ABSTRACT

The position of production-oriented linguistic skills in foreign language courses has undergone a change in a remarkable way since 60s when the usage of technology in education increased significantly. The reputable researches conducted in the frame of the importance of listening skills and approaches about the new position of speaking skill in courses have gained a special meaning in parallel with aforementioned technological developments. Cassettes, CDs, videos, etc... have brought about essential usage opportunities and exercise types in courses since mid-50s. These innovations have also provided possibilities for different researches in the field of foreign language courses. Today, according to new researches in the field of foreign language education it can be said that language learning process is the fullest extent of linguistic skills starting from comprehension and moving into processing and production. Based on this evaluation, ‘’Audio Books’’ has been handled as the research object and an analytical study has been done in this work. The reason of determining audio books as the research object is that they both have a written content and are suitable for using with supporting listening CDs or sound files. Students have got a new opportunity such as improving and applying their reading, listening and speaking skills simultaneously with this combination at the same time. Of course this subject can be interpreted differently from various perspectives. Yet, the subject matter in this study is the usage possibilities of listening books in language courses and especially subject-focused disputable reading courses because of the aforementioned points above. So, critical questions have been asked about whether literary texts in audio books will be beneficial especially in the aspect of the development of oral skills for language courses as a listening-reading supported material or how they can be beneficial in this study. Therefore, the main target of the study is to discuss whether such kind of books can find a place in reading and maybe in speaking courses in parallel with the support of listening CDs as literary texts at the same time or not.