Opinions of Turkish as a Foreign Language Learners on Academic Turkish

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the language skills of the international students attending different Turkish language centers are sufficient to understand their departmental courses. The research was carried out through focus group interviews which are among the qualitative data collection techniques. For this purpose, 14 students studying at two different universities at different levels were selected on a voluntary basis. A semi-structured interview form was created with the help of three experts and was used to collect data for the study. The content analysis technique was used. Responses from 14 students were transcribed and analyzed both individually and entirely. It was detected that the level of Turkish taught at the Turkish language centers remained inadequate for the students to understand their departmental courses. The students had difficulties in understanding the concepts, terms, and sample texts related to their field. It is suggested that the students should be introduced with relevant academic concepts before starting their studies.

Academic Turkish for international students: Problems and suggestions

“…Recently, some studies on academic Turkish have been carried out. These studies can be classified into three groups: Some of them (see, e.g., studies by Akbaş 2012 andBayyurt 2010;Kansu Yetkiner 2010 andÇakır & Özden 2015;Çandarlı 2012) compared Turkish academic texts with those of English ones in terms of some aspects of language use, some of them (see, e.g., studies by Doyuran 2009;Yıldız & Aksan 2013;Çalışır Zenci 2009;Türkkan & Yağcıoğlu 2006;Uzun & Huber 2002; Dağ Tarcan 2017) focused on Turkish academic texts, and the rest (see, e.g., studies by Tok 2013;Güngör 2015 and2016;Dolmacı & Ertaş 2016;Boylu 2016;Haidari & Yanpar Yelken 2018;Kesten, Kırkoğlu, & Elma 2010;Gürbüz & Güleç 2016;Yılmaz, 2017) were undertaken with or for international students. Tok's (2013) study is one of the first one in this sense.…”