A STUDY ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS' LANGUAGE AWARENESS

Abstract

Developing effective instructional strategies to enhance students’ language skills requires an understanding of their language awareness levels and how these levels vary across different variables. However, research comprehensively examining language awareness among middle school students in the context of Turkish as a first language remains limited. This study aims to investigate middle school students’ language awareness across five dimensions—phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic awareness—and to examine the relationship between their perceived self-efficacy and actual performance. A quantitative research approach incorporating descriptive and correlational survey designs was employed. The study involved 562 middle school students attending schools in İzmir, Türkiye. Data were collected using a perception questionnaire and an achievement test developed by the researcher. The findings revealed that students obtained a mean overall achievement score of 70.37 out of 109. The highest levels of achievement were observed in semantic and phonological awareness, whereas the lowest performance levels were found in syntactic and pragmatic awareness. A statistically significant, moderate positive correlation was identified between students’ perceived language awareness and their actual achievement. Furthermore, eighth-grade students outperformed seventh-grade students, while students with higher academic grade averages demonstrated greater achievement than those with lower averages. These findings highlight the need to strengthen the explicit instruction of pragmatic and syntactic awareness in Turkish language education.

Keywords: language awareness, Turkish language education, secondary school students

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