Focus on form in task-based language teaching: The case of Turkish

Abstract

This study aims to reveal how task-based and form-focused language teaching materials affect success in teaching Turkish as a foreign language. The study was performed on the assumption that form-focused and task-based language teaching materials, particularly for teaching agglutinative languages, can be designed and can increase student’s success; it investigated to what extent form-focused and task-based materials contribute to the improvement of the use of the target structure. Accordingly, a pretest–posttest design experiment was performed with 54 participants whose mother tongues are different, 27 of whom were placed in the experimental group and 27 in the control group. The material on teaching the (-(y)An) subject relative clause, developed in line with expert opinions encompassing form-focused input enrichment and consciousness-raising tasks, was used with the experimental group, and its contribution to learner success was measured statistically. In the control group, explication regarding the form was done in the form of presentations and no consciousness-raising activities were carried out; the group adhered to the activities in the coursebook. The pretest and posttest results of the participants in the experimental and control groups were evaluated using the SPSS 24 independent samples t-test. It was observed that after the posttest, the experimental group was more successful than the control group was. The findings show that form-focused and task-based practices are more effective in teaching Turkish, an agglutinative language.