A Bird’s-eye View of the Errors Turkish EFL Learners Make in Cambridge ESOL Exams: A Corpus-Based Error Analysis

Abstract

The Cambridge ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) Exams consist of a series of language proficiency tests developed and administered by the Department of English Language Assessment at the University of Cambridge. It assesses four language skills based on A1-C2 proficiency bands. Main database of the study is the Cambridge Learner Corpus (CLC) compiled from the student essays of all English as a Foreign Language exams of the institution containing 42-million-words of more than 200,000 students from 173 countries. This study aims to reveal the errors that Turkish EFL learners who took PET, PETfS, KET, KETfS, FCE, FCEfS, CAE and CPE exams between 1993 and 2013 made by examining the sections that measure their writing skills in exam papers using corpus-based error analysis tools available on SketchEngine platform and classifying them according to the A2-C2 language proficiency levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001). When the distribution of errors is examined according to the A2-C2 language proficiency levels, while the variety of error taxonomies increases, the frequency of errors decreases. The similarities in the error patterns observed from A2 to C2 proficiency levels are significant. Although there are fluctuations in the frequency of errors, the persistency of error taxonomies is observable. In addition, the study also compares the errors of L1 Turkish students with the errors made by learners from other mother tongue backgrounds available in the corpus. This comparison revealed twelve out of top 14 error taxonomies detected in the subcorpus of Turkish L1 learners overlaps with the ones observed in the subcorpora of other learners available in CLC.

Keywords

• Corpus Linguistics
• Error Analysis
• Interlanguage Errors of Turkish EFL Learners
• Learner Corpus
• Cambridge Learner Corpus
• ESOL
• Turkish EFL Learners

Yabancı Dil Olarak İngilizce Öğrenen Türk Öğrencilerin Cambridge ESOL Sınavlarında Yaptıkları Yanlışlara Genel Bir Bakış: Derlem Tabanlı Bir Yanlış Çözümlemesi

Öz

Cambridge ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) Sınavları, Cambridge Üniversitesi İngiliz Dili Değerlendirme Bölümü tarafından oluşturulan ve gerçekleştirilen bir dizi dil yeterlilik sınavından oluşmaktadır. Dört dil becerisini A1-C2 yeterlilik ölçütlerini temel alarak değerlendirmektedir. Çalışmanın ana veri tabanını oluşturan Cambridge Öğrenci Derlemi (Cambridge Learner Corpus-CLC), kurumun hazırladığı tüm yabancı dil olarak İngilizce sınavlarına giren 173 ülkeden 200,000'den fazla öğrencinin cevap kağıtlarından derlenmiştir ve 42 milyon sözcüğü içermektedir. Bu çalışma 1993-2013 yılları arasında, PET, PETfS, KET, KETfS, FCE, FCEfS, CAE ve CPE sınavlarına giren anadili Türkçe olan öğrencilerin sınav kağıtlarında yazma becerilerini ölçen bölümleri SketchEngine kullanarak derlembilim tabanlı yanlış çözümleme yöntemleri ile incelemekte ve Avrupa Dilleri Ortak Çerçeve Programı’nın (Council of Europe, 2001) A2-C2 dil yeterlilik seviyelerine göre sınıflayarak, öğrencilerin sıklıkla yaptıkları yanlışları ortaya koymaktadır. A2-C2 dil yetkinlik düzeyine göre yanlışların dağılımına bakıldığında, yanlış çeşitliliğinin arttığı ve buna karşın yapılan yanlış sıklıklarının azaldığı görülmektedir. A2 yetkinliğinden süregelen yanlış örgüsündeki benzerlik dikkat çekmektedir. Her ne kadar yanlış sayılarında dalgalanmalar görülse de bazı yanlış ulamlarının kalıcılığı devam etmektedir. Ayrıca, bu çalışma, anadili Türkçe olan öğrencilerin yanlışlarını derlemde bulunan diğer anadili artalanlarından gelen öğrencilerin yaptıkları yanlışlarla karşılaştırmaktadır. Bu karşılaştırma sonucunda CLC’nin bütünsel genel yanlış çözümlemesi, anadili Türkçe olan öğrencilerin alt derlemlerinde en sık karşılaşılan 14 yanlış ulamından 12’si ile örtüşmektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Derlembilim
• Yanlış Çözümlemesi
• Türk Öğrencilerin Aradil Yanlışları
• Öğrenici Derlemleri
• Cambridge Öğrenici Derlemleri
• Cambridge Sınavları

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