When individuals who have different native language live together because of some reasons, there have always been interactions between the languages they use. Developing of communication tools have increased the relations between languages; on the other hand developing a language other than native language increased besides the increase in  bilingualism  (Tuncel  and  Aytan, 2013; Alkaya, 2007).

While native language is defined as “a language that reproduce other languages or dialects” (Turkish Language Association [TDK], 2014), the term of native language that is used widely today means (as mentioned in grammar terms vocabulary) “the language learnt by an individual from the  society  he  was  born  in  and  raised, from the society with which he is connected in terms of ancestry; the language which is engraved in his subconscious and forms the strongest connection between individuals and society” (Korkmaz, 1992). Sagir (2007) states that the definition of the term of mother tongue in Turkish vocabularies –linguistics and grammar terms vocabularies- should be given separately as: “the language that is spoken during pre-school, at home, in the neighborhood, in the village mostly with dialects, in situations when the language of mother and the main language used in society are the same or not” 

Bilingualism is defined in minimalist approach as; having at least one of the abilities of reading-writing, speaking, understanding at a minimum level in a language different from the native. The term is defined in maximalist approach as; being able to use two different languages at native language level (Baker, 2001), or contact of two different languages with one another in various ways (Diebold, 1961), or the ability to use more than one language or dialect in daily life (Grosjean, 1999).

Demirel (2002) stated that children firstly learn native language through hearing and experience; the language learnt from mother-father and immediate environment is coherent with the main rules of language. Children obey the rules, which are used differently in different regions, without noticing, and children acquire the ability to use this language according to the rules, again without noticing. Generally, it is accepted that basic language abilities are acquired until 5-6 while better and more professional language abilities are acquired and developed after 5-6 and continues until the age of 10 (Demir and Yapici, 2007). Language is one of the most significant communication tools and one of the most essential basic components of education.

Teacher, the most basic element of education gives education through language, which is another significant element. Communication can be generally defined as a dynamic process in which people transfer their emotions and thoughts through specific codes and symbols, to other people or their environment with or without a cultural unity (Yalc?n and Sengul, 2007). Efficiency of the established communication determines the formation and quality of learning (Sever, 2004). People perceive outer world through various concepts and symbols and transfer this to others through language. Having a healthy communication is only possible when the language is used correctly and efficiently. This is why, sufficiency in language is very important both for the teacher, conveying the information and student, obtaining it. The study is significant as it is one of the first studies in the related literature.

We observed that the students of Social Sciences Teaching department, who were students yesterday, and are teacher candidates today, have some problems in communicating and expressing themselves in and out of class environments. We are inspired of the idea that this may have resulted from bilingualism. This is why social sciences teacher candidates were asked to state the difficulties they experience in their education life.

The research is prepared with qualitative research design, semi-structured interview is used and data are obtained with content analysis method. Random sampling is used; all staff have equal chance in the study group. Frequency, percentage and content analysis are used to analyze the obtained data. Content analysis is a descriptive approach that analyzes the social reality through classifying, categorizing, digitizing and making inferences about the message in verbal, written or other kinds of materials in terms of meaning and grammar (Buyukozturk et al., 2008). The study group of the research includes 117 students studying at different classes in Agri Ibrahim Cecen University, Faculty of Education, Department of Social Sciences Teaching in 2013-2014 academic term, fall semester.

 

Data collection tool

Data of the research were obtained by the data collection tool prepared by the researcher; the tool included 12 open-ended questions prepared by literature review and on the basis of expert opinions and 6 questions including personal information about students. After the related literature was reviewed, a draft including 13 questions was prepared. After combining some similar articles in the draft and taking experts’ opinions, the number of questions was 12. Pilot scheme of this draft was completed. Teacher candidates were required to evaluate the draft, indicate the points they did not understand, and add what they think are necessary. According to the data obtained from pilot scheme, the draft was reorganized. This draft was presented for experts’ opinion and data were collected. Frequency, percentage and content analysis were carried out in analyzing the data. 

Distribution of teacher candidates who participated in the research in terms of gender, grade, graduation, number of siblings and accommodation unit they were born is presented in Table 1. 

 

 

According to Table 1, 85 of teacher candidates are males (72.6%), 32 are females (27.4%). 58.1% are at 4^th grade. The reason for this is to be able to determine the difficulties during license program better and more accurately. 0.5% of teacher candidates graduated from general high schools, 60% have 6 or more siblings. On the other hand, 56 (7.8%) of teacher candidates was born in village, 31 (26.4%) in district and 30 (25.6%) in city.

36 (30.77%) out of 117 teacher candidates in the research said that their native language is Turkish, 81 (69.23%) said that their native language is a language other than Turkish. 3 out of 81 candidates said that their native language is Arabic, 78 said that it is Kurdish. Data obtained from the answers of bilingual Social Sciences teacher candidates who said that their native language is a language other than Turkish are presented in Table 2. 

 

 

Findings obtained from open ended questions

Answers to the Question, “At what age did you start learning Turkish?”

According to Table 2, 20 of Social Sciences teacher candidates learnt Turkish between the age of (24.7%) 0 and 6; 47 between (58%) 6 and 10; 12 between (14.8%) 10 and 15. One of the students states that he did not remember and one stated that he did not learn. According to these findings, it can be said that most of the teacher candidates learnt Turkish during secondary school. 

 

Answers to the Question “Which language do you use in your family?”

When Table 3 is analyzed, it can be seen that most of the Social Sciences  Teacher  Candidates  used  their  native language in their family. The number of people who use only Turkish in their family is 5 (6. 17%).

 

 

Answers to the question “Is there anybody in your family who does not know Turkish?”

According to Table 4, there are 52 teacher candidates who said ‘yes’ to the question (64.9%). 11 of these candidates said that their mothers do not know Turkish while 3 said that their grandmothers or grandfathers do not know Turkish. There are 29 teacher candidates who said ‘no’ to the question (35.8%).

 

 

Answers to the Question, “With which language do you feel comfortable?”

When Table 5 is analyzed, it is seen that 56 of teacher candidates (69.13%) expressed themselves more comfortably in their native language while 19 teachers (23.45%) said that they express themselves more comfortably in Turkish. 

 

 

Answers to the Question, “Is there a teacher who knows your native language in your educational life? Does this have an effect on your success in lessons?”

According  to  Table  6, the number of teacher candidates who said ‘yes’ to the question is 65 (80.24%), number of teacher candidates who said ‘no’ is 16 (19.75%). 22 (33.8%) out of all teacher candidates who said that there were teachers who know their native language said that this did not affect their success in lessons very much; 6 (9.23%) said that it contributed to their success; 4 of them said that (6.15%) they learnt Turkish due to these teachers; 3 said that (4.61%) they feel that these teachers are closer; 2 said that (3.07%) they could communicate more comfortably with the teacher of that lesson.  

 

 

Can you communicate with your friends who have the same native language but living in different regions?

When Table 7 is analyzed, it is seen that 66 of teacher candidates in the research (81.48%) said that they could communicate with friends living in different regions; 5 said that (6.17%) they could not communicate; 10 said that (12.34%) they could partially communicate. A teacher who said ‘yes’ to this question stated that “although we have some difficulty at the beginning because of the dialect, -such as Mardin, ??rnak- after a while it feels like we are speaking the same language”. One of the teacher candidates who said ‘partially’ stated that “we can communicate although we may have some problems and difficulties sometimes.” Another teacher candidate said that “we can communicate except some words”. 

 

 

“At which stage of your life did having a native language other than Turkish cause difficulties the most?”

When Table 8 is analyzed, it can be seen that 47 (58.02%) of candidates stated that they had difficulty in primary school period, 8 (9.87%) in all of the educational life. 

 

 

“Do you think that you could learn academic Turkish efficiently, which is necessary in your educational life? Can you also sufficiently benefit from other Turkish curriculum lessons?”

When Table 9 is analyzed, it can be seen that 33 of teacher candidates in the study (40.74%) said that they could learn Turkish efficiently; but 13 of these teacher candidates (39.39%) said that they could not benefit from other Turkish lessons sufficiently. 48 teacher candidates (59.25%) said that they could not learn Turkish efficiently; 35 (72.92%) of these teacher candidates said that they could not sufficiently benefit from other Turkish curriculum lessons. 

 

 

“If you had had education in your native language, would you also want to have education in Turkish too?”

When Table 10 is analyzed, it can be seen that 72 of teacher candidates (88.89%) said that they want to have Turkish education too, while 8 of teacher candidates said that (9.87%) they do not want to have Turkish education. 

 

 

According to you, what kind of positive and negative results will you face in future because of having education only in native language?

According to Table 11, teacher candidates mentioned that they will face negative results such as not being able to express oneself and losing self-confidence (f=12), not being successful (f=6), having problems in government agencies (f=2) besides positive results such as continuing cultural values (f=4), preventing disappearance of native language (f=2), developing academically and scientifically (f=1).

 

 

Answers to the question of “Can you translate the below mentioned sentences to your native language?”

“Çald?ran Muharebesi had significant effects in East. Diyarbak?r was wretched. It was languished as it had been besieging for a year.”

33 (40.74%) teacher candidates could not answer the question. 16 teacher candidates (19.75%) could only translate the second sentence; 32 teacher candidates (39.50%) tried to translate the sentences. But there were no literal translations.

Please write down the positive and negative effects of having a native language other than Turkish during your entire educational life and write down any issues you want.

According to Table 12, most of the teacher candidates (f= 27) think that their failure in education resulted from having education in second language. One of the teacher candidates stated that “during my primary end secondary education, I was trying to learn Turkish, not lessons. But my friends were learning lessons instead of a language. This caused a gap between us. This is why, I always fell behind them”. Another teacher candidate said that “I was dispirited” because of these kinds of reasons. 

 

 

Again, some of the teacher candidates mentioned that they failed in interpretation questions in exams. Another teacher candidate said that “I had difficulty in expressing myself in Turkish. I was beaten because of this”. Two teacher candidates said that “I was excluded by some teachers as I was speaking in my native language”. Another teacher candidate said that “I couldn’t explain what I know exactly in my educational life, I couldn’t socialize and I became a withdrawn person”.

In this stage, some teacher candidates emphasized the importance of knowing two languages (f=7) and said that “Knowing one language is like being one person, knowing two languages is like being two people.” On this issue, a teacher candidate said that “Although it affected me negatively during my primary education, I enjoyed knowing two languages later”. 

According to the data obtained from the research, bilingual Social Sciences teacher candidates stated that they meet with many difficulties in their education lives; this is why, they have the biggest problems in their primary education level. During this period, and in the following years, they had difficulty in understanding courses, they failed in exams, they had difficulty especially in interpretation questions, they could not express what they know during lessons, and they were exposed to violence by teachers because of this. On the other hand, they mentioned that as they are bilingual, they had language conflict; they used to use Turkish words while speaking in native language, they used to think in native language and had difficulty in expressing these thoughts in Turkish and they could learn neither of the languages completely. Almost half of the teacher candidates in the research stated that they could not learn Turkish efficiently; this is why they could not benefit from the courses in Turkish curriculum sufficiently.

In the research of Achmet (2005), he evaluated the skills of students, studying in the school of minorities that give bilingual education in Greece, in terms of reading comprehension and written expression. In this research, it was determined that bilingual students who graduated from the school of minorities and continue education in secondary school (native language Turkish, second language Greek) were under the expected average in terms of both Turkish and Greek reading  comprehension and written expression skills. This result is in parallel with the result of our study.

In the studies by Karatzias et al. (2001) and Diaz-Rico and Smith (1994), it was seen that students’ positive thoughts and attitudes towards school are significant in terms of their satisfaction level. So, it can be said that problems of bilingual students in schools are worth researching.

In our study, the teacher candidates stated that they could not express themselves, they lost self-confidence, they could not establish communication and they some-times felt humiliated as they were bilingual.

Studies in the related literature show that bilingual students’ school life quality and their sense of belonging are damaged. In the study by Alaca (2011) in Adiyaman, on the issue of “relation between life quality perception and sense of belonging to school in bilingual and non-bilingual students”, it was determined that the sense of belonging to school, feelings about school and statue sub-dimensions were meaningfully in favor of students whose native language is Turkish. On the other hand, in the same study, it was seen that student-student communication and school management sub-dimensions were meaningfully in favor of bilingual students. In his study, Akyol (2009) stated that because of the differences in grammatical structures of language, individuals have problems in establishing communication and they were under the effect of their native language in terms of the use of subject and negation. It is seen that similar results were obtained in our study.

When Social Sciences teacher candidates in the study were required to translate some sentences into their native language, almost 60% of them could not translate. This shows that teacher candidates’ control in their native language is weak. Besides that, they mentioned that they had difficulty in expressing what they think in Turkish especially in schools, government agencies and in social life. In his study, Mergen (2010) analyzed the grammatical and semantic processes of bilingual individuals, whose native language is Turkish, second language is English, in terms of neurolinguistics.

Students were required to determine the grammatical and semantic mistakes in scope of the evaluation scale which was given to them. Duration needed by the subjects and correctness of answers were recorded and statistical evaluation was done. The obtained results showed that there was not a meaningful difference between grammatical and semantic response time in second language, but there was significant difference in terms of correct answers. Difference in the response time of bilingual individuals support the data obtained in this study.

In the study by Tuncel and Aytan (2013), visual literacy and written expression skills of teacher candidates studying at a university in Greece, in Greek language were evaluated. The results of this study are also in parallel with the results of our study. Namely, it was determined that bilingual teacher candidates had difficulties in writing Turkish words and they frequently made mistakes.

 

Suggestions

1. The study can be carried out with wider samples, in a multidisciplinary method with linguists.

2. Including other branches in the study can be significant in terms of obtaining various opinions on the issue. 

The author has not declared any conflict of interests.