Vocabulary learning and teaching beliefs of preservice EFL teachers in Turkey

Based on the crucial role of vocabulary in language education, the present study set out to examine preservice EFL teachers views on learning and teaching vocabulary. The main aim in so doing is to enhance teacher education programs in terms of more effective teaching of vocabulary. In order to collect quantitative data, a questionnaire, prepared by Gao and Ma (2010) was used. The questionnaire contains both a Likert part and an openended part. Descriptive statistics were employed to analyze the data. As for the qualitative part, content analysis was used to analyze the open-ended questions. Convenient sampling was used when selecting the participants of the study (n=50). The results indicate pre-service English teachers have different perspective on the acquisition of vocabulary. The results also highlighted the significance of empowering pre-service teachers in terms of awareness in learning and teaching vocabulary. In addition, as to the qualitative responses obtained in this study, using vocabulary notebook, contextual clues, and recycling play the utmost role in learning vocabulary.