An Examination Of Academic Studies Regarding Vocabulary Teaching In Secondary School Turkish Textbooks

Abstract

Vocabulary teaching aims to transfer the cultural properties and richness of expression of a language to the next generations. Studies conducted on vocabulary teaching become important in the development of the textbooks used as the primary source for teaching vocabulary in schools, the emergence of new approaches to vocabulary teaching, and the way for the relevant experts to gain different perspectives. When the studies in the literature are reviewed, although there are some studies conducted on vocabulary teaching in textbooks, there is no study that handles all these studies together. The aim of the present study, which was conducted based on the lack of studies in the literature, is to examine the academic studies conducted on vocabulary teaching in secondary school Turkish textbooks between 2006-2023. Within the aim of the study, a total of 22 postgraduate theses and 42 articles that were indexed in Google Scholar, YÖK National Thesis Center, Proquest, and TR Index databases and discussed the vocabulary elements in Turkish textbooks have been examined. Document analysis, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the study and descriptive analysis was performed to analyze the studies included in the scope of the research. As a result of the study, it was concluded that of the studies conducted on the vocabulary elements in secondary school Turkish textbooks, 34,4 % were theses while 65,6 % of them were articles; the qualitative method was mostly used in studies; the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th-grade Turkish textbooks were examined together throughout the research; studies were conducted to determine the vocabulary elements in the passages of the textbooks, identify the vocabulary elements in the activities of the textbooks, and analyze the textbooks in terms of idioms, proverbs, and word frequency; vocabulary elements such as idioms, proverbs, formulaic expressions, reduplications, proper nouns, and related words were included more; keywords in the studies were grouped under the title of vocabulary, culture, genre, method and technique, book, skill, linguistics, word, and education and training; and keywords included in the studies and aims of the present study overlapped with each other.