THE METAPHORS DEVELOPED BY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL-SECOND STAGE STUDENTS ON THE CONCEPT OF ‘WORLD’

This study has done for the purpose of revealing how our students, whom we try to sensitize with the slogan ‘No other World’ perceive the world and whether they make metaphors about this abstract. The sample of the research is made up of the 208 students who attend 6, 7, and are supposed to know the concept World, especially in terms of shape and dimension as taughtin the relevant teaching curriculums. In order to identify this situation, learn how they perceivethe concept World and see the acquisition level of the concept, there has been no limitationabout the concept.The students who participated in the research were asked to write their thoughts about theworld, and then they were asked to complete the sentences ‘The world is like ….. because’ or‘The world is similar ….. because’. Initially, the content analysis technique was used in theresearch. Following this, data obtained from this research were made numeric and analyzedwith a quantitative method. Thus, by setting out with the metaphors the students have developedabout the world, it will be possible to have information about many subjects ranging fromteachers’ use of materials to acquisition level of the concepts in the curriculum.According to the results of the research conducted, most of the students have mademetaphors about the shape, dimension and movements of the world as was expected. Regardingthe concept ‘Word’, %58,6 of the students have developed metaphors about the shape anddimensions of the world, %12,6 about physical geography features, %7,3 about Human andEconomic Geography features, %5,8 about features other than geographical features and%15,7 about abstract and negative metaphors.