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

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.