A Corpus-based Analysis of High School English Textbooks and English University Entrance Exams in Turkey
A Corpus-based Analysis of High School English Textbooks and English University Entrance Exams in Turkey

Summary/Abstract: This study explores the disconnect between the English textbooks studied in high schools (9th–12th grades) and the English tested on Turkish university entrance exams (2010–2019). Using corpus linguistics tools such as AntWordProfiler, TAALED, and the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (L2SCA), this paper analyzes the lexical diversity and syntactic complexity indices in the sample material. A comparison of official textbooks and complementary materials obtained from the Ministry of National Education against the official university entrance exams demonstrates that: (i) differences in lexical sophistication level can be observed between the two corpora, the lexical sophistication level of the exam corpus was higher than that of the textbook corpus, (ii) there is a statistically significant difference between the two corpora in terms of lexical diversity, the exam corpus has a significantly higher level of lexical diversity than the textbook corpus, (iii) statistically significant differences also existed between the two corpora regarding the syntactic complexity indices. The syntactic complexity level of the exam corpus was higher than that of the textbook corpus. These findings suggest that Turkish high school student taught English with official textbooks have to tackle low-frequency and more sophisticated words at a higher level of syntactic complexity when they take the nationwide exam. This, in turn, creates a negative backwash effect, distorting their approach to L2, and raising other concerns about the misalignment between the official language education materials and nationwide exams.

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