kinci Dilde Anlama Çabasının Araştırılması: Türk İngilizce Konuşucuları ile Öncül Bir Çalışma

Bu çalışmanın amacı, Türkçe anadili artalanına sahip konuşucuların İngilizce sözlü dil üretimlerini anlamak üzere dinleyiciler tarafından sarf edilen çabayı, yani anlama çabası olgusunu araştırmaktır. Bu kapsamda, Türkiye’de bulunan iki devlet üniversitesinin İngilizce Öğretmenliği programlarında öğrenim gören 16 öğretmen adayından sesli okuma, fotoğraf betimleme ve duruma uygun ifade geliştirme görevleri kullanılarak sözlü dil örnekleri alınmıştır. Söz konusu kayıtlar, farklı birinci dil artalanlarına sahip yedi İngilizce konuşucusuna, dokuzlu likert tipte bir değerlendirme ölçeği yardımıyla sunularak, her bir göreve ait ses kaydını anlamada yaşadıkları kolaylık veya güçlüğü bu ölçek üzerinde belirtmeleri istenmiştir. Dinleyicilerden ayrıca, her kaydı anlamalarını kolaylaştıran veya zorlaştıran unsurları yazılı olarak ifade etmeleri de beklenmiştir. Çalışmanın sonuçları dinleyicilerin, konuşucuları anlamada dikkate değer bir zorluk yaşadıklarını göstermiştir. Sözlü dil içeriğinin anlaşılmasını kolaylaştıran veya zorlaştıran unsurlarla ilişkili olarak toplam beş ana temaya ulaşılmıştır. Bu temalar konuşmayı anlama, konuşma hızı ve akıcılık, yabancı aksan, hatalı sesletim ve sesletim hataları olurken, sesletim hatalarının altında ünlü ve ünsüz hataları, durak, ezgi ve vurgu hataları ile hatalı sesletilen sözcükler olmak üzere üç alt tema belirlenmiştir. Çalışmanın pedagojik sonuçları iki başlık altında ele alınabilir. İkinci/yabancı dil öğrenicilerinin derslerde düşüncelerini daha kapsamlı ifade edebilmelerine destek olunması yararlı olacaktır. İngilizce Öğretmenliği programları için ise sesletim ders tanımlarının ve izlencelerin, anlaşılabilirlik, anlama çabası ve yabancı aksan olgularını da içine alacak biçimde yapılandırılması önerilmektedir

Exploring Second Language Comprehensibility: A Preliminary Study with Turkish Speakers of English

The purpose of this study was to investigate the comprehensibility of Turkish native speakers in spoken English. To this end, 16 preservice English teachers enrolled in the English Language Teaching (ELT) programs of two state universities provided speech stimuli on three speaker tasks: read aloud, picture description and responding to a real-life situation. The recordings collected were presented to eight listeners with various first language backgrounds via a nine-point likert-type scale in order to find out about their perceived degree of ease or difficulty in understanding. Listeners were also requested to explain what made it easy or difficult to understand each task. The findings of the study revealed that listeners experienced considerable difficulty in understanding Turkish speakers of English. As for the factors that impacted their comprehension of the speech samples, five main themes emerged which were understanding speech, speaking rate and fluency, foreign accent, incorrect pronunciation and specific pronunciation errors. In addition to the main themes, three subthemes were identified for the theme of pronunciation errors, namely vowel and consonant errors, pause, intonation and stress errors, and mispronounced words. The implications of the study are two-fold. Aimed at an increased level of comprehensibility, it could be helpful to provide learners with additional opportunities for spoken production in EFL/ESL classes. In ELT programs, revisions in pronunciation course descriptors and syllabuses with the inclusion of intelligibility, comprehensibility, and foreign accent are highly recommended.

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