Abstract:

Social skills are the most crucial and functional abilities for the individuals to perform the acts required by the social norms and to live effectively and independently in the society (Dağseven 2008, 1; Cartledge ve Milburn 1986, 14). In daily life, it is fairly important to teach social skills since they cover the behaviors enabling the individual to build relationships with others, satisfy the expectations of the environment where he lives, express his needs, wills, desires, preferences in an appropriate way (Putnam vd. 1996, 742; McLane 1998, 16; Allsop vd. 2000, 141; Goldstein vd. 2002, 5; Bremer ve Smith 2004, 1; Siperstein ve Rickards 2004, 76). In school environments, social skills training is of importance for the enable students to greet each other in the school bus, play with their peers, build and maintain good relationships with each other and the personnel (McLane 1998, 16). Social skills gained by the students who are mentally handicapped positively affect not only the relationships with the people around them but also the ability of orientation to the school and acceptance by their peers. Also, social skill training makes it easy to get a job, to be a member of the society and rise above the difficulties encountered in the coming years of their lives during the transition period from studentship to the adulthood (McLane 1998, 16; Goldstein vd. 2002, 5). Furthermore, the fact that the mentally retarded students gain social skills increases the school achievement by positively affecting their academic development (Gresham ve Elliot 1989, 120; Bremer ve Smith 2004, 1; Siperstein ve Rickards 2004, 76). Since the mentally handicapped students do not have social skills, it is observed that they are not socially accepted by their peers in their educational environments. Therefore, teaching social skills to the mentally retarded students in their educational environments will increase their acceptance by their peers (Gresham ve Elliot 1989, 120; Goldstein vd. 2002, 5; Sucuoğlu ve Özokçu, 2005, 58-61). So, it is necessary to provide students with social skills required with structured training practices to ensure the mentally retarded students to be accepted socially and participate in social environments (McLane 1998, 16; Bremer ve Smith 2004, 76; Siperstein ve Rickards, 2004, 76; Avcıoğlu, 2005, 17). Training practices based on the cognitive process approach and direct instruction approach are utilized for providing mentally handicapped students with social skills. Based on the said approaches, cooperative teaching and peer tutoring are variation thereof in social skills training. (Rosenshine 1982, 63; Collet–Klingenberg ve Chadsey–Rush 1991, 258-270; Güzel 1998, 31-34; Çiftçi ve Sucuoğlu 2004, 31-39; Dağseven 2008, 46-60). Direct instruction approach is an effective teaching method which is commonly-used for social skills training (Çiftçi ve Sucuoğlu 2004, 32). Social skills such as sharing, thanking are taught through direct instruction approach and complex social skills such as expressing feelings are taught, as well (Vaughn vd. 2003, 1; Dağseven 2008, 46). Students are motivated about the target skills to be taught through the direct instruction approach by explaining the information about where the skills will be used. Social skills to be taught by the teacher or any other person are exemplified or watched in video and thereby become a model. Guided practices by which some of social skills are performed by just recalling them in order to perform without a model for the student are included. Students are liberated by including the practices where recalls are excluded (Baumann 1985, 2 Gresham 1988, 35; Güzel 1998, 33; Çakır 2006, 26-39; Dağseven 2008, 47). In this study, instruction plan for thanking which is presented together with direct instruction approach is developed. Therefore, books on social skills (Gresham 1988, 31-41; Rutherford vd. 1998, 356; Goldstein vd. 2002, 178-179; Cornish 2003, 27-56; Çiftçi ve Sucuoğlu 2004, 32-35; Avcıoğlu 2005, 31-33) and theses (Sazak 2003, 17-21; Çakır 2006, 25-41; Özokçu 2007, 31-35; Dağseven 2008, 46-51) were reviewed. Initially social skill thanking was analyzed by posing the question “in what kinds of situations “thank-you” is said in the school environments?” As a result of the analysis conducted, situations when “thank-you” is said were determined. Five situations where students use their thanking skills in the school are as follows: thanking when received a help, thanking when someone offered food, thanking when someone shared their belongings, thanking when received a gift, thanking when paid a compliment. Afterwards, each situation which requires saying thank-you was recorded as sub-purpose by hypothetically including criterion with students’ name to the situations. After having created the purposes, scenarios causing to say “thank-you” were created by utilizing the observations on the students’ experiences in the school. Teaching processes including motivation, modeling, guided practice enabling the model to be removed by withdrawing it and independent practice stages by means of those scenarios. Enclosed is the “Thanking Instruction Plan Presented with Direct Instruction Approach” used with live (real) model by utilizing the peers at the stage of modeling.

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