Özet:

The purpose of the current study is to determine the effect of concept maps on the development of middle school students’ speaking skills. To understand the level of the efficiency of the concept map technique used to develop the students’ speaking skills, the students’ opinions were elicited with an interview form. The study employed the pretest-posttest control group design; one of the qualitative research methods. The study was conducted with the participation of 7th-grade students attending a middle school in a city located in the Central Western Anatolian region in the 2018-2019 school year. The application period of the study lasted for 12 weeks. While the pre-prepared speaking activities were performed by using concept maps in the experimental group, they were conducted by using the methods and techniques proposed in the Turkish curriculum in the control group. As the data collection tool, ‘The Speaking Skill Evaluation Scale” and a semi-structured interview form were used. The findings obtained in the study have revealed a significant difference in favour of the experimental group while no significant difference in favour of the control group was found. The data obtained from the interviews conducted with the students to elicit their opinions about the concept map have revealed that the students positively approached the concept map technique used while they were conducting their speaking activities. In light of all these findings, it was concluded that the concept map technique is influential in the development of speaking skills.

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