere; enhancing motivation; attending workshops; carrying out classroom research efforts for future professional growth reading books/ articles; writing diaries; joining a support group; doing self-monitoring; doing peer observation; attending workshops and conferences; meeting and talking to others/ foreign instructors; getting student feedback; talking to and getting help from experienced teachers; becoming members of associations; finding mentors; making scientific research; learning about all education systems and methods table 10 shows the categories that emerged as regards the future engagement of the participants in professional development activities. here, the in-service teachers articulated that they had some awareness about no single activity being the ideal one for all teachers. they also elaborated that having some inner motivation and continuing to learn and to observe would be key factors for keeping themselves updated as teachers. as a final point, both the in-service teachers and the pre-service teachers emphasized that they had a lot of plans or wishes in mind to pursue their professional growth. some of their plans were about adapting teaching methods, evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 59 following global innovations via the internet, creating suitable learning environments, trying to be constantly motivated, attending workshops, conducting action research, and getting student feedback, as to be seen in the following accounts belonging to the in-service teachers: “trial-and-error is a very effective way to do so. a teacher should be willing to innovate and not be afraid of trying new things. i do not care what methodology books say unless i experience it first hand in my classes. that is the only way to see what works and does not work in your class and teaching.” (ist3) “there may be numerous ways to improve yourself in your job, but i think the most important point is that one should be willing to do that and should see every moment of his both professional and personal life as a chance to develop himself. and i believe, the best way to develop yourself both professionally and personally is to be a good observer in life….” (ist4) “i do not believe that there is a “best method or approach” in teaching. … if a teacher finds better ways to communicate with his students, everything becomes easier. what is crucial is that a teacher should not try to teach the students, but does his best to enable them to find their best way to improve. …i personally follow youtube. i create a good network and follow successful online teachers to learn useful classroom activities. the rest depends on your ability to create the atmosphere to arouse interest.” (ist6) the pre-service teachers mentioned a lot of activities they thought they would do in the future to continue with their professional development. although they emphasized collaboration and support several times, they did not express any kind of web-based activity. they seem more dependent on traditional activities. they also humbly added that they would talk to experienced colleagues, get assistance from them when necessary, and maintain a mentoring relationship if possible. some of the pre-service teachers shared their ideas about their future intentions related to continuing their professional development as follows: “we can develop ourselves with the support of our colleagues. we can write diaries to see our improvement day by day. we can talk with experienced teachers when we need.” (pst1) “i don’t think to develop a special method myself. i can get some beneficial sides from each method.” (pst2) “i will read articles and books to learn more and see what others think about something i have known. i also think about watching other teachers while performing their job, if possible. i want to ask my students what kind of activities they like the most and develop myself in this way. i want to be in touch with foreign instructors because i believe they will help me both with my english and with my teaching.” (pst4) overall, the category of improvement was the most popular category that emerged for both the in-service and pre-service teachers. this was followed by awareness and collaboration, respectively. although the remaining categories received less frequency, it could still be concluded that the participating in-service teachers and pre-service teachers were open to professional development and change. discussion the present study aimed at gaining a general understanding of what the in-service teachers and the pre-service teachers think about professional development. another purpose of the study was to find out whether the participants had positive or negative views about professional evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 60 development activities. one final goal of the study was to get a general picture of what the two groups thought of their future professional development. to start with, both groups stated that professional development is necessary as long as they continue doing the job. both the in-service teachers and the pre-service teachers made it clear that they are aware of trying to gain different perspectives and follow innovations. both groups agreed on the idea that professional development is an ongoing, lifelong process. it is never a one-shot seminar, panel, or lesson (korkmazgil, 2015). as for workshops, both groups see them as opportunities for collaboration and improvement since they can refresh their knowledge with what they see, share or learn at workshops (deglau & o’sullivan, 2006). if possible, some experts could be brought to schools and some workshop activities could be organized so that teachers who cannot find the time to do anything else rather than teaching in the classroom can benefit from them. self-monitoring is a kind of professional development activity that both groups value a lot. they think of it as a chance to evaluate themselves and see their weaknesses and/or mistakes. they express that they can criticize themselves through monitoring themselves and that they can decide on new methods to be used. due to its non-intrusive nature, easy implementation, and timely feedback opportunity, self-monitoring has been proven to modify teachers’ behaviors when needed (kalis et al., 2007; simonsen et al., 2017). teacher support groups are also appreciated by both groups. they mainly focus on the experience criterionthe mentor should be someone more experienced than the teacher observed. the collaboration that takes place in these support groups has also been documented by henry et al. (1999) in that it helps teachers reflect on their own experiences and by howden, and kopiec (2002) due to it assisting the increase in the achievement grades of learners. additionally, bouchamma (2006) asserts that collaboration might leverage teachers’ motivation, as also found in the present study. teaching journals are also commented on positively. although most of the in-service teachers stated that they had never kept one, they agreed on its benefits, which are similar to those expressed by pre-service teachers: teaching journals show teachers their past and enlighten their future. teaching journals are reported to have various benefits such as teachers’ knowledge about which teaching styles to employ, how students grasp a subject better, and teachers having a chance to reflect on their teaching (ho, & richards, 1993; lakshmi, 2014); thus, they should be made more frequent use of. peer observation, which has been documented to be an effective reflective tool for teacher professional development (lakshmi, 2014; peel, 2005) was also appreciated by the participants of the present study, as it assisted teachers to share their ideas, learn from each other and get instant feedback. they also add that it is a chance to see that they are not alone in the problems they have — the peer may also have a similar problem. both groups state that the relationship between the peers is important. this could be taken as a warning by school administrators when they plan to design a peer observation study. teacher portfolios are also welcomed by both the in-service and teachers and pre-service teachers. through these portfolios, teachers can evaluate themselves and see their strengths and weaknesses easily. similarly, according to ayan and seferoğlu (2011), teacher portfolios empower teachers, create opportunities for collaboration and integrating theory and practice, evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 61 offer some explicitness about what teachers have accomplished until that day along with authenticity and critical thinking as to which areas teachers need to focus on more. teacher portfolios are also a kind of investment for one’s future, they stated. school administrations and the elt departments of universities could ask teachers and student teachers to keep a teacher portfolio due to all these advantages. peer coaching is another way to develop professionally since it gives the teachers another option to evaluate themselves and attune themselves to their weaknesses thanks to the assistance of the peer. it is a good way to experience collaboration since the peers share their knowledge and/ or materials, and it provides a feeling of safety as it is non-evaluative, reusable, and inexpensive (goker, 2006). the in-service teachers and the pre-service teachers state that action research is a fruitful activity. it can help teachers overcome their problems in class in a systematic way, and therefore it will make them familiar with scientific research. in line with what edwards (2016) proved in her study in the australian context, teachers will have a chance to solve their problems in a more serious manner owing to action research, and they will be proud of themselves for conducting their research. all the participants of this study expressed their willingness to continue to develop professionally. they gave a lot of beneficial alternatives as examples along with the ones that have been questioned throughout this study. except for one participant who stated he would not try to develop a special method and added that he would make use of the available ones; all the remaining participants stated that they would do some research, read articles, be a good observer, use trial-and-error, discuss with colleagues, make use of the internet, and never stop teaching and learning. hence, it could be said that the professional development activities that were the foci of the present study proved to be important in that they can raise awareness of the concept. teacher educators might also make use of these tools in their curriculums as they seem to be providing various contributions for teacher candidates, such as collaboration, refining teaching skills, criticizing oneself, broadening perspectives, and gaining self-confidence. conclusions it might be commented that the awareness of the in-service and pre-service efl teachers on the concept of professional development was high and that they perceive it as a way for selfimprovement. they stated that they found workshops, self-monitoring/ self-observation, teacher support groups, teaching journals, peer observation, and peer coaching useful and added that they could benefit from them while continuing their posts. additionally, it was also seen that teacher portfolio and action research needed to be explained in detail and exemplified if possible. the participants provided a lot of precious insights as to use hybrid models of professional development tools along with the ones listed in this study during their journey of teaching, which could confirm the idea that it is not easy to find a single ideal way to continue to develop professionally. to see an overall picture, similar studies could be carried out with larger research populations in various efl contexts, and the research design could be altered as both quantitative and qualitative. next, the data collection tools could also be diversified if the evişen, n. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 62 conditions are ripe enough. finally, the professional development activities mentioned in this study might be included and emphasized in the teacher education courses. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references aghabarari, m., & rahimi, m. 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(2007). reviewing the evidence on how teacher professional development affects student achievement (issues & answers report, rel 2007–no. 033). retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2334-4822.2006.tb00455.x https://doi.org/10.1177/1098300716637192 https://doi.org/10.1002/1098-2736(200011)37:9%3c963::aid-tea6%3e3.0.co;2-0 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-008-9053-z https://doi.org/10.1111/nhs.12048 https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412983488 http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs focus on elt journal vol 4, issue 2, 2022 issn: 2687-5381 🖂corresponding author: telyas@kau.edu.sa copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. a blueprint of saudi english typology: a substrate effect amaather alrawi bnuha alshurafa ctariq elyas dabdulrahman alqurashi aassoc. prof. dr., king abdulaziz university, jeddah, saudi arabia, mmalrawi@kau.edu.sa bfull professor dr., king abdulaziz university, jeddah, saudi arabia, nuhalshurafa@hotmail.com c full professor dr., king abdulaziz university, jeddah, saudi arabia, telyas@kau.edu.sa dassoc. prof. dr., king abdulaziz university, jeddah, saudi arabia, aaalqurashi@kau.edu.sa apa citation: alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. (2022). a blueprint of saudi english typology: a substrate effect. focus on elt journal, 4(2), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.1 abstract although some englishes in asia have received extensive attention, the grammar of saudi english remains relatively unexamined. it remains unclear whether the saudi english grammatical (or morphosyntactic) patterns derive from universal principles. al-rawi (2012); mahboob and elyas (2014) seem to provide an individual description. this paper is an attempt to provide an analysis for the morphosyntactic features of the variety of english in saudi arabia from a global approach by adopting kortmann and szmrecsanyi (2004) geographic and variety-specific perspectives. our findings show that saudi english has 7 distinctive features. four of them are universal. due to the limitations in covering all the distinctive features and due the clear analogy between these features and the substrate arabic patterns, we argue that the distinctive features are simply the result of the substrate influence rather than universal principles that derive these deviant forms. keywords saudi english, morphosyntactic features, substrate effect, transfer effect, typology article history received : 19.04.2022 revised : 24.06.2022 accepted : 25.06.2022 published : 30.06.2022 type research article introduction it has been claimed that english is a highly diversified language that appears in a multitude of different varieties across the globe (siemund, 2013). hence, english language has been perceived as a highly diversified language that appears in a multitude of different varieties and dialects across the globe (siemund, 2013; siemund et al., 2013, 2021). these varieties have been under investigation since the ninetieth century (mesthrie & bhatt, 2008). many pioneering scholars called these varieties of english ‘world englishes’. kachru’s (1985) model of world englishes was credited due to a myriad of research in ‘world englishes’ worldwide. onysko (2016) states that “a range of studies have emerged along related strands of research concerned with the global spread and creation of englishes (world englishes)” where the spread of english, globalization, and explicit contact impact the “other languages and the influences that emerge from this contact” (p.1). the impact of globalization, media, and world entertainment have further impacted world englishes worldwide along the contact with local languages (bolton, 2013, 2019; onysko, 2016). due to such an impact, a handful of researchers have mailto:mmalrawi@kau.edu.sa mailto:nuhalshurafa@hotmail.com mailto:telyas@kau.edu.sa mailto:aaalqurashi@kau.edu.sa https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.2.1 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8431-4709 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4240-1393 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2898-7391 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0523-942x alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 2 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com advocated for a global english education instead of standard american or english education (fang et al., 2022; widodo et al., 2020, 2022) arguing for ‘plurality of english’ towards fostering unequal disposition against unequal englishes (tupas, 2021, 2022). in the arabian gulf region, a handful of researchers have shed some light on the varieties of english used in their respective country of residence. ‘gulf english’ was then labeled by fussell (2011) where he examined the syntactic, lexical, and phonetic features found in the english speech as varieties of english by the arabian gulf citizens. since then, the status of english in the arabian gulf was investigated by many researchers such as elyas and mahboob (2021a, 2021b), hillman et al. (2021), hopkyns et al. (2021), mahboob (2013); siemund et al. (2021), tuzlukova and mehta (2021), and van den hoven and carroll (2021). hillman et al. (2021) scoping review of world englishes in the middle east and north african (mena) has systemically researched and documented research on world englishes. also, elyas and mahboob (2021b) have published a through bibliography of world englishes in (mena) in the same journal (journal of world englishes) showcasing the myriad of research conducted on the varieties of english in the region, including ma and phd theses on the topic by locals and western scholars living and working in the region. saudi english al-shurafa (2009) was among the first to analyze the syntactic features found saudi english. in her work, she established what she called “arabicised-english” not only in saudi arabia, but also in the arab world. in her study, she showed that arabs tend to overuse the modifier very, the first-person pronoun, and the connector which indicated l1 (i.e., arabic) interferences. english in saudi arabia is being used as a lingua franca between saudis and foreigners, such as pilgrims, tourists, and workers in international companies (elyas, 2011; elyas & picard, 2013; elyas & picard, 2018). to illustrate the importance of english, al-rawi (2012) stated that learning english can greatly help saudi university graduates to increase their chances of employment in private and international companies in saudi arabia. al-rawi (2012) mahboob and elyas (2014) were the first who coined the term saudi english (se) in their study. by analyzing university and high school students’ speech as well as their english language textbooks, they noted that se features include deletion of the indefinite articles a, an and more use of the definite article the, more variable use of tense markers such as use of the perfect tense for the past tense, and replacing /p/ with /b/ and /v/ with /f/ due to the non-existence of /p/ and /v/ sounds in the arabic language. culture and religion also play a major role in the influence of english usage on saudis’ word choice. elyas et al. (2021) coined the term ‘culigion’ as a feature of saudi english where culture and religion have a major impact of saudi utterances of english on their daily english conversations. fallatah (2017) in her analysis of se in stand-up comedy, she has referred to the use of distinct saudi cultural and islamic/religious expressions such a ‘haram’ (an islamic expression of wrong doings) and the use of the word ‘niqaab’ (women face cover). fallatah (2017) has detected a routine usage of religious phrases indicating an infused saudi discourse with the islamic religion. since then, se has been claimed as an emerging variety of english (al-rawi, 2012; alrawi et al., 2022; alshurfa et al., 2022; barnawi, 2022; elyas et al., 2021; fallatah, 2017; mahboob & elyas, 2014). nevertheless, in the same token, there is still a gap in the literature and more studies on se are needed. alrawi et al. (2022) examined the speech of several saudi speakers in order to describe se. the results of their study show that there are alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 3 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com several grammatical characteristics in se speech. in relation to noun phrases, it was found that speakers show variation in the use of articles, the plural, possession, and pronouns. in verb phrases, they showed variation in the use of tense, aspect, modality, number, and forms of be. se speakers were also found to use prepositions differently from standard english speakers as they delete, insert, and substitute prepositions. in relation to the structure of english clauses, se speakers were found to omit subjects and objects, repeat subjects, and use comparative and superlative structures irregularly. these findings confirm the results found in previous studies in se literature (al-rawi, 2012; alshurafa, 2014; barnawi, 2022; elyas, 2011; elyas et al., 2021; fallatah, 2017; mahboob, 2013; mahboob & elyas, 2014). alshurfa et al. (2022) recent paper has given a brief overview of the main morphosyntactic and lexical features of saudi english. it has been conveyed that the expansion of the role of english in saudi arabia and the increased number of english speakers has resulted in a variety of english that is distinct from se (elyas et al., 2021; mahboob & elyas, 2014). in the morphosyntactic domain, a total of 30 traits have been detected. the frequencies of these traits are argued to depend on the speakers’ contact with standard english. the traits are less among speakers who have a direct contact with standard english (or esl speakers) and more among the speakers who have no direct contact to standard english (alrawi et al., 2022). bukhari (2022) has investigated teachers’ view of se errors in her paper. her findings revealed that a proper understanding of elf concepts creates a positive attitude towards elf and confidence in one’s own english use. thus, could meet the needs of saudi learners more effectively and fulfill the expectations of the speech community (mckay, 2010), challenging the dichotomy of native and non-native speakers’ dominance in saudi context (elyas & alghofaili, 2019). however, a major shift in the status of english language in saudi arabia came with the post 9/11 political scenario when the english language was acknowledged, probably under social and political pressure from some west (i.e., the us) (elyas, 2008), as a necessity for development and modernization in the country, declaring it [english] a compulsory subject across all school levels (elyas, 2008; mahboob & elyas, 2014; shah & elyas, 2019). this, in turn, has created us versus them ideological paradigm shift (hopkyns & elyas, 2022) where the interplay between arabic and english paradigm became under question in saudi society where religion determine people’s everyday lives (elyas, 2011). with the privileged status of english as a compulsory foreign language in the country already established, the launch of the late king abdullah’s vision 2020 for his country in 2007, and later the saudi vision 2030 led by mohammed bin salman has led to the adoption of english as a medium of instruction for all science departments in the saudi universities (elyas et al., 2021; elyas & picard, 2018). in this paper, se was chosen being both a variety in the expanding circle and among the so-called ʻarabicised-englishʼ (al-rawi, 2012; alrawi et al., 2022; al-shurafa, 2009; alshurfa et al., 2022; elyas et al., 2021; mahboob & elyas, 2014) to distinguish substratesuperstrate interaction. unlike the post-colonial english varieties used as the basis for the typological classification (kortmann & szmrecsanyi, 2004), saudi english is a variety that relies on external norms (kachru, 1985, p.5) through showing an “endonormative” (schneider, 2004) attitude, or ʻat least one that does not overcompensate to avoid transferʼ (sarmah et al., 2009, p. 207) from the mother tongue. the new english that is deviant from the ‘standard english’, is generally socially acceptable (barnawi, 2022). there has been a rising interest to study the non-standard varieties of english from a global perspective irrespective of the learner’s first language. chambers (2001, 2003, 2004) alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 4 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com develops the concept of “vernacular universals” suggesting ‘‘a small number of phonological and grammatical processes [that] recur in vernaculars wherever they are’’ (chambers, 2004, p.128). at the grammatical level, he identifies four features: (a) conjunction regularization, or levelling of irregular verb forms; (b) default singulars, or subject-verb nonconcord; (c) multiple negation, or negative concord; (d) copula absence, or copula deletion. these features are worldwide. in the same vein, mair (2003) proposes the notion of “angloversals” (p.84) for the universal features that occur in the postcolonial varieties of english (or l2 varieties) which cannot be explained historically or genetically. building on the works of chambers (2001, 2003, 2004) and mair (2003), kortmann and szmrecsanyi (2004) design a catalogue that comprises 76 universal morphosyntactic features available in 46 non-standard varieties of english around the globe. the features in the catalogue are numbered from 1 to 76 for ease of reference. kortmann and szmrecsanyi (2004) classify them from a regional and variety-specific (l1, l2, pidgins and creoles) perspectives. on the one hand, the features are identified according to the seven word regions: british isles, america, caribbean, australia, pacific, asia, and africa. on the other hand, they are identified based on the variety type distinguishing three groups of features: (l1, l2, pidgins and creoles). it is worth noting that none of the 46 varieties attested by kortmann and szmrecsanyi (2004) was from the middle east. therefore, there is a need to put saudi english on the global synopsis especially that al-rawi (2012) reports that saudi english shows three angloversal features: a) the irregular use of articles, which corresponds to kortmann and szmrecsanyi’s (2004) feature number [17], b) the deletion of be, which corresponds to kortmann and szmrecsanyi’s (2004) feature number [57], c) the invariant present tense due to zero marking for the third person singular (kortmann & szmrecsanyi’s (2004) feature [53]). it remains unclear whether the features in the saudi arabia can be identified using the global synopsis (be it geographical or variety-specific). research questions the paper aims to answer two research questions: 1. what are the features of saudi english used by the majority of the educated speakers? 2. can these features be accounted for following a universal perspective (be it geographic or variety-specific? data data were collected from 91 educated saudis ranged in age between 23 to 55 years. the speakers are of two groups: the first group consists of both ma students of linguistics and literature (including 21 speakers) and undergraduates in their final year (including 39 speakers) studying english major and medicine at king abdulaziz university, jeddah, saudi arabia. the second group includes 12 english teachers in government schools, 9 science teachers in private schools, 6 employees in a multinational company (including 1 manager, 2 engineers, 2 supervisors, 1 human-resources coordinator), 2 employees in a local bank (1 customer-service representative and 1 teller), and 2 fashion designers. the subjects of the second group (totaled 31) are all highly educated, with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the following fields: engineering, science, business administration, arts and humanities. the overall sample is assumed to represent a target population of ‘educated users of saudi english’. for this research, alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 5 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com we refer to those who have finished at least secondary school – although, as indicated above, the sample comprises speakers who at least have completed their third year of university. the speakers in the sample were all born and raised in saudi arabia and received their education locally. the speaker sample of both groups is shown in table (1). table 1. participants information in each group group number of speakers occupation of speakers 1 21 39 ma students undergraduate students 2 12 9 6 2 2 english teachers science teachers employees in a company employees in a bank fashion designers the data comes from two sources: (a) interviews, and (b) recordings of spontaneous speech. the 60 students involved in the first group were all informally interviewed. each interview lasted for 5 minutes, producing on average 300 words. the main topics discussed by the speakers were: their future plans, their favorite courses, and ways to improve their personalities. the interviews were tape-recorded and fully transcribed. the total number of collected data is 18,000 words. table (2) demonstrates the number of interviewed participants, the duration, and the number of words collected from the interviews. table 2. interviews information no of participants duration no of words 60 5 min each 300 each total 5 h 18,000 the second kind of data was recordings of spontaneous speech. the recoded data is based on the second group of speakers. there were four categories of recorded data: conversations of business meetings (6 speakers), conversations in a bank (2 speakers), both english and science classes (21 speakers), and fashion speeches in a college (2 speakers). their permission to use the recorded material in an anonymous fashion was obtained. the recorded material includes 4 business meetings that vary in length from approximately 1 to 2 hours each, representing a total of approximately 6 hours. the second set comprises 4 conversations between 2 bank employees serving non-arab customers. each conversation lasted 10 20 minutes, totaling approximately 1 hour. the third set involved two fashion designers presenting a speech in a college. each recorded speech lasted 1 hour, representing a total of 2 hours of collected material. the fourth set includes 21 teachers: 12 english teachers working in 4 different government schools and 9 science teachers in 3 private schools. the recorded data consists of 21 lessons (each is one-hour duration). the recorded data collected from all four sets are written down in a word document. the resultant corpus consists of 30,000 words. table 3 summarizes the information about the recordings (duration and number of words) in each context. table 3. recordings information in each context context no of speakers duration no of words collected a company 6 6 h 5,950 alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 6 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com a bank 2 1 h 1,080 schools 21 21 h 20,870 college 2 2 h 2,100 total 31 30 h 30,000 results and discussion in order to answer the first research question, frequencies of deviant uses are calculated to determine distinctive morphosyntactic features of the variety of english in saudi arabia. despite that some sociolinguists have attempted to use “educated usage” as the main criterion, we rely on the frequency to determine distinctive features due to lack of agreement of on what constitutes the educated usage. we consider it legitimate to regard what wardhaugh (2002, p.43) describes as “noticeable differences in pronunciation, in the choices and forms of words, and in syntax” in the english of saudi arabia although neither pronunciation nor lexicon is part of this study. we take syntactic uses that are different from standard englishes to be distinctive features of saudi english when they are frequent and widespread. to ensure that they are used by the majority of the speakers, we focus on the forms that are used by ‘not less than 90%’, following arua (2004, p.259)1. accordingly, features, which are not used by the majority (i.e. 90%), are ignored. a feature such as ‘variation of tense marker’ (or feature [25] ‘levelling of difference between present perfect and simple past’ of kortmann and szmrecsanyi (2004, pp. 1146-7), that is taken by mahboob and elyas (2014) to be saudi english, is, in fact, not frequent in our study. table 4 below presents 7 distinctive features of saudi english with the corresponding speakers’ total number and percentage, and examples. table 4. the occurrence of saudi morphosyntactic features feature speakers examples total % invariant present tense 88/91 96 a. he speak-ø english. b. the student usually depend-ø on guessing. irregular use of articles 86/91 94 a. mr. ali is ø good professor. b. the syntax is the most difficult course. redundant use of pronouns 85/91 93 a. mr. ali, his son is studying in the states. b. the spelling, you should correct it now. irregular use of prepositions 82/91 93 a. i compared this group by the other group. b. the student should focus in this question. c. he is good in math. d. i’ve never been in london. lack of inversion in main clause yes/no questions 84/91 92 a. you are available? b. you are convinced? absence of plural marking 85/91 90 a. the form has twenty question-ø. b. i like student-ø who work hard. use of plural marker ‘-s’ with singular nouns 82/91 90 a. this is a valuable points. b. it is a bad habits. as shown in table (4), there are 7 morphosyntactic forms used by the majority of the speakers: i) the invariant present tense; ii) the irregular use of articles; iii) the redundant use of pronouns; iv) the irregular use of prepositions; v) the lack of inversion in main clause yes/no questions; vi) the absence of the plural marking; vii) the irregular use of plural marker ‘-s’. what supports 1 note that arua (2004) considers forms with less frequency (‘not less than 70%’) to be features but are not considered as widespread as the ones with 90% frequency. the latter are taken to be used by the majority of the speakers. alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 7 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com the argument that these features are robust in the saudi society is that the same features are argued by alrawi et al. (2022) to be used by both esl and efl saudi speakers. in order to answer the second research question, the features are put in comparison to kortmann and szmrecsanyi (2004) angloversals to test whether these features can be accounted for from a universal perspective. as we mentioned earlier, kortmann and szmrecsanyi (2004) classify english varieties around the globe into typologies based on two parameters: geography and variety type. by first comparing the saudi features to the ones related to the 7 world regions, the results are shown in table (5) below (for ease of reference, we number the features from 1 to 7). table 5. saudi english among other world regions feature a m e ri c a b ri ti sh i sl e s c a ri b b e a n p a c if ic a u st ra li a a fr ic a a si a 1 invariant present tense   2 irregular use of articles      3 redundant use of pronouns 4 irregular use of prepositions 5 lack of inversion in main clause yes/no questions       6 absence of plural marking      7 use of plural marker ‘-s’ with singular nouns the saudi features are not all available kortmann and szmrecsanyi’s (2004) global catalogue. only four features, namely the invariant present tense, the irregular use of articles, and the lack of inversion in the main clause yes/no questions, which correspond to kortmann and szmrecsanyi’s (2004) features number [53], [17], [74], and [14] respectively, are among the universal features. the redundant use of pronouns, the use of plural marker –s with singular nouns, and the irregular use of prepositions are not part of the kortmann and szmrecsanyi’s (2004) catalogue, the non-existence of the latter features is one piece of evidence that the saudi features cannot be identified using the global geographic-based perspective. another piece of evidence comes from fact that the saudi universal features are not typically asian. geographically, saudi arabia is situated in southwest asia, separated from africa by the red sea on the west. if the geographical classification is on the right tract, we would have expected saudi english to have asian features. saudi english shares with the asian only three features: (1) the irregular use of articles, (2) the lack of inversion in main clause yes/no questions, and (3) the absence of the plural marking. the most distinctive feature (i.e., invariant present tense) is not an asian feature. note that this feature is reported by al-rawi (2012) to be stable among all levels of educated users, unlike other features where the occurrence is affected by the level of education (al-rawi, 2012). it is ascertained to be a common feature accepted by the society (alrawi et al., 2022; alshurfa et al., 2022; mahboob & elyas, 2014). on the other hand, saudi english shares with caribbean english more features than asian english. it has four caribbean alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 8 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com features. in other words, all the universal features it has are caribbean. this means that it is closer to be caribbean than asian while it must be the opposite according to the geographic approach because saudi arabia is in asia. as for the variety-specific perspective, saudi english is close to be identified as a pidgin/creole because it has four pidgin/creole features: the invariant present tense, the irregular use of articles, the lack of inversion in the main clause yes/no questions, and the absence of the plural marking as illustrated in table 3 below. on the other hand, it shares only two features with l2 varieties, namely the lack of inversion in the main clause yes/no questions, and the absence of the plural marking, and another two features with l1 varieties, namely the irregular use of articles, the lack of inversion in the main clause yes/no questions. therefore, it is closer to be classified as a pidgin/creole. table 6. saudi features among l1, l2, pidgin/creole varieties feature l 1 l 2 p & c 1 invariant present tense  2 irregular use of articles   3 redundant use of pronouns 4 irregular use of prepositions 5 lack of inversion in main clause yes/no questions    6 absence of plural marking   7 use of plural marker ‘-s’ with singular nouns classifying saudi english as a pidgin/creole is to a large extent true because in saudi arabia there was no direct contact with standard english. however, this classification is not without limitations. it cannot explain the presence of three distinctive features, namely the redundant use of pronouns, the irregular use of prepositions, and the use of plural marker ‘-s’ with singular nouns. the status of saudi english can be represented in figure 1 below: alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 9 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com figure 1. the distribution of the saudi features based the variety types: l1, l2, p&c. based on the distribution of the universal features, saudi english can best be described as a pidgin/creole variety. before we put our final conclusion and suggest that the saudi patterns derive from universal principles related to pidgin/creole typology, a closer examination at the substrate system is required (see sharma, 2009). this is because ‘surface similarities across new englishes can be skin deep, diverging grammatically upon closer examination, due to substrate systems or substrate-superstrate interaction’ (sharma, p.23). therefore, a pattern may not necessarily be universal. a simple substrate explanation can determine whether a substrate or unmarked explanation is appropriate. substrate effect we argue along the lines of al-rawi (2012); mahboob and elyas (2014); alshurfa et al. (2022); alrawi et al. (2022) that the 7 saudi english features illustrated in table 1 are the result of the influence of the substrate arabic system. the first and the most pervasive feature is the invariant present tense due to the zero marking for the third person singular, which is kortmann and szmrecsanyi’s feature #53 as shown in example (1) below. (1) he receive-ø two thousands every month. this feature seems at a first glance to be irrelevant to the substrate, as assumed by alrawi (2012), because modern standard arabic (henceforth, msa) has a rich inflectional system that predicts using –s rather than deleting –s. the rich agreement is illustrated in (2) below where the verb in msa fully agrees with the preverbal subject in person, number, and gender in the so-called nominal sentences (i.e., sentences that show sv order). (2) a. ɂal-ɂawlaad-u yadrusuuun. (msa) the-boys.3.pl-nom study.3.m.pl alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 10 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com ‘the boys study.’ b. ɂal-walad-u ya-drus-u. the-boy.3.sg-nom study.3.m.sg ‘the boy studies.’ however, arabic shows another form of agreement, which is a partial agreement, in the so-called verbal sentences (or vs sentences) (see mohammad, 2000). in this type of sentences, the third person singular is considered a default agreement because it is used with both singular and plural subjects as illustrated in (3) below: (3) a. ya-drusu ɂal-ɂawlaad-u. (msa) study.3.m.sg the-boys.3.pl-nom ‘the boys study.’ b. ya-drusu ɂal-walad-u. study.3.m.sg the-boy.3.sg-nom ‘the boys study.’ therefore, deleting the third person singular –s in english is predictable as a result of the arabic system and the difference between english and arabic. english, on the other hand, is not a rich agreement language. the english sentences may have been comparable in the mind of the saudi speaker to the arabic partial agreement sentences, which have the third person singular as a default (or zero-agreement) marker. when the arabic speaker uses his/her arabic competence, it becomes predictable that the performance reflects an arabic underlying system, treating the english third person singular –s as a default agreement that can be optionally dropped. the second most pervasive feature is the irregular use of the articles, which is kortmann and szmrecsanyi’s feature #17, includes both deleting the indefinite article a/an and adding the definite article the as exemplified in (4) and (5), respectively. (4) a. this man was ø doctor. b. there is ø possibility to select the other option. (5) a. no one here speaks the indonesian. b. the money transfer arrives faster than the cheque. we adopt al-rawi’s (2012) argument that article irregularities are influenced by the substrate arabic language. in the arabic grammar, indefiniteness is not always expressed by an article. for example, in msa indefiniteness marker appears as an inflection on the noun, whereas in the local dialect spoken in saudi arabia known as saudi dialect (henceforth, sa), indefiniteness is expressed by a zero-article. parallel to (4) above are the structures of msa in (6a) and (6b) and the structures of sa in (6b) and (7b) below. (6) a. haðaa r-rajul-u kana ṭabiib-a-n. (msa) this def-man-3.sg-nom be.3.m.sg.past doctor-acc-indef b. haðaa r-rijaal kana ṭabiib (sa) this def-man.3.sg be.3.m.sg.past doctor ‘this man was a doctor.’ (7) a. hunnaaka ɂiħtimaal-u-n li-l-fašal-i. (msa) alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 11 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com there possibility-nom-indef for-def-failure-gen b. fiih ɂiħtimaal li-l-fašal. (sa) there possibility for-def-failure ‘there is a possibility to fail.’ likewise, the arabic article al-, beside its function as a definiteness marker, is used for generic interpretation and is a default expletive article (see abdulhameed, 2000; el-dahdah, 1993). the examples in (7) and (8) below from both msa and sa, which are comparable to the ones in (5) above, represent these functions: (8) a. la yuujadu man yatahadath ɂal-ɂandonosiyya (msa) no exist.3.sg who speak.3.m.sg def-indonesian b. maa fiih miin ya-tahadath ɂal-ɂandonosiyya (sa) no exist who speak.3.m.sg def-indonesian ‘no one speaks indonesian.’ (9) a. ɂal-ħawala-t-u ɂal-maaliyya-t-u taṣilu ɂasraʕ min ɂal-šeek. (msa) def-transfer-f-nom def-financial-f-nom arrive.3.f.sg fast from def-cheque b. ɂal-ħawala-h ɂal-maaliyya-h taṣil ɂasraʕ min ɂal-šeek. (sa) def-transfer-f def-financial-f arrive.3.f.sg fast from the-cheque ‘money transfer arrives faster than cheque.’ therefore, in the english counterparts (4) and (5), the saudi speaker tends to drop the indefinite article or insert the definite article based on his/her arabic competence. the third distinctive feature is the redundant use of pronouns. an additional pronoun is used to refer to an initial nominal instead of using the latter as a subject as illustrated below. this is a common structure in arabic (the so-called nominal sentences, see abdulhameed, 2000, among others). (6) khalid, his behavior is not accepted. (7) this topic, i will never discuss it. the initial nominal is a topic and the rest of the sentence is a comment. the resumptive pronoun is used in the comment to link the latter to the topic. parallel to (6) and (7) above are the arabic sentences (8) and (9) below. (8) a. khalid, taṣarrufu-hu ʁeeru maqbul. (msa) khalid, behavior-3.m.sg not acceptable b. khalid, taṣarrufu-h ʁeer maqbul. (sa) khalid, behavior-3.m.sg not acceptable ‘khalid’s behavior is not acceptable.’ (9) a. haða ɂal-mauḍuuʕ, ɂana lan ɂunaaqisha-hu. (mas) this def-topic i not.fut discuss.1.sg-3.m.sg b. haða ɂal-mauḍuuʕ, ɂana maa raħ ɂunaaqishu-h. (sa) this def-topic i not will discuss.1.sg-3.m.sg ‘i will not discuss this topic.’ alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 12 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com the use of the pronoun to co-refer with the topic nominal suggests that structures like (6) and (7) are the result of transfer from the substrate. the forth feature the irregular use of prepositions. saudi speakers utter four types of prepositional variations: by for with as in (10), in for on as in (11), in for at as in (12), and in for to as in (13). (10) i opened the can by a can-opener. (11) i am in the way. (12) the shop is located in the main intersection. (13) welcome in king abdulaziz university. the variations used by saudis reflect the arabic system. the preposition by ‘bi-’ in arabic is literally by in english. (14) and (15) represents how saudis use the preposition bi-: (14) fataħtu l-bab-a bi-l-muftaaħ-i. (mas) opened-1.sg def-door-acc by-def-key-gen ‘i opened the door with the key.’ (15) fataħt l-ʕulba-h bi-l-fattaħa-h. (sa) opened-1.sg def-can-f by-the-opener-f ‘i opened the can with a can-opener.’ likewise, saudis use the arabic preposition fi (literally means ‘in’) for the prepositions on, at and to. (16), (17), and (18) below are parallel to the sentences (11), (12), and (13) above, respectively. (16) a. ɂana fi ɂal-ṭariiq-i. (msa) i in def-way-gen b. ɂana fi ɂal-ṭariiq (sa) i in def-way ‘i am on the way.’ (17) a. yaqaʕu ɂal-maħal-u fi ɂal-taqaaṭuʕ-i ɂal-raɂiis-i (msa) located.3.m.sg def-shop-nom in def-intersection-gen def-the-main-gen b. yaqaʕ ɂal-maħal fi ɂal-taqaaṭuʕ ɂal-raɂiisi. (sa) located the-shop in the-intersection the-main ‘the shop is located at the main intersection.’ (18) a. marhab-an bi-ka fi jaamiʕat-i ɂal-malik-i ʕabdulʕaziz. (msa) welcome-acc by-2.m.sg in university-gen def-king-gen abdulaziz b. marhaba bi-k fi jaamiʕat ɂal-malik ʕabdulʕaziz. (sa) welcome by-2.m.sg in university def-king abdulaziz ‘welcome to king abdulaziz university.’ the fifth feature is the lack of inversion in main clause yes/no questions, which is kortmann and szmrecsanyi’s feature #74. saudis tend to keep the auxiliary after the subject without inversion as in (19a) or drop the auxiliary as in (19b) and (19c). alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 13 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com (19) a. you were waiting there? b. you okay? c. you understand? this order is comparable to the questions of arabic varieties spoken in saudi arabia. (20) a. hal ɂanta kunt muntaðir-a-n hunaak ? (msa) comp you be.past.2.m.sg waiting-acc-indf there b. ɂinta kunt muntaðir hinaak ? (sa) you be.past.2.m.sg waiting there ‘were you waiting there?’ c. ɂinta bxair ? you okay ‘are you okay?’ d. fǝhǝm-t ? understand-you ‘did you understand? ’ in (20a-d), the declarative and the interrogative sentences have the same form without any change in the word order unlike in standard english, which includes a movement of the auxiliary to a position prior to the subject or insertion of verb do if the sentence has no auxiliary (see radford, 2009). therefore, the pattern illustrated in (19) influenced by the arabic system. the sixth feature is the absence of plural marking (i.e. kortmann and szmrecsanyi feature #14) as illustrated in (21) below (the symbol ø is used to indicate the absence of –s). (21) a. he said it hundred time-ø. b. we are proud of all the student-ø. a direct substrate effect is evident here. in arabic, nouns following numerals such as ʕišrin ‘twenty’, θalaθin ‘thirty’, miɂat ‘hundred’, ɂalf ‘thousand’, etc. take a singular form. (22) below is a comparable sentence to (21a) above: (22) a. qala-ha miɂat-a marra-h. said.3.m.sg-3.f.sg hundred-acc time-f b. qala-ha miɂat marra said.3.m.sg-3.f.sg hundred time ‘he said it hundred times.’ as for (21b), another transfer effect is also evident. arabic has a plural form that has the same form as the singular feminine inflection as illustrated in (23). (23) a. naħnu faxuuriina bi-kul-i ṭ-ṭalab-ati. (msa) we proud.3.pl by-all-gen def-student-pl.gen b. ɂiħna faxuuriin bi-kul ṭ-ṭalab-a. (sa) we proud.3.pl by-all def-student-3.pl intended: “we are proud of all students (male/female).’ alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 14 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com the singular feminine suffix –at/a in arabic, beside its function as a feminine marker, has another function, which is to form a plural collective noun as the case in (23). therefore, the speaker here might have used his/her competence in arabic to form the english sentence. parallel to the plural collective noun, that is morphologically singular in form, the saudi english speaker uses a singular form. therefore, the use of the singular form in (21b) does not come as a surprise. the speaker may have relied on the analogous singular form used in the arabic system. the seventh distinctive feature is the use of plural marker ‘-s’ after singular adjective or demonstrative as exemplified in (24) below. (24) a. that’s [a simple questions]. b. don’t go into [this discussions]. a direct analogy is also available in arabic: (25) a. haðihi ɂasɂila-t-u basiṭa-t-un (msa) this-f-sg questions-f-nom simple-f.sg.nom b. haðihi ɂasɂila-h basiṭ-ah. (sa) this-f-sg questions-f simple-f.sg ‘these are simple questions.’ (26) a. la tadxul fi haðihi ɂal-niqaašaa-t. (msa) not go.1.sg in this-f-sg def-discussions-f b. la ta-dxul fi haðihi ɂal-niqaašaat. (sa) not go.1.sg in this-f-sg def-discussions ‘don’t go into these discussions.’ in arabic, when the plural noun is inanimate as in (25) ɂasɂila ‘questions’, it is modified by an adjective that takes a singular form (basiṭ-a ‘simple’) in (25) above and a demonstrative in the singular form (haðihi ‘this’) in (26). this may explain why the speaker of english tends to use a plural noun after an adjective or demonstrative. we can conclude then that all the 7 distinctive features of saudi english are explainable based on the arabic system. therefore, it is reasonable to assume it is the substrate-superstrate interaction that is responsible for the preservation of the arabic system in the new english variety (barnawi, 2022). analyzing the features in saudi english speakers as the influence of the substrate arabic grammar provides a wider range of explanations than assuming a generalization that is based on the variety type. if the existence of the saudi features is the result of a saudi english being a pidgin/creole, then it remains unclear why the three features that not universal occur. on the other hand, the substrate explanation can neatly account for the presence of all the 7 distinctive features in saudi english. conclusion alrawi, m., alshurafa, n., elyas, t., & alqurashi, a. / focus on elt journal, 2022, (4)2 15 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com saudi english has shown to have 7 distinctive features that are widely used by the majority of its speakers. these features are the invariant present tense, the irregular use of articles, the redundant use of pronouns, the irregular use of prepositions, the lack of inversion in main clause yes/no questions, the absence of the plural marking, and the irregular use of plural marker ‘-s’. in an attempt to account for the existence of features from a global perspective, the saudi distinctive features have been compared to the features of the 7 world regions, on the one hand, and to the features of l1, l2, and pidgin/creole varieties, on the other hand. the geographicalbased approach has shown to be inadequate to account for the saudi features while the varietyspecific approach has shown to be more closely related. the fact that neither the geographic nor the variety specific approaches can account for all 7 saudi features suggests that the saudi features may not follow some universal principles. the comparison between the english patterns and the arabic counterparts has shown a correlation between the substrate system and the occurrence of the features. while a great deal of work remains to be done in describing the complete system of saudi english speakers, it is clear that the distinctive features of a new english may result from a transfer effect. future research is needed to examine similarities between new englishes that share similar arabic substrate. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references abdulhameed, m. 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(2020). the construction of language teacher professional identity in the global englishes territory: ‘we are legitimate language teachers. asian englishes22, (3), 309316. https://doi.org/10.1080/13488678.2020.1732683. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.30.2.05sar https://doi.org/10.1080/13488678.2022.2056797 https://doi.org/10.1080/04250494.2020.1786367 https://doi.org/10.1080/13488678.2020.1732683 focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 4, issue 3, 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: ummugul.mutlukoroglu@agu.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. high-school english teachers' attitudes towards using authentic and non-authentic materials in english lessons in türkiye ümmügül mutlu köroğlu english instructor, abdullah gül university, türkiye, ummugul.mutlukoroglu@agu.edu.tr apa citation: mutlu köroglu, ü. (2022). high-school english teachers’ attitudes towards using authentic and non-authentic materials in english lessons in türkiye. focus on elt journal, 4(3), 17-33. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.3.2 abstract this mixed-method design study examines high-school english teachers' attitudes toward using authentic and non-authentic materials in türkiye. it thoroughly investigates teachers' instructional material uses and the underlying reasons for using certain materials in their teaching practices. the study comprised forty anatolian high-school english language teachers from five schools in five districts of kayseri. data gathered from a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews revealed that high-school english language teachers in türkiye had positive attitudes toward using authentic materials (materials used by native speakers in their daily life). in contrast, they had negative attitudes toward using non-authentic materials (current official textbooks). it was also pointed out that despite their negative attitudes toward these materials, teachers used official textbooks more frequently than authentic materials. the primary underlying reason for this discrepancy was explained as the relevance of these materials to the curriculum and the lack of time to adapt authentic materials. teachers also reported that they could not use authentic materials as frequently as they wished even though these materials were appropriate for their students' needs with their engaging, communicative, and flexible content. this study's results are expected to contribute to the future development of the curriculum and teaching materials, considering teachers' attitudes in türkiye. keywords authentic materials, commercial textbooks, textbooks, instructional materials article history received : 17.07.2022 revised : 10.09.2022 accepted : 05.10.2022 published : 30.12.2022 type research article introduction globalization, technological advancements, the needs for cooperation, and communication among nations increase the demand to learn english. this demand, in turn, yielded the importance of using high-quality english language teaching materials and boosted the efforts of researchers to define the criteria influencing the quality of language teaching materials (rashidi & safari, 2011; shi, 2015; tomlinson, 2010; tomlinson & masuhara, 2013). then, referencing these criteria, a significant body of research has focused on evaluating the quality of language instructional materials and their content (anggis & setyadi, 2016; erlina, 2018; hartatik & rahmah, 2016; kılıçkaya, 2004; richards, 2001). however, language teachers' attitudes and roles in material evaluation and selection have received little attention (islam, 2015). since teachers’ attitudes shape their day-to-day practices and these practices have direct mailto:ummugul.mutlukoroglu@agu.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.3.2 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4433-2109 mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 18 links with students' language development (shi, 2015), it is significant to investigate teachers’ attitudes (individual thoughts, actions, and opinions) toward using language teaching materials. recently, a handful of research has sought a better understanding of teachers' perceptions and thoughts on using authentic materials such as newspapers, brochures, and official music videos (allag, 2017; al-musallam, 2009; rusmawaty et al., 2018; silvani, 2018) as well as non-authentic materials such as official (alhamami & ahmad, 2018; vanha, 2007) and commercial textbooks (srakang, 2013). in addition, several other studies have focused on teachers' material preferences in their teaching practices. (islam, 2015). nevertheless, how often teachers use these materials in their teaching practices and which factors affect their uses still need to be investigated. to address this gap, the current study investigates turkish state highschool language teachers' use of authentic and non-authentic materials and their opinions on the factors affecting their uses. theoretical background and related studies teaching materials are used to enhance the comprehensibility and efficiency of the teaching process. however, their poor quality has been recognized as a potential problem influencing language learning. according to çelebi (2006), teaching materials used in classes fail to meet the demands of the learners. the same study also added that textbooks are the main reason for disengaged students during the lessons due to their content. in response to the call for similar problems, several theories appeared to define the principles teachers should consider while evaluating textbooks (rashidi & safari, 2011; tomlinson, 2010). however, these theories were narrow in scope since they just considered esl textbooks. indeed, esl teaching materials are not expected to include the same features as efl teaching materials. this situation seemed to increase the need for conceptualizing a more comprehensive theory, including other materials worldwide, and only two years later, new theories arose in the field (shi, 2015; tomlinson & masuhara, 2013). these theories emphasize the material evaluation criteria derived from l2 acquisition theories, principles, and researchers' experiences (shi, 2015; tomlinson & masuhara, 2013). the former theory presents 21 universal criteria which provide a broader perspective. in comparison, the latter mentions four main factors influencing teachers' material choices in an efl context similar to türkiye. both theories are hoped to provide different prominent contributions to this study's frame while complementing each other. to define the factors influencing teachers' material uses, the criteria determined by these theories have been categorized under seven common categories by the researcher: being appropriate to the students, being communicative, being appropriate to the curriculum, being interesting, including real language use, being flexible, and having real language input. begin with textbooks, they are designed by experts purposefully in the light of the theories mentioned above, and they are widely accepted as the most appropriate materials for teaching any specific subject worldwide (tomlinson, 2010). however, geographically dispersed researchers reflected teachers’ negative attitudes toward using textbooks. for example, both alhamami & ahmad (2018) in saudi arabia and srakang (2013) in thailand have noted that teachers are unwilling to use textbooks due to their ‘insufficiencies to meet the curriculum requirements and courses' aims. they are also reported as being inadequate in meeting 'students' needs and enhancing their cultural sensitiveness.' importantly, vanha (2007) explores finnish language teachers' perceptions of textbooks' role. this study indicated that teachers' negative perceptions are derived from the restrictive nature of textbooks. these results confirm the existence of universal principles influencing teachers' attitudes toward certain materials. nevertheless, they might be inadequate to explain teachers' commitments to using textbooks even though they have negative thoughts about doing so. mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 19 the contextually bounded nature of teachers' actions may explain the disparity between teachers' thoughts and actions toward using textbooks. for example, in vanha’s (2017) study, language teachers at primary, elementary, and secondary schools have reported that textbooks are generally used as complementary materials or as a starting point. because they are readymade materials and 'appropriate to the curriculum.' for this reason, they save time and energy by reducing teachers’ workload when teachers have to teach at least 25-30 hours per week. similarly, secondary school teachers have defined textbooks as the primary and indispensable resource for conducting lessons in line with the curriculum (srakang, 2013). these results suggest that regardless of universal principles influencing teachers' thoughts, contextual factors such as heavy workload, national exams, and institutional or educational policies can play a crucial role in their actions. regarding authentic materials, previous researchers from different contexts have a consensus on teachers' positive perceptions toward using these materials, and they stressed similar factors. for instance, a study by al-musallam (2009) examined female students' and instructors' perceptions of using authentic materials in reading classes in a saudi arabia college. most teachers in this study have reported positive views toward using authentic material. the same result was echoed by silvani (2018), who conducted his research in indonesia and by allag (2017), who explored the use of authentic materials at a university in algeria. all these studies have noted that authentic materials are enjoyable and 'motivated’ with their ‘interesting’ content. the same studies showed that when learners were exposed to authentic materials, their engagement in the lesson increased. students began to participate in the lessons more willingly since these materials included ‘real language use.' even though these similar results might confirm the rationale behind shi’s (2015) and tomlinson & masuhara's (2013) conceptualizations of universal features of these materials, recent research has revealed that some contextual factors have a determining role in teachers’ authentic material uses. for example, institutional policies restrict teachers' freedom to use these materials in iran. schools' administrators are blamed for forcing teachers to follow certain textbooks since they are ‘appropriate to the curriculum’ (al-musallam, 2009). however, it is different in the indonesian context, teachers use authentic materials frequently there (silvani, 2018). moreover, since authentic materials are not produced for educational purposes, adapting them by ensuring the 'appropriateness of these materials to the learners’ means an increased workload for some teachers. the studies conducted in iran by al-musallam (2009) and indonesia by rusmawaty et al. (2018) have reported the same problem. they also added that authentic materials are inappropriate for beginners and local culture. however, allag's (2017) contrary findings show the benefits of these materials for enhancing cultural awareness and improving elementary-level learners’ language skills. overall, a small body of research provides ample knowledge of teachers' perceptions of using instructional materials. however, only a little is known about teachers' material preferences, their material uses, and the factors affecting their uses. moreover, since attitudes are highly subjective and material uses are contextually bounded, the results of previous works in different educational settings cannot be generalized to other contexts. thus, more research is required to comprehensively understand turkish high-school teachers' attitudes toward using authentic and non-authentic materials. to this end, this study aims to investigate the following questions: 1what are high-school english teachers' thoughts on using authentic and non-authentic materials? 2how do high-school english teachers use authentic and non-authentic materials? 3what are high-school english teachers' opinions on the factors affecting their use of teaching materials? mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 20 methodology this study was conducted with a mixed-method design comprised of qualitative and quantitative data. this research design was used primarily to reduce the subjectivity of researchers' interpretations of the study's findings (creswell & plano clark, 2011) and, secondly, to combine the strengths of both methods (kumar, 2015). in this way, the current study is expected to provide more valid and reliable findings with enriched data with the help of a survey and follow-up interviews. context and participants the sample of the research was determined in two steps. cluster sampling was used in the first step, and a simple random sampling method was used in the second step. for cluster sampling, a total of five schools (one anatolian high school in each district of kayseri) were recruited. regarding the random sampling, 40 english teachers (30 females and 10 males) were chosen out of 51 teachers working at these schools. 12 out of the 40 teachers agreed to take part, and 5 of them were assigned randomly for the semi-structured interviews. even though this sampling was limited to english language teachers working at anatolian high schools in kayseri, the data gathered from this group can offer rich insights to formulate ideas that other studies confirm. the participants’ age in the survey ranged from 22 to 45 years. in terms of their experiences, a large proportion of the group (22 teachers) had more than fifteen years of teaching experience, and 8 teachers in the group had teaching experienced less than five years. the remaining teachers (10) had an experience between 5 and 15 years. in addition, 29 respondents had a bachelor's degree, while 11 had an ma degree. the demographics of the interview group, comprised of 5 teachers, are as follows. table 1. demographic information of participants in the interview teacher gender age experience academic degree ts male 33 10 master’s degree ti female 34 5 bachelor degree tu female 36 13 bachelor degree tm male 45 20 bachelor degree te female 40 15 bachelor degree instruments this study utilizes two data collection methods: a survey and semi-structured interviews. fivepoint likert scales were taken from the studies by allag (2017) and al-musallam (2009) for the survey. these scales were chosen since their content aligns with tomlinson & masuharas' (2013) and shi's (2015) theories. allag's (2017) attitude scale enabled the researcher to collect data on teachers' thoughts toward instructional materials. al-musallam's (2009) scale assisted the researcher in gathering data on teachers' opinions about their use of instructional materials. for the final version of the questionnaire, participants’ demographic information and openended questions were added to the existing items in these scales. open-ended questions are as follows: 1-how often do you prefer using textbooks/authentic materials? 2which authentic materials do you use? 3-if you have any other opinion, could you explain it? as a result, a total of 41 open-ended and five-likert scale items were formulated to collect data on high-school english teachers' attitudes toward using authentic/non-authentic materials, teachers’ uses of certain materials with frequencies, and teachers' opinions on the factors influencing their uses. to check the content validity of the questionnaire, a teacher out of the study group and an expert mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 21 in the elt field took part in the evaluation process. for the feasibility of all questions, piloting was done with five teachers out of the study group. they were asked to rate the questionnaire. in this step, the internal reliability of the survey was calculated with cronbach's alpha. the results showed that the questionnaire had a high level of reliability ((a)=0.812) as its cronbach’s alpha score was above 0.70 (clarke & braun, 2017). for semi-structured interviews, a set of questions derived from the survey and literature was asked. the questions were as follows: 1-do you recommend using textbooks/authentic materials? 2-what kind of difficulties do you face while using textbooks/authentic materials? 3-what criteria do you consider while choosing instructional materials? 4which is the most important for you and why? procedure initially, participants were informed about confidentiality, anonymity, and their rights to withdraw from the study anytime. then two data collection instruments were employed, one after another. first, the survey was conducted with the participation of 40 teachers. then, to get a high response rate, researchers distributed the survey during teachers' lunchtime. in this way, researchers gave teachers forty minutes to complete the survey. when surveys were returned, the researchers double-checked the survey returned to ensure that the teachers accidentally skipped no questions. three days later, interviews were employed with 5 teachers among 12 volunteers. interviews were conducted individually and in their mother tongue to enable respondents to express their ideas in a relaxed atmosphere. each interview lasted approximately 40 minutes. data analysis for the analysis phase, spss software (version 22.0) was used to perform the relevant statistics. first, positive survey items were recorded to software using numeric codes such as 'strongly agree = 5, agree = 4, uncertain = 3, disagree = 2, and strongly disagree = 1'. at the same phase, the negatively worded survey items were reversed. then the shapiro-wilk test results were checked for a normal distribution. since the p-value was p=0.211, it was assumed that the data did not show a significant deviation from the normal distribution (bryman & cramen, 2011). next, the chi-square test was utilized for turning five-point likert items into three main categories (agree, uncertain, and disagree). lastly, modes, medians, and frequencies were calculated based on boone & boones' (2012) recommendations, and the obtained data were interpreted according to srakang's (2013)'s framework (0-2.99=negative attitude, 3.00-3.49 = neutral attitude, and 3.5-5 = positive attitude). regarding qualitative data analysis, the results of interviews were analyzed by following braun & clarkes' (2006) 6 phases thematic analysis framework. first, all extracts based on individuals' audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and uploaded to atlas.ti software program. after similarities in the data and connections were identified based on predetermined codes in the literature, sub-themes and themes were formed by combining these codes. then, the researcher determined whether any new codes emerged different from the literature (braun & clarke, 2006). as the final step, a thematic map was created to identify potential sub-themes, determine how each sub-theme is connected to the main themes, and analyze how each theme relates to the others. in this process, any irrelevant result was extracted. for coding consistency, the researcher and one of her colleagues with a ph.d. degree assessed the same data twice two weeks later (castleberry & nolen, 2018). first, they had meetings to discuss themes and coding schemes. then, they measured inter-coder reliability mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 22 with cohen's kappa statistics. in these statistics, the agreement was found as 0.90, which showed a high level of consistency, according to miles & huberman (1994). results high-school english teachers’ thoughts towards using authentic or non-authentic materials the overall score in table 2 and srakang's (2013) framework revealed that teachers had negative thoughts toward textbooks (m=2.62). the highest mean scores for official textbooks (m=3.4) revealed a degree of agreement among teachers on using textbooks as a primary source. interestingly, according to the same data, teachers reflected that students could learn without textbooks (m=2.1). table 2. means and standard deviation of teachers’ thoughts toward current official textbooks textbooks mean sd 1school textbooks are beneficial for students. 2.4 1.1 2students can still learn english well without exposure to school textbooks. 2.1 0.8 3it is an opportunity for students to interact with school textbooks. 2.6 1.0 4textbooks should act as primary sources. 3.4 1.0 5using school textbooks is more effective than using authentic materials. 2.6 0.8 overall mean scores: 2.62 the underlying reason for this controversial result was explained by two teachers as follows: 'textbook can guide students and teachers to prepare for upcoming lessons beforehand. therefore, they should be used. but they are not adequate to fulfil students’ all their learning needs’ (tu) (ti) table 3. means and standard deviation of teachers’ thoughts toward authentic materials authentic materials mean sd 1authentic materials are beneficial for students. 4.3 0.9 2students can still learn english well without exposure to authentic materials. 3.5 1.0 3it is an opportunity for students to interact with authentic materials. 4.2 0.6 4authentic materials should act as a primary source. 3.1 0.6 5-using authentic materials are more effective than textbooks. 4.1 0.9 overall mean scores: 3.84 additionally, the results obtained from overall scores from the scale of the authentic materials in table 3 (m=3.84) showed that teachers had positive thoughts toward authentic materials (srakang, 2013). the highest scores in the same data implied that many participants mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 23 believed in the benefits of using these materials (m=4.3). however, the lowest score showed teachers' concerns about using authentic materials as a primary source in classes (m=3.1). in the interview, when teachers were asked the reasons behind these beliefs, tu and ts reported: ’i would like to use authentic materials more frequently, yet, i think using them can increase my workload in the school.’ (ts) 'i believe in the benefits of using authentic materials. however, since they provide different content than official textbooks, their use should be limited. (tu) it is important to note that using commercial textbooks is prohibited at state schools in türkiye. therefore, there is not any explanation of teachers' attitudes or the use of commercial textbooks in this study. high-school english teachers’ use of authentic and non-authentic materials figure 1: percentages of using authentic materials figure 2: percentages of using current official textbooks figure 1 depicts teachers' authentic material use rates, while figure 2 illustrates teachers' current official textbook use rates during english lessons at high schools in türkiye. it was clear from the pie charts that roughly three-quarters of participants (72%) always used textbooks, while 20 % percent of the teachers often used these materials. additionally, the percentages of those against using authentic and non-authentic materials were nearly identical, at 3% and 5%, respectively. lastly, none of the participants rated the 'never' or 'always' options in the survey. the results from the figures and tables above might show that both materials were important in english language classes. hence, current official textbooks were likely to be the primary source in turkish high schools despite teachers' negative thoughts about using them. on the other hand, it is also suggested that teachers did not use authentic materials and commercial textbooks as frequently as they would like despite having positive thoughts toward using them. bar chart 1 displays that pictures and youtube videos (for both 85%) were the most commonly used authentic materials in classes. with a slight difference, the real objects and short stories come second (83%). additionally, more than fifty percent of teachers reported tv programs and brochures as being used, which shows 63 % and 60% percentages, respectively. mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 24 figure 3. most frequently used authentic materials in classes by high-school english teachers on the other hand, the teachers reported that songs and other types of authentic materials were the least preferred materials by the teachers (20% and 23%, respectively). aside from the authentic materials in the bar chart below, the teachers added other materials, such as games, videos, and podcasts, in the survey's open-ended questions section. teachers’ opinions on the factors influencing their material use: non-authentic materials (textbooks) the third research question in this study explores the factors influencing teachers’ material preferences and uses. according to table 4, more than half of the teachers (65%) believed that current official textbooks were appropriate for the curriculum and students' cultural backgrounds. however, the majority of teachers expressed their disagreements with the remaining items. for example, approximately half of the participants disagreed that textbooks contributed to students' communicative skills. according to teachers, textbooks do not explain how language is used in real-life situations (52%), and they do not increase students' vocabulary (54%) or grammar knowledge for daily conversations (54%). another interesting finding is that nearly half of the participants agreed that textbooks were ineffective at increasing students' cultural awareness (%57) and insufficient for providing appropriate content (45%) for students’ needs. in the interview, the primary and the most significant criterion influencing teachers’ use of textbooks was reported as 'textbooks' being appropriateness to the curriculum.' more than half of the teachers stressed the importance of using textbooks since they were time-saving, cheap for the students, and a ready-made guide for teachers in implementing the curriculum: 'textbooks can be followed easily, and they can help us to reach the curriculum's pre-determined goals that the teacher should accomplish at the end of each year. thus, i prefer using textbooks to authentic materials.' (ts) ‘using textbooks is beneficial for both teachers and students. they can help teachers to reduce the amount of time for lesson preparation. it is economical for students because the turkish ministry of education is responsible for distributing them free of charge. (ti) mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 25 table 4. descriptive statistics of teachers’ opinions towards using official textbooks agree uncertain disagree median mod 1textbooks are appropriate for the aims of the curriculum. 26 64% 5 12% 9 22% 4 4 2textbooks give flexible content to fulfil different students' needs. 13 32% 9 22% 18 45% 3 2 3using textbooks is interesting. 12 30% 9 22% 19 47% 3 2 4using textbooks motivates students to learn more. 8 20% 12 30% 20 50% 3 2 5the content of textbooks is difficult for students’ proficiency level. 19 47% 10 25% 11 27% 2 3 6using textbooks increases students’ familiarity with the use of grammar rules in their original context. 10 25% 8 20% 22 54% 2 2 7textbooks introduce students to how language is used in the real world. 13 32% 6 15% 21 52% 2 4 8textbooks improve students’ cultural understanding. 6 15% 11 27% 23 57% 2 4 9the content of textbooks causes cultural conflict that hinders comprehension. 8 20% 11 27% 21 52% 2 2 10using textbooks improves students’ proficiency level. 11 27% 13 32% 16 40% 3 3 11using a textbook is time-consuming for students. 16 40% 12 30% 12 30% 3 3 12textbooks introduce the students to how language is used in the real world. 9 22% 9 22% 22 54% 2 3 13textbooks increase students' knowledge of the necessary vocabulary items in real situations. 13 32% 5 12% 22 54% 2 4 additionally, the concerns about the 'scarcity of flexible activities' in textbooks were expressed in the survey by 45% of teachers and by two teachers in the interview. they said: 'particularly, listening and writing activities are extremely irrelevant to my student's interests, and they are above their current proficiency levels. as i cannot simplify these activities, i skip them and prefer authentic materials instead. simple songs, pictures, or reading texts are appropriate for their levels.' (tu) ‘many times, i want to photocopy texts from other external sources to make an extension for the subjects in the book since current official textbooks include poor-quality exercises. however, economic problems in schools seem to restrict these facilities.’ (ts) as reflected in the excerpts below and the survey (50%), the boring content of the textbooks seems unsuccessful in attracting 'learners' interest and enhancing their motivation.' teachers addressed this problem as follows: 'all the content of the current textbooks includes only turkish cultural items. thus, turkish students explain turkish culture to other turkish students in class, but the language is english. how can it be attractive or motivating for the students?' (ti) ‘additional to textbooks’ contents, visuals in the textbooks are highly artificial and generally irrelevant to their topics. these visuals cannot attract students’ attention to the topics or texts. for this reason, i sometimes prefer not to use these materials. (tm) ’real language use’ was emphasized as another factor influencing teachers' attitudes. many participants in the survey and interview suggested that textbooks must be more mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 26 comprehensive to present the real language uses and the target cultural content. in this regard, several participants claimed: 'textbooks present made-up language structures since they are designed as a guide to reaching the predetermined goals of the curriculum by sequencing level-appropriate structures and vocabulary.' (tu) (tm) regarding materials' ‘being appropriate to the students' cultural backgrounds, proficiency level, needs, and purpose to learn english,' one of the teachers reported: 'in türkiye, textbooks are mainly designed for the use of state schools, and they are expected to avoid any controversial issue. that is why the textbooks' content has to be revised by different experts before publishing. i think the elimination and purification of the content make everything highly artificial in textbooks. ' (tu) similar to two-fifths of teachers in the survey, a few participants in the interview expressed that the authorities did not care about students’ needs in foreign language departments at high schools. books distributed in these classes can be used only as materials for the revision of previous years. because they are insufficient to improve students' english or guide them for university entrance exams: 'textbooks present common and language structures recursively with minor variations at each level. this repetitive content prevents learners from progressing in terms of their academic needs.' (tu) 'the students’ needs in the language department are always ignored. indeed, the students in these classes desire to become english teachers in the future. thus, expecting them to practice english through materials designed for general purposes instead the academic ones is unrealistic.' (ts) in line with the majority of teachers' claims in the survey, textbooks were not stated as appropriate for "the proficiency level of students" in the interview. this might be a common concern that leads to teachers becoming unwilling to use textbooks, as reflected in the excerpt below: 'our classes have a homogenous distribution of students in their proficiency levels. we are always confused about which level to focus on during the lessons. should we aim to improve the level of the half who had an a1 proficiency level, or should we follow the level for b2 learners? under this circumstance, i do not believe that textbooks fixed with a specific level could be effective.' (ts) ‘particularly, the level of grammatical structures in textbooks is complicated for some learners while they were straightforward for others. in any case, this upper or lower level of language structures causes learners to lose interest in the lessons.' (te) finally, the low quality of activities in textbooks and the reality of their contents were stressed in the interview. since these activities require learners to memorize specific structures, they disregard the needs of learners to become effective communicators. in this respect, teachers opt to use authentic materials more than textbooks to acquire communicative competence. they said: 'current textbooks and teaching aids like cds are not distributed at the beginning of the year. even if we get them somehow, we cannot benefit from them efficiently due to their poor audio quality. thus, i prefer using authentic materials. (tm) 'i believe that textbooks do not cater to our student's needs in terms of giving proper activities to teach how to speak efficiently.' (tu) mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 27 teachers’ opinions on the factors influencing their material use: authentic materials table 5 demonstrated that most teachers agreed on the 'authentic language existence’ in authentic materials. notably, they include communicative activities with interesting and motivating content. furthermore, parallel with 72 percent of teachers surveyed, the interview revealed that authentic materials were considered 'appropriate to the curriculum.' again, however, it was up to teachers' efforts. they stated: 'teachers should adapt authentic materials with the help of their pedagogical knowledge and their it skills. however, i do not think that all the teachers can consider their students' academic needs and cultural background while adapting the authentic materials to the curriculum's aims.' (tm) 'finding appropriate content for the curriculum's goals takes a lot of effort and time. finding authentic materials for reading or listening tasks is particularly troublesome, so i cannot use these materials regularly.' (ti) table 5. descriptive statistics of teachers’ opinions towards using authentic materials agree uncertain disagree median mod 1authentic materials are appropriate for the aims of the curriculum. 29 72% 7 17% 4 10% 4 4 2authentic materials give flexible content that fulfills different students' needs. 30 75% 3 7% 7 17% 4 4 3using authentic materials is interesting. 38 95% 9 22% 3 6% 4 4 4using authentic materials motivates students to learn more. 37 93% 2 5% 1 2% 5 5 5the content of authentic materials is difficult for students’ proficiency level. (even if the teachers adapt them) 3 7% 1 2% 36 91% 4 4 6using authentic materials increases students’ familiarity with the use of grammar rules in their original context. 37 93% 2 5% 1 2% 2 2 7authentic materials introduce students to how language is used in the real world. 29 72% 10 25% 1 2% 4 4 8authentic materials improve students’ cultural understanding. 36 91% 4 10% 2 5% 4 5 9the content of textbooks causes cultural conflict that hinders comprehension. 25 62% 13 27% 2 5% 4 4 10using authentic materials improves students’ proficiency level. 24 60% 10 25% 6 14% 4 4 11using authentic materials is timeconsuming for students. 3 7% 4 10% 33 84% 4 4 12authentic materials introduce the students to how language is used in the real world. 34 86% 4 10% 2 5% 4 4 13authentic materials increase students' knowledge of vocabulary items they need in real situations. 37 93% 3 7% 0 0% 4 4 what is more, for the majority of the teachers (%75) in the survey, authentic materials provide a wide range of ‘flexible’ content that can be modified to cater to the needs of different learners. ‘authentic materials include various topics addressing different proficiency levels of students in the same class. also, they can be adapted or modified to fit the various student's needs.' (tu) mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 28 'i generally adapt a song as a listening activity, then design a speaking activity from the same song as a follow-up activity. sometimes i use authentic materials even as a writing activity depending on my students' levels and interests.' (tm) the same data also indicated an agreement (over 90% of participants in the survey) upon the positive effects of authentic materials on increasing interest and motivation during class activities. two teachers in the interview explained how they could be ' motivating and interesting for students: 'we live in an era that students can access authentic materials like official music videos or interactive games easily.' once they encounter the same material in class, their motivation increases.' (tm) 'i am a teacher at a high school. thus, to enhance students' participation in the lesson, i choose authentic materials, including teenagers' favorite characters in a film or a game that they play.' (ts and tu) the ’real language use in authentic materials’ was also emphasized as another reason. two respondents mentioned using authentic materials since these materials could foster learners’ awareness of other cultures and provide daily language uses. in this way, they could raise learners’ self-confidence to speak with native speakers. ‘real language use is crucial for those who want to learn english to communicate. i believe that authentic materials present cultural items and actual use of the target language in its context. (te) 'the self-confidence can increase, particularly when he/she can communicate without a breakdown or misunderstanding in a conversation. i believe authentic materials can be helpful in this respect since they present the language structures in a real conversation.' (ti) consistent with the survey, ’being appropriate to the students’ was reported in the interview as another prominent factor. few teachers linked it with mixed-skilled students in classes as follows: ‘besides textbooks, i prefer using authentic materials. these materials present different language structures appropriate to mixed-skilled students. (te) ‘even if it is hard to adapt the authentic materials according to my students' proficiency levels, i use them since they enhance the majority of students' interests.' (ti) being supported by 62% of participants in the survey, teachers in the interview stressed the ‘appropriateness of authentic materials to the students’ cultural background’ as a factor that influences their choices. nevertheless, they can be beneficial only after they are reviewed and adapted by the teachers: 'there are some inappropriate items for muslim students in some authentic materials. for example, the image of a pig, alcohol, and some festivals should be eliminated from the material's content.' (tu) 'some parents in my school are opposed to using music and video clips in english classes because they believe that these materials impose other cultural values and deteriorate students' morale.' (ti) in line with survey results (72%), in the interview, the appropriateness of authentic materials for ’students’ purposes to learn english’ was also defined as a reason for using authentic materials. remarkably, one of the teachers gave details about how she used these materials. she reflected: mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 29 'i am teaching a handful of students who aim to become english teachers. to reach their goals, they need to read articles to enlarge their academic vocabulary knowledge. however, the university entrance exam format does not allow us to use these materials as much as we can. instead, we are using tests similar to the university entrance exams and forcing our students to memorize the pre-set structures.' (ts) finally, all the participants in the interview addressed that authentic materials were 'communicative.' this argument was in parallel with the majority of participants' responses from items 40 and 41 (86% and 93%) in the survey. according to teachers, authentic materials content could increase interaction in class. for this reason, teachers reported using authentic materials from time to time instead of using boring or irrelevant dialogues in textbooks. ’to motivate my students to speak more, i sometimes skip the activities in the textbook and use authentic materials instead whenever i encounter an interesting picture or a dialogue relevant to the topic in the book.’ (ti) 'i use youtube videos for listening and speaking activities to encourage my students to speak more. authentic materials, i believe, provide us with more communicative activities than textbooks.' (tm) (te) discussion this study aimed to investigate teachers' thoughts toward authentic and non-authentic materials, teachers' use of these instructional materials, and the factors affecting their uses. the findings are significant since the teachers' attitudes toward different materials would affect their teaching practices directly while influencing students' success in language learning indirectly. one of the most significant findings in this current study was teachers’ commitment to using current school textbooks despite having negative thoughts toward doing so. contrary to the findings from alhamami & ahmad (2018) and srakang (2013), the main reported reason for teachers’ use of textbooks frequently was these materials’ appropriateness to the curriculum and being economical. a probable explanation leading to this difference might be due to the educational implementations of the turkish ministry of national education (mone). for example, official textbooks in türkiye are designed following the curriculum, and they are ready-made resources saving time to meet curriculum requirements in a limited amount of time. in other words, textbooks are planned to follow the educational goals of the turkish ministry of education by considering turkish cultural values, students' cultural backgrounds, and national policy. therefore, teachers do not need to revise the content to check its appropriateness to students. another assumption is that official textbooks in türkiye are distributed free of charge in türkiye as a part of social state policy, and using supplementary materials or purchasing commercial textbooks is prohibited at state schools (doğan, 2022). it means that teachers and students have little autonomy in choosing their materials. regarding the factors impacting teachers' negative thoughts towards using textbooks, the most salient ones were the 'inappropriateness of them to the student’ and 'being boring.' for example, english textbooks in türkiye are published by a committee comprised of local english teachers and experts in linguistics who are also well-versed in turkish culture. to make textbooks appropriate for students' cultural backgrounds, the committee pays huge attention to the cultural values of turkish society and adds various cultural content to the textbooks. nevertheless, considering students' cultural sensitivity too much in teaching materials could lead to boring lessons. it was explained well by krashen (2009) that '’if the message is completely known, students will show no interest, and the students will probably not participate’’ (p.66). besides, textbooks are reported as inappropriate for their students' proficiency levels. when mixed-skilled classes in türkiye are considered, it might only be possible to cater to some of these students' needs by using a textbook, including one fixed proficiency level. these findings supported the claim that high-school english language mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 30 teachers' commitment to textbooks was the main reason for most students' being unsuccessful communicators and having poor knowledge of english (özen et al., 2013). activities in the textbooks were reported as the second major problem. teachers stated that textbooks could not improve students' communicative skills since they did not include communicative activities and could not provide enjoyable and interesting learning opportunities for the learners. another prominent finding was that teachers could not use authentic materials as frequently as they would like despite having positive thoughts toward using them. this result aligns with previous literature (allag, 2017; silvani, 2018) in that they all define authentic materials as primary sources for teaching english. also, they all support using these materials since they have interesting, communicative content with various real language uses. it is a wellknown fact that authentic materials include various language chunks, phrases, and idioms used in a real target language context. in this way, these materials subconsciously make learners aware of some upper-level structures/words. therefore, authentic materials can provide flexible, rich, enjoyable, and motivating content for mixed-skills classes in turkish high schools when adapted or carefully selected. when these reasons are combined with the collective nature of classrooms in turkish high schools, they can explain why authentic materials were considered appropriate for the students. in other words, contrary to the other studies in the literature (al-musallam, 2009; rusmawaty et al., 2018), using authentic materials would benefit students in a school implementing collective teaching. however, it is important to stress that authentic materials are not designed for educational purposes. therefore, using them can cause several problems in some contexts. one of these problems might be the language structures in authentic materials. particularly, they are not appropriate for beginners (al-musallam, 2009; rusmawaty et al., 2018) since they include language structures and phrases of different proficiency levels (kılıçkaya, 2004). also, their content is not appropriate for muslim students. to use these materials in their classes, teachers need cultural background knowledge of society, energy, and time to adapt them by considering curriculum, requirements of national exams, and students’ proficiency levels. these concerns might explain teachers’ limited use of authentic materials in the turkish high-school context. secondly, teachers’ lack of it skills in how to adapt these materials can lead to limited use of authentic materials. özen et al. (2013), in partnership with the turkish ministry of education and tepav, concluded that more than 80% of the observed teachers in türkiye had pedagogical and technological competence. this result might support the findings in this study when we consider teachers' willingness to adopt various authentic materials that require it skills. for example, adapting and using the materials such as online games, newspaper websites, and videos require advanced it skills, and they are reported as the most frequently used materials. however, a recent study by öztürk & aydin (2019) showed that ‘‘pre-service education in türkiye suffers from finding ways of helping their candidates gain technology integration competencies, and the majority of the efforts are constrained by the endeavors of individual academicians’’ (p. 192). therefore, the assumption mentioned above may not be valid, especially for all educational contexts in türkiye. also, since the data in this study did not provide any information on teachers' it skills, much research is required to get a thorough understanding. these results are vital in filling the literature gap by presenting results on teachers' use of authentic and non-authentic materials and the underlying reasons behind their uses. in addition, this study hopes to raise awareness of the differences between teachers' attitudes and their actual classroom practices. in this way, it might assist curriculum designers in developing more appropriate syllabuses based on students’ needs and teachers’ preferences. also, the findings of this study are hoped to help material designers create more relevant content that improves the effectiveness of teaching english in the turkish context. mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 31 limitations despite having prominent contributions, this study has a few limitations. firstly, the small sample size limits the generalisability of the results in other contexts. for this current study, only 40 high-school english teachers were recruited from 5 anatolian high schools in 5 different districts of kayseri. however, different types of high schools exist (vocational and technical schools or i̇mam-hatip high-schools) in türkiye, and teachers' profiles in these schools are highly different. thus, it should be kept in mind that the majority of the teachers in other types of high schools might be less or more experienced. since the different profiles of teachers could change the results, a broader investigation needs to be done to gather more generalizable data in the future. secondly, commercial textbooks are not allowed in turkish state high schools. for this reason, teachers' thoughts about using commercial textbooks were excluded from the results. also, teachers’ use of commercial textbooks and opinions on using them are not reflected. in future studies, this dimension of the textbooks can also be included to get a more in-depth understanding of teachers’ material choices in other school contexts. conclusion this study examined efl high-school teachers' attitudes toward teaching materials, how frequently they use them, and which factors influence their uses. incorporating the voices of teachers with different backgrounds and experiences, we can draw several implications for english language teachers, administrators, and material designers. for school administrators and teachers to improve the effectiveness of classroom materials, students should take english placement tests. the classes should then be formed based on the results of these placement tests and the student's english proficiency levels, which helps individualized learning to some extent. in this way, textbooks tailored for a specific level could address most students' needs in class. for material designers, the textbooks should include more flexible and communicative activities that enhance all students' interests in mixed-skilled classes. these activities must also be adaptable enough to be compatible with authentic materials. in future research, more research is required to investigate students' and teachers' attitudes toward using authentic and non-authentic materials at the same time. in addition, since contextual factors can shape teachers' attitudes and practices, longitudinal empirical studies are required to investigate how teachers' attitudes and practices vary in various school contexts, such as primary, elementary, and secondary schools. disclosure statement this study derived from the author's master's dissertation, 'high-school english teachers' attitudes towards using authentic and non-authentic materials in english lessons in türkiye, ' submitted to the faculty of humanities and arts, leicester de montfort university, united kingdom. there is no potential conflict of interest. mutlu köroğlu, ü. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 32 references alhamami, m., & ahmad, j. 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(2015). criteria for teaching / learning resource selection: facilitating teachers of chinese to work with english-speaking learners. [ph.d. dissertation, the university of western sydney ]. https://researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws:32138 silvani, n. (2018). english teachers' perception towards the use of authentic materials in teaching english at school [ma dissertation, university of ar-raniry state islamic]. https://repository.arraniry.ac.id/id/eprint/2973/1/nella%20silvani.pdf srakang, l. (2013). a study of teachers’ perceptions toward using english textbooks: a case study of 10th grade english teachers in maha sarakham province [ma dissertation, university of srinakharinwirot]. https://ir.swu.ac.th/jspui/bitstream/123456789/4111/2/ladaporn_s.pdf tomlinson, b. (2008). english language learning materials: a critical review (1st ed.). continuum international publication group. tomlinson, b. 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(2007). teachers’ perspectives on the role of textbooks in english language learning and teaching in finland [ma dissertation, the university of oulu]. http://jultika.oulu.fi/files/nbnfioulu-201706012364.pdf copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws:32138 https://repository.ar-raniry.ac.id/id/eprint/2973/1/nella%20silvani.pdf https://repository.ar-raniry.ac.id/id/eprint/2973/1/nella%20silvani.pdf https://ir.swu.ac.th/jspui/bitstream/123456789/4111/2/ladaporn_s.pdf https://doi.org/10.37237/010202 https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/cct007 http://jultika.oulu.fi/files/nbnfioulu-201706012364.pdf focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 5, issue 1, 2023 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: tan.gedik@fau.de copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. input optimization: verb-argument constructions in english textbooks in türkiye tan arda gedik phd candidate, friedrich-alexander-universität erlangen, nürnberg, germany, tan.gedik@fau.de apa citation: gedik, t. a. (2023). input optimization: verb-argument constructions in english textbooks in türkiye. focus on elt journal, 5(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2023.5.1.1 abstract based on usage-based approaches to second language acquisition, studies point at a statistically significant correlation between type-token frequency, skewed distribution of items, and faster learning. madlener (2016) shows a positive correlation between a zipfian distribution of items in a german construction and faster, more accurate learning of the construction. while there are many studies that analyze input in english language teaching materials, no study has scrutinized selected constructions from an input optimization perspective, following madlener (2016). thus, using taassc (kyle, 2016), the present paper analyzes four constructions, v in n, v about n, v for n, v with n, and the ditransitive constructions in the high school english textbooks in türkiye. the results indicate that the input available for these constructions are not viable for generalizations to occur, leaving learners with unproductive one-time instantiations of the constructions, and low token frequency of these constructions also suggest that little to no entrenchment might take place. as such, the study proposes adopting a more corpus-based approach to english teaching materials. keywords verb-argument construction, input flooding, textbooks, usage-based approaches article history received : 31.05.2022 revised : 27.09.2022 accepted : 02.10.2022 published : 30.06.2023 type research article introduction verb-argument constructions (vacs) have been researched in second language acquisition for some time (ellis et al., 2014; römer et al., 2014). rooted in usage-based linguistics and construction grammar, the results of these vac studies point at a correlation between lexicogrammatical knowledge of l2 learners of english and proficiency (römer et al., 2014). then, what remains is the issue of exposure. in countries where english is not readily available for communicative purposes outside of the classroom, english language teaching materials need to be scrutinized for their efficiency of teaching vacs optimally. so far, there is evidence that teaching various constructions optimally in german (e.g., madlener, 2016) and in english as an l2 (e.g., azazil, 2020) is possible with slight adjustments in the input. such studies show that skewing the type-token ratio of the verbal slot in a construction enables learners to acquire the meaning faster and retain the form of the construction for a longer period of time. considering textbooks in a classroom are one of the major ways of exposing students to the target language, it is possible to analyze the input readily available in them using a set of sophisticated software tools. while there are not many studies that have followed an input mailto:tangedik@gmail.com mailto:tangedik@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2023.5.1.1 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1429-9675 gedik, t. a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 2 optimization analysis to textbooks in other contexts (however see alsaif & milton, 2012; aziez & aziez, 2018; tang, 2009), to the researcher’s knowledge there are no studies that analyze english textbooks in türkiye from this perspective (see however gedik and kolsal (2022) and gedik (2022) for a discussion on the lexicogrammatical diversity of the english textbooks in türkiye). as such, the current study uses a readily available corpus of such textbooks in türkiye to longitudinally trace the development of four vacs across high school textbooks. such an analysis deepens our understanding of and sheds light on why turkish learners of english may struggle with certain constructions (apart from linguistic interference and differences), how turkish learners of english may produce non-optimal sentences, and the probability of retention of the selected constructions in the target learner group. input in second language acquisition input in second language (l2) teaching is crucial as l2 learners are known to process input primarily for meaning (e.g., vanpatten, 2004). as previous studies and construction grammar suggest, input must be presented as form-meaning pairings to end up as intake in l2 learners, and this input is subject to a wide range of cognitive, i.e., attention, selective attention, memory constraints (e.g., goldberg & ferreira, 2022), and frequency factors, i.e., type-token (ellis & ferreira-junior, 2009). therefore, it is important that teachers provide optimal input to their students so that the learners have a high chance of attending to input and processing it maximally, cognitive constraints left aside, as such constraints (e.g., working memory, attention and so on) may hinder constructional learning on an individual level. however, what this optimal input in regard to frequency effects entails has been discussed among researchers for a while and there seems to be little agreement (gass, 2013). for instance, piske and youngscholten (2009, p. 16) argue that applied linguists lack ‟a deep or detailed understanding of what providing ‘good’, ‘rich’ or ‘varied’ input entails”, suggesting that further research is needed to uncover the relationship between frequency in input and l2 learning. one way input optimization has been discussed is under the term ‘input floods’ in second language acquisition research. based on smith’s (1993) input enhancement approach, the pedagogical understanding focus-on-form (e.g., doughty, 1999) suggests that being exposed to natural input in the target language is necessary but is not always enough (wong, 2005). stemming from not-being-enough, some of the problems that l2 learners and teachers report are identifying non-salient forms or establishing a form-meaning pairing of sometimes highly frequent but non-essential derivational/inflectional morphology (vanpatten 2004; wong, 2005) or unaccusative verbs (chung, 2011), which might be a result of selective attention due to l1 (see ellis & sagarra, 2011). while input enhancement to address the optimal teaching and learning of such frequent but not-salient forms is important, it is assumed that input enhancement can increase the chances of learning any type of form-meaning pairing more accurately based on evidence from usage-based approaches (e.g., goldberg, 2006; perek 2015). usage-based approaches and input flooding there is ample evidence that points at a correlation between frequency and higher entrenchment levels of a linguistic item (bybee, 2010; divjak, 2019). frequency helps learners distinguish constructions’ conventionalized forms from unconventionalized forms and produce them in line with the conventionalized usage patterns. herbst (2020, p. 84) makes it explicit by saying “layers of usage events… become linked on the basis of recognized similarities gedik, t. a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 3 between them”. this means that usage events help learners identify conventionalized forms of a construction. in this work i subscribe to the goldbergian understanding of the two terms, in which she considers the two terms as the different sides of the same coin, rather than analyzing them individually. focusing on entrenchment, divjak (2019, p. 51) illustrates it as “repeated presentations of a verb in particular constructions (e.g., the rabbit disappeared) cause a child [learner] to infer probabilistically that the verb cannot be used in non-attested constructions (e.g., *the magician disappeared the rabbit)”. in goldberg’s (2019, p. 77) account, this type of entrenchment is called simple entrenchment where frequency is “simply a proxy for familiarity”. another, perhaps more important type of entrenchment that needs attention is what goldberg (2019) calls conservatism via entrenchment, i.e., statistical preemption. this ability is activated when “the more frequently a verb has been witnessed in a language in any other construction, the more resistant it should be to being used in any new way” (goldberg, 2019, p. 77). in other words, speakers will calculate how many times an item and a construction should have occurred together based on the frequency information of the item and the construction and based on this information arrive at a conclusion of generalizability of an item. this, however, does not mean we retain all the item-specific information for a construction, since memory is lossy (goldberg, 2019), but whenever we experience a construction it “can form a lossy structured representation that prioritizes what the word designates and includes various contextual aspects of the encounter” (goldberg, 2019, p. 16). for goldberg (2019, p. 94), entrenchment also explains how “better-covered constructions are easier to access, which results in more conventional language being used more often, which further strengthens the association between conventional forms and particular messages-in-context”. this is the reason why a positive correlation between increasing proficiency and a higher accuracy of idiomatic speech is expected of l2 speakers of any language. while some cognitive constraints hinder entrenchment or learning of items and may result in good-enough production (goldberg & ferreira, 2022), where the speaker produces an item that they think is the most optimal and cognitively accessible one, within usage-based approaches there is evidence that higher frequency counts lead to faster activation (e.g., bybee, 2010), and accuracy (e.g., bybee, 2008). within usage-based approaches, also compatible with the focus-on-form approach (e.g., doughty, 2001), it is believed that language is learned as form-meaning pairings, i.e., constructions, that exist at different levels of abstraction and are learned as item-specific constructions first (e.g., tomasello, 2003). therefore, we can conclude that the nature of language learning is ‟the piecemeal learning of many thousands of constructions and the frequency biased abstraction of regularities within them” (ellis, 2002, p. 143). how the very nature of this ‘frequency effect’, however, would affect l2 learning or how it could be enhanced was not well established and documented until the studies of madlener (2015, 2016) and azazil (2020). input flooding, in its basic sense, is increasing the token count of an item in constructions. as such, the expected outcome of this flood is that learners would implicitly learn the construction and its semanto-pragmatic features. this input flooding in a way addresses the selective attention from learners’ first language (l1) and attempts to minimize it. with this flooding making the construction communicatively relevant and frequent, some studies showed a positive learning outcome of such input floods (hernández, 2008, 2011; huang et al., 2012; reinders & ellis, 2009; shintani & ellis, 2010). on the other hand, some studies show mixed outcomes (williams & evans, 1998), possibly gedik, t. a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 4 due to implicit learning requiring a more sustained, longitudinal input (e.g., williams & evans, 1998). for instance, de jong (2005) demonstrated that input floods can help with faster comprehension but do not necessarily help with more accuracy. williams and evans (1998) show that explicit teaching and input flooding may affect the learning outcome of different constructions, such that the stative passive was learned more accurately via input floods and explicit teaching outperformed input floods in the teaching of the prenominal past participle. input flooding, however, cannot only consist of increasing the number of tokens per construction. as such, representing the type count, or the prototypical examples of a construction would also theoretically help learners, as explained earlier. evidence shows that this is the case, with more prototypical items acting as training-wheels for the learning of that construction (e.g., goldberg, 2006; ellis & ferreira-junior, 2009). therefore, the question is how to establish this enhanced view of input flooding. in order to discuss input flooding, one needs to mention the nature of frequency of items. zipfian distribution of items in any given language or construction in a language (see for instance herbst, 2020) is an important indicator that usage-based approaches can make verifiable and testable predictions about the ‘’‘good’, ‘rich’ or ‘varied’ input’’ (piske & youngscholten, 2009, p. 16). this distribution, also known as skewed distribution, is characterized by having a few types with very high frequency counts, giving the construction its prototypical meaning (e.g., goldberg, 2006), and having many different types with low frequency counts. such a skewed representation of language is important for learnability and ‟allow[s] learners to get a ‘fix’ on the central tendency that will account for most of the category members” (ellis, 2009, pp. 150–151). while such a type-token adjustment in input flooding is likely to be affected by several factors, i.e., target construction, duration, and learner strategies, studies show general positive outcome of such an adjustment. ellis and ferreira-junior (2009), and römer et al. (2014) show that l2 learning is characterized by having a highly frequent, semantically prototypical item per argument structure construction. more evidence comes from artificial language learning studies, in which it is shown that highly frequent types, i.e., path breaking items, help with generalization, recognition and recall, and argument linking (goldberg, casenhiser & white, 2007; boyd, gottschalk & goldberg, 2009). however, there are also studies that point at nonsignificant outcomes of such adjustment in language learning (e.g., cordes, 2014; year & gordon, 2009). turning our attention to the effects of such an adjustment, drawing a simple correlation between low token count and low levels of entrenchment would be safe. similarly, a high token count with high levels of familiarity would also be safe, albeit different constructions may prove differently. it is important to discuss the effects of type frequency. ideally for instance, with fewer types to occur in the verbal slot of a construction, the remaining types would have a higher chance of occurring in it, assuming the token frequency is fixed. this would then lead to pattern detection because each remaining type would be more entrenched because of its high type frequency. however, such an approach has been reported to lead to a lack of productivity of the construction and failure to schematize the semiand highly schematic constructions. when a construction is experienced with a limited number of types, schematization does not occur and the construction remains relatively conservative, i.e., it does not get extended onto novel items (bybee & thompson, 1997; ellis, 2011; ellis & cadierno, 2009; lieven, 2010; tomasello, 2003). therefore, following this and the benefits of experimental data for structured gedik, t. a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 5 input from madlener (2016), ‘’in acquiring productivity [in a target language], exposure to many different types in a construction would be more helpful than exposure to many identical tokens” (bybee, 2008, p. 222). while there is little evidence what other factors may play into extending constructions onto novel items, cognitive constraints that result in good-enough production, i.e., goldberg and ferreira (2022), and semanticity of items may constitute some of the factors (barđdal, 2008). finally, madlener (2016) testing structure input flooding in the teaching of a german construction to l2 learners of german found a statistically significant outcome for the midskew group in her study. this mid-skew group represents a very zipfian-like distribution, in that it contains 3 high frequent types that occur 24 times, and 22 low frequent types that occur 2-4 times each. her study spanned around two weeks, addressing the required repetition of items over a period of time. while it is important to remember that type-token count for each construction will vary from one construction to the other, based on such evidence, it is still plausible to analyze the type-token counts of given constructions in a textbook, especially when textbooks from the same publishers are used for at least a couple of years. assuming that textbooks are used by teachers in the classroom, they become a vital aspect in second language learning with regard to exposure. therefore, one question we need to pursue is how optimized is the input for a given construction in language teaching textbooks? input in textbooks there are many studies that analyze input in textbooks, especially in english language teaching textbooks. most of these studies seem to analyze vocabulary input (e.g., alsaif & milton, 2012; aziez & aziez, 2018; tang, 2009), however, some other studies also scrutinize multiword expressions (e.g., miao, 2014), collocations (kim & oh, 2020) or pragmatics (e.g., limberg, 2013). biber and reppen (2002), in a study where they compared english language teaching textbooks and corpora, found that the textbooks represented infrequent items or missed frequent features. for instance, the order of frequency would not match the representation of such items in the textbooks, or highly frequent verbs would not occur in the textbooks. similarly, glisan and drescher (1993) demonstrated important differences between spanish language teaching textbooks and spoken spanish, e.g., highly frequent items missing or representing frequent and infrequent items as equally important. barbieri and eckhardt (2007) found differences in the representation of discourse of direct and indirect reported speech constructions between english textbooks and the toefl 2000 spoken and written academic language corpus and the longman spoken and written english corpus. many studies on english textbooks and their lexical coverage levels found important deficiencies in the textbooks, suggesting that there is a big gap. for instance, underwood (2010) mentions that english as a foreign language (efl) materials in japan fall behind in terms of covering the general service list words. similarly, belkouche et al. (2010) report similar findings for arabic language textbooks. miller (2011), in his analysis of efl textbooks in the us, found that the textbooks severely lacked academic words and the use of nominal modification. finally, chen (2016), comparing efl textbooks in taiwan against the british national corpus (bnc) for a lexical analysis found an inappropriate progression of lexical diversity. gedik, t. a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 6 some studies, diverging from analyzing lexis in textbooks, adopted a lexicogrammatical approach to analyzing selected parts of lexicogrammatical input in textbooks. for instance, kim and oh (2020) demonstrated that collocations in efl textbooks in korea are insufficient in sustainably repeating or recycling selected collocations. furthermore, they show that the association strength between collocations was low. another similar study is miao (2014). this study revealed an incoherent distribution of formulaic sequences across efl textbooks and their accompanying listening tracks. though there are many other studies that analyze efl textbooks from different perspectives (e.g., cullen & kuo, 2004; römer, 2004, 2005; schlüter, 2002; vine, 2013), these studies point out differences –or at times similarities– between efl materials and nativelanguage corpora. what is lacking is a systematic analysis and discussion of entrenchment of certain constructions in a given textbook corpus based on the previous discussion of input optimization. it is, however, important to acknowledge and note that task/textbook design in which how the constructions are represented is quite important for mapping form to meaning. however, the current study does not analyze task/textbook design and assumes that the textbooks are designed to foster meaningful communicative situations based on the curriculum description (moe, 2018). textbooks in türkiye and their input efl textbooks in türkiye are an interesting topic of research. although various studies analyze efl materials in türkiye (arıkan, 2005; demir & yavuz, 2017), these studies mainly scrutinize the sociocultural aspects of the materials. while efl textbooks in türkiye were not analyzed from corpus-based approaches, there exist recent studies that point at the nature of input in them (gedik & kolsal, 2022). the efl textbooks in türkiye are distributed freely across the country and are required to be used in classrooms. for instance, gedik and kolsal (2022) found that the textbooks severely lacked lexical diversity, leading to a practical implication of students being exposed to 10 new words on average every year throughout high school. furthermore, they show that lexical sophistication levels are also quite low for low-frequency lexis, suggesting that low-frequency lexemes severely lack in terms of representation. in a follow up study, gedik (2022) expanded the analysis from 5th grade to 12th grade efl textbooks in türkiye and analyzed them from a construction grammar perspective. this analysis not only revealed a lack of lexicogrammatical diversity across grades, but also provided a finer insight into the findings of gedik and kolsal (2022). gedik (2022) suggests that the textbooks misrepresent constructions in english and that learners may not be exposed to the conventional usage patterns and frequencies of vacs when compared against a reference corpus. these findings may have an influence on the learners’ generalization process, their low-proficiency level in english, and poor idiomatic uses of the language. finally, while it may not seem fair to analyze and provide feedback to textbooks that do not claim to be designed based on a corpus, or usage-based approaches, the ministry of education (moe, 2018) that the textbooks are designed in such a way that they would gradually develop learners’ english proficiency. however, the term development raises questions as it hints at fostering learning. if the main textbook material used in the classrooms does not foster learning for selected constructions enough for learning to take place from a cognitive standpoint, is it possible to talk about ‘development’? gedik, t. a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 7 using both quantitative measures, it is possible to trace the development of input for selected constructions in a corpus of efl textbooks. in return, this can provide a better understanding of how local textbook publishers can improve the input for the textbooks. this research hopes to inspire other researchers to pursue a similar method to understanding the input deficiencies in localized efl textbooks, in other words textbooks produced by the ministry of education in türkiye. constructional knowledge in l2 speakers while questioning the ontological status of constructions for l2 learners may sound redundant for a constructionist linguist, as construction grammar assumes all languages are based on and learned as form-meaning pairings, various studies have proven that l2 learners do not differ in terms of their constructional knowledge (e.g., römer et al., 2014) of constructions. as such, constructions have an ontological status for both l1 and l2 speakers and this indicates that grammar is just as meaningful as lexical items are. however, although there are many studies on analyzing the constructional knowledge of l1 speakers (ambridge & lieven, 2015; behrens, 2009; goldberg et al., 2004; lieven et al. 1997), studies that analyze l2 constructional knowledge are fewer in comparison (eskildsen, 2012, 2014; roehr-brackin, 2014; römer & yılmaz, 2019; tode & sakai, 2016). especially, vacs being the “basic means of clausal expression in a language” (goldberg, 1995, p. 3), such studies traced linguistic knowledge of l2 speakers of vacs. this difference, however, can be justified because of a lack of reliable l2 corpora until recently (see meunier, 2015 on this). previous research demonstrates that l2 speakers of english have constructional knowledge, differ in their verb-vac associations with regard to proficiency and l1 background, and there are systematic differences in their usage of certain constructions (gries & wulff, 2005; römer et al., 2014; römer et al., 2018). however, research on a general outlook without subscribing to a particular l1 background has been relatively scarce (see however römer, 2019). scholars have demonstrated that l2 speakers start their language learning journey with a set of fixed and highly repetitive constructions just like l1 speakers, which then grow in complexity, productivity, and become less fixed (eskildsen, 2009; eskildsen, & cadierno, 2007; li et al., 2014). studies also suggest that with increasing proficiency, the accuracy of constructional knowledge also increases (bestgen & granger, 2014; crossley & salsbury, 2011). in addition to this, there is evidence that l2 speakers’ knowledge of constructions is also influenced by their l1 (li et al., 2014; goschler & stefanowitsch, 2019; gedik & uslu, 2022; römer & yilmaz, 2019). there is strong evidence that advanced l2 speakers are also influenced by strongly entrenched verb-vac combinations in their l1 (gedik & uslu, 2022; goschler & stefanowitsch, 2019). lee and kim (2011) report on an experiment in which they tested korean speakers' knowledge of the english intransitive construction among others, the ditransitive, and resultative constructions, developmentally. they explain that korean speakers of english did not show a developmental understanding of the intransitives. put simply, the speakers did not start from the bottom of a taxonomical constructional family and construct the superordinate intransitive construction. their performance on the ditransitive and the resultatives also varied, with most participants finding them difficult. this arguably shows that both l1 and also other personal factors can contribute to these variations. gedik, t. a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 8 as seen in previous studies, the importance of the quality of the input becomes apparent in language teaching. the current research gap, especially for the turkish efl context, is a good candidate for the present research study to be conducted in. such studies can shed light on the input quality of efl materials in türkiye. methodology the current research utilizes a mixed-method research design. to do the quantitative part, tool for the automatic syntactic sophistication and complexity (taasc, kyle, 2016) was used. the qualitative part was done manually by the author, in which the author counted the verb types and their frequencies in selected constructions. the textbook corpus was made available by gedik and kolsal (2022) for high school efl materials in türkiye. taassc (kyle, 2016) is an automatic syntactic complexity analyzer that can put out constructions with their relevant frequency counts. having been statistically scrutinized, the software tool proves to be robust for use in linguistic research (kyle & crossley, 2017). the selected constructions were manually extracted from the frequency list the software tool creates for each lemmaconstruction combination. the high school textbooks selected were prepared and administered by the ministry of education in türkiye. the corpus covered the textbooks, excluding workbooks and the listening transcripts. the reason for that was only the textbooks were publicly available at the time of conducting this research study. for more information on the selected corpus, i quote gedik and kolsal (2022, p. 166): ‘’the textbooks covered each grade in high schools (9th–12th grade) and were published by the following publishing houses; (meb) relearn, teenwise, progress for 9th; count me in, gizem for 10th; sunshine, silverlining for 11th; and count me in for 12th grades with their accompanying workbooks. regardless of the publishing house of the books, the respective cefr level for grades were as follows: a1–a2 for 9th grade, a2+– b1 for 10th grade, b1+–b2 for 11th grade and b2+ for 12th grade’’ as such, the total token count for the corpus was 217.053. the constructions in table 1 were selected as there is either a large number of studies that show correlation between learner proficiency and the constructional knowledge of the construction, or constructicographic analyses with the frequency profiles of such constructions (herbst, 2020; römer & yılmaz, 2019). the four selected v prep n constructions were based on römer and yılmaz (2019) as they provide a detailed account for those given constructions in turkish speakers of english. furthermore, these vacs are easy to retrieve and distinguish unlike other argument structure constructions, thus they are less susceptible to being mistagged by a pos tagger. the typetoken count for verbs in the selected constructions were retrieved from the coca (davies, 2008). gedik, t. a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 9 table 1. selected constructions constructions examples v prep n v with n v about n v for n v in n v-iobj-directobj i agree with the statement. i talked about the bird i asked for help i live in new york i gave him a book. *note. this table displays the selected constructions and their respective examples. determining the type-token ratio required for optimized input seems to be construction-dependent, as previously discussed. however, if we take madlener (2016) as the basis for a hypothetical discussion of optimizing input in efl textbooks, then the ratio of the number of occurrences of the construction is divided by the number of types. in this vein, madlener’s ratio (150 occurrences/25 types) will be the basis of the study. therefore, we expect to see at least a 16.6% difference between the occurrence and the type count. while it is difficult to pinpoint a maximum number of occurrences, previous studies have shown that anything below or around 20 occurrences will not be helpful for learning (e.g., mcdonough & nekrasova-becker, 2014; mcdonough & trofimovich, 2013). finally, to call the input of a construction well-optimized, apart from this ratio, we expect to see 3 to 5 high-frequency types with tokens of 24 or higher, and 20 to 22 low-frequency types with 2 to 4 tokens each. high or low frequency is calculated based on per million words based on the coca. results table 2 outlines the frequency data for the constructions per grade. the results will be presented based on the total number of the constructions. table 2. constructions and item frequency data constructions (type/token) (ratio) verb (# of occurrence) 9th grade 10th grade 11th grade 12th grade total v with n 2/4 (50%) match (1), agree (1) 4/5 (80%) match (1), discuss (2), share (1), cope (1) 4/6 (66%) match (2), fill (1), share (2), complete (1) 1/1 (100%) discuss (1) 11/16 (68.75%) match (4), agree (1), discuss (3), share (3), cope (1), fill (1), complete (1) v about n 2/3 (66%) talk (2), be (1) 3/4 (75%) learn (1), talk (2), think (1) 1/1 (100%) talk (1) 0 6/8 (75%) talk (3), be (1), learn (1), think (1) gedik, t. a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 10 table 2 continued v for n 1/1 be (1) 1/2 ask (1) 0 0 2/3 (66%) be (1), ask(1) v in n 8/13 (61%) do (2), get (1), be (1), live (2), take (2), have (2), fill (1), write(1) 8/8 (100%) fill (1), be (1), live (1), have (1), pay (1), end (1), use (1), put (1) 5/6 (83.33%) put (1), be (2), fill (1), live (1), take (1) 1/1 (100%) be (1) 22/28 (88%) do (2), get (1), be (5), live (4), take (1), have (3), fill (3), write (1), pay (1), end (1), use (1), put (2) v-iobj-directobj 0 1/1 (100%) give (1) 0 0 1/1 (100%) give (1) *note. this table displays the type-token frequency count per grade. as seen in table 2, the type diversity across grades and constructions are inconsistent. in some cases, the construction is not represented enough throughout the grades (see v-iobj-directobj). such results have important implications which will be discussed later. table 3 gathers the per million frequency data from the corpus of contemporary american english (coca) within its respective construction to understand the frequency of items in natural language. high frequency items are marked with ** and low frequency items are marked with ^. table 3. constructions and exemplars v with n v about n v for n v in n v-iobj-directobj ^match (0.26) **agree (46.76) ^discuss (1.21) ^share (6.08) ^cope (6.85) ^fill (1.10) ^complete (0.04) **talk (107.78) ^be (10.33) ^learn (10.64) **think (79.61) ^be (11.02) ^ask (20.18) ^do (18.15) **get (43.71) **be (94.13) **live (58.16) ^take (5.92) ^have (18.92) ^write (3.05) ^fill (4.87) ^pay (1.32) ^end (2.60) ^use (4.20) ^put (27.52) **give (238.83) *note. this table outlines the types found in the textbooks and their respective frequencies per million within its respective selected construction from the coca. table 3 can provide a blueprint of what can be considered naturalistic input. with these numbers, one understands the lexicogrammatical nature of the selected constructions in the textbook. this makes it easier to compare the type-token frequencies of the constructions in the textbook and analyze them. although none of the constructions represent enough token count to probably trigger entrenchment following previous studies (e.g., mcdonough & nekrasova-becker, 2014; gedik, t. a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 11 mcdonough & trofimovich, 2013), the discussion here will still follow as the textbooks provide one of the vital sources of exposure to l2 learners in classrooms. v prep n constructions v with n comparing the results in table 2 and 3, this construction does not represent the high frequency exemplar already available in the corpus at the right skewed distribution level to optimize input. using data from römer and yılmaz (2019, p. 119), the construction could have been skewed using verbs such as be, deal, and come as the high frequent exemplars, followed by the low frequency items that occur in table 3 and many other using the coca or other native speaker corpora to optimize its input. the items that occur in the verbal slot seem to be balanced with 1 to 2 tokens for each item but there is no high frequency exemplar to act as a training wheel for the learning of the construction. v about n while the construction generally occurs very infrequently throughout the books, it seems to represent one of the correct high frequency exemplars, i.e., talk, albeit at a very low token count. other items to skew the input with would have been think or know at high token counts, and learn, or be at low token counts (römer & yılmaz, 2019, p. 119). finally, while there is talk is used 3 times out of the 8 instances across the corpus as a high frequency exemplar, this is probably not enough to trigger a highly abstract schema. v for n this construction, being the second lowest in type count after the ditransitive construction, will very likely not be entrenched because there is no repetition of it. the construction only occurs with two low-frequency types, be and ask. however, the diversity of the verbal slot is not represented in the textbooks. therefore, even if the students would learn the previous constructions as item-specific instances, v for n is not likely to be remembered. however, if it occurs in ambient language via different means, then the likelihood of entrenchment will increase. v in n having the highest type and token count across all the constructions in the textbook corpus, it also represents two high frequent exemplars, albeit with a low token count, i.e., get, be, and live. while it represents many types with low token counts, it may not be enough to trigger an abstract schema, as there may not be enough surface similarity to teach the form-meaning pairing with high frequency exemplars. however, this may need experimental data from the classroom as the optimal frequency data for learning to occur is construction-dependent. nevertheless, the results of this construction align the closest with an ‘optimized-input’ understanding. gedik, t. a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 12 the ditransitive construction this construction only represents one high-frequency exemplar in grade 10 and that appears to be the only occurrence of it in the main textbooks. while there is not much to discuss when there is no data on it, the construction with its 1 token displays the most prototypical (herbst, 2020), high-frequency item, i.e., give. the ditransitive construction being one of the most universally available constructions as it encodes a very human-centric scene of giving/receiving (goldberg, 1995), its underrepresentation is surprising. discussion following the findings of gedik (2022) of how the textbooks in türkiye lack a lexicogrammatical development, or diversity, this analysis further proves the point. while there is not much lexical diversity, i.e., types, to begin with for the selected constructions in this study, the textbooks do not seem to be doing a fair job of enough repetition for the constructions to be entrenched. furthermore, the input available for these constructions seem to be nonoptimally designed. if we acknowledge the fact that these textbooks are legally required by the government to be used or at least covered, and that textbooks make up the main source of input used in classrooms (vellenga, 2004; martínez-flor & usó-juan, 2010), then the results presented here become vital from a learner’s perspective. vacs being the “basic means of clausal expression in a language” (goldberg, 1995, p. 3) constitute an important level of linguistic knowledge both in l1 and l2 language acquisition (see ellis et al., 2014), with higher proficiency level students performing more closely to native speaker experimental data in producing vacs, i.e., idiomatic language production. returning to the results for the vacs presented here, two things are clear: (a) they either occur very infrequently that they do not lead to entrenchment unless they appear in other ambient language sources, and (b) the input provided for them likely leads to unproductive constructions with no overarching schemas, possibly resulting in a failure of pattern detection (madlener, 2016). as a result, the students may fail to map the form to the meaning, assuming the constructions are represented in meaningful, communicative ways in the textbooks. although there is a high probability that learners who use these textbooks are exposed to such vacs on the internet or via other means, considering one of the main objectives of these textbooks is to ‘develop’ learners’’ english, it becomes important to address this mismatch between what is promised and is presented as linguistic knowledge. one advantage of having low token counts for the types in these constructions might be that it might foster pattern detection if incidental learning is possible via input flooding and it may lead to lesser cognitive overload in learners who are learning other new form-meaning pairings at first contact, as madlener (2016) points out, translating to year 9 or 10 books. however, from those years onward, for a highly abstract schema to occur and to foster productivity, i.e., extensibility, the lexicogrammatical input of all the selected constructions in this study will need to be enhanced. a skewed input of the constructions would have fostered the right amount of surface similarity with a few highly frequent types with high token counts, and many low frequency types with low token counts. such skewing would also mean that this lexicogrammatical diversity within the given constructions appears in a variety of different communicative settings, which helps with entrenchment, mapping form to meaning, and leads learners to have item-based islands of the constructions, i.e., the give-ditransitive as a gedik, t. a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 13 prototypical instantiation of the overarching ditransitive construction. as such, these highly frequent types, acting as training wheels for the acquisition of the constructions, would help with learning and incorporating newer items into the construction, i.e., extending the construction, as there is evidence for high schematization to foster such extending effects (ellis & o’donnell, 2012). in the case of the textbooks and the selected constructions, increased type frequency may lead to overgeneralization errors and uncertainty in using the construction, as there has probably not been a mapping of form to meaning yet, or an exemplar to represent the constructional form or meaning (madlener, 2015). however, as it has been demonstrated many times, because language learning is subject to individual differences (dabrowska, 2015), students who may have been previously exposed to such constructions would benefit from an increased type frequency condition, as they would experience more types, extending their lexicogrammatical knowledge. however, there is experimental evidence that such a condition does not help learners with learning and forming a schema at first contact. thus, the textbooks in this study might benefit from a skewed input in year 9 or 10, followed by an increased type variability in later years. this is indicative of the fact that students in türkiye. if they are only exposed to the textbooks, and if english is not used as a medium of instruction at turkish high schools in english lessons anymore (see selvi, 2014, p. 137), then the results here suggest the following: turkish learners of english may not receive enough input to learn certain constructions optimally because selective attention or low-salience of such constructions may hinder the learning. from a pedagogical perspective, this may lead to an unfair linguistic competition between students who have been financially more fortunate to receive sources through which they can be exposed to the target language and those whose only sources are the efl textbooks used in the classroom. it is commonly assumed that there is a correlation between financial status and the education background of the parents. it is not difficult to imagine how one is connected to the other. more financial stability allows families to spend more on their children’s english (or other subject matter) books. this stability can also provide students with a number of other sources of exposure to english, such as media streaming platforms, or video games. furthermore, this discrepancy may be detrimental in being successful in the national english university entrance exams in türkiye, as it was pointed out by gedik and kolsal (2022). this national exam is highly centralized and is based on the textbooks that are provided by the ministry of education. while making the case against usage-based efl materials is difficult, there is evidence that something like a ‘textbook english’ exists (le foll, 2018) and the input l1 and l2 speakers of a given language will differ structurally and frequency-wise. however, if we subscribe to experimental data that come out of usage-based linguistics and believe that l2 learners benefit from skewed input, or textbooks that reflect natural language in its frequency profile, i.e., corpus-based, then we might be able to give every student an equal chance to learn constructions. with this short analysis of 4 selected constructions, the results and interpretation are clear. the efl textbooks used in turkish high schools may not provide enough linguistic input to optimally form overarching generalizations, and at times enough for entrenchment to take place. further research will show whether this is the case in textbook corpora across different nations. gedik, t. a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 14 conclusions in this study, four selected constructions were analyzed for their type-token frequency across high school english textbooks used in türkiye. following a usage-based approach to l2 learning and experimental data for a positive outcome of skewing input (e.g., madlener, 2015), this study traced type-token counts and assumed that an optimal input would be having a couple of highly frequent, prototypical items with high token counts, and low-frequent types with low token counts. based on this, none of the constructions demonstrate this optimized understanding input, and at times do not constitute enough repetition for entrenchment. as such, for learning, generalizations, productivity, and idiomaticity to occur, l2 instruction and materials should take into account a more natural language distribution of linguistic items. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references alsaif, a., & milton, j. 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(2009). korean speakers’ acquisition of the english ditransitive construction: the role of verb prototype, input distribution, and frequency. the modern language journal, 93(3), 399–417. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2009.00898.x copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.167.2.07tod https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688210373128 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2009.00898.x ejal article template focus on elt journal (felt) vol 1, issue 1, 2019 issn: 2687-5381  contact: pfp23@cam.ac.uk the linguistic dimension of l2 interviews: a multidimensional analysis of native speaker language apascual pérez-paredes and bmaría sánchez-tornel a lecturer, university of cambridge, united kingdom, pfp23@cam.ac.uk b eoi san javier, spain, mstornel@um.es to cite this article: pérez-paredes, p., & sánchez-tornel, m. (2019). the linguistic dimension of l2 interviews: a multidimensional analysis of native speaker language. focus on elt journal (felt), 1(1), 4-26. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2019.00008 abstract this research profiles l2 interviews from a variationist perspective by using native speaker data in order to gain insight into the characteristics of three different speaking tasks in the framework of the lindsei learner language corpus tradition: personal narrative component, an interaction component and a picture description. this way, we set out to research one area of the assessment of proficiency that is usually neglected: that of the linguistic nature of the tasks used to assess general “proficiency” in a given language. our corpus was part-of-speech (pos) tagged and analysed using multidimensional analysis (mda). we found that the different speaking tasks determine the range of linguistic features that are more likely to be generated by the communicative potential of the task itself. this profiling is of interest in areas such as language assessment, where the interview is widely used to evaluate the speakers’ communicative competence, but also in the field of learner language research. keywords: oral proficiency interview native speaker language corpus linguistics multidimensional analysis (mda) dimensions of language use introduction interviews have been used extensively as an elicitation technique either for language research (gilquin & gries, 2009) or for communicative competence appraisal. apart from the cue-based interviews used to evaluate the depth of vocabulary knowledge (kunnan, 1998), interviews in the context of english as a foreign language (efl) are regularly conducted to assess the communicative competence of language learners. international institutions like the american council on the teaching of foreign languages (actfl), cambridge english for speakers of other languages (esol) examinations, or trinity college, among others, use the oral proficiency interview (opi) to test the oral competence of candidates worldwide. in the us, agencies such as the cia, the fbi, and the dli have been using l2 interviews to assess the foreign language speaking capabilities of their employees since the 1950s (johnson 2001, p. 7). given the tradition of assessing learner language by means of interviews, it is hardly surprising that the interview has been the most widely used elicitation technique in the collection of spoken learner data (tono, 2003). in the field of learner language research, the publication of the first spoken learner corpus, the louvain international database of https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2796-338x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9964-090x mailto:pfp23@cam.ac.uk mailto:mstornel@um.es https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2019.00008 pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 5 focus on elt journal (felt) spoken english interlanguage (lindsei) (gilquin, de cock and granger, 2010), which was compiled by means of oral interviews, was a major breakthrough in the analysis of spoken learner language. the new trinity lancaster corpus (tlc) (gablasova, brezina and mcenery, 2019) will contribute to our understanding of how l2 english is used in oral proficiency interviews across a variety of tasks and, interestingly, performance levels. despite its importance in learner language research and learner language assessment, the l2 interview as a linguistic register remains under-researched. iwashita, brown, mcnamara and o’hagan (2008) have pointed out how different authors have tried to gain further insight into the features of the language produced by test-takers (shohamy, 1994), the speech event(s) in l2 interviews (van lier, 1989), or the relations between candidates’ performance and the scores awarded (mcnamara et al., 2002). given the widespread use of interviews and the lack of research in this register from a native speaker perspective, we set out to gain insight into the nature of l2 interviews through multidimensional analysis (mda). specifically, we want to find out whether the three speaking tasks that were used to gather our corpus can be profiled distinctively. if so, what other registers do these subregisters resemble? in this research, we aim at profiling the l2 interview from a variationist perspective, using english native speaker data in order to shed light into the characteristics of this particular register as manifested across different speaking tasks. we argue that tasks do not just simply prompt different language use, but they actually afford the usage of a set of specific linguistics features. l2 interviews: speaking tasks, language assessment and corpora corpora in the assessment and operationalization of proficiency corpus-based approaches are widely considered as central to diverse areas of language study including, among others, language testing and assessment (lta). this field has, for many years now, benefited from the use of real language data in various respects. alderson (1996) presented one of the first accounts of the potential uses of corpora in language assessment. among these we find test construction, compilation and selection, test presentation, response capture, test scoring and calculation and delivery of results. given the limited use of computers (let alone language corpora) in language testing at the time, the author referred to his account as mere speculation, but he anticipated that “since corpora exist, they will eventually be used, for better or worse […] it makes sense to think about how to best use them in order to control their development rather than to suffer it” (alderson, 1996, p. 249). time has proven that alderson was not far wrong, as the following paragraphs will illustrate. since the creation of the cambridge language corpus (cambridge esol examinations) as a repository of rubrics and exam answers transcripts, the use of native speaker and learner corpora in lta has unfolded in different directions. the application of corpus methods to analyze native speaker or learner data is indeed valuable in lta, whether it be aimed at profiling and characterizing proficiency, at assessing it or at informing and validating test design. in the language testing tradition, native speaker (ns) and non-native speaker (nns) corpora have been used to revise tests, devise new test formats as well as teaching and testing materials, create and/or revise wordlists, shed light on the pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 6 focus on elt journal (felt) characteristics of academic speech and investigate differences by speaker group or discipline (taylor and barker, 2008; barker, 2010). native speaker data help to make sound decisions on structures, phrases or vocabulary which are to be included or avoided in tests, thus leaving test writers’ intuitions and experiences out of the picture (barker, 2010). furthermore, they serve as a source of real-life texts that can be adapted or used without further editing and also as a reference resource in the stage of marking or grading. as for learner corpora, they have been used, among other aspects, to identify what learners can do and the errors that are common at a given proficiency level, to confirm test writers’ intuitions about the features that are typical of certain levels, to revise rating scales, to explore automatic rating, or to analyze the relationship between demographic variables, test mode and learning environment on learner output (barker, 2010; taylor and barker, 2008). much as the use of corpora has resulted in the advancement and improvement of lta, it is no less true that the definition of proficiency and the delimitation of the boundaries of different proficiency bands still seem to be rather challenging for test designers and second language acquisition (sla) researchers alike. carlsen (2012, p. 162) has pointed out that “levels of proficiency are not always carefully defined, and the claims about proficiency levels are seldom supported by empirical evidence” and barker (2010) highlights that “establishing the nature of language proficiency at different levels is vital for language testers seeking to design tests that either aim to assess candidates at a particular proficiency level or report results across part of or the whole proficiency scale.” moreover, the correct placement of learner corpus texts in their corresponding proficiency bands has further implications, given that the linguistic features expected in those bands can only be isolated reliably “if a learner’s level is correctly identified and recorded in a corpus” (barker 2010, p. 637). the importance of ensuring validity and reliability with respect to the assignment of learner corpus texts to different levels of proficiency stands out, therefore, as a shared concern in the field, since erroneous decisions may lead sla experts to make spurious assumptions regarding language learning. díez-bedmar (2018, p. 208) has “highlighted the main challenges that linguistic competence descriptors pose to cefr and elp users […] with a particular focus on the grammatical accuracy descriptors and strategy descriptors for monitoring and repair at b1 level”. from this it follows that a sound approach to lta depends greatly on a series of factors that are closely interwoven, ranging from the precise characterization of proficiency and proficiency levels to the right design of tests, all of them informed and supported by ns and nns corpora in different ways. bearing these concerns in mind, one might go one step further and question the validity of certain tasks that are commonly found in language tests and, in particular, in the speaking section of language tests. this is an area that has not attracted much attention to date as tasks oriented towards the assessment of specific linguistic features may or may not actually bring to the surface the use of such linguistic features, even when ns perform these oral texts. the study of the potential of tasks to elicit the use of particular phrases, structures or vocabulary that may, presumably, be produced while solving those tasks seems a promising area within lta. it has not yet been established whether specific tasks are as pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 7 focus on elt journal (felt) adequate as test designers expect them to be and it is precisely here where the analysis of native speaker language by means of mda advocated in this study may play a central role. mda of learner language has been underused as a tool for language research and pedagogy. one of the few studies where mda was used to explore learner language is connor-linton and shohamy (2001) and one of the few pedagogic applications of mda is aguado et al. (2012). considering that corpus techniques have proved useful in the analysis and characterization of learner output and in the exploration of native speaker language oriented towards test design and validation, it remains to be seen how lta and learner corpus research (lcr) can benefit from the study of l2 interviews from a variationist perspective by using mda. we adopt, therefore, a critical perspective on task and test design and propose the use of mda to examine the potential of the l2 interview to elicit an adequate and sufficient number of linguistic features. the underlying principle is that it cannot be assumed that a task is valid or reliable to assess oral proficiency in the light of the presence of particular features without knowing, first, if those features would be employed by a native speaker performing the same task. the application of mda in lta is mainly based on the works carried out by douglas biber. in the toefl 2000 spoken and written academic language (t2k-swal) project, biber and his colleagues brought together mda and ns corpora to investigate the linguistic characteristics of institutional registers at university and thus “ensure that the texts used on listening and reading exams accurately represent the linguistic characteristics of spoken and written academic registers” (biber et al., 2004, p. 2). in a previous investigation biber and jamieson (1998, cited in taylor and barker, 2008) found that the reading and listening texts did not fully match the registers being tested, which calls for a closer examination of language tasks in the light of mda. the l2 interview and language learner assessment the l2 interview is the “dominant approach to measuring a language learner’s oral proficiency” (connor-linton and shohamy, 2001, p. 124), being widely used nowadays (ricardo-osorio, 2008) by different and prestigious institutions (ferrara, 2008). cambridge esol1 runs different examinations which target a wide spectrum of levels. the first certificate of english (fce) examiners run an oral test to “assess the candidate’s ability to produce spoken english in a variety of tasks”. this test involves two candidates and two examiners. the first part of the oral test is an interview where the interlocutor asks each candidate questions which “relate to [his or her] own lives and focus on areas such as work, leisure time, future plans” and social language. the second part of the test is an “individual long turn” where the candidates have to fulfill a one-minute speaking task where two photographs are shown and a printed question has to be answered. this part “tests the candidate’s ability to produce an extended piece of discourse which may involve comparing, describing and expressing opinions”. the third part of the test, labeled collaborative task, is a “two-way discussion between the candidates, developed around a topic-based visual stimulus” where the candidate’s ability to sustain an interaction, exchange ideas, express and justify opinions, agree and/or disagree, make suggestions, 1 http://www.cambridgeesol.org/assets/pdf/fcecae_review10.pdf http://www.cambridgeesol.org/assets/pdf/fcecae_review10.pdf pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 8 focus on elt journal (felt) speculate, evaluate and work towards a negotiated outcome is evaluated”. finally, a discussion on one of the topics in the third part is promoted by the interlocutor so as to evaluate the candidate’s ability to “engage in a more in-depth discussion, exchange information, express and justify opinions and agree and/or disagree”. in total, the test runs for approximately 14 minutes and involves personal information, description of visual prompts and the expression of ideas and opinions over a given topic. the cambridge advanced english (cae) test follows an identical format, while the cambridge certificate of proficiency in english (cpe) extends a little longer and may last up to 19 minutes. however, the structure of the interview and its distribution is almost identical: an interview and a collaborative task followed by a discussion between two candidates, one assessor who remains silent, and an interlocutor. the actfl oral proficiency interview is a standardized procedure for the global assessment of functional speaking ability. it is a face-to-face or telephone interview between a certified actfl tester and an examinee that determines how well a person speaks a language by comparing his or her performance in specific communication tasks with the criteria for each of ten proficiency levels described in the actfl proficiency guidelines-speaking. the use of interviews is not restricted to the evaluation of general english. trinity college london runs spoken english for work (sew) examinations which “address [a] growing demand [of use of spoken english in real work settings] by offering a face-to-face assessment which measures spoken english in a working context relevant to the chosen profession of the candidate”. the four levels range from b1 to c1 and take from 13 to 27 minutes. in all of them, one-to-one, face-to-face assessment is involved, including a telephone task and a topic discussion led by the examiner. interactive tasks are present in all levels except for b1 and topic presentations are evaluated in the two higher level. l2 interviews and speaking tasks l2 researchers have addressed the effect of the speaking task on the linguistic nature of l2 interviews from, at least, two different perspectives. first, we find research which has analyzed the interview as a register. second, there is research which has limited its scope to discrete linguistic elements. connor-lynton and shohamy (2001) studied the stylistic variation of nns’ spoken discourse across different elicitation tasks and contexts (face-toface vs taped-mediated). using mda, the authors analyzed the data in shohamy, donitsaschmidt and waizer (1993), viz. 10 adult female l1 hebrew efl learners of varied proficiency levels. these individuals completed three different tasks in parallel forms in order to minimize memorization effects. in the first, they told their interviewer about themselves; in the second, using the role-play technique, they were asked to complain about noise; in the third, they had to request of a professor an extension on a term paper or a second chance on a final exam. these tasks were combined with five elicitation contexts (face-to-face conversation with a tester, with a peer, telephone interaction, videotaped prompt and audio taped prompt). the authors found that the t-tests of the dimension scores confirmed that each pair elicited “stylistically and functionally equivalent performance samples” (connor-lynton and shohamy, 2001, p. 133). similarly, their mda analysis provided evidence that the stylistic profiles of complaints and requests elicited similar pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 9 focus on elt journal (felt) language in terms of communicative functions, which, according to the authors, shows some of the potential uses of mda in designing l2 interviews which can discriminate a more varied set of speech events. johnson (2001) attempted to characterize the l2 interview in terms of speech events through a discourse analysis methodology. the data that the author used were 35 telephone interviews codified according to five major categories, namely, floor turn, repair, topic, question type and discourse unit. her analysis concludes that the l2 interview resembles more accurately a monologic speech event, rather than conversation. neary-sundquist (2009) examined the relationship between the effect of proficiency levels and task types on the use of cohesive devices in english and german second language speech production under test conditions that followed the actfl. in the german data, the narrative task showed a higher frequency of use of conjunctions and a decrease in discourse marker use. in the english data, the leaving-a-telephone-message task behaved significantly different from the other tasks as to the frequency of discourse markers. the author concludes that the degree of structure in a task may have an impact on language performance. methodology corpus used in the analysis the corpus used in this analysis is the extended locnec (louvain corpus of native english conversations (locnec) (pérez-paredes and bueno, 2019). the locnec (de cock, 2004) is made up of 90,300 words contributed by 50 native speakers of english, all of them undergraduate and graduate students at lancaster university. the extended locnec includes 28 extra interviews from the british component of the caos-e corpus (aguado et al., 2012). it is made up of 21,509 words contributed by british undergraduate students at manchester metropolitan university. the extended locnec was compiled following the same format of the louvain international database of spoken english interlanguage (lindsei; de cock, 1998; gilquin, de cock and granger, 2010). first, informants were given three topics for discussion, i.e., an experience that has taught the interviewee an important lesson, a country that has made an impression on the interviewee or a film or play that has attracted their attention. then, the interviewer engaged the interviewee into an even more involved, interpersonal communication by asking about their studies or future plans. in the last part of the interview, the interviewee was given four pictures that represented a story and was asked to offer an account of what was going on. table 1 summarizes the main characteristics of the corpus. pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 10 focus on elt journal (felt) table 1. characteristics of the extended locnec (pérez-paredes & bueno, 2019) number of speakers 78 nationality british interview locations lancaster university and manchester metropolitan university running words 111,809 speaking tasks/ components personal narrative interaction picture description the first part of the interview gave the speaker the opportunity to build a narrative based on his own previous life, travelling or film-viewer experiences. the second is mainly interactional. the interviewer asks the interviewee questions that provide an occasion for the interviewee to talk about themselves and their activities at the moment when the interview took place. these two parts favour involved production. as regards the third part of the interview, the picture description task offers speakers the possibility to elaborate on individual interpretations arising from a situation in which a woman is being portrayed by a painter, and where she seems to be dissatisfied with the painter’s first piece of work. this last part of the interview can be regarded as description-oriented production. analysis our interview corpus was pos tagged and analysed using mda (biber, 1988; conrad, 2001; biber, 2006). this methodology seeks to interpret linguistic data in the light of language variation across registers or different dimensions of use. each dimension of use “comprises a distinct set of co-occurring linguistic features, and each has distinct functional underpinnings” (biber, reppen and conrad 2002, p. 459). the five dimensions of use in biber (1988) are (d1) involved versus information production, (d2) narrative versus non-narrative concerns, (d3) explicit versus situation-dependent reference, (d4) overt expression of persuasion and (d5) abstract versus non-abstract information. accordingly, five dimension scores were computed for each interview and for each of the parts of the interviews in the corpus. after that, a factor score2 was calculated. all the frequencies were standardized to a mean of 0.0 and a standard deviation of 1.0 before the computation of the factor. differences between the three components were tested using the duncan’s multiple range tests, a procedure based on the comparison of the range of a subset of the sample means with a calculated least significant range. the analysis of our data followed the guidelines in biber, johansson, leech, conrad and finegan (1999) and, in particular, took into account the tasks performed in discourse by the different linguistic features, the processing constraints which the pedagogic interview register presents, and the conventional association of linguistic features with the peculiarities of the interview situation analyzed. 2 a factor score is a numerical value that indicates a text relative standing on a latent factor in factor analysis. pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 11 focus on elt journal (felt) results each interview in our research corpus was composed of three different speaking tasks, namely, a personal narrative component, an interaction component and a picture description. table 2 shows the scores of the three speaking tasks on the five dimensions of language use in biber (1988) plus the score of the whole interview, that is, the unabridged, complete interview. table 2. scores of the speaking tasks on the five dimensions of language use in biber (1988) d1 d2 d3 d4 d5 personal narrative 27 -0.7 -4 -2 -2 interaction 31 -2 -5 0.13 -2 picture description 24.6 -0,1 -5 -4 -0.1 whole interview 29.50 -1.10 -4.70 -1.02 -1.50 in the following paragraphs we will provide the score of the different speaking tasks on these five dimensions together with the normalized counts of the most relevant linguistic features for each of the dimensions of use. dimension 1: involved versus information production this dimension marks affective or interactional content, as opposed to information density and exact informational content. its internal composition makes it possible that much of the variability found in texts can be explained using this factor alone, which turns d1 into a fundamental dimension to discriminate textual variation (biber 1988: 106). the whole interview scored high on this rank (29.5), above the original interview texts (17.01) in biber (1988). the personal narrative component score on this dimension (27) is closer to face-to-face conversations in biber (1988) than the picture description component (24.6), which in turn is closer to spontaneous speech and interviews in biber (1988). this fact can be explained by the presence of fewer turns in this component, with the interviewer mainly offering backchanneling. the interaction component score (31) places this part of the interview on top of this dimension, lying closer to face-to-face conversations than any other speaking task. figure 1 shows the scores of all three tasks and the interview mean. pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 12 focus on elt journal (felt) figure 1. interview scores on dimension 1 the score difference between the interaction component and the picture description (6.4) seems to indicate that the speaking task plays an important role in the way lindseiformat interviews can be linguistically profiled. this is confirmed by the duncan’s multiple range test for d1, which shows that the interaction component is significantly different from the other two tasks. table 3 shows the results of the test. table 3. effect of speaking task on d1 profiling dimension 1: involved versus information production duncan grouping mean speaking task a 30.830 interaction b b 27.293 personal narrative b 24.643 picture description alpha 0.05 error degrees of freedom 226 error mean square 112.6946 harmonic mean of cell sizes 76.20474 number of means 2 3 critical range 3.389 3.567 the higher score of face-to-face conversations (35.3) in biber (1988) seems to point out that our interviews presented fewer opportunities for affectiveness and involvement than conversations, although both registers may share similar real-time production constraints. spontaneous speech and interviews in biber (1988) behave in a very similar way on this pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 13 focus on elt journal (felt) dimension of use, which confirms that the involvement component of our corpus is an efficient register delimiter, at least when compared to the interviews in biber (1988)3. the linguistic features which are representative of the involved dimension include, in decreasing order of significance, private verbs, that-deletion, contractions, present tense verbs, 2nd person pronouns, do as pro-verb, analytic negation, demonstrative pronouns, general emphatics and 1st person pronouns. table 4 lists the normalized means of selected features in our corpus. table 4. summary of smd estimate across articles with 95% confidence interval private verbs thatdeletion contractions present tense verbs 2nd pers. pronouns do as pro-verb personal narrative 23/1000 7.9/1000 3.0/1000 69.9/1000 23.9/1000 2/1000 interaction 27.7/1000 10.1/1000 3.3/1000 96/1000 38.6/1000 3.3/1000 picture description 16.5/1000 6.7/1000 7.3/1000 118/1000 23.3/1000 1.2/1000 corpus mean 22.7/1000 8.3 /1000 4.6/1000 97/1000 29/1000 2.3/1000 other linguistic features are typically representative of information-oriented discourse: nouns, prepositions and attributive adjectives, see table 5. table 5. linguistic features which are representative of information-oriented discourse nouns prepositions attributive adjectives personal narrative 164.7/1000 74.1/1000 17.2/1000 interaction 157.6/1000 72.5/1000 15.6/1000 picture description 138.2/1000 62.3/1000 10.1/1000 corpus mean 151.2/1000 68.6 /1000 14/1000 dimension 2: narrative versus non-narrative concerns dimension 2 distinguishes narrative discourse from other registers where exposition or description are more pivotal. romantic and mystery fiction texts appear at one end of this continuum, while broadcasts and official documents qualify for a type of text where narration plays a very limited or no role at all (biber, 1988). 3 the interviews in biber (1988) come from the london-lund corpus and are classified as part of the public discussion genre. pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 14 focus on elt journal (felt) figure 2. interview scores on dimension 2 the mean corpus score (-1.1) is identical to that of the interview texts (-1.1) in biber (1988). on this dimension, interview texts in biber (1988) and our corpus data behave exactly in the same way. the interview personal narrative component score on this dimension (-0.7) is close to that of interview texts, and almost identical to that of face-toface conversations (-0.6) in biber (1988). the score of the picture description component (-0.1) is slightly farther away from face-to-face conversations, while the interaction component score (-2) matches that of telephone conversations in biber (1988). the score difference between the interaction component and the picture description component (1.9) seems to indicate that the speaking task does play an important role in the way interviews can be linguistically profiled. this is confirmed by the duncan’s multiple range test for d2, which shows that all three corpus components are significantly different from each other. table 6 shows the results of the test. table 6. effect of speaking task on d2 profiling dimension 2: narrative versus non-narrative concerns duncan grouping mean speaking task a -0.1059 picture description b -0.6947 personal narrative c -1.6835 interaction alpha 0.05 error degrees of freedom 226 error mean square 3.330233 harmonic mean of cell sizes 76.20474 number of means 2 3 critical range .5826 .6132 pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 15 focus on elt journal (felt) the linguistic features which are representative of the narrative dimension include, in decreasing order of significance, past tenses, 3rd person pronouns, perfect aspect tenses and public verbs. present tenses and attributive adjectives are typical features of non-narrative texts. table 7 lists the normalized frequencies of these linguistic features in our corpus data. table 7. effect of speaking task on d2 profiling past tense 3rd pers. pronouns perfect aspect public verbs present tense attributive adjectives personal narrative 61.9/1000 20.8/1000 8.6/1000 2.3/1000 69.9/1000 17.2/1000 interaction 32.8/1000 12.3/1000 10.4/1000 2.2/1000 96/1000 15.6/1000 picture description 8.8/1000 94.5/1000 2.7/1000 3.4/1000 118/1000 10.1/1000 corpus mean 31.9/1000 46.2/1000 6.8/1000 2.8/1000 97/1000 14/1000 dimension 3: explicit versus situation-dependent reference this dimension distinguishes between discourse which identifies referents in an explicit way, mainly through relatives, from discourse that relies more heavily on non-specific deictics (biber 1988: 115). the score of our interview corpus (-4.7) is far away from that of interviews (-0.4) and spontaneous speeches (1.2) in biber (1988). on this dimension, our corpus behaves in a similar way to telephone (-5.2) and face-to-face conversations (3.9). figure 3 shows the scores of the components of our corpus on dimension 3. figure 3. interview scores on dimension 3 the score of the personal narrative component on this dimension (-4.5) is closer to face-to-face conversations in biber (1988) than that of the description component (-5), pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 16 focus on elt journal (felt) which is closer in turn to telephone conversations. the score difference between these two components (0.5) seems to indicate that our speaking tasks do not play an important factor in the way interview can be linguistically profiled on this particular dimension. this is confirmed by the duncan’s multiple range test for d3, which shows that the three corpus components are not significantly different from each other. table 8 shows the results of the test. table 8. effect of speaking task on d3 profiling dimension 3: explicit versus situation-dependent reference duncan grouping mean speaking task a -3.9823 personal narrative a -4.7660 interaction a -4.9726 picture description alpha 0.05 error degrees of freedom 226 error mean square 5.44739 harmonic mean of cell sizes 76.20474 number of means 2 3 critical range 1.255 1.321 the linguistic features which are representative of explicit reference discourse include, in decreasing order of significance, wh-relative clauses in object positions, pied piping constructions, wh-relative clauses in subject positions, phrasal coordination and nominalizations. other linguistic features are typically representative of dependent reference discourse: time adverbials, place adverbials and adverbs. linguistic features that showed negative loadings on this factor such as place and time adverbials, showed frequencies of use unusual in interviews texts in biber (1988). table 9 lists the normalized mean of all these linguistic features. table 9. linguistic features which are representative of the explicit reference dimension object whrelative clauses subject whrelative clauses phrasal coordination nominaliz -ations place adverbials time adverbials personal narrative 0.6/1000 1.7/1000 1.8/1000 13.1/1000 12.5/1000 6/1000 interaction 0.3/1000 0.9/1000 1.7/1000 16.4/1000 12.1/1000 7.1/1000 picture description 0.3/1000 1.9/1000 1.9/1000 3.6/1000 6/1000 12.5/1000 corpus mean 0.4 /1000 1.6 /1000 1.7 /1000 8.1 /1000 10/1000 8.8/1000 pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 17 focus on elt journal (felt) dimension 4: overt expression of persuasion this dimension is associated with the expression of own point of view or with the use of argumentation to persuade the interlocutor. the score of the whole interview corpus (-1.02) is far below than that of interview texts (1) and spontaneous speeches (0.3) in biber (1988). on this dimension, our interview corpus behaves in a similar way to adventure fiction (-1.2) or biographies (-0.7). figure 4 shows the scores of the components of our corpus on dimension 4. figure 4. interview scores on dimension 4 the score of the personal narrative component on this dimension (-2) is closer to the score of face-to-face conversations (-0.3) in biber (1988) than the description component (-4), which is closer in turn to broadcasts (-4.4). the score difference between the interaction and the interview description components (4.13) seems to indicate that our speaking does play an important factor in the way interviews can be linguistically profiled on this particular dimension. this is confirmed by the duncan’s multiple range test for d4, which shows that all three corpus components are significantly different from each other. table 10 shows the results of the test. table 10. effect of speaking task on d4 profiling dimension 4: overt expression of persuasion duncan grouping mean speaking task a 0.1311 interaction b -1.9848 personal narrative c -3.8735 picture description alpha 0.05 error degrees of freedom 226 error mean square 8.902971 harmonic mean of cell sizes 76.20474 number of means 2 3 critical range 0.953 1.003 pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 18 focus on elt journal (felt) the linguistic features that are representative of this dimension include, in decreasing order of significance, infinitives, prediction modals, suasive verbs, conditional subordination, necessity modals and split auxiliaries. table 11 lists the normalized mean of all these linguistic features. table 11. linguistic features which are representative of the persuasion dimension infinitives prediction modals suasive verbs conditional subordination necessity modals split auxiliaries personal narrative 10/1000 4.3/1000 1/1000 2/1000 2.5/1000 2.9/1000 interaction 15/1000 7.3/1000 1.7/1000 4.1/1000 3.1/1000 2.8/1000 picture description 20.1/1000 5.4/1000 1.2/1000 1.1/1000 0.7/1000 0.6/1000 corpus mean 15.4/1000 5.4 /1000 1.2/1000 2.3/1000 2.4/1000 2.1/1000 dimension 5: abstract non-abstract information this dimension distinguishes discourse with a highly abstract and technical informational focus from discourse which lacks that quality. academic texts appear at one end of this continuum, while telephone conversations qualify for a type of text where interlocutors share information which is non-abstract and informal (biber, 1988, p. 113). figure 5 shows the scores of the components of our corpus on dimension 5. figure 5. interview scores on dimension 5 the mean interview score (-1.5) is close to that of broadcasts (-1.8) and interview texts (-2) in biber (1988). the personal narrative component score on this dimension (-2) is identical to that of the interaction component and to that of the interviews texts in biber pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 19 focus on elt journal (felt) (1988), while the picture description component (-0.1) overlaps the score of popular lore. the score difference between the personal narrative and the picture description components (1.9) seems to indicate that the speaking task does play an important factor in the way interviews can be linguistically profiled on this particular dimension. this is confirmed by the duncan’s multiple range test for d5, which shows that the picture description component is significantly different from the other two tasks. table 12 shows the results of the test. table 12. effect of speaking task on d5 profiling dimension 5: abstract non-abstract information duncan grouping mean speaking task a -0.1179 picture description b b -1.7865 personal narrative b -2.3744 interaction alpha 0.05 error degrees of freedom 226 error mean square 16.29063 harmonic mean of cell sizes 76.20474 number of means 2 3 critical range 1.288 1.356 the linguistic features which are representative of this dimension include, in decreasing order of significance, conjuncts, agentless passives, adverbial past participial clauses, bypassives, past participial whiz-deletion and other adverbial subordinators (other than cause, concession and condition). table 13 lists the normalized mean of all these linguistic features. table 13. linguistic features which are representative of the abstract dimension conjuncts agentless passives adverbial ppl. clauses bypassives ppl. whizdeletions other adverbial subordinators personal narrative 1.6/1000 2.7/1000 /1000 0.4/1000 0.5/1000 5.9/1000 interaction 1.2/1000 1.8/1000 /1000 0.1/1000 0.5/1000 6.8/1000 picture description 3.2/1000 7.9/1000 /1000 0.2/1000 0.6/1000 7.5/1000 corpus mean 2.2/1000 5.2/1000 /1000 0.2/1000 0.5/1000 7/1000 pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 20 focus on elt journal (felt) discussion this study explores the application of corpus-based methods in lta and lcr that go beyond test design and validation. by applying mda to a corpus of 78 interviews with native speakers of english we have tried to provide insights into the nature of spoken tasks from a variationist perspective and, in particular, into the potential of the l2 interview to bring forth linguistic features that would be expected to be characteristic of the spoken register. the adoption of this approach can be key in supporting test validation as conceived by bachman (1990), who states that “in test validation we are not examining the validity of the test content or of even the test scores themselves, but rather the validity of the way we interpret or use the information gathered through the testing procedure” (bachman, 1990, p. 238). along the lines of biber and jamieson (1998, cited in biber et al., 2004), who found that the linguistic characteristics of the texts in toefl exams did not resemble those of the target registers, our results suggest that the different tasks determine the range of linguistic features produced by speakers. for example, the normalized frequency of present tense verbs (118/1000) in the picture description component is considerably higher than in the other two components, almost doubling the frequency of this feature in the personal narrative component (69.9/1000). could we say then that the picture description task creates the conditions for the use of the simple present tense? what if a speaker adopts a different perspective and decides to tell the painter/young lady story relying on the simple past? our data exclude this possibility. the range of uses of the present tense in the picture description component goes from 62.1/1000 to 198.4/1000 (sd = 28.7), that is, every speaker in the sample used at least almost the same amount of present tense verbs forms than the mean count for the personal narrative component (69.9/1000). in the context of learner language assessment, a speaking task is in many ways a speech event where learners are expected to show their competence. if this competence, or level of competence, is matched against the expectations of the examiner/evaluator or against a reference norm, can-do statements, and we all agree that even native speakers’ intuitions are not always reliable (sampson, 2007), it is urgent that we examine how these expectations are shaped by the use of a given register in the community of proficient speakers, i.e. native speakers. one of the types of findings that can be instrumental in this area is that, according to the duncan multiple range test (see section 4), the interaction component is significantly different from the other two components on dimension 1 (involved vs. information production), or put another way, the personal narrative and the picture descriptions components yield significantly different language. biber and conrad (2010, p. 16) have indicated that “the register perspective characterizes the typical linguistic features of text varieties, and connects those features functionally to the situational context of the variety”. this is where corpus linguistics, and particularly mda, can inform language proficiency evaluators about the complex relationships that govern the use of discrete linguistic features and how texts conform our own understanding of how registers work. despite the differences between the interaction component on the pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 21 focus on elt journal (felt) one hand, and the personal narrative and the picture description components on the other, all three score high on dimension 1, which profiles them as speaking tasks where speaker’s involvement is expected, above interviews or personal letters in the original biber (1988) study. when examining the linguistic features which are characteristic of more information-oriented registers such as official documents or academic prose, we can see why the interview texts in biber (1988) are found lower on dimension 1 than any of the components in our corpus. for example, the normalized count for nouns in the interview register (160.9/1000) is only higher in the personal narrative component (164.7/1000), while prepositions in interviews are more abundant (108/1000) or attributive adjectives (55.3/1000) are infrequent in personal narratives (17.2/1000). this shows again how particular speaking tasks are not valid in terms of eliciting certain linguistic features, which calls for a re-examination of the role of interviews and speaking tasks in gathering information about the grammar of learners. in this sense, the picture description component shows very little potential for the use of attributive adjectives (10.1/1000) or, more noticeably, predicative adjectives (2/1000). consider examples (1) and (2) from our data. (1) speaker: erm well he's drawing her in this picture and then it looks like she doesn't like the way he's drawn her in this one but her the facial expressions interviewer: mm speaker: erm she like is doesn't like the way she's portrayed she doesn't like the way she looks and he's obviously gone and changed it to make her nicer in the picture obviously to impress friends who look at it like she's been painted nicer something beautiful cos people are gonna look at it and it's her so she wants them to think she looks nice. (caos-e c2-3) (2) speaker: okay yeah erm well there's a painter and then there's erm a model who is having here self-portrait done and erm the first picture yeah sets the scenario nd then he says to her to the to the model erm what do you think so far and she doesn't look too pleased and saying that doesn't look anything like me she's unattractive o she she she obviously said well you better do something you better make this better this picture so she does it sits back down and he starts to paint away again and then she looks. she still doesn't look very happy with it in the end and she's saying to some friends or some other people do you think this looks like me. so she's not very happy with the painting okay. (caos-e c2-27) pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 22 focus on elt journal (felt) while in (2) we find more adjectives4, it is apparent that the two speakers do not use much adjectival description, relying more on present tense and the use of nouns to convey the idea of what the situation is about. this tendency is backed up by the corpus data. however, assessment of learners’ lexis is commonly found in rubrics. some researchers have seen that the correct use of adjective order (lightbown & spada 1990) or native-like intensification of adjectives (lorenz 1999) are good indicators of language proficiency. notwithstanding, other than in interviews which make use of cues to elicit discrete language features, it is extremely difficult to determine which registers or speaking tasks are more likely to yield which linguistic features. as for dimension 2, narrative versus non-narrative concerns, the duncan’s multiple range tests corroborates that the three components of our corpus differ significantly from each other, which shows that the three speaking tasks offer distinct profiles on this dimension. while the interaction component overlaps with the mean score of telephone conversations (-2) in biber (1988), the personal narrative component overlaps with the mean score of face-to-face conversations (-0.7). the interaction component showed the lowest mean on this dimension, qualifying as the least narrative sub-register in our corpus data. the normalized frequency count of 3rd person pronouns (12.3/1000) and public verbs (2.2/1000) is the lowest in our corpus. by contrast, one of the reasons which may account for the high frequency of 3rd person pronouns in the picture description component (94.5/1000) is the nature of the story going on in them, which includes the elaboration on a sequence of pictures involving a painter and a young lady being portrayed. this clearly favours the use of anaphoric reference and, together with the constraints on online processing in spoken discourse, created the conditions for this comparatively higher frequency of 3rd person pronouns. (3) is another example sample from our research corpus. (3) speaker: okay there's this this woman has gone to the to an artist for a portrait he does the portrait which is a true representation of her and she doesn't like it interviewer: mhm speaker: she wants to be made more beautiful than she thinks she is so he gets she gets him to redo it and shows off the portrait to her friends showing her as an nice attractive young woman clearly she isn't sadly so she she wants the portrait to give her a picture of what she sees herself as interviewer: mhm speaker: rather than what the world sees her as (locnec-15) all three speaking tasks scored low on dimension 3, explicit versus situation-dependent reference, finding themselves between the ranges of face-to-face conversations (-4) and telephone conversations (-5.2). the tasks that were used to elicit spoken language proved to have no discriminatory power for this dimension of use, which was corroborated by the 4 the adjective variation index is 0.12 for the first simple and 1.4 for the second. pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 23 focus on elt journal (felt) duncan’s multiple ranges tests. the fact that the frequency distribution of phrasal coordination and wh-relatives in object and subject positions is similar in the three corpus components, and that their scores overlap registers such as face-to-face conversations or telephone conversations in biber (1988), which are neither explicit nor heavily situationdependent registers, seem to indicate the lack of adequacy of these registers or elicitation tasks for the assessment of learner language along the functional underpinnings of d3. this finding is supported by biber, reppen and conrad (2002, p. 46), who stated that there is “comparatively little linguistic variation among spoken registers, apparently because they are all constrained by real-time production circumstances”. the same applies to dimension 5, abstract versus non-abstract information, where significant differences where only found between the picture description component, on the one side, and the narrative and the interaction components on the other, which in actual fact yielded the same score on this dimension. as one may expect, the three components showed very little power to generate abstract language of the type found in academic prose. despite the personal narrative component, it seems that the restrictions imposed by spoken communication were stronger than the thematic orientation of interviews for this component, where speakers were invited to talk about a book, a film or a journey that had influenced their lives. another alternative explanation may be that the involvement dimension actually was favored by the speakers, defying the restrictions imposed by the university setting where the interviews took place. however, what has been discussed about dimensions 3 and 5, does not apply in the case of dimension 4, overt expression of persuasion, where all three components were profiled in a significant different way. this finding may be of interest to efl educators and test writers as the expression of one’s point of view is a pivotal communicative function across the foreign language learning curriculum, from beginner to advanced levels. contrary to the situation on dimension 3, there is a huge difference between the mean scores of the interaction component (0.13) and the picture description component (-4). clearly, this last speaking task yields fewer opportunities for the expression of one’s own point of view. the interaction component score is closer to ns registers such as spontaneous speeches (0.3) and face-to-face conversations (-0.3) than the personal narrative component (-2) and the picture description (-4) components. the frequency of prediction and necessity modals, suasive verbs as well as conditional subordination is much higher in the interaction component, which explains its power to generate communication where persuasion and point of view are evaluated. our research methodology provides usage evidence of ns language in registers that have not traditionally been included in major reference corpora such as the brown corpus or the bnc. in contrast, the interview corpus used is defined by the speaking tasks used when collecting learner language data. principled corpora are made up of registers that represent ns use of the language, such as face-to-face conversations, sermons, radio broadcasts or fiction. it is interesting that these representative corpora have never included speaking tasks that are ironically so pervasive in language assessment and, accordingly, in language education. this fact has prevented learner language researchers from establishing more pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 24 focus on elt journal (felt) robust comparability analyses between ns and nns language, at least in spoken communication. the type of findings we have discussed in our paper is in keeping with the claims of researchers in the field of corpus linguistics (flowerdew, 2009) which call for the inclusion of contextualization in corpora. furthermore, our research addresses concerns expressed long ago regarding validity in general and content relevance (or validity) in particular such as those to which bachman (1990) drew attention: “the problem with language tests, of course, is that we seldom have a domain definition that clearly and unambiguously identifies the set of language use tasks from which possible test tasks can be sampled, so that demonstrating either content relevance or content coverage is difficult” (bachman, 1990, p. 245). based on the data we have discussed in this paper, the lindsei-format interview can be considered a complex register on its own, with peculiarities which bring it closer to conversational language on most dimensions of use; but also a complex register which is very sensitive to the tasks which are selected to elicit language. on dimensions 2 and 4 all three components differed from each other in a significant way, while on dimensions 1 and 5 only the interaction and the description components, respectively, behaved differently. further research should examine each of these speaking tasks more closely so as to determine the potential benefits and drawbacks for language assessment and learner language research in the context of register and language variation. conclusions the results of our mda of native speaker language suggest that l2 interviews can be instrumental in creating the context for a more complex assessment of learner language proficiency, as the different speaking tasks involved have the potential to yield subregisters of different nature. by exploring the characteristics of different speaking tasks, we have shown practical ways in which new registers can be linguistically profiled. this profiling is of interest in areas such as language assessment, where language interviews are widely used to evaluate the speakers’ communicative competence, but also in the field of learner language research, where corpora such as lindsei or the tlc will unlock new perspectives on learners’ spoken communication in similar ways as the international corpus of learner english (icle; granger et al., 2009) did for the written mode. despite the limitations of our study, namely the number of interviews included and the exclusive use of the british variety of english, our research sheds light on central issues which affect language assessment and learner language research methodology. moreover, the fact that studies like this are still very few in number (mainly biber and jamieson, 1998 and biber et al., 2004) limits our capacity to relate our findings to previous work carried out along the same lines. these three limitations provide evidence that the potential of mda of ns data to inform lta is still under-exploited, which, on the other hand, hopefully opens up new ways to future work. further analyses of each of the speaking tasks of our corpus will contribute to unveil the interplay between linguistic features, the functional dimensions of use in the mda pérez-paredes, p. & sánchez-tornel, m. / focus on elt journal, 2019 1(1) 25 focus on elt journal (felt) tradition and the role of these features in the assessment of language proficiency in spoken communication. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references american council on the teaching of foreign languages. 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(1989). reeling, writhing, drawling, stretching, and fainting in coils: oral proficiency interviews as conversation. tesol quarterly, 23, 489-508. copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2784616 http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2784616 focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 4, issue 3, 2022 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: ofarukkaya@trakya.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. this work is supported by tübi̇tak ardeb with a grant number (220k289). using corpora for language teaching and assessment in l2 writing: a narrative review ªömer faruk kaya bkutay uzun chakan cangır a m.a student, social sciences, trakya university, türkiye, ofarukkaya@trakya.edu.tr b assoc. prof. dr., department of foreign languages education, trakya university, türkiye, kutayuzun@trakya.edu.tr c lect., dr., school of foreign languages, ankara university, türkiye, hcangir@ankara.edu.tr apa citation: kaya, f. ö., uzun, k., & cangır, h. (2022). using corpora for language teaching and assessment in l2: a narrative review. focus on elt journal, 4(3), 46-62. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.3.4 abstract corpora have primarily been used in linguistic research, but they have not yet become a pedagogical mainstay of language teaching and assessment practices. therefore, this narrative review paper aimed to inform practitioners and researchers by examining the advantages and disadvantages of data-driven learning and exploring the use of corpora in foreign language teaching, particularly in writing. specifically, the goals of this paper include: (1) elucidating what data-driven learning is and its potential to shape the learning experience, (2) explaining and exemplifying how learner corpora can guide efl learners with particular attention to academic writing, and (3) providing insights into the indirect uses of corpora in teaching and assessing academic writing in l2. the review has met its objectives by presenting evidence compiled from the results of corpus-related studies and references to the use of corpus in language instruction. keywords academic writing, data-driven learning, corpus linguistics, learner corpus, corpus-assisted writing assessment. article history received : 09.09.2022 revised : 30.10.2022 accepted : 22.11.2022 published : 30.12.2022 type research article introduction in this narrative review, we attempt to provide comprehensive analysis of the current knowledge regarding the use of corpora in foreign language teaching. we start our discussion and summary of the target literature by using data-driven learning as a generic heading and then narrow down our focus to the use of corpus for language teaching and assessment. more specifically, our aim is to provide the practitioners with a smooth introduction into the field and help them gain insights into the use of current corpus tools in the foreign language classroom. our final humble aim with this narrative review is to bring the issue of data-driven learning within the scope of language learning and assessment to light, particularly in the turkish context, and trigger file:///c:/users/efere/downloads/ofarukkaya@trakya.edu.tr mailto:ofarukkaya@trakya.edu.tr mailto:kutayuzun@trakya.edu.tr mailto:hcangir@ankara.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2022.4.3.4 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7329-5557 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8434-0832 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2589-2466 kaya, ö. f., uzun, k., & cangır, h. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) 47 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com further studies combining corpus linguistics and language acquisit ion research with strong and practical pedagogical implications. we hope this review with its up-to-date examples and reader-friendly narration will achieve to present the concept of data-driven learning (or "corpusassisted language learning") from a broad perspective and be used in educational contexts by faculty (especially in introductory seminars at universities) to expose students to the related literature in their field of study. to have an exhaustive list of related studies for our narrative review, we made a list of the prominent figures in the field (e.g., gaëtanelle gilquin, sylviana granger, anne o’keeffe, peter crosthwaite, thomas cobb, pascual pérez-paredes, and yukio tono, to name but a few), and sought to transfer their insights into our summary in a logical way. additionally, we scanned through special issues of journals (e.g., language teaching, corpora in language teaching and learning special issue; international journal of applied linguistics, corpus-based language teaching and learning: applications and implications special issue) to explore the current trends in the use of corpora in language learning and teaching. the ideas regarding which corpus tools to present have been borrowed from the recently published articles since those tools are considered cutting-edge and widely used by researchers and practitioners around the world. last but not least, we grounded our main review layout and idea organization in the book chapters dedicated particularly to data-driven learning (e.g., crosthwaite & cheung, 2019; gilquin & granger, 2022). the following sections (a) summarise data-driven learning by relating it to certain theoretical backgrounds, (b) discuss the use of corpora in language teaching by giving examples of its direct and indirect applications, (c) scrutinize the use of corpora for language assessment highlighting their versatility in teaching (academic) writing and automated scoring. literature review data-driven learning the widespread adoption of the internet and growing technology have promoted changes in the understanding of language education in recent years. corpus linguistics is an innovative way of language analysis through research materials called corpora, "a collection of machine-readable authentic texts (including transcripts of spoken data) which is sampled to be representative of a particular language or language variety" (mcenery et al., 2006, p. 5). the scope of corpus linguistics is not only limited to language research. first mentioned in johns (1991), the term data-driven learning (ddl) refers to the pedagogical application of corpus linguistics. in ddl, students analyze the language using corpus tools and follow similar procedures of linguistic analysis and, optionally, the teacher acts as a coordinator of the student-led research. in other words, learners take the role of researchers by identifying and analyzing recurrent patterns in corpora to make generalizations and test their hypotheses about language (johns, 1997). learner researcher or scientist approach in language teaching is not new. cobb (1999) found that students using lexicography tools (corpus tools) to learn language performed better in transferring their vocabulary knowledge to novel contexts than those who did not. the effectiveness of ddl is also reflected in the recent literature. in a metanalysis, cobb and boulton (2015) analyzed eight studies employing pre–posttests as a treatment to measure the effectiveness of using corpora in teaching. the overall effect size (cohen's d) was reported to be 1.68, indicating that the use of corpora in language teaching is highly effective. gilquin and granger (2022) cite several studies exploring the effect of ddl diversified through the years (e.g., crosthwaite, 2020; meunier, 2020; yao, 2019). a shift of interest has been observed, and kaya, ö. f., uzun, k., & cangır, h. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) 48 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com the monopoly of the english language in these studies has been broken with growing (though still limited) interest in other languages (e.g., yao, 2019). another change of focus and a potential area of research promoting further investigation is the use of ddl with young learners. studies in the literature are rare, and crosthwaite’s attempt (2020) is the first in the related literature, which can guide future researchers. additionally, while earlier studies focused on the use of ddl, particularly for writing, approaches exploiting other skills and activities have also been developed (e.g., meunier, 2020), though further research is needed. to explain language learning, ddl approach embodies a range of learning theories, such as constructivism, the noticing hypothesis, and vygotskyan sociocultural theories. constructivism is a theory that supports the notion that learners build knowledge actively, mainly through inductive processes, and learning should be an independent process (collentine, 2000). besides, flowerdew (2015) notes that inductive learning fosters the activation of higherorder thinking skills, such as hypothesis forming and drawing inferences. by stimulating higher-order thinking skills, it is possible to retain what is learned for a longer period and improve language skills (corino & onesti, 2019). since constructs are taught without giving the rules explicitly, and learners discover the rules by themselves, schmidt's noticing hypothesis (schmidt, 1990, 2001) can provide a theoretical ground for ddl, as well. according to schmidt, noticing is an essential step towards language acquisition and is facilitative of learning. using corpus tools, a range of 'awareness-raising' and 'consciousnessraising' activities can be designed to help the learners to notice the target forms and infer the grammar rules on their own. keyword-in-context (kwic) function of corpus tools, for instance, presents learners with textual enhancements by highlighting the target structure in a sentence making the input more salient. to illustrate the effectiveness of using concordancers, smart (2014) compared different approaches to grammar instruction, namely, inductive corpusinformed instruction, deductive corpus-informed instruction, and traditional grammar instruction without the use of corpora (e.g., presentation–practice–production (ppp)). though the focus of the study is limited to teaching passive voice in english, the results indicated that receiving inductive corpus-informed instruction leads to significantly improved grammatical ability. despite its assumed benefits and effectiveness, second language teachers may not employ ddl in their classrooms (flowerdew, 2010). the limited spread of ddl can be attributed to the lack of clarity regarding the theoretical background (see o’keeffe, 2021 for an overview), limitations in the pedagogical application, practitioners’ prejudices against its use (satake, 2020), and lack of research investigating the issue from different angles (e.g., the effect of ddl on learner anxiety – zare et al., 2022). to begin with, although noticing is claimed to be a "necessary and sufficient condition for the conversion of input to intake" (schmidt, 1990, p. 129), sla research explains that merely noticing a feature does not immediately lead to acquisition or intake. exposure is another concept that is fundamental for language acquisition. indrarathne et al. (2018) suggest that an analysis of the type (whether guided or unguided) and frequency of exposure might help determine the extent of exposure for students to notice t he target linguistic feature. therefore, observing the mental activities of learners is key to understanding the nature of such concepts as noticing and the necessary length of exposure. it has been a topic of discussion that some technologies like key stroking, voice capturing, and eye tracking might yield valuable information about the learners' cognition (see de smet et al., 2018; indrarathne et al., 2018; smith, 2012). such instruments might help increase the reliability of ddl studies on noticing and exposure. according to o'sullivan (2007), engaging in mentally challenging activities that require a process of reflection and reasoning stimulates the learners' cognition and facilitates the development of learning processes. however, o'keeffe (2021) notes that the lack of testing of the link between the activation of higher-order kaya, ö. f., uzun, k., & cangır, h. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) 49 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com thinking skills and ddl casts doubts on the claims and leaves the statement open to interpretation. another argument against ddl is that some learners may resist independent process-oriented learning and getting learners to explore large chunks of data might result in no discovery (o'keeffe, 2021). to address this problem, the teacher can guide students through question prompts that can facilitate problem-solving and reasoning processes. for example, chang and sun (2009) found the use of question prompts to have had a beneficial effect on learners' performance and confidence to self-edit their writing, and the use of prompts might work as a pathway to independent learning. a study (zare & karimpour, 2022) underlining the insufficient research focus on learner psychology and approaching the issue from the students’ perspective concludes that learners think ddl approach, which encourages the use of concordances in language learning, is less appealing and motivating than a traditional instruction approach. additionally, despite the current dominance of mobile phones in learning and teaching languages, most research studies choose to explore the use of ddl approach through computers only. that is to say, the issue of mobile data-driven language learning has gone unnoticed. one of the rare studies by pérez-paredes et al. (2019) criticizes this lack of interest and reports their participants’ positive attitudes towards the mobile-based dll approach. most teachers consider themselves to lack the knowledge to use corpora, find corpus use time-consuming, and therefore do not adopt data-driven learning in their classrooms (satake, 2020). thus, to encourage and inform the practitioners and teachers, this study explores the uses of corpora in both language teaching and language assessment, especially for writing skills, and it offers a rationale for using corpora. the following section provides an elaborate definition of corpus and makes a case for using it for pedagogical reasons. underpinning this, the paper sheds light on the uses of corpora in language pedagogy, both directly and indirectly. then, it discusses corpus-assisted language assessment and defines the ways corpora can influence language assessment. lastly, corpora's potential to contribute to the evolution of automated essay-scoring programs is discussed. in summary, focusing primarily on writing skills, this review serves as a guide for using corpora for language assessment and language teaching, and it gives insights into the possibilities that corpora can influence the development of essay-scoring automation. use of corpora in language teaching in the last decades, corpora (i.e., large electronic collections of authentic and semi-authentic texts) and corpus-analytic techniques have given valuable information about the patterns of language. a perusal of corpora can give information on various categories including the behavior of words, multi-word phrases, grammatical patterns, semantic and pragmatic features, and distribution of various patterns across genres and registers (flowerdew, 2009). to illustrate its use in the educational context, timmis (2010) constructed a corpus by recording a conversation with his colleagues during a dinner to create material that could serve as a language model for his students. also, chambers and le baron (2007) formed a one-millionword academic corpus of french as a language resource for learners interested in developing their academic writing skills. whether small or big, l1 speaker data on authentic language use can inform teachers, learners, and material designers about the proper uses of the target language and its norms. the use of representative corpora for textbook design has gained attention and the recent course books by well-known publishers like cambridge and oxford university claim they provide a corpus-informed syllabus with more authentic lexical and grammatical content. l1 corpora and their applications in efl research have also paved the kaya, ö. f., uzun, k., & cangır, h. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) 50 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com way for corpus-driven and balanced comprehensive vocabulary lists (e.g., new general service lists), which have guided material and curriculum designers (brezina & gablasova, 2015). according to granger (2002, 2015), although investigations of l1 corpora have been beneficial to the field of language learning and teaching, the data on its own is not enough for providing an ideal model for language learners. a survey of l1 corpus data, no matter how detailed, cannot give information on learnability factors, the perceived difficulty of structures, or the language transfer effect. complementary material to l1 speaker corpora, learner corpora is defined as "systematic computerized collections of texts produced by language learners" (nesselhauf, 2004, p. 125). inquiry of learner corpora helps to detect the deviations of the learner language from l1 speaker norms or spot the differences among groups of language learners. such contrastive analysis might provide a wealth of empirical data that can help tailor teaching materials to better suit learner needs. for example, the italian version of the english in mind series contains 'get it right!' sections, which provide authentic examples of typical italian learner errors (granger, 2015). learner corpora used here highlight the errors and give students a chance to compare their language with other groups of language learners. additionally, a more recent research study (naismith et al., 2022) claims that lexical frequency information extracted from a learner corpus can help measure the lexical development of language learners regardless of the learning context. both learner corpora and l1 corpora have contributed to language teaching in various ways and forms. to make a distinction, the pedagogical application of corpus tools and methods can be direct or indirect. direct applications of the corpus refer to the hands-on use of data (i.e., data-driven learning) while indirect applications include the creating and informing of pedagogical resources like reference books (granger, 2015). the choice depends on the availability of corpus software and websites and the level of learners. boulton (2008) notes that at earlier levels, exploiting corpora indirectly in the language classroom seems to be a more logical choice. although we can see confident assertions in the literature highlighting the advantages of the indirect approach, in their meta-analysis boulton and cobb (2017) claim the opposite, and vyatkina (2016) concludes that students can benefit from either approach. given these inconclusive findings in the literature, this review looks at both the direct uses of corpora and the indirect use of corpora while examining the place of learner corpora in both approaches. direct use of corpora in language teaching (data-driven learning) corpus consultation in language teaching and learning has been more indirect than direct (mcenery & xiao, 2011). it is attributable to several factors such as time constraints because of the curricular pacing, teachers' motivation to use corpora in their classrooms, the skill requirements of using corpora, access to computers or internet connection, and the lack of knowledge about the uses of corpora. adapting data analysis tools like concordancers to pedagogical settings is of great importance because they might bring innovations and creativity to language teaching, especially for writing development. the advent of corpora has affected writing skill development more than any other skill area. writing has gained importance in second language studies, partly due to increased dependence on computers for communication and the effects of globalization (silva & brice, 2004). however, learners need a good inventory of resources to help them gain autonomy in developing their writing skills. according to cobb and boulton (2015), massive but controlled exposure to input plays a major role in the reproduction of grammar, lexical, and other patterns of language students need for communication. analysis of large amounts of language samples requires the use of a computer kaya, ö. f., uzun, k., & cangır, h. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) 51 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com program or web-based tools, such as a concordancer. in stockwell's (2007) definition, a concordancer is a tool for searching through the contents of the database in different modules, like keywords-in-context (kwic) or word sketches. manual calculations or identification of language indices are both energy and time-consuming. on top of that, it requires expertise most students cannot attain. through concordancers, learners can effortlessly enter the target structure they want to retrieve and get a varied picture of the authentic uses of language patterns. the main advantage of this is that it only takes a few seconds to scan the data, and most modern concordancers have user-friendly interfaces. in lee and swales (2006) four l2 english doctoral students using corpus tools compiled a corpus of their academic writings and compared the data with expert language users. in this strongly student-led research, participants found having access to the corpus empowering and helpful. their opinions also matched their performance, as some students reported that their writing skills improved after the experience. if learners get the notion of statistically weighted lexical preferences with the assistance of concordancers, they may have the chance to produce lexically more sophisticated and natural-sounding utterances, particularly in academic writing. this idea is also reflected in the literature. for instance, ander and yıldırım (2010) in a study to identify and categorize the common lexical errors that appear in turkish elementary level efl students found that the most frequent errors participants made were related to word choice category, which is likely to result in poorer writing performance. although spelling checkers and feedback tools can detect spelling mistakes, they might not detect misused vocabulary. crosthwaite (2017) in a study of ddlmediated error correction, reported that students used sketch engine for language learning (skell; baisa & suchomel, 2014) and bncweb (hoffmann et al., 2008) platform for error correction and corrected their word choice errors successfully. the sketch engine is a multifunctional tool (accessed through a web interface), which is used by lexicographers, language researchers, and teachers. users can have 30-day trial access to the website, and it requires payment when the trial period ends. it draws its sources from various corpora and is a versatile tool offering functions such as concordancing, thesaurus, and a word sketch for language analysis. to give an instance, students can be presented with a list of definitions for the words that they commonly confuse, words such as "aspect" and "consequence" or "principle" and "principal". then, the teacher might ask students to work out possible definitions for the target words using concordance lines. here, students try to discover the meaning while searching through concordance lines using skell. as a follow-up activity, the teacher can direct students to use the thesaurus to check their answers and produce their unique sentences using those words. corpus query tools employed in the ddl approach must be ‘learner-friendly’ (lee et al., 2019, p. 747) and accessible to students with limited corpus experience. crosthwaite and cheung (2019) state that complex corpus query tools can easily discourage learners from using the ddl approach. skell has the potential to provide learners with simple and neat query output that is more appealing and encouraging for the uptake of ddl. kaya, ö. f., uzun, k., & cangır, h. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) 52 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com figure 1. concordance function of sketch engine for language learning (skell) corpus tools can also be used to teach the difference between complex forms such as the relative pronouns "which" and "that". as shown in figure 1, skell gives the option to display the target word in either kwic form or sentence form. a teacher can ask students to switch to sentence form and find at least three sentences in each targeted form; "which" and "that". when students gather enough sentences, they start discussing whether clauses and phrases following "which" are necessary or not based on the corpus evidence. then, students decide on the function of "which" and "that" by exploring the sample sentences and the patterns they appear in. collocations are a significant barrier for l2 learners; hence several programs have been developed to assist students in choosing the appropriate collocation (granger, 2015). collocaid (frankenberg-garcia et al., 2019), which is accessed through a free web interface, is a text editor for assisting students with the conventions of academic writing in an interactive ddl approach. although it is still a prototype, collocaid can answer such questions as: is x a typical or appropriate collocate of y? what words are conventionally used together with x? collocaid provides options on the correct uses of collocations through multiple concordances via interactive menus (see figure 2). british academic written corpus (bawe1), dictionaries and textbooks, crowd-sourced feedback (www.collocaid.uk), and various academic word lists form the database of collocaid. 1 it can be accessed free-of-charge for research and teaching purposes. (https://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/research-directories/current-projects/2015/british-academic-writtenenglish-corpus-bawe/) http://www.collocaid.uk/ https://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/research-directories/current-projects/2015/british-academic-written-english-corpus-bawe/ https://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/research-directories/current-projects/2015/british-academic-written-english-corpus-bawe/ kaya, ö. f., uzun, k., & cangır, h. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) 53 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com figure 2. excerpt from a collocations database underlying collocaid web-based text editor. collocaid can be an excellent auxiliary tool for language education because not only does it help with proofreading and editing, but it can also lead to discoveries about the words that go together. it follows a minimally intrusive way, as collocations are retrieved only on demand and in as much detail as users want. another free-of-charge corpus website, just the word (edmonds, 2013), is a popular corpus-driven tool that demonstrates combinations of the queried word with other words as well as concordance lines highlighting the word combination patterns under observation. its simple and user-friendly interface does not require potential users to have in-depth knowledge of corpora. figure 3. just the word; the function of the "alternatives from thesaurus" button. when users type one or multiple words in the search box and click on the alternatives button, it can give information about the co-occurrence strength of those items (figure 3). the strength of combinations is decided based on the frequency of occurrence. the green lines indicate the frequency of use, and the interface provides the users with various word combination patterns (e.g., verb + noun, adverb + verb, verb + preposition, and such). kaya, ö. f., uzun, k., & cangır, h. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) 54 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com figure 4. excerpt for the use of grid tools in voyant tools. (key: 1. distribution of target term. 2. collocates. 3.contexts tool (kwic)). another versatile web interface that can be directly exploited in a language teaching environment is voyant tools (sinclair & rockwell, 2016). it is a free, web-based natural language processing (nlp) toolkit, which uses corpus methods to extract information, display measures of frequency, and analyze texts. what differentiates voyant tools from other text analysis tools is that it can display multiple visualizations or grid tools simultaneously. as represented in figure 4 collocations and kwic related to the word "iago" are retrieved together. "iago" is a character from shakespeare’s play, and this feature of the voyant tool can come in handy for introducing a new character, setting the scene, and getting students to brainstorm about the topic. users can either integrate the pre-loaded corpora (mainly literary texts) in the system into their instruction or create their own (learner) corpus and build their instructional strategies on this specialized corpus or a more representative corpus of l1 academic english like bawe. rather than using a web interface, if an instructor wants to employ stand-alone software and use it in language teaching, antconc (anthony, 2022) could be a good option. the software is open-source and widely used by both researchers and language instructors around the world. with antconc, one can investigate lexical and collocational frequency, create and compare wordlists, explore word clusters and n-grams either in an l1 corpus or a learner corpus (student writings for instance), create word clouds (see figure 5) to help learners brainstorm on a particular subject before writing, and compare corpora to detect keywords (e.g., l2 english learner corpus vs. bawe). those features have the potential to guide language instructors while designing materials (an indirect way of ddl) and help them design in-class activities through which they can present new grammar structures in naturally occurring contexts or introduce academic registers to novice writers. kaya, ö. f., uzun, k., & cangır, h. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) 55 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com indirect use of corpora in language teaching while direct uses of corpora (data-driven learning or hands-on experience of corpora) play an important role in helping to decide how to teach, indirect uses of corpora are more concerned with informing teachers on what to teach. in the 1980s, collins birmingham university international language database (cobuild) project laid the foundations for the development of corpus-based language teaching materials. since then, corpora have been an invaluable tool for various areas of reference publishing, namely dictionaries, reference grammar, teaching material development, and syllabus design. after the pioneering work of collins cobuild english language dictionary, the dictionaries in the following three decades have made use of corpus data in such a way that as hunston (2002, as cited in mcenery & xiao, 2011) stated "even people who have never heard of a corpus are using the product of corpus-based investigation" (p. 96). thanks to the conveniences and advantages brought by the corpus method, lexicographers can now reach valid and empirically based information on language use and its frequency of occurrence. today, many other popular dictionaries (e.g., longman dictionary of contemporary english, macmillan dictionary online, and oxford collocations dictionary for students of english are corpus-based in one way or another. according to granger (2015), the impact of corpora on pedagogical grammars is less noticeable than on dictionaries. distinguishing between the common and uncommon language choices of l1 users and the relative uses of those choices in context is important for both teachers and learners. given that grammars are commonly used as reference books for understanding language forms, they should provide reliable and genuine instances of language that are up to date. there are various reasons to use corpora as a reference for the creation of grammar books. it is discussed in mcenery and xiao (2005) that non-corpus consulted grammar is prone to contain biases, and corpus consultation can enhance the quality of grammatical descriptions. it is difficult to reach and store large chunks of language samples without the help of corpus methods, thereby writers may write grammar descriptions intuitively. thanks to corpus tools and corpora, grammars now take their source from a more expansive database of figure 5. excerpt for the use of word cloud in antconc (taken from laurance anthony’s twitter thread). kaya, ö. f., uzun, k., & cangır, h. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) 56 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com authentic language samples. longman grammar of written and spoken english and cambridge grammar of english are popular examples of corpus-influenced reference grammars. the prominence of authentic and updated language examples in corpora has also found uses in syllabi design, especially those focused on communicative competence (hymes, 1972) and vocabulary learning. corpus data on l1 speakers give valuable insights into the patterns that learners are likely to encounter in authentic communicative situations. information gathered from large l1 corpora might help dictionaries include more detailed descriptions of phrases and vocabulary, which might reduce misrepresentations. lexical syllabus (willis, 1990) for example, is organized around a mini corpus of pragmatically useful everyday words, and it draws heavily on spoken and written text in the target language. it relies on the provision of frequency information and authenticity of language made possible by corpus linguistics. there are also recent research studies (e.g., cangır, 2021) claiming that we should combine corpusextracted objective frequency values with l1 (or advanced l2) users' frequency judgments to have corpus-driven and pedagogically more convenient language teaching materials. adding to the examples mentioned about the indirect corpus application, corpora have influenced the field of language assessment as well. using corpora in assessment and its potential to inform test scoring methods, both automated and human, will be discussed in the next section. use of corpora for language assessment testing or assessment can be defined as "the systematic gathering of language-related behavior to make inferences about language ability and capacity for language use on other occasions" (chapelle & plakans, 2013, p. 241). in recent years, a good number of survey articles have shown that there is a growing interest in using corpus linguistics to inform the development and validation of language assessment (cushing, 2017). the arguments about the benefits of using corpora in reference publishing are of equal relevance to language assessment. language assessment, like reference publishing, benefits from the capacity of corpus linguistics for comparative analysis of language. that is, the availability of large chunks of language data on both learners and l1 speakers may help distinguish between language users at various levels of proficiency. the information provided by the comparative analysis of l1 and l2 corpora might aid the construction of test items that are more consistent with the proficiency levels of l2 learners. empirical evidence on learner language can also inform reference level descriptions and consequently influence rating scales. learner corpora even had an impact on the common european framework (cefr) for languages (council of europe, 2001), which is a highly influential construct in language assessment. tono’s (2019) attempt to adapt the cefr to the japanese context could be given as a good example of using corpora (i.e., objective means) to decide benchmarks for language levels. a common problem with many rating scales is that they are created intuitively and cannot capture some aspects of language. römer (2022) argues that in the rating scales of internationally recognized tests (e.g., ielts, toefl ibt, cambridge english: advanced) descriptors of speaking proficiency do not adequately reflect authentic use of spoken english. corpora can be used for verifying or updating rating scales. römer (2022) suggests that implementing a phraseological approach (an approach to corpus analysis) in rating scale development can make speaking assessment more consistent with the authentic spoken language. research on corpora can improve the detection of learner errors since it contains information about word usage and the use of grammatical patterns. in terms of tools for detecting errors, learner corpus research has long envisaged automatic approaches (e.g., granger, 1994; granger & meunier, 1994). analysis of annotated learner corpora can potentially highlight both interlingual and developmental errors. one advantage of corpus kaya, ö. f., uzun, k., & cangır, h. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) 57 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com linguistics over conventional ways of error analysis is that it allows for a more systematic and exhaustive analysis of the underuse, overuse, and misuse of patterns. in a frequency-based corpus analysis, huang (2015) documented and classified lexical bundle errors according to their structural characteristics and discourse functions (e.g., referential expressions and discursive organizers). he found that agreement errors (e.g., subject-verb agreement and antecedent-pronoun agreement) account for the majority of the errors in the essays of chinese efl english learners. difficulties faced by learners can give clues about what to select as a test item or add as a distractor to a question since needs analysis is an important part of teaching. corpora have also influenced the making of nlp algorithms for detecting and correcting errors. e-rater® scoring engine by ets (attali & burstein, 2006), for example, is an nlp-influenced feedback tool that can draw a writing proficiency profile of learners and correct their errors in categories like grammar, spelling, organization, and style. moving beyond errors, nlp techniques embedded in corpus software packages such as parsing, part-of-speech (pos) tagging, keyword extraction, and frequency displayers have paved the way for automated language analysis. some publicly available noteworthy web-based nlp tools are, l2 syntactic complexity analyzer (l2sca) (lu, 2010), web-based lexical complexity analyzer (ai & lu, 2010), coh-metrix 3.0 (graesser et al., 2004) and the compleat lexical tutor (cobb, n.d.), to name a few. in addition to the web-based nlp tools, software such as uam corpus tool by o'donnell (2016) and software (e.g., antconc) presented by anthony (2022), and tool for the automatic analysis of syntactic sophistication and complexity (taassc; kyle, 2016) are free to download and use (uzun, 2022). some patterns in language are difficult to identify and manual annotation of certain linguistic phenomena takes a long time, so researchers often opt for indices that are easier and more timeefficient to calculate. this results in a gap in both language research and test development, as some important measures of complexity and proficiency predictors remain uncovered. researchers using the above-mentioned software can quantify several syntactic sophistication features, lexical complexity, cohesion, and discourse variables (uzun, 2022). for example, by using taassc, kyle and crossley (2018) measured the proficiency of l2 writers using phrasal complexity indices and found that higher-graded essays include a higher proportion of nominal subjects containing a wider range of dependents. another important finding by kyle and crossley (2018) is that fine-grained indices of phrasal complexity (e.g., number of subjects per clause) are better predictors of writing quality when compared to traditional syntactic indices (e.g., mean length of clause). this information can be useful for determining the specification of the content of tests and tasks. finding relationships between complexity measures and l2 proficiency might also influence the development of automated and human scoring practices. statistical calculations on word frequency or other complexity indices might work as a counterbalance to human rater intuition and increase the reliability of the scoring. jarvis (2017) used learner corpus and statistical models to evaluate the perceptions of human raters on lexical diversity. at a minimal level, the use of corpora can serve as a consistency checker, in which human grading is compared to statistical results on target features. millions of learners are taking tests every year and the manual scoring of those tests is prone to be influenced by biases, fatigue, and inconsistencies. the machine learning approach to scoring has become important with the rising interest in high-stakes tests. the motivation behind this can be explained by the ability of automated essay scoring to provide reliable and accurate scoring of large volumes of test responses. the development and evaluation of automated essay-scoring systems (aes) have greatly benefited from the use of learner corpora (higgins et al., 2015). for example, learner corpora and nlp tools can aid the system training and calibration of scoring engines (see jarvis, 2017; zechner et al., 2009). some corpusinfluenced scoring systems can be listed as; pearson's intelligent essay assessor™ (iea; kaya, ö. f., uzun, k., & cangır, h. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) 58 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com landauer et al., 2000), e-rater® by ets, project essay grade (page, 2003), and intellimetric® (rudner et al., 2006) by vantage learning. myaccess! ® (vantage learning, 2007) using intellimetric, writetolearn® using iea, and the criterion® online writing evaluation software using e-rater can be counted as the adaptions of scoring engines to classroom use (higgins et al., 2015). having its spark in the well-acknowledged scoring engines mentioned above and the studies in the automated scoring literature, our corpus-driven and nlp-enhanced project automated grading of l2 writing using corpus linguistics and nlp methods aims to design a reliable automated essay-scoring algorithm. to achieve that goal, our team is investigating the predicting power of lexical sophistication and lexical errors in l2 english writing performance. we are working on various mixed-effects models exploiting parameters from taales (kyle & crossley, 2015) and gamet (crossley et al., 2019) so far. our preliminary results tentatively indicate that the number of words, a bidirectional lexical association measure (delta-p), concreteness ratings of the lexical items, frequency profiles, errors, and overall vocabulary knowledge of the participants can predict the overall writing performance of l2 english users (n = 350) to a moderate extent (r2 =.45). to be more precise, longer texts, stronger delta-p, better overall vocabulary knowledge are associated with higher writing scores. on the other hand, higher academic lexical frequency, higher concreteness ratings, and higher error counts are associated with lower writing scores. the findings of the research and detected algorithms will be used to develop a model to predict writing performance in l2 english and design an automated grading software for l2 writing. conclusion in this narrative review, we aim to provide a summary of the field of data-driven learning by approaching the issue from the perspective of teaching and assessment. we are well aware of the bias and subjectivity this type of review paper brings, and thus we accept that this summary is just another attempt to illuminate the use of corpora in language learning and our account of the phenomenon is likely to have its limitation. more studies like these should be conducted to have a more comprehensive understanding. potential uses of corpora are varied: they include data-driven learning, teaching material development, syllabus design, language testing, and many nlp applications. given the growing popularity of learner corpora in language research, the present review has focused on the use of corpora in language pedagogy, focusing mainly on academic writing skills. the idea of using corpora in language teaching is promising yet not widely embraced by language teachers and not a mainstream application in their teaching practices. the overview of pedagogical applications of corpus findings and review of publications shared in this narrative review paper can be useful for raising consciousness on the use of corpora in various dimensions of language pedagogy. corpora provide creative ways of designing and presenting activities and tasks that reflect the authentic language, as well as aiding the development of reliable teaching and assessment materials. the purpose of this narrative review article was to inform the readers about the potential of corpora in both direct (e.g., use of concordances to explore lexical patterns in academic writing) and indirect exploitation of corpora (e.g., use of corpora to create word lists) and to motivate teachers to use them. as mentioned in the earlier parts of this paper, narrative reviews are valuable pieces in that they have the potential to guide novice readers in the field and help shape future scientific endeavours. we hope this review will lead prospective researchers in the field in the right direction by giving them a brief overview of the salient aspects of the target field. finally, reviews like these will encourage practitioners to employ kaya, ö. f., uzun, k., & cangır, h. / focus on elt journal, 2022, 4(3) 59 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com corpus tools more in their classes; the pedagogical use of corpora will reach a wider audience, and the use of corpora will become common practice. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references ai, h., & lu, x. 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(2009). automatic scoring of non-native spontaneous speech in tests of spoken english. speech communication, 51(10), 883-895. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.specom.2009.04.009 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). http://dx.doi.org/10125/44300 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0958344007000225 https://doi.org/10.37546/jaltsig.cefr1-1 https://doi.org/10.32714/ricl.07.02 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.841584 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2022.102891 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.specom.2009.04.009 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 5, issue 1, 2023 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: akizildag@aksaray.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. critical pedagogy in elt: a scoping review on the studies conducted in türkiye (2015-2022) ayşe kızıldağ assoc. prof. dr., aksaray university of aksaray, türkiye, akizildag@aksaray.edu.tr apa citation: kızıldağ, a. (2023). critical pedagogy in elt: a scoping review on the studies conducted in türkiye (2015-2022). focus on elt journal, 5(1), 19-38. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2023.5.1.2 abstract critical pedagogy (cp) which was introduced by paulo freire in 1968 has started to become visible in the context of turkish elt, recently. emergence of cp in this academic field has also accelerated the crucial discussions regarding various elt components across türkiye. in this paper, the focus is on cp with the motivation of exploring how it is exploited in numerous turkish elt settings and the gap in the relevant field of research. designed as a scoping review, the research specifically outlines the studies conducted between january 2015 and may 2022. analyses of a total of 34 publications comprising of theses/dissertations, books/book chapters and peer-reviewed articles display that cp has been used in four research strands (i) beliefs and perspectives about cp, (ii) critique of elt/teacher education curriculum, (iii) course content, methodology and material analysis, and (iv) course design. as for the gap, derived from recommendation and implications of the studies, four main suggestions including cp integration into elt curricula, opening cp-based new courses in teacher education programs, re-designing elt materials considering cp and the use of cp-based methodologies. last but not least, studies do not mention what does not work well with the cp-use in context. also, very few theoretical but no policy papers are found, which might be interpreted that cp as a theory is still not quite in the agenda of the relevant authorities. keywords critical pedagogy, elt, türkiye, scoping review article history received : 06.06.2022 revised : 29.05.2023 accepted : 08.06.2023 published : 30.06.2023 type research article introduction critical pedagogy (cp) has extensively shed lights upon to multiple critical issues that should be altered in education systems; the philosophy reflects an emancipatory perspective for personal and social change. first and foremost, paulo freire, the philosopher who grounded cp on libertarian pedagogical grounds, criticized and opposed the traditional schooling by referring it as employing a banking model. he formed his educational conceptualization by providing arguments on how to resist the model which reproduce oppressive pedagogic praxis. the seminal work, pedagogy of the oppressed (freire, 2018, p.73), frames the concept of banking by describing teacher and student roles as: (a) the teacher teaches and the students are taught; (b) the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; (c) the teacher thinks and the students are thought about; mailto:akizildag@aksaray.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2023.5.1.2 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7717-256x kızıldağ, a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 20 (d) the teacher talks and the students listen—meekly; (e) the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined; (f) the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply; (g) the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher; (h) the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it; (i) the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which she and he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students; (j) the teacher is the subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects. his analogy, banking, means that students are seen as empty banks and teachers as investors by transferring information to students; thus, at schools students are accepted by default as ones to be shaped for the interest of the oppressors. freire’s opposition to the model is due to the fact that education reproduces the existing norms and sustains the social structure by adopting and applying them into praxis (bourdieu, 1974; giroux, 1983, 2005), though it is expected to create and enhance the opportunities for social mobility and individual progress. freire (2018) points out the asymmetrical power between the teacher and the students in the model, which severely limits the critical thinking. as a response to this traditional standpoint of education, cp opens up the ways of “identifying, criticizing, resisting and engaging the normalizing practices in traditional educational contexts” (oral, 2009, p. 4) by targeting to challenge the power-holders, in this case, teachers in classrooms. power relations in and out of the classroom and the relevant discourse are dealt within the perspectives of cp. pervasive structures of power at macro and micro levels in society signified by wealth, social status, education and knowledge claim for the right to persuade others in their own interests. thus, cp urges schools to develop critical thinking by elaborating on and resisting such norms for leverage in the social change overall. another issue freire (2018) highlights through cp is how to change power relations with its methodological tools of dialogue and negotiation. such dialogic practices would enact awareness though there is an asymmetrical discourse, power/knowledge relationship among the members of different groups. cp invites “teachers and students to rethink the purpose and meaning of education” (oral, 2009, p.4). to freire, education is neither neutral nor realized as a mutual process, but it exclusively functions for the advantages of a particular hegemonic group. via cp, it is aimed to enact questioning of what schools serve for so as to afford the power balances between teachers and students, authorities and citizens through dialogue and negotiation in that educational goals, curriculum, materials, methods and assessment are reformulated, which will generate social transformation. therefore, the term dialogic is at the core of cp methodology for realizing the freedom of educational practice, because it is antiauthoritarian and interactive in its nature. a very significant topic that freire (2018), thus, emphasizes is the importance of learner-centeredness by initiating learner expectations and desire to change the existing topdown norms. very starting point is to challenge in the classrooms and through this challenge to empower the learners for realizing the transformation. he, further, stresses the mutual process of people’s transformation by underlying the pedagogy of the hope that stems from the “incompletion from which they move out in constant search—a search which can be carried out only in communion with others” (p. 91). by transformation, as another main keyword of cp, he signifies humanization of the social conditions to create a just society, and it is the only and the ultimate goal to sustain resilience for a democratic change. as a result, cp aims to bring agents of education together for mutual development and transformation of mainstream kızıldağ, a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 21 educational practices for overcoming the oppressive philosophies and social structures in humanized reproductive systems. cp in the field of elt is related to the educational and cultural (freire, 2018) dominant views about learning and teaching of english. it works on the power dynamics between the english native countries and the expanding circle (kachru, 1992) in terms of the linguistic functions and language pedagogies. as it is desired in cp, a final destination is the transformation of these hegemonic issues in favor of the efl learners (pennycook, 1999). power at this point is not symbolic, and in the field of elt, the expansion of english globally has dominated many contexts by creating a prestige and an unequal distribution of knowledge and wealth between those who speak the language and those who do not (phillipson, 1992a). from this perspective, people who cannot have a regular access to the language such as in efl contexts, where the exposure to english is limited because another official language(s) is/are accepted, have become disadvantaged by default; an efl context is an educational space where the language learners are not regularly exposed to the target language in their daily lives. another facet of this issue is that the efl speakers outnumbered natives. as a result, debates around the dichotomies of native vs. nonnative, colonial vs. non-colonial, mother tongue vs. second language vs. foreign language, learner vs. user and interlanguage vs. target language have become prevailing as the main subjects of the discussions in elt for the last few decades (canagarajah, 2005, 2007; phillipson, 1992b), where english is taught and learnt regularly. within this framework, the pre-determined and prescribed curricula and teaching methodologies directly borrowed from the native speaker contexts ascribing teaching as a technical job rather than scientific has become another consequence of such dominance in efl teacher education, as well (giroux, 2005; pennycook & candlin, 2017). a response to these critiques is that the concepts of english as an international language (eil), world englishes (we), english as a lingua franca (elf) and global english(es) have emerged much in the expanding circle of english according to kachru’s categorization (1992) of english speakers. critical discussions around opposing the hegemony of native contexts over efl settings and emancipatory initiations have unsurprisingly come to the fore globally (mendes & finardi, 2018; rajagopalan, 1999; safari & razmjoo, 2016; xiong & qian, 2012; zughoul, 2003). opening spaces for negotiation and dialogue against such supremecy, scholars and researchers in the efl context also provided novel approaches for teaching and learning english as well as suggesting alternative pathways for educating english teachers. improving critical thinking and reflective thought as well as dialogic instruction have become among the developments that are integrated into the discourse of how to teach, question the status and function of language for particular foreign language milieu. studies focusing on cp also emerged in the field of elt in türkiye naturally for the abovementioned contextual reasons. the earliest studies accessed were conducted in 2000s by akalın (2004), güder (2004), i̇çmez (2004) and oral (2009). akalın (2004) questioned the turkish learners of english and the communicative competence they are exposed to in the local coursebooks with regards to the hegemony of standards defined according to a native speaker’s. on the other hand, güder (2004) employed cp as a framework for developing critical thinking skills of turkish efl preparatory school university students in a reading course. similarly, i̇çmez (2004) also designed critical literacy and critical language awareness modules in a reading class delivered to turkish efl high school learners within the perspectives of cp. later oral (2009) drew attention to the power with reference to the classroom interaction in elt classes. çelik and erbay (2013) elaborated on the importance of including diversified language materials in turkish efl textbooks by warning the textbook writers to avoid limited intercultural focus. jayerah and harland (2014) found out that critical pedagogy was neither well-known nor easy to implement in a higher education institution in türkiye. in their study, the english teacher participant working as a university lecturer still found it highly productive kızıldağ, a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 22 to explore radical issues via a critical action research project that she implemented in her classes. ataç (2015) highlighted the necessity of a critical pedagogical approach to teaching foreign language academic literacy classes at tertiary levels by emphasizing the scarcity of such studies in the turkish context. all the aforementioned scholars elaborated on the critical status of learning/teaching english in türkiye underpinning cp theoretically and empirically. a clear interest towards cp in the turkish elt context has become more visible considering the number of publications produced starting from 2015. although the number of the studies does not show regularity until 2015, a noticeable increasing trend demonstrates the significance of the theory, by and afterwards. therefore, the current study focuses on the research in the topic in question that are published within the last seven years starting from 2015 until may 2022, at the time of the preparation of this article. as i could not find any review studies conducted in this topic in the turkish context, i screened the related body of literature internationally, not a single review study on cp and elt was observed, either. luckily, a few studies in other disciplines were found. for instance, krakouer’s (2015) literature review utilized cp to grasp the awareness of indigenous people in australia and cultural responsiveness of teaching spaces. similiarly, pittard (2015) conducted another review study that questions the positioning of teachers in cp-employed research body. she was interested in how pedagogues and teacher educators who employ cp perceive other teachers, and assume certain qualities about them. garzon et al. (2018), in the field of nursing education, reviewed 38 studies conducted between 1990 and 2017 to reach conclusions about how cp is effective in the scientific production of nursing. another one focusing on systematically analyzing cp studies is in the field of physical education and sport (meir, 2022). the author summarized the challenges of implementing cp in his working field. based on a lack of review studies conducted on cp integration into elt both locally and globally, this paper aims to analyze the publications employing cp in elt in the turkish context with reference to their contributions to a general understanding upon how the theory in the turkish elt research is perceived, elaborated, discussed, implemented and advised. finally, the current paper also has the purpose of defining and describing the gaps in the body of literature that have not been addressed during the selected period. the motive behind writing such a review study is to gain and present insights to the elt researchers for exploring the topic further for future references. methodology study design this study is designed as a scoping review to answer the following research questions. 1. what is the nature of studies conducted employing cp in turkish elt context in terms of their characteristics and methodologies? 2. what evidence do these studies published between 2015 and 2022 provide to the larger body of literature? 3. what is not covered by the studies conducted in the topic in question? scoping reviews as in other secondary research studies like meta-analyses and systematic reviews “differ from primary research in that the collection of the information is not the responsibility of the author’s” (stewart & kamins, 2012, p. 153). secondary research designs collect data rather from the other published materials to gain more knowledge about kızıldağ, a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 23 the topic in review. they benefit from the past research and are economical. scoping reviews are ideal when they are utilized to define the coverage of a content and the body of literature; the main purpose to conduct is to map the available findings in the specific focus, and thus identifying gaps in the field for suggesting novel areas to be studied further within the scope (arksey & o’malley, 2005; munn et al., 2018). unlike systematic reviews which are after answering a particular question, scoping reviews are broader and try to understand the nature and content of a body of literature in a specific topic (peters, marnie et al., 2020) as an authority for scoping reviews, joanna briggs institute (jbi) developed a concise framework to conduct such studies in 2015 and revised it in 2020 (peters, godfrey et al., 2020). to them, unlike systematic reviews on which the focus is quantitative values of efficiency, scoping reviews are designed:  to identify the types of available evidence in a given field  to clarify key concepts/ definitions in the literature  to examine how research is conducted on a certain topic or field  to identify key characteristics or factors related to a concept  as a precursor to a systematic review  to identify and analyze knowledge gaps (munn et al, 2018, p. 2) data collection and analysis according to jbi protocol for conducting a scoping review (peters, godfrey et al., 2020), the reviewing procedures, after deciding the objective and the research questions, are as follows. a. inclusion criteria, b. search strategy, c. source of evidence selection, d. data extraction, e. analysis of the evidence, and f. presenting the results. applying the protocol mentioned above, the following steps are realized during data collection. for the first stage, the inclusion criteria, the concepts and context were defined. the characteristics (values, principles, and components) of freirean cp form the concept. in other words, any components of cp, i.e., emancipation, transformation, dialogue, negotiation, hope, hegemony, ideology, and critical thinking/reading/review/approach/awareness/syllabus/ reflection/lenses/pedagogy are accepted for the concept of the current paper. as for the context, elt studies conducted in türkiye were included. all studies (articles, theses/dissertations, books/book chapters) published within january 2015 and may 2022 were collated. for the search strategy, the terms, critical pedagogy or paulo freire or freire and english language teaching or elt or english as a foreign language or efl and türkiye or turkish or turkey were used. the keywords defined are searched through databases of google scholar, eric, scopus, web of science, ebsco academic, jstor, ulakbim-tr index, proquest, and thesis center of hec in türkiye. as a final step of this stage, websites of researchgate and academia.edu were also screened. after excluding the repeatedly found publications, a total of 45 studies were found. finally, i developed a further inclusion criteria set: kızıldağ, a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 24 a. cp is one of the key phrases and/or at least three times mentioned throughout the article. b. the publication is written in english. since the current paper is solely based on cp utilizing studies, the collected materials were screened for the frequency of the phrase. as a result, 34 publications were decided upon to be considered. as can be seen in the appendix, 20 journal articles, four books/book chapters, and 10 theses/dissertations categorized in terms of their types of publications are included to be analyzed. to reach this final compilation, eleven studies were excluded at this stage since they violated criterion a. it was observed that in some studies the term was only once referred, for instance. table 1. coding criteria step criterion accepted value 1 bibliography author(s) publication year title category of publication language any january 2015-may 2022 any journal articles, books/book chapters, theses/dissertations english 2 methodology type of study setting participants instrument data analysis empirical, non-empirical türkiye any agents of efl/elt any any 3 scope aim and focus any 4 gap conclusion and suggestions (implications) any the extracted studies were examined from different angles. table 1, adapted from kızıldağ and tuncer (2022) and selvi (2021), explains the stages and the inclusion/exclusion criteria adopted for the analysis. the first and the second steps were to present an overview of the reviewed studies for answering the first research question. any refers to the open-endedness in that, for instance, author name is not limited while selecting the publications to review. the findings of the first and the second steps are explained in terms of descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage values), whereas the third and the fourth were analyzed thematically and contentbased for answering the second and the third research questions, i.e., the scope and the gap of cp in elt within the relevant literature. each study was categorized in line with its elt themes and sub-themes in relation to cp by focusing on the purpose. then they were analyzed further for the findings, applying the content-based analysis by coding and then thematizing the results of the studies. the same analysis procedure was iterated for the fourth step by reviewing mainly the implications and suggestions as well as the limitations, where necessary. to match the studies with the findings of this article, each publication was coded as s1, s2, s3, and so on; the numbers were appointed as in the order they listed in the appendix. analysis was also done with a colleague to sustain the validity and reliability of the thirdand kızıldağ, a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 25 fourth-stage analysis results. “correspondence between materials encompassing the same meanings establishes validity (as in criterion validity); correspondence among coders establishes reliability” (drisko & maschi, 2016, p.29) therefore, themes co-decided with the inter-rater were ascribed in line with the content of the reviewed publications for validity purposes, first. later, each rater applied content analysis procedures independently for each thematically separated set of studies. cohen's kappa (κ) is often recommended for calculating the measure of inter-rater agreement or reliability (rau & shih, 2021). the inter-coder agreement was found a weighted kappa coefficient of .890, which indicated a very good agreement (89%) of the data in this study. findings the findings of the current paper are organized in line with the research questions posed. 1. what is the nature of studies conducted employing cp in turkish elt context in terms of their characteristics and methodologies? 2. what evidence do these studies published between 2015 and 2022 provide to the larger body of literature? 3. what is not covered by the studies conducted in the topic in question? the first question is answered to display a general description of the studies in terms of their bibliographical and methodological characteristics. the second question outlines the scope of the reviewed content. the third question displays the conclusions and suggestions along with the implications to generate gaps in the field of research. description of the studies this part summarizes included studies in terms of their bibliographical and methodological orientations (table 1) and answers the first research question. the scope of this paper consists of 34 studies (see appendix), four (11.76%) book/book chapters, 10 (29.41%) theses/dissertations and 20 (58.82%) journal articles. two of the theses are submitted to the universities other than turkish ones; one to uk (s31), another to canada (s27). all the books/book chapters are published by internationally well-known companies (lexington, routledge, sense & springer). some scholars produced many publications; eleven of them by dr. eser ördem (s8, s9, s10, s11, s12, s13, s14, s15, s16, s17, s18), nine of them by dr. ömer gökhan ulum (s6, s14, s15, s16, s17, s19, s20, s24, s34), three of them by dr dinçay köksal (s6, s20, s24), three of them by dr. seher balbay (s1, s2, s26) and two of them by dr. yasemin tezgiden cakcak (s23, s32). rest of the research was done by 15 researchers. 10 (29.41 %) of them are co-authored; 24 (70.58%) single-authored. when the publication years analyzed, a visible increasing trend in the amount is clear chronologically; two (5.88%) in 2015, one (2.94%) in 2016, four (11.76%) in 2017, three (8.82%) in 2018, seven (20.58%) in 2019, eight (23.52%) in 2020, eight (23.52%) in 2021 and one (2.94%) in the first half of 2022 are published. almost three quarter of the publications (a total of 24 pieces, 70.56%) were published by 2019 and onwards (see table 2). kızıldağ, a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 26 table 2. description of the reviewed studies year f % types of the publications reviewed studies 2015 2 5.88 1 thesis, 1 dissertation s25, s32 2016 1 2.94 1 journal article s3 2017 4 11.76 2 journal articles, 1 book chapter, 1 dissertation s13, s18, s22, s28 2018 3 8.82 2 thesis, 1 dissertation s27, s33, s34 2019 7 20.58 3 journal articles, 2 books, 2 theses s2, s17, s20, s21, s24, s29, s30 2020 8 23.52 6 journal articles, 1 dissertation s5, s6, s7, s12, s16, s19, s26 2021 8 23.52 7 journal articles, 1 book chapter, 1 dissertation s1, s4, s9, s10, s11, s14, s15, s23, s31 2022 1 2.94 1 journal article s8 total 34 100 titles vary, but when closely examined, in 22 (57.89%) studies the term critical is used 20 times, six (17.64%) of which precisely used as critical pedagogy (s12, s15, s17, s18, s22, s27). collocations used in the titles with the term critical are critical awareness (s1, s2), critical reading (s3), critical approach (s4, s7), critical thinking (s4), critical pedagogical perspective (s8, s11), critical reflection (s9), critical syllabus (s10), critical english teachers (s14), critical literacy (s22), critical lenses (s25), and localized critical pedagogy (s27); the term is also used as teaching critically (s27) and criticizing pre-servicing (s14) in two different studies. when methodologically examined, all studies are empirical except for two (see table 3). s4 and s9 theoretically frame cp in analyzing and displaying insights from the theory for the efl teaching/learning praxis across all settings in türkiye, i.e., primary, secondary and tertiary levels, as well as criticizing efl teaching and teacher education curriculum in terms of its hegemonic nature. as can be seen in table 3, scoped studies mainly employ qualitative research design; phenomenography (s6, s16, s17), case study (s14, s23), action research (s8, s10, s12, s13), narrative analysis (s31), autoethnography (s11) are some of those that were utilized by the scholars to frame their research. some researchers benefited from document analysis (s20, s24, s25, s30, s32, s34) to triangulate their data. similarly, eight researchers (23.52%) who preferred to use mixed method-studies (s5, s6, s16, s20, s24, s29, s33, s34) also benefited from qualitative (interview) and quantitative (structured questionnaire) research designs in eliciting views of the participants. three publications (s4, s9, s11) adopted a theoretical state-of-the-art design to elaborate on how cp can be integrated into elt. kızıldağ, a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 27 table 3. research design design setting instrument participant studies* qualitative tertiary level questionnaire efl pre-service teachers s1, s2, s3, s6, s8, s10, s12, s13 secondary level interviews efl teachers s14,s20, s23 observation efl instructors s24, s25, s30 reflective journal reflective dialogue efl learners ell students s31, s32, s34 field notes document english translation & interpretation students efl teacher educators efl program administrator mixedmethod tertiary level questionnaire interview efl learners s5, s6, s16, s20, s24, s29, s33, s34 theoretical efl learning/teaching (primary, secondary and tertiary levels) s4, s9, s11 *studies are categorized and ordered according to the research design they adopted. despite the variations among settings, most of the research was conducted at tertiary levels with efl learners and instructors. some focused on efl pre-service teachers (s1, s2, s3, s13, s14, s12, s17, s23, s26, s28, s32, s33); others chose to work with other english learners studying at various departments (english language and literatures7, s33, english translation & interpretations8, s10, s12, and engineering & science, and otherss5, s6, s16, s22, s24, s34). still others focused on efl instructors (s6, s10, s15, s18, s20, s23, s27, s31, s32, s33, s34). some others who worked with or about the public school teachers, students (s6, s19, s21, s24, s29, s31, s34) also framed cp applying various data analysis procedures. scope to answer the second research question of the present research, the studies were reviewed in terms of their focus and aim. in this respect, the analysis revealed four distinct strands that the authors mainly followed shown as in table 4. accordingly, first strand of research mainly deals with certain beliefs, views, and stances of the participants about cp and related issues such as global and democratic values, political issues in the local elt textbooks, assignments and homework, mother tongue use in efl classes, and gender issues. in the second strand, scholars critique the current elt and efl teacher education curriculum in türkiye. the way how the curriculum and programs do not serve for enhancing critical and transformative thinking and thus learning objectives are problematized within cp framework. as for the third strand of research, studies analyze the course content and materials used as well as the teaching methods kızıldağ, a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 28 employed. largely, efl textbooks used at secondary and tertiary levels are reviewed in terms of global values and ideological premises imposed by the native english context. last but not least, some researchers also suggest new practices and pathways for re-designing existing courses in line with the basic tenets of cp. table 4. research focus strand number content studies 1 teacher-learner perspectives s5, s6, s12, s14, s15, s16, s17, s18, s19, s27, s29, s31 2 elt/ teacher education curriculum critique s4, s9, s11, s23, s32 3 course content, methodology, materials analysis s3, s7, s20, s24, s25, s27, s30, s33, s34 4 course design s1, s2, s8, s9, s10, s13, s21, s22, s26, s28 to explore the research strands cited in table 4, one notices a set of recurring content in the focus of the reviewed studies: critical thinking and awareness, critical literacy, reflective and transformative pedagogies/practitioners, global and democratic values, ideology and hegemony, world englishes (we) and english as a lingua franca (elf) taking action and teacher activism, inclusion and exclusion, diversity and gender, and participatory and emancipatory approach. the purpose of the studies is stated through some key verbs; the list is given alphabetically below: analyze, apply, bring, call for, clarify, consider, describe, design, discover, dwell, emphasize, empower, encourage, evaluate, examine, explain, explore, find out, foster, identify, implement, improve, inquire, integrate, investigate, observe, prepare, problematize, provide, show, synthesize, unravel and use. 17 of them directly connect their focus with cp. s1, s2 and s3 aim to explore the effects of integrating cp in to an efl course. s4 synthesizes the most up-to-date ideas in cp for its promotion in elt. s8 applies cp via participatory approach to embrace the excluded content into an elt course. s9 shows how cp can be conducted in second language research settings. s11 emphasizes the significance of cp in efl teacher education. s12 use participatory action research by using technology in raising awareness on cp. s13 focuses on the nature of freirean dialogue and its effects on the participants via participatory action research. s15 unravels the ideas of efl instructors on including cp in teaching. s17 and s18 investigate the participant views on cp for transformation and emancipation. s22 explores how cp can be implemented to empower teacher and students. s23 problematizes elt practices in türkiye and calls for a cp-based teacher preparation. s25 uses cp to provide guidelines for designing issue/conflictbased literature instruction. s27 analyzes to what extent international efl teachers working in türkiye benefit from cp and provides possibilities for localized cp in restrictive settings. s30 evaluates values education elements and socially responsible teaching (srt) in line with cp. rest of the studies integrates the theory into the discussion by indirectly referring to related cp sub-topics. s5 inquires learner attitudes towards democratic citizenship for enhancing awareness in efl settings. s6, s14, s20, s24 and s34 discover ideological kızıldağ, a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 29 hegemonic practices across the globally and locally written efl textbooks used in turkish elt. s7, by applying autobiography of intercultural encounters through visual media (aievm), investigates whether it can be used as a tool to foster critical thinking skills. s10 aims to improve the standard curriculum content via utilizing participatory research to produce a critical syllabus in a listening-speaking course. s16 unravels the views of university students about homosexuality. s19 inquires the views of primary school students on english assignments. s21 considers raising students’ awareness on gender and socioeconomic inequalities in türkiye through designing interdisciplinary clil-style project content. s26 explores the combination of critical thinking skills with oral english skills via critical socratic method on critical content integration. s28 investigates the impact of elf-aware teacher education model. s29 finds out practices, perceptions and awareness about global values in turkish public education elt context and seeks any references to global values in efl education curricula. s31 explores the narratives of efl teachers on volunteering practices for their students outside professional obligations by referencing to the social, political and cultural factors in teacher identity constructions. s32 describes dominant teacher roles by explaining the social, economic and political reasons behind. s33 examines learner and teacher attitudes towards l1 use in efl classes. gap this section aims at answering the third research question by analyzing the conclusions, suggestions, and implications that are derived from the reviewed studies with reference to cp to interpret the gap that the scoped research in this paper does not address. though all the studies display positive results on their stated purposes, they also give certain suggestions and refer to particular implications through which the gap in the field is interpreted. naturally, the researchers have multiple suggestions to the scholars who will follow a similar research pathway and benefit from the findings; however, only cp-related recommendations and implications are included in this part of the analysis. accordingly, following sets of categorizations are derived as indicated in table 5. table 5. recommendations number content studies 1 cp integration into various courses s1, s2, s4, s5, s7, s10, s11, s12, s14, s15, s18, s23, s32, s21, s22, s25, s26, s27, s28, s29, s32 2 opening cp-based new courses s3, s8, s23, s28, s32 3 cp-related course material design s6, s17, s20, s21, s24, s29, s30, s32, s34 4 cp-based teaching methodologies s2, s4, s7, s8, s9, s11, s13, s19, s21, s23, s27, s29, s31, s32, s33 there are four categories of recommendation observed. some studies are addressing only one while some others two or more different. as can be seen from table 5, for instance, s1 adheres to cp integration into the english speaking course at a tertiary level, whereas s32 has multiple suggestions for all the categories presented. some studies suggested integration of cp in to some particular courses; while others proposed adding a new course based on cp. for example, kızıldağ, a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 30 s3 explicitly states a necessity for critical reading competency for efl teacher training institutions and calls for integrating cp into the existing reading courses. s23 invited curriculum designers and decision-makers to add an elective course mainly basing itself on cp and its methodological tools to educate efl teachers. some studies also advised re-designing of course materials including cp. s20, by problematizing the globally and locally published efl coursebooks used in turkish context for their ideological and hegemonic nature, suggested the inclusion of more world english and non-native speaker positions. in the same manner, s30 also recommended revising the existing coursebooks content-wise provided by the turkish ministry of national education with reference to cp as schools should lead a significant change for the learners. still others supported novel approaches for efl teaching/learning based on basic principles and methodologies of cp. as an illustration, while s7 proposes a video-based approach to comprise the dialogic interaction of cp, s10 offers the inclusion of participatory action research for a listening-speaking course syllabus. all the issues mentioned above that have come out of cp-related publications reveal the deprivation and thus need for such studies as well highlight the aspects of how related oncoming research would proceed in the turkish elt context. one final matter to consider the gaps in the field is to carefully analyze what was not cited in the reviewed studies. this being the case, two conclusions are found. first, not many theoretical and the state-of-the-art papers are found with the exception of s4, s9 and s11. second, the studies mostly focused on what worked well but not the other way around. discussion the main purpose in this paper was to answer three research questions focusing on the descriptive nature, scope of the reviewed studies in terms of the use of cp in the turkish elt context, and the gap in the field of research that are not addressed by these studies. the most significant aspects that the first research question revealed are about the methodological orientations as well as the keywords the reviewed studies utilized. empirically designed and mostly adopting qualitative research methodology, the studies chose the research context as secondary and tertiary level courses and learners as well as the pre-service and in-service teachers. in the international research arena, a similar trend is observed. shin and crookes (2005) adopted cp for enhancing critical dialogue in a korean efl high school setting and conducted a qualitative research study to generate student and teacher responses. likewise, morales and holguín (2011) preferred working with english pre-service teachers in columbia to foster critical reflective discussions and professional dispositions via benefiting from films and cp in their classes. the second question was answered by analyzing the aim and the focus of them resulting in four different research strands (see table 4). the review displayed that the first strand of studies focused on generating perspectives of elt agents in relation to cp and its use. when the relevant literature is considered, one can observe concordances in the international efl research contexts. similar to the first strand of the research, mahmoodarabi and khodabakhsh (2015) analyzed iranian teacher perspectives on cp use and its integration into efl settings and found out a significance correlation between the teaching experience and awareness of cp. studies in the second strand analyzed the curricula of elt and teacher education and provided a critique with reference to basic principles of cp. west (2022) criticized the korean efl teaching context in the framework of cp with reference to decision-making mechanism being neoliberal and hindering emancipatory approaches. third strand of studies examined the used materials, methods and course content. álvarez et al. (2012) described the design of cp-related kızıldağ, a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 31 materials and their integration into an argentinian efl teacher education program. rashidi and safari (2011) also proposed a model for developing cp-based local elt materials for the iranian context. a final strand aimed to re-design the existing courses based on cp. likewise, moorhouse (2014) examined how to use cp in efl primary teaching in hong kong and explored the strategies to integrate cp in re-designing mainstream courses for young learners. finally, ooiwa-yoshizawa (2018) outlined the ease of integrating cp into japanese efl teaching settings with reference to a negotiated syllabus, related course materials and activities, by putting the teachers as agents of change in the heart of such transformation at schools. the content in her suggested framework addresses all the research strands. the third research question focusing on finding the gap that is created by these studies not addressing are interpreted via the analysis of conclusions, suggestion and implications of the reviewed research. four categories were identified that the authors indicated for further researchers that are going to use cp. integration of the theory in question into the existing courses and thus designing the course materials accordingly, as well as adding new courses based on cp with relevant methodological tools and re-design such courses were among the recommendations that came out from the review (see table 5). overall, considering the researchers’ suggestions, it is clear that existing courses in the field of elt in türkiye do not embrace cp in terms of their content and methodologies. moreover, there is not a single course solely focusing on cp-related issues within elt and teacher education curricula except for graduate level. however, long before in various global settings, such courses were offered. crookes and lehner (1998) delivered a graduate cp course to international ma students specializing in tesol in 1995 at a us university. even at a few turkish universities, graduate programs (educational management and education sciences department) offer a course named cp such as adnan menderes, çukurova, ege, and gazi university. ural and öztürk (2020) outlined positive perspectives of the participants attending in one of these courses. very recently (since 2017) in the field of elt, the middle east technical university ma program opened an exemplary cp course at graduate level (see tezgiden cakcak, 2021). moreover, there have been very few theoretical position papers employing cp and elaborating on for the turkish elt context. more state-of-the-art and philosophical discussions about cp in classroom and teacher education contexts would enlighten the forthcoming researchers to focus and examine the issue at hand further. also, such publications would be a source of motivation to find their own ways of implementing cp into their existing courses. additionally, studies do not mention the challenges faced. obstacles and problems encountered in the field, may it be the research setting, participants and/or methodology followed, would provide following researhers invaluable insights on how to avoid such conditions in advance. last but not least, despite the fact that they are not included in the scope of this paper, the search through databases did not result in any policy papers including cp in efl teaching/learning in the turkish context. as a result, although there is an increasing trend towards the use of cp, the theory still seems not in the agenda of relevant authorities. limitations some limitations are taken into account throughout the study. first and foremost, although cp was founded by paulo freire in 1968, its theoretical and practical framework is shaped by other relevant theories such as dewey’s progressivism and vygostkian social constructivism. however, this paper scoped the publications basing themselves on freirean perspectives. therefore, only the research studies that were theoretically and methodologically utilizing freire’s cp were considered. another limitation was excluding policy papers to be reviewed. interestingly, there was none found during the database search. finally, rather than focusing a kızıldağ, a. / focus on elt journal, 2023, 5(1) focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 32 larger timeline, the study was limited to the those published between january 2015 and may 2022, where an increasing trend in the number of the publication focusing on cp in turkish elt context is observed clearly. then, it has become more practical to reach intensive results out of this scoping review. conclusions this scoping review is the first attempt to picture the content and extent of cp in turkish elt context. the current paper reached a few important conclusions. for one thing, it is clear that cp has started taking more attention of researchers in the field in the last decade. the increasing number of the studies as well the various research settings with multiple purposes contributed to turkish elt research field positively in that the strands the reviewed publications follow are quite similar to those of counterpart contexts. another conclusion that might be derived from this study is that the publications reviewed present encouraging results in achieving their goals of both utilizing cp and yielding positive results for their research participants. however, they do not mention the problematic areas that the following researchers might be aware of during the implementation and research of cp. while canagarajah (2006) accepted that cp has made its own progress and called for “a more dynamic and balanced orientation” (p.17) in reading the relation between the classroom and the society, further research studies in the field of cp and elt in turkish context might also include a so-to-speak warning section. still another conclusion is inviting scholars for more of theoretical and philosophical discussion papers looking at the localized cp versions. finally, it is the author’s hope to see more cp courses opened at elt departments of teacher education faculties for not only graduate students but also undergraduate students. one last hope is for decision-makers’ awareness on integrating cp into the elt policies and teacher education curricula with relevant methodologies and materials. acknowledgements an earlier version of this paper is presented orally at the 14th international metu elt convention (17-19 june, 2022) in ankara, türkiye. i am thankful to the authors of the publications that are considered to review for this paper. i am also grateful to my dear colleague, dr. hülya tuncer, for co-analyzing the data and proofreading the manuscript before submitting it to the journal. my heartfelt gratitude is for dr. yasemin tezgiden cakcak who inspired me to study cp and also supported by being an active member of audience during my oral presentation 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[unpublished doctoral dissertation]. çanakkale onsekiz mart university, çanakkale, türkiye. https://acikbilim.yok.gov.tr/bitstream/handle/20.500.12812/109513/yokacikbilim_10203812.pdf?seque nce=-1&isallowed=y http://www.openaccess.hacettepe.edu.tr:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11655/22236/seher%20balbay-yen%c4%b0.pdf?sequence=3&isallowed=y http://www.openaccess.hacettepe.edu.tr:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11655/22236/seher%20balbay-yen%c4%b0.pdf?sequence=3&isallowed=y https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/983838/1/barker_ma_s2018.pdf http://libratez.cu.edu.tr/tezler/10703.pdf https://tez.yok.gov.tr/ulusaltezmerkezi/ https://acikbilim.yok.gov.tr/bitstream/handle/20.500.12812/249535/yokacikbilim_10293044.pdf?sequence=-1&isallowed=y https://acikbilim.yok.gov.tr/bitstream/handle/20.500.12812/249535/yokacikbilim_10293044.pdf?sequence=-1&isallowed=y https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/38001/tekin2021.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y https://open.metu.edu.tr/bitstream/handle/11511/24751/index.pdf https://acikbilim.yok.gov.tr/bitstream/handle/20.500.12812/109468/yokacikbilim_10179160.pdf?sequence=-1&isallowed=y https://acikbilim.yok.gov.tr/bitstream/handle/20.500.12812/109468/yokacikbilim_10179160.pdf?sequence=-1&isallowed=y https://acikbilim.yok.gov.tr/bitstream/handle/20.500.12812/109513/yokacikbilim_10203812.pdf?sequence=-1&isallowed=y https://acikbilim.yok.gov.tr/bitstream/handle/20.500.12812/109513/yokacikbilim_10203812.pdf?sequence=-1&isallowed=y focus on elt focus on elt journal vol 3, issue 2, 2021 issn: 2687-5381  corresponding author: xiaoli@metu.edu.tr copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to focus on elt journal. creating a frequency-based turkish-english loanword cognates word list (telcwl) axiaoli yu and bveysel altunel adr., middle east technical university, turkey, xiaoli@metu.edu.tr binstructor, atılım university, turkey, veysel.altunel@atilim.edu.tr apa citation: yu, x., & altunel, v. (2021). creating a frequency-based turkish-english loanword cognates word list (telcwl). focus on elt journal, 3(2), 5-35. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.2 abstract this lexical study aims to establish a frequency-based turkish-english loanword cognates word list (telcwl) to assist turkish english learners’ improvement in english language learning and the corresponding pedagogical practice. a final list of 582 turkish-english loan-based cognate word pairs was derived from the new general service list (ngsl) and the frequency dictionary of turkish (fdt). for pedagogical purposes, the telcwl was divided into five sublists with different features of the cognates in spelling and pronunciation. the coverages of the telcwl were particularly high in discipline and field-specific corpora on average compared to general service written (5%) and spoken corpora (3.5%), accounting for more than 7%. this result suggests that the telcwl may be more beneficial for enhancing learners’ reading and writing ability; in addition, not only general turkish english learners but also learners who need to improve their english language proficiency in specific disciplines can benefit from the telcwl. further pedagogical implications are made for english instructors regarding the employment of the telcwl in english classrooms in turkey. keywords cognates, corpus linguistics, coverage, frequency, loanwords, word list, article history received: 23.09.2021 revised: 21.12.2021 accepted: 22.12.2021 published: 30.12.2021 type research article introduction new knowledge is constructed on top of existing knowledge. second or foreign language learners enter language classrooms with their existing linguistic knowledge from the first language (l1), which may positively or negatively influence their learning of the second or foreign language (selinker, 1972). in english as a foreign language (efl) countries, such as turkey, although it is advocated to avoid using l1 in english classrooms to increase the target language exposure, learners’ exposure to l1 from family or contexts outside of the classroom is inevitably preponderant. hence, taking advantage of the potential facilitating impact from l1 on english learning should be encouraged (bruen & kelly, 2017; meyer, 2008; schweers, 1999). despite various definitions of cognates, numerous empirical studies in different fields, such as second language acquisition, cognitive linguistics and neuroscience, have demonstrated the accelerating role of cognates or loanwords in second and foreign language acquisition (daulton, mailto:xiaoli@metu.edu.tr mailto:veysel.altunel@atilim.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.2 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8643-1084 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4562-1594 yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 6 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 2008; marecka et al., 2020; otwinowska & szewczyk, 2017). cross-linguistic similarity contributes to easier comprehension, better memorization, and improved production (ringbom, 2006). for turkish and english, although the two languages belong to different language families, there are evident connections between them (karababa, 2011). however, few studies have extensively explored the loanwords and cognates between turkish and english and their pedagogical implications. based on a broader synchronic definition of cognates (daulton, 2008), this study aims to establish a frequency-based turkish-english loanword cognates word list (telcwl) that can be employed by both learners and teachers to enhance the english language learning experience of turkish speakers. the creation of the telcwl takes the existing linguistic knowledge of the learners, especially their vocabulary knowledge, into account. hence, the employment of the telcwl in turkish efl teaching and learning practice is expected to be beneficial for lowering learners’ anxiety and promoting motivation and effectiveness in learning english cognates, loanwords, and loanword cognates based on daulton’s (2008) broader synchronic viewpoint of cognates, cognates can be understood as two words in different languages that share a similar or same form and meaning regardless of etymology. this is different from the strict diachronic view, which emphasizes the common ancestor of the two languages when defining a cognate (anthony, 1952). applying the broader synchronic viewpoint in the current study presents the emphasis on pedagogical purposes that put learners’ rather than linguists’ study of cognates into focus. in rogers et al.’s (2015) study, such a broad definition of cognates was also employed to elaborate the discussion of borrowed words or loanwords across historically unrelated languages. in contrast to cognates, false cognates refer to words that are only similar in form but have different meanings in two languages. loanwords derive from lexical borrowing, which refers to “the adoption of individual or sets of words from another language or dialect” (daulton, 2020, p. 1788). the forms of lexical borrowing may include roots and affixes, sounds, collocations, and grammatical processes. in the case of the turkish language, throughout history, it has observed various changes. starting from the end of the 15th century, arabic and persian borrowed words started to appear in turkish as those languages represented prestigious culture and literacy by the educated community (gibb, 2014). the most recent and crucial change occurred in 1928 with the replacement of the ottoman script (i.e., a version of the arabic alphabet) to the latin alphabet (buğday & frakes, 2009). closer ties with the western world, common usages of french as a prestigious diplomatic language, and westernization attempts of the country enabled this orthographic reform, which led to lexical borrowing from french and other european languages (hanioğlu, 2011). according to the turkish language association (personal communication, 2020, see appendix 1), turkish has borrowed heavily from arabic, persian, french, english, greek, latin and so on; with 122.423 words included in modern turkish, 15.373 of these words, namely nearly 13% have a foreign origin. therefore, with both turkish and english words closely connected to french and latin (durkin, 2014; hanioğlu, 2011), even though turkish may not directly borrow from english, a relatively yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 7 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com strong connection between turkish and english vocabulary can be observed, especially in scientific usages (çakır, 2015). to this end, based on the broad synchronic viewpoint of cognates and due to the loanwordbased characteristics of turkish-english cognates, the phrase ‘loanword cognates’ is used in the present study. in addition, since the major objective of the current study is to create a word list of loanword cognates that may serve the purpose of language teaching and learning, especially for classroom practitioners and lower-level english learners rather than linguists, cognates and loanword cognates are used interchangeably in the study to avoid redundancy. in short, in the current study, cognates are word pairs that have identical or very similar semantic meaning and orthography between two languages, although the phonological forms of the two words may or may not be the same. for instance, alternative in english and alternatif in turkish are loanword cognates. cognates for l2 learning a large number of studies have revealed the facilitative effect of cognates regarding the recognition and production of words between diverse pairs of languages (costa et al., 2005). in particular, the effect of cognates between romance and germanic languages and english in language learning and teaching has been thoroughly studied as they share substantial latin origin (blumenfeld & marian, 2005; bravo et al., 2006; brenders et al., 2011; gollan et al., 2007; siyambalapitiya et al., 2009). comesaña et al.’s (2015) experiments on the facilitative effect of cognate words revealed the importance of the degree of orthographic and phonological overlap between two languages in influencing word recognition and processing. daulton’s extensive work on english-based loanword cognates in japanese has shown the considerable potential of using cognates in efl teaching even though the two languages may not be historically connected (daulton, 2008, 2010). gholami et al. (2015) suggested that the instruction of the structural similarities between the l1 and l2 lexicon facilitates l2 vocabulary acquisition for iranian english learners. baird et al.’s (2016) study on young bilinguals noted that emergent bilingual children had the advantage in using shared phonology of words and were able to recognize and produce cognates without extensive knowledge of orthography of the words. in addition, jacobs et al.’s (2016) study found that cognate words were named more quickly and accurately than matched non-cognates regarding crosslanguage activation for english spanish learners. otwinowska and szewczyk (2017) also suggested that cognates were easier to learn compared to non-cognate words, which verifies the notion that the meaning of unknown cognates is easier to be inferred due to the orthographical similarity in a known language (vanhove & berthele, 2017). azieb et al.’s (2021) study on jordanian english speakers’ french learning further supported the facilitative effects of cognates on comprehension of the foreign language. following the facilitative impact of cognates for language learning, garcía et al. (2020) developed pedagogical approaches for improving spanishenglish bilingual students’ reading, spelling, and writing abilities. however, in foreign language teaching practice, what learners bring to the learning task may oftentimes be underestimated (hall, 2002). in other words, language educators might overlook the fact that foreign language learners’ previous language knowledge may influence how yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 8 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com foreign language instruction is perceived. as previous empirical studies have pointed out, language learners tend to be more sensitive toward the similarities between the new language and their existing language knowledge (pérez et al., 2010); in particular, if the learners are aware of the cognates between the two languages, it is more likely for them to use their existing linguistic and vocabulary knowledge to learn the new vocabulary items, further the vocabulary depth knowledge (cena et al., 2013), and retain a higher level of motivation in learning (uni, 2020). hence, helping learners build a strong connection between their native languages and the target language by being aware of the interlingual similarities, especially at the initial learning stage, could be beneficial for their further learning. as rubin (1987) pointed out, “once the students’ attention is drawn to the relationship, the same student may learn several hundred words in a very short time. hence, some kinds of conscious interventions are assumed to be helpful in the learning process” (p. 16). as for turkish and english, the relatively strong connection between the two languages has been demonstrated in the previous section. moreover, studies have shown that turkish english learners are frequently presented as being demotivated in terms of learning english (akay, 2017). therefore, there is a need to find means that help turkish english learners connect the target language with their native language, which can motivate their further learning in english. a word list of turkish-english cognates can be beneficial for tackling this issue. word lists and cognates lists for language education in the past two decades, word lists derived from a variety of corpora for diverse purposes have been created to assist vocabulary learning and teaching (nation, 2016). commonly based on the features of frequency, range, and dispersion, word lists have shown considerable efficiency and effectiveness in promoting one’s vocabulary learning, from general to discipline-specific vocabulary. regarding the english language, the general service list (gsl; west, 1953) consists of the 2,000 most frequent english words. despite its age, the gsl remains one of the best researched frequency-range-based word lists (gilner, 2011). with a high lexical coverage of english (~70-90%), the gsl has been widely used for pedagogical purposes and vocabulary research (nurmukhamedov & webb, 2019). to update the gsl, the new general service list (ngsl) was developed by browne et al. (2013) for studying english as a second language, providing over 92% coverage for most general english texts. besides word lists for general english, disciplineand purpose-specific word lists have also been developed to meet diverse learners’ needs, such as the academic word list (awl; coxhead, 2000), the essential word list by dang and webb (2016), the business word list (konstantakis, 2007), the basic engineering list (ward, 2009), the medical academic word list (wang, et al., 2008), and so forth. regarding the use of word lists, well-designed word lists can be used for various purposes, including course designing, language teaching and learning, specialized vocabulary teaching and learning, as well as language testing (nation, 2016). folse (2004) also suggests the potential benefits of employing suitable word lists for foreign vocabulary learning. moreover, word lists have also played an important role in the construction of learners’ dictionaries and graded reading programs. for instance, the collins cobuild dictionary marks the usefulness of the words according to their frequency for efl learners (sinclair, 1987). with more and better word lists yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 9 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com developed, the reliability of vocabulary size and vocabulary level tests has been largely enhanced, which further assists in more precise planning of teaching the actual vocabulary that needs to be known (nation, 2016). in terms of word lists of cognates, comparatively fewer studies have been conducted. although some studies in the intersection of linguistics and computer science have developed various approaches for cognates recognition and identification (e.g., arnaud, 2017; hauer & kondrak, 2011; rama & list, 2019), the research motivation and implications for most of the studies do not serve the purpose of language education. for other lists of cognates, the scope of the lists is usually limited. for instance, montelongo (2011) created a short list of spanish-english cognates based on the dewey decimal system to help latino english learners with recognizing cognates in texts. however, the list of cognates only contains 99 sets of spanish-english cognates, which may provide merely limited use in language pedagogy. montelongo et al. (2013) generated english-spanish cognates from picture books to assist vocabulary instruction of k-4th grade learners. in the context of english education in turkey, uzun and salіhoǧlu (2009, 2021) compiled a comprehensive list of english-turkish cognates and false cognates according to university english learners’ judgment based on four english dictionaries. the list contains 2411 sets of english-turkish cognates and false cognates. to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, this is the only existing list of english-turkish cognates. nevertheless, despite the indicated pedagogical implications, this list has yet to be employed extensively in pedagogical practice. this list was compiled based on dictionaries according to the alphabetical order and the number of participants who shared the same judgment. however, the frequency features of the words in the language were not taken into consideration. therefore, the final list may not provide learners with the most frequently used cognates in the languages. in sum, with the advantages that cognates may bring to foreign language learning and the potentially large number of loanword cognates between turkish and english, it is essential to provide a suitable and practical loanword cognates word list for pedagogical practice. frequency features of the words are an essential factor when creating word lists for pedagogical purposes (brysbaert et al., 2018). currently, there has not been a list of turkish-english loanword cognates that is generated systematically based on comprehensive corpora. thus, based on pedagogical needs, the present study aims to create a turkish-english loanword cognates word list depending on the frequency feature of the words, which can be employed to assist english vocabulary instruction to turkish learners, especially at the initial learning stage. the following research questions led to the investigation of the current study: (1) how many loanword cognates and false cognates in turkish can be identified among the 2801 words listed in the new general service list (ngsl)? (2) how many loanword cognates and false cognates in english can be identified among the first 2801 words in the frequency dictionary of turkish (fdt)? (3) how many turkish-english loanword cognates are included in the final loanword cognates word list? (4) what are the coverages of this turkish-english loanword cognates word list (teclwl) in different corpora? yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 10 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com methodology two base word lists: the new general service list (ngsl) and the frequency dictionary of turkish (fdt) two word lists were selected as the base lists to identify the turkish-english loanword cognates for this study. both base word lists were compiled based on large-scope corpora according to the frequency feature of the words, which provides the foundation for creating the list of cognates in the current study. based on high-frequency english and turkish words, the finalized turkishenglish loanword cognates list is expected to present cognates that are highly frequent in both english and turkish across various genres. the base high-frequency english word list chosen for the present study is the new general service list (ngsl) created by browne et al. (2013). the list includes 2801 high-frequency words in english that were derived from the 273-million-word subcorpus of the cambridge english corpus (cec). the researchers aimed to create a practical word list which updates and increases the generalizability and validity of the original gsl, as well as facilitates vocabulary learning and teaching. the principles employed to create the ngsl resemble the development of the original gsl, meaning both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used to identify the highfrequency words that are most useful to the needs of language learners (browne, 2014). the subcorpora of the cec that the researchers used to generate the ngsl include the learner, fiction, journals, magazines, nonfictions, radio, spoken, documents, and tv corpus. before finalizing the list, it was further compared to other important word lists, such as the original gsl, the british nation corpus (bnc), and corpus of contemporary american english (coca), to make sure the inclusion and exclusion of certain words. as a result, the final ngsl provides over 92% coverage for most general english texts. therefore, considering the wide scope of the base corpus, the scientific method of compilation, the high coverage, and the aim of serving english learners, the ngsl was employed in the current study to identify the turkish cognates of the most frequent 2801 english words. in alignment with the principles used in establishing the ngsl, the frequency dictionary of turkish (fdt) was also developed with the consideration of assisting learners of turkish as a second or foreign language. the base corpus of the fdt is the 50-million-word turkish national corpus (tnc). the tnc was constructed following the bnc to form a balanced and representative corpus of contemporary turkish (aksan et al., 2012). both written and spoken language were involved in the corpus. thus, the fdt includes the 5000 most frequently used words in contemporary written and spoken turkish. as the fdt was derived from general written and spoken turkish under systematic principles and it was created with pedagogical purposes, the current study employed the fdt as the base turkish word list to identify the english cognates. in order to have a clear comparison with the english word list, the first 2801 words from the fdt were examined. yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 11 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com identifying turkish-english cognates and creating the loanword cognates word list to avoid ambiguity, the two researchers of this study invited three external native turkish speakers whose english level was all near-native to identify the loanword cognates in the two base word lists. in this way, the final decision of each loanword cognate was discussed and made by four native turkish speakers with native-level english proficiency. the three external raters and the turkish-speaking researcher in this study are experienced english teachers who have taught english to speakers of turkish for at least ten years. in addition, the two researchers of this study and the three external raters all have daily communication with turkish english learners. based on the experienced turkish-speaking english teachers’ understanding of the turkish and english language as well as turkish english learners’ needs and characteristics, the following five criteria were determined to identify different types of loanword cognates. the criteria were designed to serve potential pedagogical practices; moreover, higher consistency while identifying the cognates was reached based on the criteria. six categories of cognates were concluded based on the criteria (see table 1). criterion 1. in terms of orthography, when the corresponding english and turkish words contain 50% or more same letters in spelling, the two words were categorized as same or similar spelling, e.g., report and rapor, group and grup, information and enformasyon. in contrast, when the two words contain less than 50% same letters in spelling, the two words were categorized as different spelling, e.g., quality and kalite, chance and şans, club and kulüp. criterion 2. regarding the pronunciation between the corresponding english and turkish words, the words were judged in a holistic way. the two researchers and the three external raters compared and contrasted the pronunciations in a joint effort to avoid subjectiveness. if the majority of the phonemes in each word were pronounced in a distinguishingly different manner, the two words were categorized as different pronunciations, e.g., budget and bütçe, equipment and ekipman, double and duble. on the other hand, if the two words share more recognizably similar phonemes, they were categorized as same or similar pronunciation, e.g., politics and politik, status and statü, physical and fiziksel. criterion 3. there are also some loanword cognates in either english or turkish only sharing one or a few of the multiple meanings that the corresponding word in the other language contains. additionally, some words in one language can only be used in certain restricted disciplines or professions in the other language. these two types of corresponding english and turkish words were categorized as partial cognates regardless of their similarities and differences in spelling and pronunciation. for instance, defans (i.e., defense in english) in turkish is only used in sport-related contexts; solüsyon (i.e., solution in english) is only used as a technical term in certain science disciplines such as chemistry; kombine and kombin (i.e., combine in english) refer only to the combined tickets of sport events and harmony of outfits respectively. criterion 4. certain turkish words contain an english cognate part and are followed by one or more turkish suffixes, e.g., leadership and liderlik. also, in certain cases, to form the corresponding meaning to an english word, an extra word needs to be added to the turkish cognate word, such as automatically in english and otomatik şekilde in turkish. cases like these were categorized as partial cognates. yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 12 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com criterion 5. english and turkish words that share either recognizable spelling or pronunciation but differ in meaning were categorized as false cognates, e.g., top in turkish means ball, bin in turkish means thousand. table 1. six categories of cognates categories descriptions category 1 cognates same/similar in both spelling and pronunciation category 2 cognates different in both spelling and pronunciation category 3 cognates same/similar in spelling but different in pronunciation category 4 cognates same/similar in pronunciation but different in spelling category 5 partial cognates category 6 false cognates adhering to the determined criteria, the categorization of the two base word lists (i.e., ngsl and fdt) was implemented. for each base word list, the 2801 words were color-coded in a joint manner by the five raters. as a result, six sublists of different types of loanword cognates were formed for each base word list. appendix 2 and 3 show the complete sublists derived from the two base word lists. to assist the pedagogical practice in teaching english-turkish loanword cognates, the final sublists of the telcwl were combined based on the english word frequency, and the repetitive words appearing in both base lists were deleted and marked. appendix 4 presents the combined loanword cognates word list, namely the telcwl. calculating the coverage of the telcwl after the final list of turkish-english loanword cognates was compiled, the coverages of the list, including the five sublists of loanword cognates, in different corpora were examined. this was to answer research question 4, which intends to reveal the coverages of the telcwl across different genres to further validate the pedagogical value of the list. to calculate the coverages of the telcwl, the coverage calculator v. 1.2 from compleat lexical tutor (cobb, n.d.) was employed. this program calculates how many times the words on a list appear in a corpus. multiple corpora are embedded in this program. examples of corpora for general service purposes are the brown corpus, the lancaster-oslo/bergen corpus (lob corpus), sample coca and bnc corpora, and so forth. several discipline and field-specific corpora are also included, such as bnc medical, commerce, law, and social science corpora, research article corpus, and electrical engineering corpus, and so on. the sublists of the telcwl were tested by three categories of corpora to present a full profile. the corpora that were selected to calculate the coverages of the telcwl include general service written and spoken corpora and discipline-specific corpora. this is to examine the coverages and representativeness of the telcwl across various genres and registers to reveal its potential value in pedagogical practices. first, the coverages of the lists in four general service written corpora were calculated. the four corpora were the brown corpus (1m), the lob corpus, the coca sampler corpus, and the bnc sampler written corpus. the second category of corpora was the general service spoken corpora. three corpora were selected, including the coca sampler yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 13 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com speech corpus, the bnc sampler speech corpus, and the us tv talk corpus. lastly, five corpora were selected to construct the disciplineand field-specific category, including the bnc medical, commerce, law, social science corpora and the rac corpus. the coverages of the full word list and each sublist of the loanword cognates were investigated except the false cognates list because the main purpose of compiling the false cognates list was to provide a reference list that teachers and students may need to pay special attention to. besides, the coverage of a false cognates list in a corpus may not have a critical influence on pedagogical practice. results research question 1 research question 1 investigated the number of turkish loanword cognates of high-frequency english words in the ngsl. after the five raters discussed each word on the list, 329 turkish loanword cognates that share the similar or same spelling and pronunciation of the english words were detected, this counts for 11.75% of words in the ngsl; 16 words, namely 0.57%, were categorized as having turkish loanword cognates but with different spelling and pronunciation; as for the turkish loanword cognates that share similar or same spelling only with the english words, 11 words were detected, which is 0.39% of the ngsl; 28 words (1%) were identified as having turkish loanword cognates that are similar or same in pronunciation but not spelling. figure 1. loanword cognates in the ngsl. yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 14 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com turkish loanword cognates that were recognized as partial cognates of the english words take 3.14% of the ngsl, namely 88 words. finally, 44 false cognates were detected, counting for 1.57% of the ngsl. figure 1 visualizes the proportion of each category. the full lists of words in each category are shown in appendix 2. research question 2 the second research question focused on the percentage of english loanword cognates of highfrequency turkish words in the fdt. the result shows that 244 turkish words were detected with english cognates that share similar or same spelling and pronunciation, which counted for 8.71% of the top 2801 words in the fdt. there were 15 loanword cognates in english (0.54%) that shared different spelling and pronunciation with the turkish words. as for the english loanword cognates considered as sharing similar or same spelling but different pronunciation, 8 were detected, which took 0.29% of the top 2801 words in the fdt. 26 words (0.93%) were categorized as having english loanword cognates that share only similar pronunciation. for the words that partial english cognates were identified, there were 9, taking 0.32% of the total words. lastly, there were 116 words, namely 4.14%, in the list having false cognates in english. detailed division of words from the fdt is depicted in figure 2, and the full lists of each category are presented in appendix 3. figure 2. loanword cognates in the fdt yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 15 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com research question 3 to form a complete loanword cognates word list, the detected turkish-english loanword cognates in different categories from the ngsl and fdt were combined. the repetitive pairs were excluded in the combined list; in the end, there were 582 turkish-english loanword cognate pairs distributed in 5 categories. there were 140 false turkish-english cognates. appendix 4 shows the complete loanword cognates lists, and figure 3 illustrates the distribution of different categories. figure 3. category distribution of the turkish-english loanword cognates word list research question 4 to answer the last research question, first, coverages of the full list of turkish-english loanword cognates (i.e., 582 lemmas) in different corpora were calculated. table 2 presents the specific coverages in the 12 selected corpora. compared to general service written and spoken corpora, the word list had the highest coverages of discipline and field-specific corpora (mdiscipline = 7.17%). the average coverage of spoken corpora was the lowest (mspoken = 3.48%), which was less than half of the coverage of the discipline and field-specific corpora. the written corpora demonstrated a 5.00% average coverage from the word list. yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 16 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com table 2. coverages of the turkish-english cognates word list categories corpora full list sssp dsdp ssdp dssp partial written corpora (general service) brown 4.82% 2.56% 0.13% 0.88% 0.21% 1.05% lob 4.76% 2.26% 0.14% 1.02% 0.23% 1.11% coca sam. 4.81% 2.26% 0.10% 1.12% 0.19% 1.14% bnc sam. w. 5.61% 2.81% 0.14% 1.26% 0.24% 1.15% average 5.00% 2.47% 0.13% 1.07% 0.22% 1.11% spoken corpora (general service) coca sam. s. 4.46% 2.19% 0.09% 0.80% 0.15% 1.22% bnc sam. s. 2.71% 1.27% 0.10% 0.16% 0.15% 1.03% us tv talk 3.27% 1.41% 0.06% 0.32% 0.20% 1.28% average 3.48% 1.62% 0.08% 0.43% 0.17% 1.18% discipline/fiel d-specific corpora bnc med. 8.00% 3.85% 0.10% 3.04% 0.15% 0.85% bnc commer. 7.79% 4.33% 0.17% 1.68% 0.24% 1.36% bnc law 7.37% 2.97% 0.15% 2.77% 0.24% 1.24% bnc soc. science 6.55% 3.69% 0.13% 1.54% 0.20% 0.98% rac academic 6.13% 2.92% 0.10% 2.25% 0.15% 0.71% average 7.17% 3.55% 0.13% 2.26% 0.20% 1.03% figure 4. coverages of the turkish-english loanword cognates word list second, the coverages of each sublist in the 12 corpora were calculated (see table 2). following the pattern of the full list coverages in the corpora, except for the sublist of partial cognates, on average, the coverages of the other sublists appeared mostly higher in written and field-specific yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 17 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com corpora; in particular, the coverages in the discipline and field-specific corpora were the highest. however, the coverages of the spoken corpora were considerably lower. figure 4 visualizes the average coverages of the full word list and the sublists in different corpora. discussion summary of results for the first two research questions, relatively high percentages of loanword cognates were identified in both the ngsl (i.e., 472 cognates in total, 16.85% of the entire ngsl) and the fdt (i.e., 302 cognates in total, 10.79% of the entire fdt). in particular, for the ngsl, more than onesixth of the entire word list can be found corresponding loanword cognates in turkish, meaning that with effective guidance, turkish english learners will be able to easily detect one turkish loanword cognate word in every six high-frequency english words. this can be of particular benefit for turkish english learners’ receptive skills, including reading and listening. during the reading and listening process, learners’ existing linguistic knowledge of the corresponding turkish loanword cognates could be beneficial for enhancing their understanding of the english text and lowering their anxiety in reading and listening to the foreign language. to answer the third research question, combining the identified turkish-english loanword cognates from the ngsl and the fdt, 582 turkish-english loanword cognate word pairs were finally compiled to form the turkish-english loanword cognates word list (telcwl). for pedagogical purposes, the telcwl was compiled based on the frequency of the english words and divided into five sublists, including cognates with same/similar spelling and same/similar pronunciation, cognates with different spelling and different pronunciation, cognates with same/similar spelling but different pronunciation, cognates with different spelling but same/similar pronunciation, and partial cognates. to answer the fourth research question, the coverages of the telcwl and the sublists were then examined in different corpora to investigate their validity and practicability. the telcwl and most sublists had relatively high average coverages in discipline and field-specific corpora. for the full list of telcwl, the coverage in the discipline and field-specific corpora was 7.17% on average. compared to the coverages of other word lists for specific purposes in their corresponding corpora, such as the academic word list in academic texts (~10%; coxhead, 2000), the basic engineering word list in engineering texts (~16%; ward, 2009), the nursing academic word list in nursing research articles corpus (~14%; yang, 2015), and the medical academic word list in medical research articles (~12%; wang, et al., 2008), the coverage of the telcwl can be considered as relatively high. in sum, the results of the current study provide a comprehensive list of turkish-english loanword cognates that are organized according to the frequency features of both languages. this list is expected to fill the current gap in turkish-english cognate research that may assist pedagogical practices of english education in turkey. compared to the previous relevant studies, such as uzun and salіhoǧlu (2009, 2021), the list of loanword cognates in the present study is primarily compiled for pedagogical practice. since the frequency features of the cognate words played a critical role in the compiling process, moreover, the coverages of the telcwl have been yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 18 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com examined as high across various corpora, the final list is expected to assist turkish english learners in identifying and learning english vocabulary efficiently and effectively. pedagogical implications regarding pedagogical implications, having explicit instruction of the telcwl in english classrooms and establishing the connection between turkish and english can be helpful for turkish english learners in learning english for specific purposes, such as academic purposes. with the assistance of turkish-english loanword cognates, turkish english learners’ vocabulary learning could be enlarged with little effort expected as they might be already familiar with the turkish loanword cognates. this is in line with previous studies that have shown the effectiveness of explicit vocabulary and morphological instruction (schmitt & zimmerman, 2002; sukying, 2020). naturally, some cross-linguistic awareness activities can be employed in efl classrooms in turkey. these activities can be both paper-based or computer-based. on the other hand, although there are a large number of turkish-english loanword cognates among the highfrequency words, to avoid fossilization and ill-usages, classroom instructors should explicitly point out the differences between the cognates in spelling and pronunciation; in addition, for partial cognates, comprehensive explanation of the turkish and english words and their differences in usages should be presented. for false cognates, english instructors should also specifically underline the differences between the turkish and english words to prevent misunderstanding of the learners. on the other hand, research has also shown the value of incidental learning for acquiring cognates (de vos et al., 2019; puimège & peters, 2019). hence, english educators may also consider employing various activities that help the learner access the cognates incidentally. for instance, using multimedia technology to expose the learners to selective video clips containing the target cognates may increase their encountering of the vocabulary as well as further encourage their motivation in language learning (zhang & zou, 2021). finally, research in translanguaging also supports the employment of the telcwl in english language teaching in turkey. as stated by swain and watanabe (2019), l2 learners’ usage of l1 is a prominent instrument which helps l2 learners to form their opinions, focus their attention and scaffold their understanding and production in l2. additionally, enhancing homeschool associations and collaboration, incorporating fluent speakers with language learners, and promoting a deeper understanding of the content are some of the noticeable benefits of translanguaging (baker, 2011). clancy’s (2018) study also suggests that learners may desire the use of l1 in certain circumstances to foster their understanding of the target language. hence, introducing the loanword cognate list can be supportive of students’ foreign language learning by using their existing linguistic repertoire. furthermore, both learners and teachers can focus on the process of teaching and learning on meaning-making and improving the learning experience (creese & blackledge, 2015; garcía, 2019). limitations and suggestions for further research yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 19 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com with respect to the limitations of the study, first, the categorization of the cognate words was conducted according to the raters’ subjective decisions. therefore, even though the raters were chosen carefully to present turkish english learners’ and educators’ perspectives, the controversy regarding the cognateness of the words might exist. we encourage further research in examining the individual loanword cognates provided in this study. second, the study is limited by the lack of generalization for other language pairs. the criteria determined in identifying different types of turkish-english cognates in the present study may not apply to other language pairs that use different alphabetical systems, such as chinese and english. finally, since this study aims to provide an initial step for instructing turkish-english cognate words, the scope of the study does not allow us to develop specific teaching materials or activities for language learners and educators. further studies may consider developing various activities that apply the telcwl in pedagogical practices, this will also provide channels to further validate the effectiveness of the telcwl. conclusions in this study, the turkish-english loanword cognates word list (telcwl) was established, containing 582 turkish-english cognate word pairs. with the relatively high coverage of the word list in written and discipline and field-specific corpora, as well as the potential benefits of including learners’ first language in foreign language instruction, employing the telcwl in english classroom instruction in turkey may help turkish english learners be aware of the connection between their native language and the target language. this may further improve their motivation in english learning, lower their anxiety level, and enhance learning efficiency and effectiveness. moreover, to further assist classroom teachers and learners, the researchers divided the telcwl into five sublists based on the spelling and pronunciation features of the loanword cognates. explicit instruction of the marked similarities and differences between the turkish-english loanword cognate pairs regarding spelling and pronunciation is encouraged to avoid learners’ misunderstanding and fossilization in learning. disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. references akay, c. 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(2021). a state-of-the-art review of the modes and effectiveness of multimedia input for second and foreign language learning. computer assisted language learning. advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2021.1896555 copyrights copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. this is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the creative commons attribution license (cc by-nc-nd) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168814541752 https://doi.org/10.2307/3588328 https://doi.org/10.1515/iral.1972.10.1-4.209 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1017/s0142716409090262 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0664.pub2 https://doi.org/10.2478/v10010-009-0031-5 https://doi.org/10.1515/psicl-2021-0014 https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2017-0007 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2008.05.003 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2009.04.001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2014.05.003 https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2021.1896555 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 23 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com appendix 1: personal communication email about contemporary turkish dictionary translation: answer: atatürk supreme council for culture, language and history (12.16.2020 23:16) dear _________; your query, which was received by the presidency communication center (cimer) and sent to the atatürk supreme council for culture, language and history, was examined by the turkish language association within the framework of the right to information law and was answered as follows: "the query asks for the number of words in the contemporary turkish dictionary and the number of words of foreign origin. contemporary turkish dictionary has 122,423 vocabulary consisting of words, terms, idioms and meanings. there are 92,292 words in the dictionary, of which 77,005 are per item and 15,287 are within items. of these, 15,373 are the words that have been borrowed to turkish from foreign languages. " best wishes. appendix 2: turkish-english loanword cognates based on the ngsl sublist 1: cognates with same/similar spelling and pronunciation n o . ran k english turkish 1 120 problem problem 2 164 course kurs 3 166 report rapor 4 167 group grup 5 179 system sistem 6 213 information enformasyon 7 219 market market 8 232 plan plan 9 240 program program 1 0 262 level level 1 1 289 train tren 1 2 299 party parti 1 3 301 control kontrol 1 4 332 test test 1 5 343 office ofis 1 6 381 social sosyal 1 7 384 note not 1 8 392 music müzik 1 9 394 political politik 2 0 404 general genel 2 1 426 position pozisyon 2 2 432 activity aktivite 2 3 433 film film 2 4 468 role rol 2 5 472 detail detay 2 6 474 action aksiyon 2 7 485 model model 2 8 493 economic ekonomik 2 9 512 organization organizasyon 3 0 518 project proje 3 1 522 accord akort 3 2 523 list liste 3 3 530 industry endüstri 3 4 545 risk risk 3 5 547 standard standart 3 6 556 data data 3 7 559 performance performans 3 8 563 technology teknoloji 3 9 568 culture kültür 4 0 571 material materyal 4 1 572 limit limit 4 2 596 leader lider 4 3 603 sport spor 4 4 616 police polis 4 5 627 bank banka 4 6 632 attack atak 4 7 634 surprise sürpriz 4 8 636 factor faktör 4 9 644 financial finansal 5 0 647 campaign kampanya 5 1 657 park park 5 2 691 stock stok 5 3 693 character karakter 5 4 698 final final 5 5 699 economy ekonomi 5 6 700 fit fit 5 7 702 function fonksiyon 5 8 704 image imaj 5 9 709 station istasyon 6 0 710 population popülasyon 6 1 724 direct direkt 6 2 727 director direktör 6 3 736 department departman 6 4 755 method metod 6 5 756 analysis analiz 6 6 759 hotel otel 6 7 763 doctor doktor 6 8 770 link link 6 9 773 advantage avantaj 7 0 780 unit unite 7 1 781 card kart yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 24 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 7 2 790 popular popüler 7 3 791 specific spesifik 7 4 795 television televisyon 7 5 808 modern modern 7 6 816 natural natürel 7 7 817 express ekspress 7 8 822 score skor 7 9 823 organize organize 8 0 829 potential potansiyel 8 1 830 energy enerji 8 2 836 bar bar 8 3 838 strategy strateji 8 4 848 operation operasyon 8 5 854 normal normal 8 6 855 goal gol 8 7 858 positive pozitif 8 8 859 option opsiyon 8 9 862 message mesaj 9 0 870 baby bebek 9 1 875 theory teori 9 2 877 reference referans 9 3 878 argument argüman 9 4 881 document doküman 9 5 891 career kariyer 9 6 906 balance balans 9 7 918 restaurant restorant 9 8 927 post posta 9 9 935 professional profesyonel 1 0 0 943 credit kredi 1 0 1 951 direction direksiyon 1 0 2 958 dance dans 1 0 3 962 original orijinal 1 0 4 967 university üniversite 1 0 5 970 dollar dolar 1 0 6 977 legal legal 1 0 7 979 version versiyon 1 0 8 990 agent acente 1 0 9 996 generation jenerasyon 1 1 0 998 favorite favori 1 1 1 102 8 element element 1 1 2 103 1 medical medikal 1 1 3 103 4 telephone telefon 1 1 4 103 5 copy kopya 1 1 5 103 6 committee komite 1 1 6 104 2 stress stres 1 1 7 104 3 radio radyo 1 1 8 104 5 complex kompleks 1 1 9 104 9 directly direkt 1 2 0 105 6 extra ekstra 1 2 1 106 1 sex seks 1 2 2 106 3 video video 1 2 3 108 2 collection koleksiyon 1 2 4 108 4 negative negatif 1 2 5 108 5 band bando 1 2 6 108 7 tour tur 1 2 7 108 8 alternative alternatif 1 2 8 110 5 politics politik 1 2 9 110 8 transfer transfer 1 3 0 112 1 federal federal 1 3 1 112 5 status statü 1 3 2 113 4 partner partner 1 3 3 113 5 institution enstitü 1 3 4 114 6 taxi taksi 1 3 5 114 9 sector sektör 1 3 6 115 5 expert eksper 1 3 7 116 3 camp kamp 1 3 8 116 6 procedure prosedür 1 3 9 116 7 email email 1 4 0 116 8 global global 1 4 1 118 0 photograph fotoğraf 1 4 2 118 1 artist artist 1 4 3 118 7 gas gaz 1 4 4 119 0 category kategori 1 4 5 119 1 secretary sekreter 1 4 6 119 6 nuclear nükleer 1 4 7 120 6 photo foto 1 4 8 121 1 concept konsept 1 4 9 121 3 reform reform 1 5 0 121 5 football futbol 1 5 1 122 3 traffic trafik 1 5 2 122 9 reaction reaksiyon 1 5 3 125 9 lady leydi 1 5 4 126 3 cultural kültürel 1 5 5 127 9 trend trend 1 5 6 128 3 critical kritik 1 5 7 130 2 boat bot 1 5 8 130 4 fan fan 1 5 9 134 4 code kod 1 6 0 135 2 active aktif 1 6 1 135 5 cancer kanser 1 6 2 136 3 location lokasyon 1 6 3 136 7 actor aktör 1 6 4 137 5 monitor monitor 1 6 5 137 7 finance finans 1 6 6 138 0 concert konser 1 6 7 138 1 shock şok 1 6 8 138 8 camera kamera 1 6 9 139 5 museum müze 1 7 0 140 8 route rota 1 7 1 141 5 bomb bomba 1 7 2 142 1 editor editör 1 7 3 142 2 normally normalde 1 7 4 144 7 civil sivil 1 7 5 147 0 capacity kapasite 1 7 6 148 1 studio stüdyo 1 7 7 148 4 tourist turist 1 7 8 148 9 cup kupa 1 7 9 149 2 industrial endüstriyel 1 8 0 149 4 perspective perspektif 1 8 1 151 7 literature literatür 1 8 2 155 0 combination kombinasyon 1 8 3 157 0 theme tema 1 8 4 157 7 atmosphere atmosfer 1 8 5 158 0 characteristic karakteristik 1 8 6 158 1 license lisans 1 8 7 159 1 commission komisyon 1 8 8 159 4 instrument enstrüman 1 8 9 159 6 practical pratik 1 9 0 161 7 notion nosyon 1 9 1 162 3 honor onur 1 9 2 162 8 musical müzikal 1 9 3 163 9 analyze analiz 1 9 4 164 7 mental mental 1 9 5 164 9 vision vizyon 1 9 6 167 2 ideal ideal 1 9 7 168 9 mission misyon 1 9 8 169 1 tone ton 1 9 9 170 6 protest protesto 2 0 0 172 0 electronic elektronik 2 0 1 172 1 impose empoze 2 0 2 172 2 criminal kriminal 2 0 3 173 6 mobile mobil 2 0 4 173 7 assistant asistan 2 0 5 174 0 attach ataş 2 0 6 174 9 academic akademik 2 0 7 176 0 professor profesör 2 0 8 176 7 minimum minimum 2 0 9 177 6 critic kritik 2 1 0 179 2 online online 2 1 1 179 4 pilot pilot 2 1 2 180 2 producer prodüktör 2 1 3 181 9 liberal liberal 2 1 4 182 7 disk disk 2 1 5 183 2 metal metal 2 1 6 183 5 panel panel 2 1 7 183 9 maximum maksimum 2 1 8 184 3 initiative inisiyatif 2 1 9 184 5 diet diyet 2 2 0 184 7 gray gri 2 2 1 184 8 plastic plastik 2 2 2 185 0 discipline disiplin 2 2 3 186 0 mechanism mekanizma 2 2 4 186 2 democracy demokrasi 2 2 5 186 8 concentratio n konsantrasyon 2 2 6 187 3 classic klasik 2 2 7 191 5 tennis tenis 2 2 8 192 5 mathematics matematik 2 2 9 194 3 comfort konfor 2 3 0 195 1 criterion kriter 2 3 1 197 3 dramatic dramatik 2 3 2 197 6 protein protein 2 3 3 197 9 intellectual entelektüel 2 3 4 198 8 gentleman centilmen 2 3 5 198 9 drama drama 2 3 6 201 2 electricity elektrik 2 3 7 201 7 variation varyasyon 2 3 8 202 8 agenda ajanda 2 3 9 203 8 gay gey 2 4 0 204 6 inch inç 2 4 1 205 3 uniform üniforma 2 4 2 206 3 profile profil 2 4 3 206 4 mood mod 2 4 4 206 9 symptom semptom 2 4 5 207 3 tension tansiyon 2 4 6 207 4 cable kablo 2 4 7 209 9 formula formül 2 4 8 210 2 routine rutin 2 4 9 211 0 meter metre 2 5 0 211 9 terrorist terörist 2 5 1 212 6 depression depresyon 2 5 2 213 9 pub pub 2 5 3 216 5 symbol sembol 2 5 4 216 6 apartment apartman 2 5 5 216 8 analyst analist 2 5 6 216 9 platform platform 2 5 7 217 8 innovation inovasyon 2 5 8 217 9 album albüm 2 5 9 218 7 tank tank 2 6 0 220 5 pose poz 2 6 1 220 7 creative kreatif 2 6 2 221 2 alcohol alkol 2 6 3 221 3 festival festival 2 6 4 222 1 web web 2 6 5 222 7 portion porsiyon 2 6 6 224 4 radical radikal 2 6 7 225 0 infection enfeksiyon 2 6 8 225 1 jacket ceket 2 6 9 225 4 statistic istatistik 2 7 0 226 9 alarm alarm 2 7 1 227 7 parallel paralel 2 7 2 227 9 sponsor sponsor 2 7 3 228 0 boot bot 2 7 4 230 7 digital dijital 2 7 5 231 0 formation formasyon 2 7 6 231 1 deposit depozito 2 7 7 232 1 tube tüp 2 7 8 232 3 characterize karakterize 2 7 9 232 7 operator operatör 2 8 0 233 9 virus virüs 2 8 1 235 1 illegal illegal 2 8 2 236 3 ethnic etnik 2 8 3 236 5 clinical klinik 2 8 4 237 0 adapt adapte 2 8 5 238 5 dialog diyalog 2 8 6 240 0 barrier bariyer 2 8 7 240 8 motor motor 2 8 8 241 8 electric elektrik 2 8 9 243 9 motivate motive 2 9 0 244 0 laboratory laboratuvar 2 9 1 244 2 promotion promosyon 2 9 2 244 4 champion şampiyon 2 9 3 245 1 march mart/marş 2 9 4 245 9 opera opera 2 9 5 246 3 gallery galeri 2 9 6 246 4 genetic genetik yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 25 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 2 9 7 246 5 aggressive agresif 2 9 8 246 7 format format 2 9 9 247 6 golf golf 3 0 0 249 0 fantastic fantastik 3 0 1 249 2 inflation enflasyon 3 0 2 249 6 therapy terapi 3 0 3 249 9 personnel personel 3 0 4 251 4 ceremony seramoni 3 0 5 252 0 psychologica l psikolojik 3 0 6 252 7 penalty penaltı 3 0 7 254 4 democratic demokratik 3 0 8 258 0 carbon karbon 3 0 9 258 6 guitar gitar 3 1 0 258 8 piano piyano 3 1 1 259 4 menu menü 3 1 2 260 2 jury jüri 3 1 3 260 4 civilian sivil 3 1 4 260 5 composition kompozisyon 3 1 5 261 5 paragraph paragraf 3 1 6 262 0 potato patates 3 1 7 262 5 tourism turizm 3 1 8 263 0 motivation motivasyon 3 1 9 263 1 romantic romantik 3 2 0 264 8 catalog katalog 3 2 1 268 4 grammar gramer 3 2 2 269 0 panic panik 3 2 3 270 2 comedy komedi 3 2 4 271 0 portrait portre 3 2 5 271 6 filter filtre 3 2 6 275 2 functional fonksiyonel 3 2 7 275 6 athlete atlet 3 2 8 275 7 organic organik 3 2 9 278 5 module modül sublist 2: cognates with different spelling and pronunciation no. rank english turkish 1 517 quality kalite 2 760 club kulüp 3 820 brother birader 4 847 generally genelikle 5 1014 budget bütçe 6 1053 equipment ekipman 7 1153 chief şef 8 1300 crisis kriz 9 1420 council konsey 10 1763 dozen düzine 11 2078 isolate izole 12 2359 cousin kuzen 13 2657 luxury lüks 14 2771 hypothesis hipotez 15 2773 theoretical teorik 16 2778 tournament turnuva sublist 3: cognates with same/similar spelling and different pronunciation no. rank english turkish 1 127 number numara 2 389 type tip 3 484 practice pratik 4 527 fund fon 5 745 machine makine 6 777 mile mil 7 810 bus otobüs 8 864 style stil 9 1094 double duble 10 1500 signal sinyal 11 1946 gene gen sublist 4: cognates with different spelling and same/similar pronunciation no. rank english turkish 1 441 design dizayn 2 560 chance şans 3 969 agency ajans 4 1002 announce anons 5 1118 physical fiziksel 6 1222 technique teknik 7 1317 package paket 8 1340 coach koç 9 1391 theater tiyatro 10 1393 coffee kahve 11 1456 technical teknik 12 1530 channel kanal 13 1534 typical tipik 14 1539 concentrate konsantre 15 1568 guarantee garanti 16 2060 beer bira 17 2171 cake kek 18 2296 philosophy felsefe 19 2348 musician müzisyen 20 2354 cigarette sigara 21 2372 cap kep 22 2384 league lig 23 2386 cream krema 24 2413 valley vadi 25 2478 classical klasik 26 2531 chat çet 27 2617 chocolate çikolata 28 2655 biological biyolojik sublist 5: partial cognates n o. rank english turkish 1 55 out aut 2 94 back bek 3 110 show şov 4 123 lot lot 5 223 service servis 6 257 form form 7 309 stand stant 8 315 effect efekt 9 344 record rekor 10 354 real reel 11 357 figure figür 12 382 period periyot 13 399 policy poliçe 14 407 team tim 15 416 pass pas 16 443 special spesiyal 17 445 condition kondisyon 18 450 table tablo 19 452 forward forvet 20 498 charge şarj 21 519 round raunt 22 558 address adres 23 577 effort efor 24 580 check çek 25 581 complete komple 26 600 contact kontakt 27 615 court kort 28 628 firm firma 29 661 manager manajer 30 674 press pres 31 689 medium mediyum 32 690 average averaj 33 695 hit hit 34 713 production prodüksyon 35 750 season sezon 36 788 solution solüsyon 37 839 deep dip 38 843 advance avans 39 849 match maç 40 941 object obje 41 1001 shoot şut 42 1018 block blok 43 1069 principle prensip yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 26 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 44 1078 fair fuar 45 1177 contrast kontrast 46 1186 corner korner 47 1188 shift şift 48 1189 net net 49 1192 defense defans 50 1239 speaker spiker 51 1242 combine kombine/kombin 52 1287 pop pop 53 1293 path patika 54 1333 actual aktüel 55 1400 objective objektif 56 1405 branch branş 57 1478 hall hol 58 1504 leadership liderlik 59 1565 shot şut 60 1631 stretch streç 61 1645 selection seleksiyon 62 1653 entry antre 63 1657 tip tip 64 1659 peak pik 65 1675 guard gard 66 1686 reserve rezerve 67 1695 phase faz 68 1810 politician politikacı 69 1856 passage pasaj 70 1895 slide slayt 71 1908 chip çip 72 1927 creation kreasyon 73 2081 tight tayt 74 2094 phenomenon fenomen 75 2097 assist asist 76 2224 log log 77 2283 button buton 78 2291 resistance reziztans 79 2293 frequency frekans 80 2342 offense ofans 81 2410 counter kontra 82 2483 flash flaş 83 2518 automatically otomatik şekilde 84 2521 dramatically dramatik şekilde 85 2555 potentially potansiyel olarak 86 2626 pro pro 87 2666 exhaust egzoz 88 2780 fragment fragman false cognates no rank english turkish & meaning 1 9 it it (t: dog) 2 17 on on (t: ten) 3 22 as as (t: hang) 4 23 at at (t: throw) 5 25 but but (t: chicken drumstick) 6 30 say say (t: count) 7 38 can can (t: soul; life) 8 60 no no (t: abbr. numara) 9 63 very veri (t: data) 10 99 many meni (t: sperm) 11 117 feel fiil (t: verb) 12 220 pay pay (t: share) 13 245 far far (t: headlight) 14 265 once önce (t: before) 15 279 sure sure (t: section) 16 280 term terim (t: locution) 17 313 care çare (t: cure) 18 352 bit bit (t: end; louse) 19 362 class klas (t: classy) 20 375 top top (t: ball) 21 419 short şort (t: shorts) 22 494 site site (t: building complex) 23 506 nice nice (t: plenty) 24 510 boy boy (t: height) 25 687 son son (t: end) 26 705 size size (t: to you) 27 707 addition adisyon (t: check) 28 739 college kolej (t: private high school) 29 824 trip trip (t: attitudinize) 30 834 file file (t: net) 31 860 box boks (t: boxing) 32 929 define define (t: treasure) 33 936 mine mine (t: enamel) 34 983 magazine magazin (t: celebrity news) 35 1119 apart apart (t: aparthotel) 36 1120 suit suit (t: suite) 37 1329 tire tire (t: hyphen) 38 1476 ad ad (t: name) 39 1548 moral moral (t: morale) 40 1748 hat hat (t: line) 41 1903 reporter raportör (t: person who prepared the report) 42 1904 climate klima (t: air conditioner) 43 2202 mode mod (t: mood) 44 2215 van van (t: city name) appendix 3: turkish-english loanword cognates based on the ftd sublist 1: cognates with same/similar spelling and pronunciation no. rank turkish english 1 175 genel general 2 176 sistem system 3 193 grup group 4 292 parti party 5 308 program program 6 320 kültür culture 7 328 üniversite university 8 340 sosyal social 9 348 film film 10 354 ekonomik economic 11 370 politika politics 12 386 yat yacht 13 389 telefon telephone 14 448 proje project 15 461 plan plan 16 483 sektör sector 17 487 hoca hodja 18 489 enerji energy 19 498 ekonomi economy 20 517 banka bank 21 519 rol role 22 524 doktor doctor 23 532 kontrol control yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 27 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 24 533 müzik music 25 537 teknoloji technology 26 541 polis police 27 549 pazar bazaar 28 552 model model 29 593 televizyon television 30 626 fotoğraf photograph 31 642 demokrasi democracy 32 687 firma firm 33 692 rapor report 34 724 normal normal 35 728 problem problem 36 776 paşa pasha 37 792 planla plan 38 799 lira lira 39 816 lider leader 40 849 mesaj message 41 856 faktör factor 42 888 kredi credit 43 905 internet internet 44 906 bebek baby 45 946 modern modern 46 964 analiz analysis 47 972 risk risk 48 974 kültürel cultural 49 996 sinema cinema 50 999 spor sport 51 1004 otel hotel 52 1048 standart standard 53 1057 elektrik electric 54 1063 sivil civil 55 1067 organ organ 56 1088 medya media 57 1089 liste list 58 1107 sultan sultan 59 1109 demoktratik democratic 60 1130 gaz gas 61 1138 not note 62 1145 nükleer nuclear 63 1148 rejim regime 64 1152 komisyon commission 65 1155 petrol petrol 66 1182 karakter character 67 1183 kart card 68 1184 radyo radio 69 1200 strateji strategy 70 1201 ton ton 71 1214 personel personnel 72 1215 servis service 73 1221 fakülte faculty 74 1128 maç match 75 1234 teori theory 76 1266 mekanizma mechanism 77 1282 operasyon operation 78 1283 mart march 79 1284 potansiyel potential 80 1299 turizm tourism 81 1306 terör terror 82 1310 klasik classic 83 1311 kapasite capacity 84 1340 park park 85 1351 metre meter 86 1360 politik politic 87 1364 tren train 88 1371 pratik practical 89 1386 trafik traffic 90 1390 test test 91 1404 dolar dollar 92 1406 terim term 93 1409 kilo kilo 94 1411 performans performance 95 1412 enflasyon inflation 96 1442 ideoloji ideology 97 1486 aktif active 98 1488 dans dans 99 1513 alternatif alternative 100 1516 fonksiyon function 101 1531 reform reform 102 1539 kulüp club 103 1550 form form 104 1552 otomobil automobile 105 1560 kongre congress 106 1562 psikolojik psychological 107 1580 profesör professor 108 1582 futbol football 109 1583 adres address 110 1584 ağustos august 111 1609 organizasyon organization 112 1615 disiplin discipline 113 1630 dinamik dynamic 114 1662 parlamento parliament 115 1666 konferans conference 116 1677 konser concert 117 1683 kapitalizm capitalism 118 1688 matematik mathematics 119 1697 kampanya campaign 120 1718 onur honor 121 1720 motor motor 122 1727 transfer transfer 123 1728 paralel parallel 124 1736 bomba bomb 125 1738 elektronik electronic 126 1745 statü status 127 1749 etik ethics 128 1752 teknolojik technological 129 1769 endüstri industry 130 1794 avantaj advantage 131 1798 demokrat democrat 132 1804 kamp camp 133 1817 tur tour 134 1825 hacı hadji 135 1830 apartman apartment 136 1870 taksi taxi 137 1871 kategori category 138 1873 ideal ideal 139 1882 sosyalist socialist 140 1891 turist tourist 141 1901 müze museum 142 1906 tuvalet toilet 143 1916 kamera camera 144 1929 sekreter secretary 145 1952 formül formula 146 1955 stratejik strategic 147 1963 etnik ethnic 148 1989 albüm album 149 1993 alkol alcohol 150 2005 seri serial 151 2008 asit acid 152 2015 ideolojik ideological 153 2020 kriter criterion 154 2023 diyalog dialogue 155 2024 komunist communist 156 2038 psikoloji psychology 157 2054 slogan slogan yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 28 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 158 2059 atmosfer atmosphere 159 2063 enstitü institute 160 2076 pozitif positive 161 2108 estetik aesthetics 162 2114 şok shock 163 2125 baz base 164 2133 profesyonel professional 165 2140 general general 166 2147 finansal financial 167 2158 kapitalist capitalist 168 2159 imaj image 169 2167 pozisyon position 170 2181 balkon balcony 171 2184 kanser cancer 172 2188 sürpriz surprise 173 2206 programla program 174 2209 komite committee 175 2239 bar bar 176 2250 koridor corridor 177 2252 liberal liberal 178 2256 kariyer career 179 2259 laboratuvar laboratory 180 2263 metal metal 181 2265 kilometre kilometer 182 2274 atom atom 183 2284 süper super 184 2294 festival festival 185 2295 kaptan captain 186 2299 divan divan 187 2305 norm norm 188 2316 moral morale 189 2317 popüler popular 190 2319 protokol protocol 191 2325 kuruş kurus 192 2344 jandarma gendarme 193 2355 akademik academic 194 2377 biyolojik biological 195 2399 emperyalizm imperialism 196 2406 vidoe video 197 2410 plastik plastic 198 2423 protein protein 199 2430 kritik critical 200 2432 kod code 201 2444 radikal radical 202 2449 aktivite activity 203 2454 imge image 204 2459 pantolon pants 205 2460 propaganda propaganda 206 2484 sembol symbol 207 2485 protesto protest 208 2488 sosyalizm socialism 209 2492 materyal material 210 2499 organik organic 211 2515 terörist terrorist 212 2531 domates tomato 213 2556 organize organize 214 2574 negatif negative 215 2576 rakı raki 216 2577 genetik genetic 217 2590 reaksiyon reaction 218 2596 lamba lamp 219 2608 metot method 220 2609 posta post 221 2613 aktör actor 222 2617 virüs virus 223 2622 koalisyon coalition 224 2627 stres stress 225 2662 platform platform 226 2664 oksijen oxygen 227 2673 taktik tactics 228 2701 otomatik automatic 229 2703 sinyal signal 230 2708 istatistik statistics 231 2710 muhtar mukhtar 232 2716 panik panic 233 2717 sezon season 234 2718 objektif objective 235 2722 misyon mission 236 2725 rektör rector 237 2726 finans finance 238 2731 tüp tube 239 2742 bakteri bacterium 240 2745 ceket jacket 241 2759 gri gray 242 2786 grafik graph 243 2792 pilot pilot 244 2798 kompleks complex sublist 2: cognates with different spelling and pronunciation no. rank turkish english 1 679 kriz crisis 2 750 genellikle generally 3 960 kalite quality 4 1045 bütçe budget 5 1352 dosya dossier 6 1713 tez thesis 7 1976 prensip principle 8 2086 şeytan satan 9 2115 konsey council 10 2442 kaliteli quality 11 2464 lüks luxurious 12 2588 teorik theoretical 13 2658 burjuva bourgeois 14 2685 sentez synthesis 15 2700 numaralı numbered sublist 3: cognates with same/similar spelling and different pronunciation no. rank turkish english 1 579 tip type 2 978 makine machine 3 1170 numara number 4 1178 otobüs bus 5 1198 mayıs may 6 1525 fon fund 7 2169 gen gene 8 2532 mil mile sublist 4: cognates with different spelling and same/similar pronunciation no. rank turkish english 1 504 teknik technique 2 762 sigara cigarette 3 954 tiyatro theatre 4 979 felsefe philosophy 5 1003 kanal channel 6 1035 şans chance 7 1062 kahve coffee, cafe 8 1287 paket package 9 1650 coğrafya geography 10 1654 fiziksel physical 11 1659 otorite authority 12 1810 istasyon station 13 1907 kurs course 14 1947 senaryo scenario 15 1984 büro bureau 16 1988 fizik physics 17 2031 garanti guarantee 18 2097 şeyh sheikh 19 2179 lisans license 20 2433 bira beer yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 29 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 21 2529 ajans agency 22 2541 vadi valley 23 2594 coğrafi geographic 24 2638 prens prince 25 2709 tipik typical 26 2737 filozof philosopher sublist 5: partial cognates no. rank turkish english 1 767 tablo table 2 1271 net net 3 2143 şef chef, chief 4 2246 reel real 5 2253 blok block 6 2320 liderlik leadership 7 2369 bankacılık banking 8 2414 gol goal 9 2508 politikacı politician false cognates no. rank turkish false cognates in english & turkish meaning 1 11 ben ben (t: i) 2 12 gel gel (t: come) 3 31 her her (t: every) 4 58 i i (t: to be defective copular verb) 5 62 son son (t: end) 6 94 alan alan (t: field) 7 116 bile bile (t: even, "bill") 8 127 ad ad (t: name) 9 128 hak hak (t: right, "hack") 10 130 adam adam (t: man) 11 139 at at (t: throw, horse) 12 143 ora ora (t: that place, "aura") 13 158 an an (t: moment) 14 167 anne anne (t: mother) 15 181 art art (t: increase, back) 16 191 ay ay (t: moon, month) 17 214 say say (t: count) 18 215 bit bit (t: finish) 19 223 az az (t: few, "as") 20 250 yak yak (t: ignite, "yack") 21 261 kim kim (t: who) 22 275 bin bin (t: ride) 23 315 doğ doğ (t: be born, "dog") 24 321 tart tart (t: weigh) 25 331 can can (t: soul) 26 332 asker asker (t: soldier, "ask her") 27 344 din din (t: religion, "dean") 28 351 in in (t: descend, get off) 29 363 sat sat (t: sell, "said") 30 364 bey bey (t: gentleman) 31 385 sun sun (t: present) 32 387 kar kar (t: mix, "car") 33 398 aşk aşk (t: love, "ask") 34 421 yet yet (t: suffice) 35 450 renk renk (t: color, "rank") 36 494 millet millet (t: nation) 37 496 tak tak (t: attach, "take") 38 510 sol sol (t: left, "sole") 39 545 boy boy (t: height) 40 570 beri beri (t: since, "berry") 41 576 il il (t: city, "ill") 42 623 hani hani (t: so, "honey") 43 630 aş aş (t: food, "as") 44 633 birden birden (t: suddenly, "burden") 45 643 sok sok (t: insert, "soak") 46 652 yay yay (t: bow) 47 693 dağ dağ (t: mountain, "dog") 48 716 basın basın (t: press, "basin") 49 747 pay pay (t: share) 50 757 çarp çarp (t: bump, "sharp") 51 838 salon salon (t: hall, "saloon") 52 875 ada ada (t: island, "ada") 53 885 top top (t: ball) 54 899 dik dik (t: plant, "dick") 55 915 engel engel (t: obstacle, "angel") 56 924 okur okur (t: reader, "occur") 57 948 bağ bağ (t: tie, "bag") 58 953 sil sil (t: wipe up, "seal") 59 973 hat hat (t: line) 60 992 diş diş (t: tooth, "dish") 61 1097 it it (t: push, stray dog) 62 1102 laf laf (t: remark, "laugh") 63 1114 bol bol (t: plentiful, "ball") 64 1235 eleman eleman (t: staff, "almond") 65 1236 as as (t: hang) 66 1249 dip dip (t: bottom) 67 1257 site site 68 1262 deli deli (t: insane) 69 1280 sır sır (t: secret, "sir") 70 1316 boya boya (t: paint, "boy") 71 1342 bat bat (t: sink) 72 1421 marka marka (t: trademark) 73 1438 tarif tarif (t: description, "tariff") 74 1454 bel bel (t: waist, "bell") 75 1471 sal sal (t: release, "sell") 76 1499 bank bank (t: bench) 77 1503 usul usul (t: method, "usual") 78 1505 çare çare (t: cure, "chair") 79 1524 tel tel (t: telephone; wire) 80 1533 sön sön (t: die down, "son") 81 1534 çap çap (t: diameter, "cap") 82 1553 çak çak (t: nail, "chuck") 83 1591 vali vali (t: governer, "valley") 84 1597 göl göl (t: lake, "goal") 85 1643 um um (t: hope, "filler word") 86 1651 soy soy (t: peel) 87 1780 kör kör (t: blind, "core") 88 1814 bay bay (t: mr.) 89 1834 sel sel (t: flood, "sell") 90 1930 dam dam (t: roof) 91 1970 kaba kaba (t: rude, "kaaba") 92 1971 fiil fiil (t: act, "fill") 93 1980 liman liman (t: port, "lemon") 94 2021 patron patron (t: boss) 95 2025 nice nice (t: so many, "niece") 96 2080 sin sin (t: pervade) 97 2131 salt salt (t: solely) 98 2172 bal bal (t: honey, "ball") 99 2178 his his (t: feeling, "hiss") 100 2182 ten ten (t: skin) 101 2199 sav sav (t: get rid of, "saw") 102 2315 maden maden (t: mine) 103 2336 set set (t: barrier) 104 2357 harp harp (t: war) 105 2411 fare fare (t: rat) 106 2428 onca onca (t: so much, "once") 107 2513 prim prim (t: bonus, "prime") 108 2521 vapur vapur (t: ship, "vapor") 109 2536 had had (t: limit) yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 30 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 110 2583 bari bari (t: at least, "barry") 111 2654 hırs hırs (t: ambition, "hers") 112 2723 mor mor (t: purple, "more") 113 2754 has has (t: peculiar) 114 2755 kin kin (t: grudge) 115 2757 pis pis (t: dirty, "piss") 116 2765 artı artı (t: plus, "art") appendix 4: combined turkish-english loanword cognates word list (telcwl) sublist 1: cognates with same/similar spelling and pronunciation no. english turkish 1 problem problem 2 course kurs 3 report rapor 4 group grup 5 system sistem 6 information enformasyon 7 market market 8 plan plan 9 program program 10 level level 11 train tren 12 party parti 13 control kontrol 14 test test 15 office ofis 16 social sosyal 17 note not 18 music müzik 19 political politik 20 general genel 21 position pozisyon 22 activity aktivite 23 role rol 24 detail detay 25 action aksiyon 26 model model 27 economic ekonomik 28 organization organizasyon 29 project proje 30 accord akort 31 list liste 32 industry endüstri 33 risk risk 34 standard standart 35 data data 36 performance performans 37 technology teknoloji 38 culture kültür 39 material materyal 40 limit limit 41 leader lider 42 sport spor 43 police polis 44 bank banka 45 attack atak 46 surprise sürpriz 47 factor faktör 48 financial finansal 49 campaign kampanya 50 park park 51 stock stok 52 character karakter 53 final final 54 economy ekonomi 55 fit fit 56 function fonksiyon 57 image imaj 58 station istasyon 59 population popülasyon 60 direct direkt 61 director direktör 62 department departman 63 method metod 64 analysis analiz 65 hotel otel 66 doctor doktor 67 link link 68 advantage avantaj 69 unit ünite 70 card kart 71 popular popüler 72 specific spesifik 73 television televizyon 74 modern modern 75 natural natürel 76 express ekspres 77 score skor 78 organize/organise organize 79 potential potansiyel 80 energy enerji 81 bar bar 82 strategy strateji 83 operation operasyon 84 normal normal 85 goal gol 86 positive pozitif 87 option opsiyon 88 message mesaj 89 baby bebek 90 theory teori 91 reference referans 92 argument argüman 93 document döküman 94 career kariyer 95 balance balans 96 restaurant restorant 97 post posta 98 professional profesyonel 99 credit kredi 100 direction direksiyon 101 dance dans 102 original orijinal 103 university üniversite 104 dollar dolar 105 legal legal 106 version versiyon 107 agent acente 108 generation jenerasyon 109 favorite favori 110 element element 111 medical medikal 112 telephone telefon yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 31 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 113 copy kopya 114 committee komite 115 stress stres 116 radio radyo 117 complex kompleks 118 directly direkt 119 extra ekstra 120 sex seks 121 video video 122 collection koleksiyon 123 negative negatif 124 band bando 125 tour tur 126 alternative alternatif 127 politics politik 128 transfer transfer 129 federal federal 130 status statü 131 partner partner 132 institution enstitü 133 taxi taksi 134 sector sektör 135 expert eksper 136 camp kamp 137 procedure prosedür 138 email email 139 global global 140 photograph fotoğraf 141 artist artist 142 gas gaz 143 category kategori 144 secretary sekreter 145 nuclear nükleer 146 photo foto 147 concept konsept 148 reform reform 149 football futbol 150 traffic trafik 151 reaction reaksiyon 152 lady leydi 153 cultural kültürel 154 trend trend 155 critical kritik 156 boat bot 157 fan fan 158 code kod 159 active aktif 160 cancer kanser 161 location lokasyon 162 actor aktör 163 monitor monitor 164 finance finans 165 concert konser 166 shock şok 167 camera kamera 168 museum müze 169 route rota 170 bomb bomba 171 editor editör 172 normally normalde 173 civil sivil 174 capacity kapasite 175 studio stüdyo 176 tourist turist 177 cup kupa 178 industrial endüstriyel 179 perspective perspektif 180 literature literatür 181 combination kombinasyon 182 theme tema 183 atmosphere atmosfer 184 characteristic karakteristik 185 license lisans 186 commission komisyon 187 instrument enstrüman 188 practical pratik 189 notion nosyon 190 honor onur 191 musical müzikal 192 analyze analiz 193 mental mental 194 vision vizyon 195 ideal ideal 196 mission misyon 197 tone ton 198 protest protesto 199 electronic elektronik 200 impose empoze 201 criminal kriminal 202 mobile mobil 203 assistant asistan 204 attach ataş 205 academic akademik 206 professor profesör 207 minimum minimum 208 critic kritik 209 online online 210 pilot pilot 211 producer prodüktör 212 liberal liberal 213 disk disk 214 metal metal 215 panel panel 216 maximum maksimum 217 initiative inisiyatif 218 diet diyet 219 gray gri 220 plastic plastik 221 discipline disiplin 222 mechanism mekanizma 223 democracy demokrasi 224 concentration konsantrasyon 225 classic klasik 226 tennis tenis 227 mathematics matematik 228 comfort konfor 229 criterion kriter 230 dramatic dramatik 231 protein protein 232 intellectual entelektüel 233 gentleman centilmen 234 drama drama 235 electricity elektrik 236 variation varyasyon 237 agenda ajanda 238 gay gey 239 inch inç 240 uniform üniforma 241 profile profil 242 mood mod 243 symptom semptom 244 tension tansiyon yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 32 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 245 cable kablo 246 formula formül 247 routine rutin 248 meter metre 249 terrorist terörist 250 depression depresyon 251 pub pub 252 symbol sembol 253 apartment apartman 254 analyst analist 255 platform platform 256 innovation inovasyon 257 album albüm 258 tank tank 259 pose poz 260 creative kreatif 261 alcohol alkol 262 festival festival 263 web web 264 portion porsiyon 265 radical radikal 266 infection enfeksiyon 267 jacket ceket 268 statistic istatistik 269 alarm alarm 270 parallel paralel 271 sponsor sponsor 272 boot bot 273 digital dijital 274 formation formasyon 275 deposit depozito 276 tube tüp 277 characterize karakterize 278 operator operatör 279 virus virüs 280 illegal illegal 281 ethnic etnik 282 clinical klinik 283 adapt adapte 284 dialogue diyalog 285 barrier bariyer 286 motor motor 287 electric elektrik 288 motivate motive 289 laboratory laboratuvar 290 promotion promosyon 291 champion şampiyon 292 march mart/marş 293 opera opera 294 gallery galeri 295 genetic genetic 296 aggressive agresif 297 format format 298 golf golf 299 fantastic fantastic 300 inflation enflasyon 301 therapy terapi 302 personnel personel 303 ceremony seramoni 304 psychological psikolojik 305 penalty penalty 306 democratic demokratik 307 carbon karbon 308 guitar gitar 309 piano piyano 310 menu menü 311 jury juri 312 civilian sivil 313 composition kompozisyon 314 paragraph paragraf 315 potato patates 316 tourism turizm 317 motivation motivasyon 318 romantic romantik 319 catalog katalog 320 grammar gramer 321 panic panik 322 comedy komedi 323 portrait portre 324 filter filtre 325 functional fonksiyonel 326 athlete atlet 327 organic organik 328 module modül 329 film film 330 yacht yat 331 hodja hoca 332 bazaar pazar 333 firm firma 334 pasha paşa 335 lira lira 336 internet internet 337 cinema sinema 338 organ organ 339 media medya 340 sultan sultan 341 regime rejim 342 petrol petrol 343 ton ton 344 service servis 345 faculty fakülte 346 match maç 347 march mart 348 potential potansiyel 349 terror terör 350 politic politika 351 term terim 352 kilo kilo 353 ideology ideoloji 354 function fonksiyon 355 club kulüp 356 form form 357 automobile otomobil 358 congress kongre 359 address adres 360 august ağustos 361 dynamic dinamik 362 parliament parlamento 363 conference konferans 364 capitalism kapitalizm 365 ethics etik 366 technological teknolojik 367 democrat demokrat 368 hadji hacı 369 socialist sosyalist 370 museum müze 371 toilet tuvalet 372 strategic stratejik 373 serial seri 374 acid asit 375 ideological ideolojik 376 communist komünist yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 33 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 377 psychology psikoloji 378 slogan slogan 379 institute enstitü 380 aesthetics estetik 381 base baz 382 capitalist kapitalist 383 image imge 384 balcony balkon 385 corridor koridor 386 kilometer kilometre 387 atom atom 388 super süper 389 captain kaptan 390 divan divan 391 norm norm 392 morale moral 393 protocol protokol 394 kurus kuruş 395 gendarme jandarma 396 biological biyolojik 397 imperialism emperyalizm 398 pants pantolon 399 propaganda propaganda 400 socialism sosyalizm 401 tomato domates 402 raki rakı 403 lamp lamba 404 coalition koalisyon 405 oxygen oksijen 406 tactics taktik 407 automatic otomatik 408 signal sinyal 409 statistics istatistik 410 mukhtar muhtar 411 season sezon 412 objective objektif 413 rector rektör 414 bacterium bakteri 415 graph grafik sublist 2: cognates with different spelling and pronunciation no. english turkish 1 quality kalite 2 club kulüp 3 brother birader 4 generally genelikle 5 budget bütçe 6 equipment ekipman 7 chief şef 8 crisis kriz 9 council konsey 10 dozen düzine 11 isolate izole 12 cousin kuzen 13 luxury lüks 14 hypothesis hipotez 15 theoretical teorik 16 tournament turnuva 17 dossier dosya 18 thesis tez 19 principle prensip 20 satan şeytan 21 luxurious lüks 22 bourgeois burjuva 23 synthesis sentez 24 numbered numaralı sublist 3: cognates with same/similar spelling and different pronunciation no. english turkish 1 number numara 2 type tip 3 practice pratik 4 fund fon 5 machine makine 6 mile mil 7 bus otobüs 8 style stil 9 double duble 10 signal sinyal 11 gene gen 12 may mayıs sublist 4: cognates with different spelling and same/similar pronunciation no. english turkish 1 design dizayn 2 chance şans 3 agency ajans 4 announce anons 5 physical fiziksel 6 technique teknik 7 package paket 8 coach koç 9 theater tiyatro 10 coffee kahve 11 technical teknik 12 channel kanal 13 typical tipik 14 concentrate konsantre 15 guarantee garanti 16 beer bira 17 cake kek 18 philosophy felsefe 19 musician müzisyen 20 cigarette sigara 21 cap kep 22 league lig 23 cream krema 24 valley vadi 25 classical klasik 26 chat çet 27 chocolate çikolata 28 biological biyolojik 29 geography coğrafya 30 authority otorite 31 station istasyon 32 course kurs 33 scenario senaryo 34 bureau büro 35 physics fizik 36 sheikh şeyh 37 license lisans 38 geographic coğrafi 39 prince prens 40 philosopher filozof sublist 5: partial cognates no. english turkish 1 out aut 2 back bek 3 show şov 4 lot lot 5 service servis 6 form form 7 stand stant 8 effect efekt 9 record rekor 10 real reel 11 figure figür 12 period periyot 13 policy poliçe 14 team tim 15 pass pas 16 special spesiyal 17 condition kondisyon 18 table tablo 19 forward forvet 20 charge şarj 21 round raunt 22 address adres 23 effort efor 24 check çek 25 complete komple 26 contact kontakt 27 court kort 28 firm firma yu, x., & altunel, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 34 focus on elt www.focusonelt.com 29 manager menajer 30 press pres 31 medium mediyum 32 average averaj 33 hit hit 34 production prodüksyon 35 season sezon 36 solution solüsyon 37 deep dip 38 advance avans 39 match maç 40 object obje 41 shoot şut 42 block blok 43 principle prensip 44 fair fuar 45 contrast kontrast 46 corner korner 47 shift şift 48 net net 49 defense defans 50 speaker spiker 51 combine kombine/kombin 52 pop pop 53 path patika 54 actual aktüel 55 objective objektif 56 branch branş 57 hall hol 58 leadership liderlik 59 shot şut 60 stretch streç 61 selection seleksiyon 62 entry antre 63 tip tip 64 peak pik 65 guard gard 66 reserve rezerve 67 phase faz 68 politician politikacı 69 passage pasaj 70 slide slayt 71 chip çip 72 creation kreasyon 73 tight tayt 74 phenomenon fenomen 75 assist asist 76 log log 77 button buton 78 resistance reziztans 79 frequency frekans 80 offense ofans 81 counter kontra 82 flash flaş 83 automatically otomatik şekilde 84 dramatically dramatik şekilde 85 potentially potansiyel olarak 86 pro pro 87 exhaust egzoz 88 fragment fragman 89 chef, chief şef 90 banking bankacılık 91 goal gol false cognates no. english turkish 1 it it (t: dog) 2 on on (t: ten) 3 as as (t: hang) 4 at at (t: throw) 5 but but (t: chicken drumstick) 6 say say (t: count) 7 can can (t: soul; life) 8 no no (t: abbr. numara) 9 very veri (t: data) 10 many meni (t: sperm) 11 feel fiil (t: verb) 12 pay pay (t: share) 13 far far (t: headlight) 14 once önce (t: section) 15 sure sure (t: section) 16 term terim (t: locution) 17 care çare (t: cure) 18 bit bit (t: end; louse) 19 class klas (t: classy) 20 top top (t: ball) 21 short şort (t: shorts) 22 site site (t: building complex) 23 nice nice (t: plenty) 24 boy boy (t: height) 25 son sön (t: die down, "son") 26 size size (t: to you) 27 addition adisyon (t: check) 28 college kolej (t: private high school) 29 trip trip (t: attitudinize) 30 file file (t: net) 31 box boks (t: boxing 32 define define (t: treasure) 33 mine mine (t: enamel) 34 magazine magazin (t: celebrity news) 35 apart apart (t: aparthotel) 36 suit suit (t: suite) 37 tire tire (t: hyphen) 38 ad ad (t: name) 39 moral moral (t: morale) 40 hat hat (t: line) 41 reporter raportör (t: person who prepared the report) 42 climate klima (t: air conditioner) 43 mode mod (t: mood) 44 van van (t: city name) 45 ben ben (t: i) 46 gel gel (t: come) 47 her her (t: every) 48 i i (t: to be defective copular verb) 49 alan alan (t: field) 50 bill bile (t: even, "bill") 51 hack hak (t: right, "hack") 52 adam adam (t: man) 53 aura ora (t: that place, "aura") 54 an an (t: moment) 55 anne anne (t: mother) 56 art artı (t: plus, "art") 57 ay ay (t: moon, month) 58 as az (t: few, "as") 59 yack yak (t: ignite, "yack") 60 kim kim (t: who) 61 bin bin (t: ride) 62 dog doğ (t: be born, "dog") 63 tart tart (t: weigh) 64 ask her asker (t: soldier, "ask her") 65 dean din (t: religion, "dean") 66 in in (t: descend, get off) 67 sat sat (t: sell, "said") 68 bey bey (t: gentleman) 69 sun sun (t: present) 70 car kar (t: mix, "car") 71 ask aşk (t: love, "ask") 72 yet yet (t: suffice) 73 rank renk (t: color, "rank") 74 millet millet (t: nation) 75 take tak (t: attach, "take") 76 sole sol (t: left, "sole") 77 berry beri (t: since, "berry") 78 ill il (t: city, "ill") 79 honey hani (t: so, "honey") 80 as aş (t: food, "as") 81 burden birden (t: suddenly, "burden") 82 soak sok (t: insert, "soak") yu, x. & altun, v. / focus on elt journal, 2021, 3(2) 35 focus on elt journal (felt) 83 yay yay (t: bow) 84 dog dağ (t: mountain, "dog") 85 basin basın (t: press, "basin") 86 sharp çarp (t: bump, "sharp") 87 saloon salon (t: hall, "saloon") 88 ada ada (t: island, "ada") 89 dick dik (t: plant, "dick") 90 angel engel (t: obstacle, "angel") 91 occur okur (t: reader, "occur") 92 bag bağ (t: tie, "bag") 93 seal sil (t: wipe up, "seal") 94 dish diş (t: tooth, "dish") 95 laugh laf (t: remark, "laugh") 96 ball bol (t: plentiful, "ball") 97 element eleman (t: staff, "almond") 98 dip dip (t: bottom) 99 deli deli (t: insane) 100 sir sır (t: secret, "sir") 101 bat bat (t: sink) 102 mark marka (t: trademark) 103 tariff tarif (t: description, "tariff") 104 bell bel (t: waist, "bell") 105 sell sal (t: release, "sell") 106 bank bank (t: bench) 107 usual usul (t: method, "usual") 108 chair çare (t: cure, "chair") 109 tel tel (t: telephone; wire) 110 cap çap (t: diameter, "cap") 111 chuck çak (t: nail, "chuck") 112 valley vali (t: governer, "valley") 113 goal göl (t: lake, "goal") 114 um um (t: hope, "filler word") 115 soy soy (t: peel) 116 core kör (t: blind, "core") 117 bay bay (t: mr.) 118 dam dam (t: roof) 119 kaaba kaba (t: rude, "kaaba") 120 fill fiil (t: act, "fill") 121 lemon liman (t: port, "lemon") 122 patron patron (t: boss) 123 sin sin (t: pervade) 124 salt salt (t: solely) 125 hiss his (t: feeling, "hiss") 126 ten ten (t: skin) 127 save sav (t: get rid of, "saw") 128 maden maden (t: mine) 129 set set (t: barrier) 130 harp harp (t: war) 131 fare fare (t: rat) 132 prime prim (t: bonus, "prime") 133 vapor vapur (t: ship, "vapor") 134 had had (t: limit) 135 barry bari (t: at least, "barry") 136 hers hırs (t: ambition, "hers") 137 more mor (t: purple, "more") 138 has has (t: peculiar) 139 kin kin (t: grudge) 140 piss pis (t: dirty, "piss")