The control group was exposed to an essentially grammatical syllabus according to the traditional methodological
guidelines as demanded by the National Ministry of Education. The students learned English through grammatical
structures as central organizing principles of the curriculum. By focusing mainly on structure and vocabulary in a
rather isolated manner, the instruction disregarded a communicative classroom based on sharing meaning. The
pupils practiced the newly presented language forms and vocabulary items through mechanical exercises and
question- answer drills. For example, the teacher introduced the school subjects by pointing to the weekly schedule
of the students that were written in Turkish. Following that, the teacher gave the subjects’ English counterparts. She
went on talking about school subjects using the target structure ‘I’m good at…’ in its affirmative, negative, and
interrogative forms through a set of sentences containing these structures and words describing the school subjects.
Both Turkish (the students’ and teacher’s native language) and simplified English were used to explain the
transformation from the affirmative to the negative or the interrogative case. Pair work, individual practice, and at
times, structurally focused games were used to achieve the desired goal. These were followed by the reading of short
texts and the writing of simple sentences, all of which contained the target structures. Throughout this process,
however, a positive classroom atmosphere was achieved in which the pupils could participate in the class work