anakkale Onsekiz Mart UniversityTheories in Second Language Acquisition

Eitim Fakltesi
Alexandra-Claudia Leonte

Replication study after http://www.cc.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/tesl-ej/ej35/cf.html

Classroom Focus: Turkey

English Language Learning Strategies Inspired by Fulbright Teachers in

Turkish Universities
Abstract
This study aims to examine teacher behaviors and lesson delivery expectations used by
Fulbright NEST that are teaching at university levels in Turkey. This research will try to bring
broader understanding of strategies used for teaching English to students whose first language is
not English. The rationale for the study stems from the need to gain greater international
perspective of the teaching of English learners. Results reflect analysis of classroom observation
field notes and applied questioners with Fulbright teachers and their students, digital photo
journaling, and artifacts. The theoretical framework for this study draws from the strategies
presented by Douglas Brown, in his book, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching,
explaining the strategies used by teachers in helping students to acquire a second language, and
the work of Dorothy Strickland outlining effective literacy instruction. Emerging from the data
are nine effective teaching strategies, which are divided by two collocations (learning and
communication strategies) that teachers of English learners can add to their repertoire, in order to
have a successful result.
Introduction
English has become the medium of all relevant social interactions and the ability to use
English effectively is considered an absolute essential for honorable existence.
--Quotation from a retired Army Colonel, Now working as a New Delhi textbook publisher
The sociolinguistic profile of English is categorized by Kachru1 (1985) within three
concentric circles: The inner circle, the outer circle and the expanding circle. The inner circle
1 Kachru, Braj B. "Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: the English
language in the outer circle." English in the World: Teaching and Learning the
Language and Literatures. Ed. Randolph Quirk and Henry Widdowson. Cambridge
University Press, 1985. 11-30.

anakkale Onsekiz Mart UniversityTheories in Second Language Acquisition

Eitim Fakltesi
Alexandra-Claudia Leonte

refers to the traditional basis of English spoken by native-speakers (e.g. USA, UK and Canada).
The outer circle includes countries like Turkey where English is spoken as a second language
using new norms shaped by new sociocultural and sociolinguistic contexts.
Expanding circle comprises countries where English is spoken as a foreign language by
nonnative speakers of English (e.g. Turkey and Japan). Among these circles, the expanding circle
is the fastest growing circle. As estimated by Gnutzman2 (2000), 80% of verbal exchanges in
which English is used as a foreign or second language involve no native-speakers and are
between non-native users of English. The number of nonnative speakers of English seems to
triple the number of native speakers worldwide (Pakir, 1999). Moreover, as contended by
Graddol (1999), the number of non-native speakers of English will grow from 253 million to
around 462 million during the next 50 years.
Many teachers in the United States are faced with the challenge of teaching children to
read and write in English when the students have a heritage language that is not English and they
are not yet proficient in English. Making this a more critical issue, several studies (North Central
Regional Educational Laboratory, 2003; Southeast Center for Quality Teaching, 2003) suggest
that teachers are not receiving adequate professional development in effective strategies to
address the English learners' literacy development. Thompson (2004), in a recent Title I
Communiqu Special Report that reviewed the current research related to quality literacy
instruction for English learners, concludes that classroom teachers urgently need to know more
about effective strategies for teaching English learners.
Learning strategies have been in the center of attention and they have gained great
importance in the teaching-learning process. Oxford (1990:8) defines learning strategies as the
specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more selfdirected, more effective and more transferrable to new situations.
Language learning is possible trough certain strategies. According to Browns studies,
strategies are divided into two major classes: direct (that would have to do with memory,
cognitive, and the compensation strategies) and indirect (metacognitive, affective and

social). According to Oxford (1990:37-56), language learning strategies that directly involve the
target language are called direct strategies and all direct strategies require mental processing of
2 Gnutzmann, C. (2000). Lingua franca. In: Byram, M. (ed.) The Routledge,
Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning. London: Routledge.

anakkale Onsekiz Mart UniversityTheories in Second Language Acquisition

Eitim Fakltesi
Alexandra-Claudia Leonte

the language, but the three groups of strategies (memory, cognitive and compensation) do this
processing differently and for different purposes. Memory strategies help students store and
retrieve new information while cognitive strategies enable learners to understand and produce
new language by many different means. Compensation strategies, on the other hand, allow
learners to use the language despite their gaps in knowledge.
Besides the direct strategies, Oxford (1990:135-150) describes the indirect strategies that
underpin the business of language learning. In her study, indirect strategies are divided as
metacognitive, affective, and social. Metacognitive strategies allow learners to control their own
cognition; affective strategies help to regulate emotions, motivations and attitudes. Social
strategies help students learn through interactions with others. These strategies are called
indirect as they support language learning without directly involving the target language.
Indirect strategies like the direct ones are applicable to all four language skills: listening, reading,
speaking and writing.
What are teacher beliefs about and guiding principles for teaching English language
learners?
What instructional strategies do teachers use to teach the
Phonics?
Spelling?
Comprehension?
Vocabulary development?
How is assessment conducted and used?
Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework adopted for this study draws from two areas. Considered first
was Virginia Collier's Conceptual Model for Acquiring a Second Language (1995), which helps
explain the complex interacting factors that students experience when acquiring a second
language. The model has four major components: sociocultural, linguistic, academic, and
cognitive processes. It is crucial that educators provide a sociocultural supportive school
environment that allows natural language, academic, and cognitive development to flourish. That
growth is developmental is a central precept of the model. In addition to considering Collier's

anakkale Onsekiz Mart UniversityTheories in Second Language Acquisition

Eitim Fakltesi
Alexandra-Claudia Leonte

model--suggesting the parameters for the learning environment--the research was also guided by
the work of Dorothy Strickland (NCREL, 2003), which outlines effective literacy instruction as
an integration of the following five factors:
the construction of meaning from different perspectives,
the acknowledgement of context in literacy learning,
the use of language for real communication,
the use of relevant literacy materials and
a focus on higher order thinking skills and problem solving.
Setting
The research site was a preparatory-university level, with both 150 students and 10
Fulbright teachers that had been teaching in Turkey for more than 6 mouths.
Method
We used a mixed method trough analyzing a data that is already out there about how
Turkish students perceives cultural differences as a problem when it comes to learning English as
a foreign language. Going with that data, we also asked the teachers if they find that a problem
and in response, 70% of the teachers answered that they found that to be a big factor that
influenced their language teaching in class. We will first present the NEST perspectives about
strategies and then we will try to mirror them with the students answers on the same topic.

Participants
For this project, teachers involved in a Fulbright program at the university, were
interviewed. Our project will be using 10 NEST teachers, that are here in Turkey for the
Fulbright program and the findings of a research entitled Cultural Problems of Turkish Students
While Learning English as a Foreign Language, where there 150 students were submitted to a
questionnaire. All the teachers were teaching mostly University Prep-Class, with the dominant
level of students being A2, and the students that are interviewed have the same level.

anakkale Onsekiz Mart UniversityTheories in Second Language Acquisition

Eitim Fakltesi
Alexandra-Claudia Leonte

Method of the study

In this project paper there were two types of survey was designed to understand the EFL
students point of view about language and culture, and the NEST way of teaching trough
proposed strategies.

The students were supposed to answer the questions using a scaled

questioner and the answers to the questions were scored from (1) Never or almost never true of
me to (5) Always or almost always true of me. The answers were scored by using the following
numbers for the chosen items:
1 point Never or almost never true of me
2 points Usually not true of me
3 points Somewhat true of me
4 points Usually true of me
5 points Always or almost always true of me
As for the teachers, they were given a questioner with composed of 17 questions that was meant
to investigate both identity, validity and strategies used by them in their interaction with A2 (and
to some extent B2) students.
Results
When teacher were asked which strategy would they recommend for their students to use
and why, the teachers focused on two of them: metacognitive and socioaffective ones. According
to them the first was chosen because they thought that students primarily are drawn to socially
focused, interactive language learning activities, the higher level thinking required by ongoing
assessment and meta-awareness developed when monitoring one's own learning are so valuable
for learners in all areas of their lives; while the second should be used because they believe that
students retain more knowledge this way and that they are highly motivated to learn a foreign
language, when it enables them to communicate with other people. Both of the methods are
embraced by students as well: for the metacognitive ones they notice their English mistakes and
correct them, pay attention when someone is speaking English, try to be better learners of
English, look for opportunities to read in English as much as possible, have clear goals for
improving their English skills and think about their progress in English, as for the socioaffective

anakkale Onsekiz Mart UniversityTheories in Second Language Acquisition

Eitim Fakltesi
Alexandra-Claudia Leonte

they would ask the other person to slow down or say again whatever they were saying, as for a
better understanding, ask for correction if they are mistaken and practice English with other
students.
Then teachers were asked to name 3 methods they frequently use in class and also they
were asked to motivate why they think they are effective. The dominant one were drama (skits,
plays, script reading), critical pedagogy (student's choose their own cultural/economic/personal
reasons for learning a new language), and regionally-contextual language lessons, games (for the
fact that students are highly competitive), role playing, songs, discussions (for their motivation to
speak English when they want to express their opinions/beliefs) and pop culture videos/music (as
they can relate easier to popular culture, that being the reason for them to want to learn English;
to understand these references better). All of them are ways to "trick" students into learning.
Students do agree with that, as on their own they will practice the sounds in English, start
conversations in English, watch English language TV shows or go to movies spoken in English,
first skim an English passage then go back and read carefully, and try not to translate word-forword. Acting out or watching and listening to pop videos also works for them but they seldom
prefer to use rhymes and flashcards to remember new English words and do not physically act
out new English words if they are on their own. Also, the researched showed the fact that the
participants rarely say or write new English words several times while they are learning English.
In a collective manner, all Fulbright students agreed to use compensatory strategies
during their classes. When asked, students also agreed on using compensation strategies. In 5out
of 6, the scored the highest mark, which would be 4, and some of the motivations they most
agreed on were that when they cant think of a word during a conversation in English, they use
gestures, they try to guess what the other person will say next in English or if they cant think of
an English word, they use a word or phrase that means the same thing. Other strategies that they
would recommend are building self-confidence and promoting ambiguity tolerance (encourage
students to ask you or other students questions, when they don't know something3).
Conclusions

3 Brown, D. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching. Fifth Edition.

Longman, NY

anakkale Onsekiz Mart UniversityTheories in Second Language Acquisition

Eitim Fakltesi
Alexandra-Claudia Leonte

In conclusion, it can be inferred that acquiring a new language (especially English) here
in Turkey have to do mainly with diminishing the cultural differences of the NEST people, an
aspect that can be perfectly covered by Turkish native speakers, but that cannot achieve the same
performance as the natives and also, key to success would be applying the right strategy, at the
right moment. If we are talking about the non-native speakers, then we could say that they own
part of the recipe to success, but as we can observe from this study, the NEST have everything
already mastered and strategy they have to apply, only comes natural to them. It is a matter of
perspective which we may find more suitable to use. More than that, there are some specific
strategies, that, if applied at the right moment, the student will gain more self-confidence,
towards learning this new language and the one that needs to apply it right are the NEST, when
teaching EFL to the class. It is more likely that a non-native English speaker to have the right
strategy, knowing the culture of its students, but sometimes, those strategies might not work as
well as these who really possesses the mother tongue. Regardless of the reasons we discover
hence, English cannot be taught without British/American culture, although their problem may
be the difficulty to select the correct cultural context, because students must already be familiar
with the context. It can be assess that instead of teaching culture of the target language
completely, it is more useful to take a cross - cultural approach to English language teaching, and
by focusing these type of values, the students will become more conscious to the worlds cultural
beliefs. It is clear that the students will show tolerance to the universe which they live in when
they learn different values of various countries.
Limitations of the study
The present study has certain limitations that need to be taken into account. This project
was undertaken just 10 teachers around Turkey, due to the fact that there are not as many
Fulbrighters teaching in here. Second limitation was the fact that they are spread all over Turkey,
so a complex research could not been conducted due to the lack of resources and time.
Future research need
For perfecting this presented research, o future research will be needed, with maybe the
expansion of the number of Fulbright teachers, over a bigger period of time. We propose a deeper
approach, within all the actors of the teaching process: students, native English speaking teachers

anakkale Onsekiz Mart UniversityTheories in Second Language Acquisition

Eitim Fakltesi
Alexandra-Claudia Leonte

and also, non-native speaking teachers. Then we can better evaluate what is the best options
between these two type of teachers, what is the best strategy and who is more worthy of
implementing it.
References
Brown, D. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching. Fifth Edition. Longman, NY
Oxford, R.L.,Nyikos,M. (1989). Variables Affecting Choice of Language Learning Strategies by
University Students. Modern Language Journal, 73291-300
Oxford, R.L. (1990). Language Learning strategies. USA: Heinle and Heinle Publishers
Oxford, R.L. (1996). Language Learning Strategies Around The World: Cross-Cultural
Ellis, R. 1990. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. OUP: Oxford
Jiang, W. 2000. The Relationship between Culture and Language. ELT Journal 54 / 4: 328-334
Widdowson, H. G. 1990. Aspect of Language Teaching. Oxford: OUP
http://dergiler.ankara.edu.tr/dergiler/27/750/9588.pdf - consulted in 10.05.2015
Deneme, S. Language Learning Strategy Preferences Of Turkish Students. Journal of Language
and Linguistic Studies, Vol.4, No.2, October 2008