International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
Any listening activity can be exploited for a focus on these areas. After the listening skills development, focus
on a short extract with the script & ask the stds to find examples of one or two of the features.
Look at the following & decide which of the features above are present. (the sound of English,
Hudson,J)
a. go away g. waste paper
b. acts h. ten pounds
c. three onions i. bright colour
d. scripts j. I am
e. quite good k. go away
f. ask them l. two hours
2.0) Why do Turkish learners have difficulty in understanding, pronouncing, and articulating those
sounds in both listening and speaking competence?
2.1) Being a member of Ural-Altaic Language family.
Turkish language is a member of the Ural-Altaic language family. However, English language is a member of
The Hindu-European language family. The most important difference between those languages is that Turkish
language is an agglutinating language like other languages such as Japanese and Korean.
The stem of the verb in those languages does not change in any form of sentence structure, e.g .positive
,negative, question, and negative-question forms nor in any tense grammatically, such as, the present simple, the
present continuous, the simple future, and the past tenses. These differences between two languages, Turkish and
English, make English learning difficult in terms of Turkish learners. Turkish language is mostly pronounced as
written. So, Turkish learners have trouble with the sounds in which remarkable variations are evident in English
languages, such as “th”, diphthongs, intrusive, assimilation, and so on. English is a member of The Inflexional
languages.
In these languages, word stems show variation while lexicalising new word, and the word stem becomes
unrecognizable. The particles can take place in the word as prefix, infix, and suffix. The main voices in the word
stem remain the same while articulating a new sound.
(Hindu-European languages take place in this language family.) (Ceritoglu,M)
2.2) why do Turkish teachers who teach English not give importance to listening and especially
pronunciation, articulation in speaking English in the lessons?
The Grammar-Translation method has been predominantly used to teach English at the state secondary, and
high schools. The students who got sufficient grades from the English grammar lessons are thought to be good at
every skill of English without taking any skill lessons during their education in English. However, in the
privately-owned secondary and high schools, English lessons with all skills are considered to be as important as
mathematics and science lessons are.
In spite of all efforts, the majority of the students who graduated from the privately-owned schools prefer to
go to the U.K. or the U.S.A to improve their English in such a way as to communicate with foreign people and to
find a good job either before university or after university graduation. The minority of the teachers who teach
English at the state secondary and high schools gives more importance to pronunciation lessons, but they face
the limited curriculum of English lesson. Those teachers are ground as wheat between the insufficient hours of
lessons and the limited curriculum suggested by the ministry of National education.
The students who take English lessons can be divided into three categories at those schools. The students in
the first category aim only to pass English lessons, and those in the second category aim to find a good job when
they graduate from their schools by participating any foreign language courses, which will last only two or three
months, and those in the third category, who are a minority among the others, expect to communicate with
foreign people and want to have a master or phd programmes. Because of that, they give importance to
pronunciation and articulation of English so that they can keep track of education given in foreign countries,
TheU.K and the U.S.A coming ahead.
3.0) Why do the majority of Turkish learners have difficulty in learning English at the desired level,
such as upper-intermediate, and advanced levels?
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