EXPLORING YOUNG LEARNERS’ VIEWS ABOUT PERFORMANCE TASKS IN TURKISH EFL CLASSROOMS

This study attempted to shed light into whether there was a match between the Primary Education Institutions’ Regulation and EFL classroom practice concerning performance tasks in terms of quality, process, evaluation, and potential contributions to language learning. In order to reach this aim, the opinions of 359 5th grade EFL students from 10 different schools in Turkey were consulted. In order to gain a deeper insight into the research questions, data were collected by means of questionnaires, interviews, and document analysis checklist. Results have shown that the intended goals of performance tasks in the schools which were included in this study were generally perceived to have been moderately achieved, alongside pointing to some learning gains as well as some problems in this framework. Performance Tasks have been found to be a useful practice as evidenced by the reported benefits such as increased motivation, vocabulary improvement, improvement of research, grammar reinforcement and raising consciousness and responsibilities. On the other hand, there have also been some problems experienced during this practice related to the characteristics, process, and evaluation of performance tasks. In the light of the findings from this study, some suggestions were made to language teachers, teacher training institutions, and the Ministry of National Education.