Editorial

Abstract

Welcome to the new issue of The Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies.

As the editor-in-chief, I once again would like to extend my personal gratitude to the members of both editorial and advisory boards without whose valuable help and support, it would become impossible to complete the issues so far.

In this issue, there are seven articles on language and linguistic studies. The first article written by Aksu Ataç is about foreign language teachers’ attitude towards authentic assessment in language teaching. She tries to examine the ideas and opinions of English language instructors regarding the use of authentic assessment in foreign language teaching. In the second article entitled “Sexism in Language: Do Fiction Writers Assign Agentive and Patient Roles Equally to Male and Female Characters?â€, Ochieng argues that discrimination stems from speakers’ minds; and hence performing gender neutral language alone does not confirm gender neutrality of the performer. The third article by Solak looks at needs analysis at Turkish Gendarmerie in Terms of English for Specific Purposes. The present study suggests that some steps need to be taken to improve the language proficiency of the gendarmerie personnel to meet the language requirements especially for joint missions. Önem offers a new model of instruction for anxiety and success in teaching grammar in ELT. The aim of the model is to decrease levels of anxiety while increasing success level in EFL contexts by presenting three basic components for study skills deficits, cognitive interference and information processing. Kızıltan, in the fifth article, presents some suggested teaching methods for Turkish proverbs and idioms through some semantically identical Italian proverbs and idioms in order to solve the comprehension problems of Italian learners of Turkish arisen from lack of grammatical, strategic, communicative and pragmatic competence. Çelik, Arkın and Sabriler attempt to enrich our understanding of language learners’ self-initiated use of information and communication technologies (ICT) from language learning perspective. The last article written by Kırkgöz and Ağçam looks at the written assessment practices of young English language learners in Grades 4-5 in state Turkish primary schools with a focus on comparing the question types posed by the teachers prior to and following the 2005 curriculum innovation in English language teaching (ELT) in primary education in Turkey.

Finally, I am pleased to announce a 'call for papers' for Year 9 Issue 1 to be published in April 2013. Hope to hear from you.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Arif SARIÇOBAN

Editor-in-chief