EDITORIAL WELCOME FOR VOLUME 13 ISSUE 2 (OCTOBER 2019)
With this issue, we have completed our thirteenth volume, and Novitas-ROYAL would like to thank all of the authors, editors and reviewers who have contributed during this time. In this publication, the articles explore practices, perceptions and academic achievement in learning environments so as to add to the literature and support future research on youth and language. We hope that you enjoy reading the articles in this issue.
To begin with, three articles focus on the teachers of English from various viewpoints. The first article by Çiftçi focuses on the nature of suggestion- response episodes between international instructors and their Turkish students through a discourse analysis approach. The results reveal both the modality and the language functions employed by the instructors, which sheds light on the features of intercultural communication in particular cases. The second article by Ertaşoğlu and Gürsoy investigates the professional perceptions of Turkish teachers of the English language through a mixed-method research design. According to the findings, even though the participant teachers feel society does not give them the value they deserve, they report positive feelings towards their professional status in society regardless of their age, work experience, or the type of school they work in. In the next article, Kartal and Başol investigate the effectiveness of the English Language Teacher Education program in Turkey by focusing on the teacher competencies and professional skills. The qualitative and quantitative data set of the research is composed of the views from the prospective teachers and teacher trainers. The results indicate that both groups of participants agree on the ineffectiveness of the program as the theoretical instruction provided at the faculty is deprived of contextualization. Moreover, the program requires improvement to achieve the development of professional skill competencies and student teachers’ communicative skills of the target language.
The subsequent articles seek to identify language learner variables in different educational contexts. In the fourth article, Sak focuses on Directed Motivational Currents (DMC) in language learning. The learners’ motivational experience and the contextual factors affecting DMC are the issues within the research scope explored through qualitative data. The prominent finding of the study highlights that DMC oriented motivation is idiosyncratic: personal, as well as dynamic in nature. On the other hand, the generalizable implications point out the importance of valuing learners’ prior language learning experiences and the positive effect of collaborative practices on motivation. In the following article by Yenen and Dursun, the aim is to identify the effect of the active learning approach on student achievement via a quasi-experimental research design. Within the experimental group in this study, it was found that active learning practices contributed to the learning outcomes of a unit in a coursebook and increased the participation of the fifth-grade students. In the last article, Kahraman reports the findings on language learners’ cognitive processes while taking a reading test via a two eye-tracking system. The system captures the learners’ eye movements while answering computer and paper-based reading tests. The results indicate that although the participants have received training on using the sub-skills of reading for two semesters, they do not employ such skills. Besides, even though the participants reported equal comfort in both computed and paper tests, the data indicate that they spend less time on computer tests with higher mean scores.
To conclude, we thank our readership for their continued support. In addition, should you have any feedback, or wish to submit an article for publication, we ask that you contact us so that we may continue to grow and improve this journal.
Sezgi SARAC, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief