ACCUSATIVE CASE AS BOTH “CAUSE” AND “SOLUTION” FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING PLATEAU IN TFL

Bu makale Crosscheck sistemi tarafından taranmış ve bu sistem sonuçlarına göre orijinal bir makale olduğu tespit edilmiştir. ** Yrd. Doç. Dr. Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Yabancı Diller Eğitimi Bölümü, El-mek: celileokten@gmail.com *** Okt. İstanbul Kültür Üniversitesi, El-mek: handezdemir@gmail.com

YABANCI DİL OLARAK TÜRKÇE ÖĞRENİMİNDE PLATOETKİSİNİN SEBEBİ VE ÇÖZÜMÜ: BELİRTME HALİ

This study explains why accusative case has been chosen and how it could be used as a strategy to overcome language-learning plateau (Yin, n.d.; Richards, 2008) where the learners of Turkish as a foreign language (TFL) hit at B1-threshold level mostly. Here, the students who learn TFL through English have problems in the learning process, because they tend to misuse accusative case in terms of the accordance with the verbs while constructing sentences. Thus, in order to give the students systematic orientation about the usage of Turkish accusative case, it is necessary to mediate the connection with the other components of a sentence through contextuality, expression of definiteness and transitivity. Based on this background, action research (Patton, 2002; Johnson, 2002; Creswell, 2012; Mertler, 2012) was conducted to solve the specific problem of correct using accusative case within TFL courses. Semi-structured interviews, quiz, course notes were collected as data instruments from both students and instructor in two semesters. Data were analyzed inductively and common difficulties and mistakes were determined to develop a kind of solution to cope with language-learning plateau. Consequently, the students’ attention was drawn to the internalization of the concepts within real life situations, and then a verb list was prepared to help them to figure out the semantic and pragmatic functionality of the accusative cases with the usages of the verbs. Moreover, the strategy of verbalizing (Galperin, 1992 as cited in Negueruela & Lantolf, 2006; Williams et al. 2013) the accusative cases with the usages of verbs was given as a solution for the language-learning plateau The notion that integrating grammar into language skills rather than a product as an instructional process is fundamental to foreign language instruction is very familiar to all of us. So, how to teach grammar and to what extent to teach are still kept in agenda of discussions over teaching foreign language. Learning a foreign language, which belongs to a totally different language family, is desperately in demand of analysis of linguistic structure, and perceiving the mentality of target language. Since Modern Turkish is an agglutinative language, which is composed of consecutive suffixes with regard to vocal/consonant alternations. E.g. evimizdekiler = ev-imiz-de-ki-ler (the ones who are at our home). It is required to do instruction in the logic of suffix alignment in a way of deriving or forming words, and the classification of sentence structures according to structure, predicate, meaning and word order. Herein, our objective is to make students understand how suffixes function and their relations to other words in a sentence. In order to make a sentence not only grammatically, but also meaningfully correct, suffixes should be appropriately attached to words. It is crucially important to know exact suffix combinations for referring the right concepts and entities at the right place in the right time (Sağır, 2002, p. 44). Furthermore, teaching the components of a sentence in terms of functionality and appropriate utterances would be more meaningful for adult learners, and this would lead them to raise their awareness in grammar structures. Yet adult learners like to make comparisons and connections between languages. Subsequently, they are eager to use their productive skills such as in writing assignments full of complex sentences. For instance, at first sight, the object clause difference between these two sentences could be easily guessed via suffixes in Turkish: 1. She promised her husband to cook: “Kocasına yemek yapmaya söz verdi”. 2. She convinced her husband to cook: “Kocasını yemek yapmaya ikna etti”. But which argument structure of the verb that determines the type of suffix can be confusing for foreign language learners. Purpose This study explains why accusative case has been chosen and how it could be used as a strategy to overcome language-learning plateau (Yin, n.d.; Richards, 2008) where the learners of Turkish as a foreign language (TFL) hit at B1-threshold level mostly. Here, the students who learn TFL through English have problems in the learning process, because they tend to misuse accusative case in terms of the accordance with the verbs while constructing sentences. We observed the learners who are in the transition phase of moving to B2 level cannot use accusative cases precisely in a sentence even though they know the rules of thumb of accusative case suffixes. This prevents them to speak and write accurately because they do not comprehend how accusative cases function within the context of verbs. So, this factor causes them to lose their motivation which is required for developing linguistic competence Thus, we claim that “learning accusative cases within the context of the verbs" would provide a strategy to overcome the languagelearning plateau at B1 level for TFL. In other words, we studied how suffixation of accusative cases could be accorded with some certain verbs and this could be taught more effectively in order to overcome language-learning plateau. Moreover, in order to give more clear systematic orientations about the usage of Turkish accusative case, we classified the general functions and implementations of Turkish accusative cases, which are presented in some main reference books on TFL as “contextuality, expression of definiteness and transitivity.” Methodology Participants The participants were 15 foreign students aged 16 to 32 attending a state university TÖMER Turkish course. The Turkish course lasted for two terms of 2013-2014 academic year and they had 4-houred classes for 5 days in a week. With the second term, prominently, they had overall review of A2 level and then moved to B1 level. Throughout these two terms, the participants studied the course-books Gazi Tömer Yabancılar için Türkçe; A1 Temel Düzey and A2 Temel Düzey (Gazi TÖMER, 2013). Data collection Four different instruments were selected to be used. The first data collection instrument was a written semi-structured interview and the participants were asked four open-ended questions in order to determine participants’ perceptions about making sentences in Turkish. Secondly, a quiz which was taken from the course book Yabancı Dilim Türkçe 1 (Yılmaz & Sözer, 2007) was employed in order to see participants’ basic knowledge about adding accusative case suffixes to nouns. Additionally, another semi-structured interview was conducted with the Turkish teacher of the group in order to seek her opinions with regard to teaching Turkish to foreigners. Lastly, at the beginning of the second semester, the notebooks on which the students had been taking notes during Turkish classes since the first semester were collected. And, the notebooks were examined to determine what kind of mistakes the students make on the accusative case. Theoretical framework Action research (Patton, 2002) was conducted to solve the specific problem of correct using accusative case within TFL course. Within purposeful sampling, researchers intentionally selected this group of students who are “information rich” (p.230) and sited to understand the impact of using accusative case on language-learning plateau. The data were inductively analyzed to discover recurring items which lead to misusing accusative cases. All phases of data collection were designed to provide the most accurate understanding possible of the research (Johnson, 2002, pp.72-74). Consequently, language-learning plateau effect at B1 level was expanded on accusative case with regard to its syntactic and contextual functionality. To validate findings, triangulation of data was strengthened through collecting different types of data and checking data independently by two researchers at different times (Creswell, 2012; Patton, 2002). Data analysis Based on the results of the interviews, they try to make sentences through modelling the examples given in the classroom and the internet via Google translation. And while making compound sentences, they encounter the difficulty of being lack of coherence and fluency, and putting the components in a correct order. Moreover, they are not able to choose the correct case ending. With their anxiety for daily communication, they prefer to use short and simple sentences rather than long and complex sentences in order to avoid accuracy and fluency problems. In addition this, they develop a kind of solution to cope with the grammar rules that first, they think about the meaning in English and then look for the correct equivalent in Turkish, instead of wasting too much time. As the result of the quiz and notebook writings, the mistakes made by the participants are gathered mainly on the nonuse of accusative case marker and secondly, the use of accusative case markers in the wrong form and getting confused with other case suffixes and finally overuse of accusative case marker Findings Overall, when the reasons of the mistakes are examined, there appear three common points: a) Being unable to differentiate among possessive suffix and accusative case marker. b) Being unable to detect the object of the sentence. c) Being unable to understand the function of Turkish accusative marker. Even if they reach the B1 level, they still cannot use accusative case suffixes automatically and unconsciously in their oral communication even if they succeed in the written tasks about accusative case suffixes. And, this gets them demotivated to go on learning and triggers the language-learning plateau. Apparently, the typological difference between the target language “Turkish” and the language that is the medium of instruction “English” is an important factor that cause the students have difficulty in learning Turkish. Like the example “I love you – I hate you”, some pattern may not have the exact correspondence in English and that causes them to get confused. Results & Discussion The present study draws attention to the strategy of verbalizing (Galperin,1992 as cited in Negueruela & Lantolf, 2006) the accusative cases with the usages of the verbs as a solution for the language learning plateau in TFL learning because, verbalization would provide the connection between form and meaning of the grammatical items. So, drawing attention to the accordance of verbs, and how they are deployed through accusative suffixes in real life situations, would give internalization of grammatical structure rather than memorizing the rules and this would lead to conscious conceptual mediation, or in other words, conscious focus on semantics and pragmatics. Briefly, giving systematic and coherent explanations and relevant concepts between verb and accusative suffix within the context of communication would help internalization of grammatical meanings such as direct object, case endings and possessive suffix (Williams et al. 2013).

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Turkish Studies (Elektronik)-Cover
  • ISSN: 1308-2140
  • Yayın Aralığı: Yılda 4 Sayı
  • Başlangıç: 2006
  • Yayıncı: Mehmet Dursun Erdem
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