Use of Vocabulary Learning Strategies in Turkish as a Foreign Language Context

Year 2018, Volume: 5 Issue: 2, 54 - 63, 01.05.2018

Orhan Kocaman Merve Yıldız Büşra Kamaz

Abstract

Since the 15th century, when the Turkish language initiated its adventure as a taught foreign language, we have come a long way. In a parallel way, with the increasing demand of Turkish as a Foreign Language TFL , Turkish language pedagogy has been continuing to improve adjusting to the new trends in language teaching in the world. The ultimate aim of learning a language is that effective communication cannot be actualised without knowledge of substantial vocabulary. Vocabulary learning and teaching, from a ‘grammaticalized lexis Lewis, 1993 ’ perspective forms a crucial part of foreign language development, and thus, Vocabulary Learning Strategies VLS - rooted in cognitive and psycholinguistic research paradigms - are of utmost importance Lewis, 1993; Nyikos and Fan, 2007 . With all these in mind, this study aims to investigate the vocabulary learning strategies employed by 155 international students studying Turkish preparatory year programme at the Turkish Language Learning Centre TÖMER of a state university in Turkey. Descriptive results reveal that lower proficiency groups A1 and A2 employ VLS strategies more than B2 level group does. Memory, Affective and Social Strategies are found to be the most frequently used strategies. One-way ANOVA results reveal that there is a statistically significant difference among proficiency levels of the participants. With respect to gender, t-test results show a difference for one type of strategy employed. The results are discussed in terms of significance and association with previous research. In the end, suggestions and implications are given for stakeholders of learning and teaching TFL.

Keywords

vocabulary learning strategies, language learning strategies, Turkish as a foreign language, second language teaching

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