Research Information System
Presentation, pp.1-10, 2023
During formal education in Turkey, each student receives an average of 700 - 800 hours of foreign language lessons, but it is observed that the results achieved in terms of acquired foreign language knowledge are far below what is expected (Tarcan, 2004: 3). In our study, we sought to answer the question "How can the effectiveness of weekly two-hour foreign language lessons in primary schools be increased?". The study was conducted to make the lessons more efficient, especially in public schools that do not have English teachers. Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods were used together in this study. The research model is Action Research. Third-grade students of a single branch in a public primary school were taken as the study group. The teacher's weekly reflective diary (reflective thinking notes about lectures and students), interviews with the teacher, and group interviews with the class were used as data collection tools. The data were analyzed with programs such as Word, Excel, SPSS by making observations according to the test, pre-test and post-test results. The study was implemented in 8 class hours over a period of two months, in one of the two weekly class hours, the lessons followed their normal course, and in the other class hour, activities suitable for the study were carried out. Before the study, a motivation scale was administered to measure students' interest in the course and a pre-test was administered to measure their prior knowledge. According to the results of the motivation scale for learning English from the study, there was a 21 % increase in the "completely agree" option for female students and a 5 % increase for male students. In the "strongly disagree" option, there was a decrease of 15 % in girls and an increase of 160 % in boys. Accordingly, it can be said that the method used increased the motivation of female students to learn English, while male students had difficulty in using the method. According to the results of the pre-test and post-test, it was observed that the class achievement average increased by 18 %.