Impact of Vocabulary Teaching Approach in Turkish Curriculum on Turkish Textbooks and Use of Technology in Vocabulary Teaching

Abstract

Knowing a word means knowing its pronunciation, spelling, concept area, and meaning layers. Vocabulary is never an area that can be learned completely by individuals; rather it is a field that expands and deepens throughout life. Vocabulary teaching requires much more than just looking up words in a dictionary or using them in a sentence. Vocabulary is formed either by coincidence through indirect exposure to words or by deliberate and planned acquisition of certain words with vocabulary learning strategies. In this respect, the materials and lesson plans for teaching vocabulary should be prepared to enable the individual to comprehend words with multiple meanings and to use them effectively. Because the vocabulary of an individual will directly have an impact on effective use of four basic skills of the language (listening, reading, speaking, and writing). In this study, the approach of the Turkish curriculum and Turkish textbooks to vocabulary teaching is examined and the areas of utilisation of web 2.0 tools in vocabulary teaching are exemplified within the scope of technological development. This research is a qualitative study using the data which were collected through document analysis. Data collection sources are Turkish course curricula and secondary school Turkish textbooks. Results of the study show that, there is a conflict between the curriculum and the textbook in terms of vocabulary teaching; the vocabulary teaching activities are monotonous and are predominantly associated with the reading skill which is just one of the four basic language skills; Turkish textbooks lack addressing to related technological tools. Moreover, the planning of vocabulary teaching in the Turkish curriculum is not clear enough. In this context, the present study introduces various web 2.0 tools for the interest of curriculum developers, textbook authors, and Turkish teachers to effectively teach vocabulary.