Below are short descriptions of some of the courses (linguistics, research methods, language teaching methodology and language skills) I teach on a regular basis at the Dept. of FLE, METU.

CLICK on the course titles to reach my syllabuses and tentative schedules for the courses.

Applied Linguistics Research Methods:

FLE 311 Research Skills

This course is designed to introduce students with the essential basics of conducting research, namely, choosing and narrowing down a topic for investigation, finding credible sources, advanced writing skills such as summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, citing and referencing, selecting, developing or adapting data collection tools, developing a research design. During the course, students will be expected to determine a research topic, develop original research questions, engage in data collection and conduct small-scale data analysis. For the production of a full-length research paper at the end of term, students will be introduced to the APA style manual commonly used for applied linguistics research, as well as to instructional technology and software that will assist them in their research projects.

Linguistics:

FLE 146 Introduction to Linguistics I

This course gives an introduction to the basic concepts in linguistic analysis; understanding the nature, structure, and use of language by way of awareness raising activities, error analysis of language learners’ production, case studies, and comparative analysis of native and target languages. The topics under investigation are the components of language as a system: linguistic competence and performance, branches of linguistics, types of grammar, language universals, creativity of linguistic knowledge, arbitrariness of language, sign languages, artificial languages and animal communication; brain and language:, lateralization and handedness, evolution of language, human language processing models, research on language and disorders (e.g., dichotic listening, split brain, WADA); phonetics: acoustic, auditory and articulatory phonetics, speech organs, phoneme, vowels and consonants, IPA, diphthongs, tripthongs, manner and place of articulation; phonology: sound patterns, assimilation, dissimilation, linking, consonant clusters, silent letters, suprasegmentals, stress and intonation; semantics: componential analysis, entailment, semantic relations, sense and reference, collocational meaning. 

FLE 261 Introduction to Linguistics II

This course is a continuation of Linguistics I. An elaboration on further topics in linguistics is presented by way of awareness raising activities, error analysis of language learners’ production data, case studies, and comparative analysis of native and target languages. The topics under investigation are: morphology; free and bound morphemes, compounds, inflectional morphology, derivational morphology, morphemic analysis, morphological typology of languages, analysis of the internal hierarchical structure of words, morphophonological variation; syntax: word categories, phrase and clause structure, transformational-generative grammar, government and binding, minimalist program, argumant structure, theta-roles; pragmatics: deixis, implicature, conversational maxims, speech acts and politeness. sociolinguistics; dialects, register, style; discourse: criteria for textuality, types of cohesive devices, discourse connections, functions, the discourse situation, and institutional discourse.

Methodology:

FLE 238 Approaches to English Language Teaching

This course presents basic issues and processes in ELT course design. It focuses on identifying the difference among approach, method and technique and the significance of these concepts in course design. A critical overview of methods and approaches taking a historical perspective is presented: Grammar Translation Method, Direct Method, Audio-lingual Method, Silent Way, Community Language Learning, Suggestopedia, Communicative Approach, the Natural Approach. Student teachers discover and synthesize classroom application possibilities of such methods through designing micro-teaching of activities associated with them. The course also focuses on current issues and practices in ELT course design, selecting the appropriate approach suitable to learner needs based on current distinctions such as ESL, EFL, EIL, ESP, EAP. It outlines current foreign language teaching trends such as constructivist approach, content-based instruction, task-based instruction, problem-based teaching, multiple intelligences, whole language approach and corpus-based applications of language teaching and designing micro-teaching of activities associated with them.

FLE 425 School Experience

This course aims to prepare student teachers for full teaching practice. It gives them a structured introduction to teaching, helps them acquire teaching competencies and develop teaching skills. Student teachers have observation and application tasks that they carry out in a primary or secondary school under the supervision of a cooperating teacher. Some observation tasks include: practicing questioning skills, explaining; effective use of textbooks; topic sequencing and lesson planning; classroom management; preparing and using worksheets; effective use of textbooks; effective questioning skills; explaining, etc.

Language Skills:

FLE 137 Listening and Pronunciation (see tentative schedule)

This course aims to develop students’ listening and pronunciation skills while helping them in gaining confidence in communicating in English.
LISTENING COMPONENT: To develop students’ listening skills, samples of language produced in academic and natural settings (i.e. movies, news report videos, interviews, songs, lectures) will be used as authentic listening materials. With the intention of sensitizing students towards diverse varieties of English language spoken around the world, activities involving podcasts in English will be made use of. Through these activities, basic listening skills such as getting the gist of a listening text and guessing meaning from context, as well as higher level listening skills and strategies such as note-taking, predicting, extracting specific and detailed information will be developed.
PRONUNCIATION COMPONENT: With the purpose of improving students’ English pronunciation, students will also receive training in the fundamentals of English phonetics i.e. characteristics of vowels and consonants, word stress, rhythm and intonation. Students will be familiarized with IPA symbols so as to help them in discriminating minimal pairs and formulating phonetic transcriptions of words with problematic sounds.
SPEAKING COMPONENT: By utilizing the theoretical and practical knowledge acquired through the listening and pronunciation components of this course, students will be encouraged to build upon their speaking skills by way of delivering individual informative presentations and by leading group film discussion sessions. In order to raise students awareness of the qualities that make effective speakers, students will be acquainted with the use of audiovisual aids (pictures, OHTs, PowerPoint presentations, posters, flashcards, etc.) and other essentials (body posture, kinesics, gestures, mimics, eye-contact, voice quality, etc.). Through graded group and pair work tasks, the course also aims to equip student teachers with a strong sense of collaboration and team work.

FLE 142 English Grammar and Composition I (see tentative schedule)

This course aims to develop students’ linguistic competence in English through expanding their knowledge of English grammar and writing. The course is organized with the intention of increasing student awareness of how meaning is created through structure and how structure and meaning are related. Emphasis will be placed on critical thinking, university level essay development, reading comprehension, vocabulary improvement, certain grammatical structures, usage and mechanics with the objective of training students to become more accurate and less inhibited about expressing themselves in English. The course will explore formal rhetorical patterns including classification, process analysis, comparison-contrast, cause-effect, and argumentation. In addition, the course will engage the student in formal research and in improving mastery of the fundamentals of English grammar. More specifically, at the completion of this course, students will be able to recognize and analyze target grammatical structures within the context; develop greater mastery of English writing skills in order to convey ideas through the written word more effectively; increase their critical thinking skills including capacity to define, to compare, to determine causes or outcomes and to evaluate; develop thesis statements that are unified, restricted and precise; develop well-organized essays of a variety of different modes increase vocabulary knowledge by getting engaged in specified reading material; demonstrate mechanical correctness and accuracy in writing; identify credible sources and integrate these sources into a text.

FLE 127 Spoken English I

This course aims to develop students’ listening and pronunciation skills while gaining confidence in communicating in English. It employs authentic listening materials and speech samples used in different discourses in order to be analyzed as communication-oriented classroom activities. Starting from basic listening and phonetic skills such as discriminating minimal pairs and formulating phonetic transcriptions of problematic sounds, practice in the phonetic alphabet of English and the phonological principles of articulation, the course will move onto focus on higher level listening skills and strategies by integration of reading and writing to the course curriculum through content-based activities. Students will be provided with the fundamentals of listening and phonetics namely the analysis on English vowels, consonants, stress in words, rhythm and intonation as well as the usage of the international phonetic alphabet for learning and production purposes.  This course also offers a variety of different communication-oriented speaking activities such as discussions, individual presentations and other interactive tasks providing opportunity for students to improve their oral competence by developing effective language use both in formal and informal contexts. By exploring components of communicative competence, this course aims to equip students with the necessary skills to become successful communicators as well as language teachers. Students will utilize the theoretical and practical knowledge acquired in other courses courses in delivering brief informative, persuasive presentations. The course aims to aid students in developing a good command in supra-segmental features (pitch, stress and intonation). Besides, students will be acquainted with the use of audiovisual aids (OHP, power point, posters, etc.) and techniques which will help them become effective speakers.

FLE 128 Spoken English II

This course focuses on basic skills and principles of listening, speaking and pronunciation. A variety of different authentic listening texts and academic presentations will be utilized to develop students’ receptive listening skills. This course includes such sub-skills of listening as note-taking, predicting, extracting specific and detailed information, guessing meaning from context, and getting the gist. Throughout the course, students will be exposed to aural authentic listening materials such as interviews, movies, songs, lectures, radio/TV shows and news broadcasts. This course also aims to equip student teachers with a strong sensitivity towards different accents of English language being spoken around the world. The course also offers extended communicative tasks such as participation in debates, role-plays, individual and group presentations, delivering impromptu speeches and other interactive tasks providing opportunity for students to improve their oral competence by developing effective language use both in formal and informal contexts. Integrating different reading and listening texts into communication-oriented tasks, this course aims to develop students’ productive skills beyond their receptive skills. The course includes discussion topics, interesting facts, stimulating quotes as well as literary texts which are structurally and intellectually complex and thought-provoking thus promoting interest and motivation in communication. Common pronunciation mistakes are listed and discussed so as to raise the awareness of students as future language teachers. It also aims to develop students’ strategic competence to be utilized in repairing communication breakdowns as communication. Collaborative learning through group and pair work is encouraged at every phase of the course and students will be assesed on the basis of mini personal speeches, presentations an target culture topics, film group discussions, film response journals, and a phonetics notebook.

FLE 125 Reading Skills I

This course presents students with a wide range of authentic reading materials including newspapers, articles from journals (i.e. Time and Newsweek), reviews and academic texts in order to for the students to develop skills to do effective skimming and scanning, reading for full comprehension,  to use  contextual  clues to guess meanings of words,  comprehend contrasting viewpoints and to predict and identify main ideas and to decode inter-sentential clues. It also aims to equip students with intensive and extensive reading habits. This course also aims to raise students’ understanding of the relation between lexical items and structural forms as well as expanding their vocabulary knowledge by focusing on the components of word formation including prefixes and suffixes. Students also learn idioms, collocations, slang, euphemisms, neologisms, proverbs and phrasal verbs to help them to better explore, review, play with and enhance their reading skills, spoken and written expression.

FLE 126 Reading Skills II

This course promotes higher level thinking skills by enabling students to read unfamiliar, authentic texts accurately and efficiently with an emphasis on the awareness of relations between vocabulary, structure and meaning. By processing a variety of different authentic reading texts, students will develop superior-level sub-skills of reading namely, making inferences and deductions, and reading between the lines. Students will relate inferences from the text to real life, and gain insights into the cultural similarities and differences.

FLE 121 English Grammar I

This course aims to promote understanding the relation between language structures and lexical items as well as raising awareness about the attribution of meaning by means of these structures. Within the framework of a context, advanced language structures are analyzed so as to establish relations between form and text type. Synthesizing these structures, students produce advanced level texts employing these structures. The course also emphasizes interactive activities such as group and pair work.