Publications

Published Papers & Thesis

• Ayan, E.(2018) (M.Sc Thesis) An investigation on the use and e-content development status of teachers in the educational information network. YÖK Ulusal Tez Merkezi. Click to download the paper

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Abstract

There are several technological investments by Turkish Ministry of Education within the scope of FATİH Project. An online learning platform called Education Information Network (EIN) was developed. Various inservice courses (IC) were held in order to support teachers to use available tools. Current descriptive study aims at describing the use and e-content development status of teachers in EIN and comparing the results in terms of various variables. 268 teachers participated in a three-dimensional questionnaire. The data were analyzed via a statistical analysis program, Jasp. Descriptive and comparative analyses were clarified and statistical outputs were compiled. EIN and e-content use and development status of teachers were revealed and differences between groups were detected. There are significant differences in the use of individual e-content, development and cooperation cases according to the branches, pre-service, and IC. E-content utilization and development status of the participants was low and that the level of individual use and assistance in the e-content usage and development processes varied in some cases according to the variables. It was concluded teachers participating in the research need to have more pre-service and IC on their own branches in the process of using and developing e-content. E-content should be developed and diversified, EIN should be easy to use for all users and there is a need for more publicity about EIN. It is suggested that the training taken before the service is diversified as content, scope and number and that IC is structured according to the branches and the frequency is increased.

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• Ayan, E.(2018) Questioning Administration Processes and Autonomy of Higher Education System in Turkey. European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies 7 (1), 135-143. Click to download the paper

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Abstract

In recent years there is a leading discussion about the changes in higher education system in Turkey both on the media, public and among the academic staff at the universities. The Turkish government has already introduced many new universities since the early 2000s and invested on the facilities, infrastructures and university personnel. The idea behind investing on the new universities was originated in the idealism or slogan called “a university for each province”. By this idealism, a large number of universities have been founded in many small cities located in rural areas. Vocational schools under body of newly born universities were also grounded in very small districts of the provinces. But it was not a simple process to establish necessary infrastructures and recruit or train academic staff with adequate experience and competences for newly born universities. The Council of Higher Education introduced a program called Faculty Member Training Program and switched on 50-D employment type, designed particularly for research assistants and based on short term contracts and precarious work. In addition Ministry for National Education initiated a program titled Selection and Placement of Students for Post-graduate Study Abroad, which is an exam for those candidates who want to take master and doctoral education abroad. The selection processes for both programs are highly centralized and questionable but the issue which is even more serious is about the number of the positions reserved for particular fields of studies. All in all, this paper will mainly focus on the processes of administration processes for employment and autonomy of Turkish universities.

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• Ayan, E. & Demirel, E. (2017) Analyzing Research Tendencies of ELT Researchers and Trajectory of English Language Teaching and Learning in the last Five Years. International Journal of Curriculum and Instruction 9 (2), 89-106. Click to download the paper

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Abstract

In accordance with the new advances in language teaching methodologies and integration of high technology tools as well as web applications, there are many scientific research published on English language teaching (ELT) and learning (ELL) in recent years. However, on the one hand, it is still a significant question to research that exactly what types of research topics are mostly studied among the researchers from different countries. What are the leading research groups on the world? Even though there are noteworthy studies to clarify mostly studied topics and trajectory of the researches on ELT by means of literature reviews, and there are very few studies to compare research tendencies of the researchers over text/content mining methodology. In fact, the papers reviewing literature are mostly limited in terms of depicting a broad understanding the scope of such studies. On the other hand, a corpus based detection methodology, which may illuminate those research tendencies and trajectory, and come up with very informative descriptive results in the field, is actually missing. In sum, the current research aims at finding out the most frequent research contexts and topics in the last five years through analyzing research papers published in leading academic journals in the field, and compare tendencies of the researchers from different institutions and countries in terms of selecting their research context and topics, and to figure out the trajectory for future studies. In this study, the researchers believe that there are different tendencies among the researchers in terms of their selecting research contexts and topics, which should be revealed for future researches. Researchers use a corpus-based detection methodology in this study, which is composed of storing variable data in .txt files and analyzing variables over the concordancer. Corpus-based detection method defines process of gathering textual data mentioned in the variables and analyzing them by means of a concordancer, named AntConc. The corpus-based data from the variables are analyzed by means of a statistical software, known as JASP in order to clear out potential differences among the researchers. A short analysis of the data indicates that the researchers still focus on the key words such as explicit learning and knowledge, implicit learning and knowledge as well as age and bilingualism. It is also observed that meta-analysis is an important topic in the studies conducted lately. Further results of the study could be beneficial for all followers including researchers and learners inside and outside the field of ELT and help people focus less frequently studied contexts and topics.

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• Ayan, E. & Seferoğlu, S.S. (2017) Using Etherpad for Online Collaborative Writing Activities and Learners with Different Language Learning Strategies. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics 3 (2). Click to download the paper

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Abstract

The current study is a research on use of EtherPad platform for online collaborative writing tasks. There are lots of reports and research dealing with these platforms, the integration of technology and its use for online educational purposes. Many of them showed that online education is very new for the learners and there is little contribution to their learning process in terms of changing their traditional educational behaviors. Furthermore, the teachers are still focusing on using technology for their own sake but there is very little attention on in-class or out-class activities since most of the time, their in-service training including appropriate technological tools, syllabus integration and consultation are disregarded. It seems that there's very little interest on synchronous collaborative online writing by the language learners with different language learning strategies. Therefore, this study investigates how the learners with different language learning strategies behave in online platforms while they are using online materials and particularly writing over EtherPad. Voluntary participants could easily integrate into online platforms and spent remarkable effort and time to cooperate and complete all given tasks and especially synchronous online collaborated writing tasks. As a result of the research, it was observed that performance of two groups of participants with different language learning strategies have significantly differentiated, which suggested that such online writing activities can be implemented to diagnose such differences among the learners and be useful to manipulate their learning process in order to assist them to improve their certain learning skills and motivate them according to their needs.

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• Ayan, E. (2017) Analysing Shakespeare’s Emblem Language in Midsummer Night’s Dream. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, 7(10), 1264-1278. Click to download the paper

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Abstract

Shakespeare has been studied from many perspectives so far. However, his language style used in his literary works is still worth studying. First of all, this study explores changing sense of emblem and emblem language comparing Shakespeare’s era and today. Secondly, it puts stress on the effects of emblem traditions on Shakespeare. Lastly, this article aims to shed light on his emblematical language in his Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is one of his most leading works in terms of having highly visible emblematical interpretations.

Keywords: Shakespeare, emblems, emblem language, Midsummer Night’s Dream

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• Ayan, E (2016) (M.A. Thesis) Diagnosing Linguistic Transfer and Its Potential Causes Through Testing Writing. Higher Education Board National Thesis Center Click to download the paper

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Abstract

The aim of the current study is to investigate negative linguistic transfer errors/cases noted by the students at university level and the potential causes behind such errors. Its purpose is also to figure out educational background of the participants and question if there are links between frequency of negative linguistic transfer errors and learner-based factors such as educational background, perception of English language, awareness of negative linguistic transfer errors and attitude toward English. In this regard, it is hypothesized that there are relations between the stated factors. Three research questions were formulated in order to test the hypothesis. The study is quantitatively and qualitatively casual and comparative research using corpus and detection based interlingual and intralingual analysis method as well as descriptive and inferential data analysis. 115 participants took part in the study. The participants were enrolled at the vocational school and faculty of a Turkish university. Online writing tests by means of a learning management system were employed in order to collect written data of the participants. Then a small scale linguistic transfer corpus including negative linguistic transfer error/cases was compiled. A five-dimensional questionnaire was used to investigate profiles of the participants, their educational background, perceptions of usefulness of English, awareness of negative linguistic transfer errors/cases and attitudes towards English language. The data gathered in the corpus and responses from the questionnaire were statistically analyzed through JASP and PSPP statistical programs. As a result of the statistical analysis, the most frequent levels of negative linguistic transfer that the participants produced were found out. The participants mostly noted such errors in lexical and syntactic levels. There were not significant difference between the groups in terms of the school types they were enrolled and the frequency of lexical, syntactic, grammatical levels of negative linguistic transfer errors but there was significant difference in the level of contextual transfer between vocational and faculty students. Lastly, it was figured out that there was a link between negative linguistic transfer errors/cases and educational background of the participants as well as affecting perception of English, awareness of negative linguistic errors and their attitudes toward English.

Keywords: Language/Linguistic transfer, negative linguistic transfer, error analysis, corpus based error analysis, interlingual/intralingual errors

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• Ayan, E. (2015). Minority language loss: socio-cultural and linguistic causes. European Journal of English Language, Linguistics and Literature, 2 (1), 62-88. Click to download the paper

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Abstract

The current study is a review article surveying on the reasons behind minority languages and language losses. It hypotheses language loss is not a simple process that could be explained by changes in societies, and/but there are serious and determining periods that triggers that unintended result such as social and linguistic causes. It goes beyond the causes like financial problems, political and ecological changes and human mobilizations within years. The study clarifies that socio-cultural and linguistic reasons may play a very important role in losing a language belonging particularly to minorities. It argues that socio-cultural tolerance as well as linguistic factors will contribute a lot more to survival of minority languages than applying strict political measurements and educational regulations

Keywords: Minority languages, language loss, socio-cultural and linguistic causes

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• Ayan, E. (2015) Moodle as Builder of Motivation and Autonomy in English Courses. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 5, 6-20. Click to download the paper

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Abstract

Moodle is one of the mostly used open source learning management systems. It may create an encouraging, informative and always renewable language education environment. It is both motivating and autonomy building in particularly English language courses. In this paper, focus of the research is to survey on Moodle’s position to motivate and create autonomouse-learning in English language courses. Distinctive features of this study were that language learners who were participants of the study did not experience English preparatory class at university level and never used a particular learning management system (LMS) to learn English before. They had weekly four hours of English language classes in each term for four years of their bachelor education. The students used Moodle to learn and improve their English with asynchronous applications as an extension to face-to-face sessions of the courses. At the end of almost four months of study, avrages of their exam scores and a satisfaction questionnaire were used to evaluate the effectiveness of Moodle on students’ motivations and autonomous learning. As a consequence of the study, it was observed that Moodle considerably contributed to the levels of their motivation and autonomy to improve their English language skills.

Keywords: Moodle, Motivation, Autonomy, e-Motivation, e-Learning

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• Ayan, E. (2008) (B.A. Thesis) Teaching Pronunciation: A Critical Approach. International Dialects of English Archive Click to download the paper

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Abstract

This study aims to represent the developing status of pronunciation teaching in a context of comparison and contrast, and tries to illustrate the learners' and lecturers' positions, roles and most importantly responsibilities required by today's methodology of pronunciation teaching. In this context, it is argued that pronunciation teaching methodologies have changed over decades since the Reform Movement. The exact status of teaching pronunciation appeared first in the Audio Lingual Methods and continued in the Communicative Language Teaching methods; however, the ways of teaching pronunciation has explicitly a long history and the principles of Reform Movement affects the approaches of the following teaching methods. The current approaches provided the scholars with new perspectives, and Penny Ur is one of these scholars whose ideas and principles are analysed here. Even though Ur's claims about non-deliberate teaching of pronunciation, the results gotten from the questionnaire and sound analyses conducted in KTU-FEF show that pronunciation should be taught deliberately. More importantly, learners and lecturers' roles and responsibilities should be considered in terms of the learners' approaches towards the L2 and the course as well as following the current and upcoming technological developments in the methodology of pronunciation teaching, and furthermore, the individual problems dealing with pronouncing sounds revealed in the study. The study outlines the current conditions in the department and gives new insights into how to teach pronunciation. In this sense, the purpose of the study is to judge neither the learners nor the lecturers but it does reflect a critical perspective.

Keywords: eaching pronunciation, approaches towards pronunciation, individual differences, pronunciation problems and sound analyses

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Presentations

• Tokdemir Demirel, E. & Ayan, E. (2020) Every Cloud has a Silver Lining: Professional Development in Higher Education and the COVID-19 Pandemic (Virtual Presentation) INNOVAPROS 2020 15-16 October, 2020 Click to download the presentation

• Ayan, E. (2020) Using NLP & Network Approaches/Techniques to Explore Comparative Opinions and Topics in Newspaper Clippings from Cold War Era (Virtual Presentation) Digital Modern Languages July 22, 2020 Click to download the presentation

• Ayan, E. (2019) Exploring network of comparative structures and comparative opinions in newspaper cuts (Poster Presentation) The 2nd Heidelberg Computational Humanities Summer School July 15-19, 2019 | Heidelberg University | Germany Click to download the presentation

• Ayan, E. (2019) Industry 4.0: Big Data Analysis-Analytics in Education (Conference Talk) 2nd Alternative Education Symposium, 25-26 May, 2019, İstanbul-Turkey Click to download the presentation

• Ayan, E. (2018) Öğretmenlerin Eğitim Bilişim Ağı İçeriğini Kullanma ve E-içerik Geliştirme Durumlarının İncelenmesi (Thesis Presentation) September, 2019, Hacettepe Uni.-Turkey Click to download the presentation

• Ayan, E. (2016) Diagnosing Linguistic Transfer And Its Potential Causes Through Testing Writing (M.A. Thesis Defense) September, 2016,Ufuk Uni.-Turkey Click to download the presentation

• Ayan, E. (2015) A Short Look at Assessing Writing in English Courses. Department of ELT, Ufuk University Click to download the presentation

• Ayan, E. (2014) Sublime Text 2: Only A Short Introduction From A Perspective Of A Hobbyist Coder [Sublime Text 2: Meraklı Bir Kodcunun Perspektifinden Sadece Kisa Bir Tanitim]. Department of Educational Technologies in Education, Graduate School of Informatics, Hacettepe University Click to download the presentation

National & International Conferences Participated

• 1. Date: 23 May 2008, 1st National Symposium on English Language Teaching in the Preparatory Schools of Universities, Çankaya University, Ankara-Turkey

• 2. Date: 30 April-03 May 2008, International Congress on Pre-School Education in the Context of Child, Family and School, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon-Turkey

• 3. Date: 14-16 May 2010, 6th International ELT Research Conference, Ephesus-Selçuk, Izmir-Turkey.

• 4. Date: 28 May 2010, 2nd Foreign Language Teaching Symposium, Çankaya University, Ankara-Turkey.

• 5. Date: 29 May 2010 1st Foreign Language Teaching Symposium on Secondary Education, Çankaya University, Ankara-Turkey.

• 6. Date: 16 April 2011, 2nd ELT Symposium: E-Learning Practices in Secondary Education (Workshops attended: Moodle: All in One, Even Dinosaurs Could Use Multimedia), Çankaya University, Ankara-Turkey.

• 7. Date: 26 September-01 October 2011, International Fall School Multilingualism: European and Asian Perspectives, Hamburg Uni./Germany Click to see the website

• 8. Date: 24-25 November 2011, 8th METU International Postgraduate Conference on Linguistics and Language Teaching, METU, Ankara-Turkey Click to see the website

• 9. Date: 15-17 November 2012, The 3rd Black Sea ELT Conference “Technology: A Bridge to Language Learning”, Samsun-Turkey Click to see the website

• 10. Date: 19-22 January 2013, A face-to-face course on “PHP”, Akdeniz University, Antalya-Turkey.

• 11. Date: 23-25 January 2013, Akademik Bilişim 2013 Konferansı, Akdeniz University, Antalya-Turkey.

• 12. Date: 12 Mart 2013, Uluslararası Eğilimler Çerçevesinde Türkiye’nin ve Türkiye’deki Üniversitelerin Bilimsel Çıktıları ve İşbirliği Olanakları Toplantısı, Hacettepe Universitesi, Ankara/Türkiye

• 13. Date: 26-28 June 2013, 1st International Instructional Technologies & Teacher Education Symposium, Trabzon-Turkey Click to see the website

• 14. Date: September 2013, III.Ulusal Akademik Kaynak Paylaşım Çalıştayı, Hitit Üniversitesi, Çorum-Türkiye

• 15. Date: 5-8 June 2014, VI. International Congress of Educational Research Ankara-Turkey, Click to see the website

• 16. Date: 9–13 June 2014, The 4th Congress on Measurement and Evaluation in Education and Psychology, Ankara-Turkey Click to see the website

• 17. Date: 1-3 September 2014, International Conference on Educational Research and Social Studies, Yıldız Technical University, İstanbul/Turkey

• 18. Date: 23-24 October 2014, 3rd National Conference of Foreign Language Education, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul/Turkey Click to see the website

• 19. Date: 4-6 February 2015, Akademik Bilişim 2015 Konferansı, Eskişehir Anadolu University, Eskişehir/Turkey. Click to see the website

• 20. Date: 24-26 April 2015, OKÜP (Tech) Scince and Technology Days, Hitit University, Çorum/Turkey

• 21. Date: 28-31 May 2015, VII. International Congress of Educational Research, Muğla-Turkey, Click to see the website

• 22. Date: 08-10 June 2015, II.International Eurasian Educational Research Congress, Hacettepe University, Ankara-Turkey

• 23. Date: 25 June 2015, Fikri Mülkiyet Hakları ve Patent Eğitimi, Hacettepe Teknokent, Teknoloji Transfer Merkezi, Hacettepe University, Ankara-Turkey

• 24. Date: 2015, Eğitimde Fatih Projesi-Eğitim Teknolojileri Zirvesi, Ankara-Turkey Click to see the website

• 25. Date: January 2016 Akademik Bilişim, 2016, Aydın-Turkey Click to see the website

• 26. Date: 2016, 6th METU Undergraduate Conference, 2016, Ankara-Turkey

• 27. Date: January 2017, Akademik Bilişim, Aksaray-Turkey Click to see the website

• 28. Date: 18-21 May 2017, GlobELT-2017 An International Conference on Teaching and Learning English as an Additional Language, İzmir-Turkey Click to see the website

• 29. Date: September 2017, Symposium of Minorities, Diversities, Securities. Herder Institute, Marburg-Germany

• 30. Date: 12-14 October 2017, The 2nd Higher Education Studies Conference, Antalya-Turkey, Click to see the website

• 31. Date: 28 November 2017, Online Conference: English Language Assessment in Higher Education: Improving practice, British Council.

Workshops

• 1. Date: February 2013, Face-to-face workshop series by British Council Turkey in Amasya University, Amasya-Turkey

• 2. Date: 05 May 2015, Workshop on Cognitive Linguistics, Hacettepe University, Ankara-Turkey

• 3. Date: 21 October 2017, Workshop: Basics of University Teaching for Students in scope of the project “für ein richtig gutes Studium” by Hochschuldidaktik, Philipps University Marburg, Marburg-Germany.

• 4. Date: 16 November 2017, Workshop: Visualization of Networks in History + Culture, Herder Institute, Marburg-Germany.

• 5. Date: 17 November 2017, Workshop: Data Mapping & Social Media Analytics, CNMS, Philipps University Marburg, Marburg-Germany.

• 6. Date: 21 November 2017, Workshop: "Flipcharts kreativ gestalten" by Hochschuldidaktik, Philipps University Marburg, Marburg-Germany.

• 7. Date: 30 November 2017, Workshop Deutsch: "Neue Wörter effektiv lernen (B1-B2)" by Sprachzentrum, Philipps University Marburg, Marburg-Germany.

• 8. Date: 02 December 2017, Mentoring workshop "Strategies of Learning" by International Office (Ariadne Project), Philipps University Marburg, Marburg-Germany.

• 9. Date: 16 December 2017, Workshop: Podcasts als Ameignungsmedien – Schülerinnen und Süchler podcasten by Zentrum für Lehrerbildung Marburg, Philipps Universität Marburg, Marburg-Germany.

• 10. Date: 22-23 December 2018, Mentoring Workshop: “Basics of Businnes Administration” by International Office (Ariadne Project), Philipps University Marburg, Marburg-Germany.

• 11. Date: 24 December 2018, Mentoring Workshop: “Job Application Training” by International Office (Ariadne Project), Philipps University Marburg, Marburg-Germany.

• 12. Date: 26 December 2018, Mentoring Workshop: “Cross-Cultural Competencies and Skills” by International Office (Ariadne Project), Philipps University Marburg, Marburg-Germany.

Training

• 1. Date: 2017, Course name: Eğitimde Yeni Yaklaşımlar Eğitimi, Duration: 32 Hours, Akademik Bilişim, Aksaray University, Aksaray, Turkey

• 2. Date: 2016, Course name: Sosyal Bilimlere Özgür Yazılımla (PSPP) Veri Analizine Giriş, Duration: 32 Hours, Akademik Bilişim, Aydın, Turkey

• 3. Date: 2016, Course name: Drupal for Educational Instititutions, Duration: 32 hours, Akademik Bilişim, Eskişehir, Turkey

• 4. Date: 2015, Course name: Ana-Baba Okulu: İlköğrenim Çağında Yabancı Dil Öğrenimi Eğitimi (8 hours), TED University, Ankara, Turkey

• 5. Date: 2014, Course name: Zertifikat Deutsch B2.1, Duration: 56 hours, Goethe Institut Ankara, Turkey

• 6. Date: 2013, Course name: PHP Course, Duration: 32 hours, Akademik Bilişim - 2013, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey

• 7. Date: 2013, Course name: Software/Web Design via PHP, Duration: 94 hours, Linux Summer School, Linux Users' Association, Bolu, Turkey

• 8. Date: 2012, Course name: Elsevier Author Workshop: The Art of Writing Scientific Papers, Elsevier BV, Hitit University, Çorum, Turkey

• 9. Date: 2011, Course name: Non-native English and English as a Lingua Franca in the European Context, Duration: 18 hours, Hamburg University, Hamburg, Germany

• 10. Date: 2011, Course name: Assessing children in multilingual contexts, Duration: 18 hours, Hamburg University, Hamburg, Germany

• 11. Date: 2011, Course name: Toefl (iBT) Training Program, British Culture, Ankara, Turkey

• 12. Date: 2011, Course name Zertifikat Deutsch B1.2, Duration: 64 Hours, Goethe Institut Ankara, Turkey

• 13. Date: 2011, Course name: Zertifikat Deutsch B1.3, Duration: 64 hours, Goethe Institut Ankara, Turkey

• 14. Date: 2010, Course name: Start Deutsch A2.2, Duration: 64 Hours, Goethe Institut Ankara, Turkey

• 15. Date: 2010, Course name: Zertifikat Deutsch B1.1, Duration: 64 Hours, Goethe Institut Ankara, Turkey

• 16. Date: 2009, Course name: Start Deutsch A2.1, Duration: 48 Hours, Goethe Institut Ankara, Turkey

Webinars

• 1. Date: 18 January 2018, Webinar: Introduction to Neo4j by Neo4j Company

• 2. Date: 24 January 2018, Webinar: Introduction to Social Network Analysis by Alessandro Zonin and Socioviz Team

Academic/NGO Memberships

• 1. Date: since April, 2011, Educational Research Association (EAB), Click to see the website

• 2. Date: since January, 2012, Turkish Linux Users Association (LKD), Click to see the website

• 3. Date: since 2014, English Language Teachers' Association in Turkey (INGED), Click to see the website

• 4. Date: since 2014, Hacettepe University Society of Linguistics, Click to see the website

• 5. Date: since 2017, Foundation of Higher Education Studies/Yükseköğretim Çalışmaları Derneği, Click to see the website

Scholarships

• 1. Date: 2006 - Erasmus Student Exchange Scholarship

• 2. Date: 2017 - Erasmus+ Student Exchange Scholarship

• 3. Date: 2017 - TÜBITAK- 2224-B - Support Program for Participation in Domestic Scientific Activities

• 4. Date: 2017 - Google Developer Challenge Scholarship: Front-End Web Developer