The purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent constructivist classroom
characteristics existed in ELT Methodology II courses in ELT departments. Secondly, the
aim was to explore the extent to which constructivist learning activities and evaluation
strategies were perceived to be useful by the students and the instructors. Thirdly, the
study also attempted to find out the extent to which the students and the instructors in
ELT departments had constructivist conceptions of learning and teaching. Finally, it was
aimed to find out whether students&rsquo / perception of constructivist classroom characteristics
differed according to certain variables such as university, sex, type of high school the
students graduated from, expected average score in the course and perceived competency
in English.
Subjects of the study involved 410 students taking ELT Methodology II course (Ö / zel
Ö / sretim Yö / ntemleri II) during 2001-2002 academic year in ELT departments of four
universities (Middle East Technical University, Gazi University, Ç / ukurova University
and Dicle University) and 15 instructors teaching this course at these universities. Data were collected between May &ndash / July 2002 through administration of a
questionnaire (Constructivist Classroom Characteristics Questionnaire) to the students,
interviews with the students and the instructors and observation of students&rsquo / microteaching practices in ELT Methodology II classes. Data analysis was carried out
through both quantitative (frequencies, means, standard deviations, one-way ANOVA)
and qualitative analysis techniques.
The results of the study indicated that majority of the students and the instructors
perceived the classroom characteristics to be constructivist although there were a few
differences in their perceptions. Observations of microteaching also showed that
classroom characteristics were constructivist with respect to the variety of the learning
activities used by the students, feedback procedures in the classroom and negotiation and
cooperation among the students. Secondly, both the students and the instructors perceived
constructivist learning activities and evaluation strategies to be more useful compared to
the traditional ones. Thirdly, majority of the students and the instructors held either
cognitivist or constructivist conceptions of learning. On the other hand, the students were
behaviorist in their conceptions of teaching while the instructors were constructivist.
Finally, the results indicated that perception of constructivist classroom characteristics
differed according to universities, expected average score and perceived competency in
English whereas it did not differ according to student sex and the type of high schools the
students graduated from.
The results revealed that the learning activities, evaluation strategies, students&rsquo / learning experiences and instructors&rsquo / roles in the classroom should be reconsidered and
improved in order to make ELT Methodology II classes more constructivist in nature.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/541417/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 January 2003 |
| Creators | Kesal, Fusun |
| Contributors | Aksu, Meral |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Ph.D. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
Page generated in 0.0024 seconds