Accusative Case As Both “Cause” And “Solution” For Language Learning Plateau In TFL

This study explains why accusative case has been chosen and how it could be used as a strategy to overcome language-learning plateau (Yin, n.d.; Richards, 2008) where the learners of Turkish as a foreign language (TFL) hit at B1-threshold level mostly. Here, the students who learn TFL through English have problems in the learning process, because they tend to misuse accusative case in terms of the accordance with the verbs while constructing sentences. Thus, in order to give the students systematic orientation about the usage of Turkish accusative case, it is necessary to mediate the connection with the other components of a sentence through contextuality, expression of definiteness and transitivity. Based on this background, action research (Patton, 2002; Johnson, 2002; Creswell, 2012; Mertler, 2012) was conducted to solve the specific problem of correct using accusative case within TFL courses. Semi-structured interviews, quiz, course notes were collected as data instruments from both students and instructor in two semesters. Data were analyzed inductively and common difficulties and mistakes were determined to develop a kind of solution to cope with language-learning plateau. Consequently, the students’ attention was drawn to the internalization of the concepts within real life situations, and then a verb list was prepared to help them to figure out the semantic and pragmatic functionality of the accusative cases with the usages of the verbs. Moreover, the strategy of verbalizing (Galperin, 1992 as cited in Negueruela & Lantolf, 2006; Williams et al. 2013) the accusative cases with the usages of verbs was given as a solution for the language-learning plateau.

Keywords

Language-learning plateau, accusative case, Turkish as a foreign language, verbalization.