Mother tongue is the language which is acquired from the mother and other close relatives at first and later through the society an individual interacts, and that can go down to the subconscious of the individual and creates the strongest bonds between an individual and the society. Individual picks up the mother tongue from his/her mother and  close   relatives   and   acquires  all  the  qualities  of his/her language. Consequently, individual uses his/her mother tongue throughout his/her entire life. He/she views and perceives the world from his/her mother tongue’s perspective at first, and the universe is shaped in his/her mind according to the mother tongue. One expresses all the happenings he/she encounters and all the judgments related to  the  life  by  making  use  of  the comprehension and expression properties of his/her mother tongue (Aksan, 1994: 67; Ahmet, 2005: 37). 

Besides his/her mother tongue one should also learn social language. Social language or official language is the language which is agreed upon by the society and through which citizens can communicate with each other while formal education is given. Beyond being used as an instrument for the individual to explain his/her thoughts, emotions and desires, social language turns the individual to member of the society he/she lives,  makes one to identify with the society and gives the individual being the property of it at the same time. Learning process of the mother tongue occurs through random domestication within the family and surroundings and is followed by teaching Turkish through intentional domestication at school. Teaching Turkish through intentional domesti-cation at school aims to provide individuals with the rules and correct usage of the language (Aksan, 1977: 81; Demirel, 2003: 6).

Bilingualism, despite not having an agreed upon definition, is the situation where at least two languages are spoken in a society such as a mother tongue (L1) and the social language (L2). Bilingualism, implemented in different ways all over the world, is one of the fundamental problems in education systems (Luchtenberg, 2002: 49-50).  Moreover, in the "Education for Everybody" report of World Bank (2005) it was stated that 5% of the school-age children in the world use different languages in the school and at home.

Bilingualism is a concept having both individual and social aspects. There are several definitions about this concept. Vardar (1980: 93) defines bilingualism as “the situation where an individual speaks two languages or two languages are being used in a society”. Aksan (1998: 26) also defines bilingualism close to Vardar’s definition “in linguistic the situation where an individual acquires, uses or learns a second language in a level close to his mother tongue due to various reasons and under various conditions is called bilingualism”. There is no social and institutionalized bilingualism in Turkey. Various languages are spoken within the political boundaries but none of these languages are accepted as a second official language. Turkish is the mother tongue of the majority of the citizens (?mer, 1990: 166).

Even though many countries have a single official language, nowadays it is more difficult to claim that the official language is the only language spoken in those countries. In many countries, besides the official language, there can be different languages spoken by minorities, and different mother tongues could be spoken by the groups in certain regions. That’s the case for Turkey, too. Several languages such as Kurdish, Arabic, Laz and Zaza are spoken at least within the families besides the official Turkish language. As Haskara stated, if the mother tongue of an individual is not the official language, the individual mostly uses his mother tongue while speaking at home or with somebody from the  same linguistic minority (1996: 23). This causes problems for the students whose mother tongues are different than Turkish to learn Turkish at school.

National and international researches show that the education that is provided is far from being successful and there are significant problems in Turkish language teaching (Özbay, 2004:2805; An?lan, 2004:1293; Özyürek, 2004:469; ?ahin, 2007:302). According to A??c? (1996), problems in Turkish language teaching can be classified under two topics. First of which is the training of the Turkish language teachers, and the second is the content of the books to be used and teaching methodology. Sever (2004: 31–32) states that these problems are, in one aspect, related with the teacher training, and in other aspect, related with the basic elements of the curriculum (expected learning outcomes, content, methods, tools and materials, time and evaluation). Furthermore, being a multidimensional concept which aims to develop skills simultaneously, makes the methodology significant in language teaching.

Turkish language teaching is a process which  affects success in all other subjects in formal education starting at the primary school level. During this process, it is aimed to develop students’ comprehension and expression skills. This general objective is achieved through integral implementations of four basic language skills, which are listening, speaking, reading and writing (Sever et al., 2006).

Turkish language is the basis of all courses especially at primary school level. Hence, as students become more proficient in their linguistic skills, their mentalities develop and they start to perceive their national and cultural heritage better. Thus, the student’s mentality, compre-hension and interpretation ability develops and the student starts to perceive his/her national and cultural erudition.Consequently, they become significantly more successful in other courses too. Therefore, Turkish teachers have a great responsibility to help students to acquire the basic language skills of Turkish.Througout his /her lifetime, one’s perceiving, comprehending and adapting his/herself to life is upto his/her Turkish that had been taught at primary school level. Language learning in this level turns into the production of thought, and provides conscious development of an individual in mental and psychological aspects (Tosuno?lu, 2002: 562).

Formal learning at school depends on language skills. The language used by a student not only affects his/her learning at school, but also affects all his/her cognitive achievements such as his/her perception, imagination, transferring, analysing which are all included in learning process, too. Therefore the students with under-developed language skills are unable to participate effectively classes at school and they tend to be unsuccessful in all subjects, Turkish standing first on the list(Y?lmaz, 1974: 130). Using Turkish effectively is the basis of the learning.  Proficiency in language skills as an employer, citizen and a member of a family and the society is of great importance. Therefore more importance should be given to Turkish language teaching for increased success in the schools.

Rapid developments in education have also led to important changes in language teaching. It has become evident towards the end of the 20th century that it is unlikely to bring up qualified individuals by the means of a language teaching approach in which students are continuously conditioned, their behavioral changes are regarded more important than their mental skills, knowledge is transferred passively and students are unaware of what they have learnt. In this context, not being able to achieve expected learning outcomes and the rapid increase of the problems have forced educators and linguists to turn to new pursuits in language teaching.  Thus, language approaches which require active involvement and social interaction of the individuals, which are learned through linking the prior knowledge with the new ones and which prioritize the concept of learning rather than teaching, have stood out (Güne?, 2007: 1).

In the constructivist learning approach which Turkish curriculum is based on, students construct their own knowledge by taking an active role in the learning environment and by linking new knowledge with the previous experiences. Constructivist environments do not function as passing on the knowledge; on the contrary, they provide students with the facilities to support construction of their knowledge. According to the constructivist learning theory, teaching is not the direct transfer of the pre-determined content to the students but it is the process of facilitating the learning and helping the students’ learning in order to construct their individual knowledge, meaning or interpretations related to the outside world (Yager, 1991: 5; Brooks et al., 1998; Terwel, 1999: 195–197; Anagün et al., 2007).

New Turkish curriculum has been prepared to let the students acquire listening, reading, writing, visual reading and visual presenting skills which are going to be used lifelong to develop their cognitive, social and emotional aspects and to communicate effectively (MEB, 2005: 14). Changes in Turkish curriculum and the adaptation of a student-centered teaching approach have led the teachers to become guides rather than authorities in the class. This change in the curriculum has also brought other changes in teaching methods, tools and equipment as well as assessment and evaluation methods.

In the newly released Turkish curriculum the emphasis has been given on developing students’ linguistic, mental, and social skills and effective use of these skills. It also promotes skills such as correct, fluent and effective usage of Turkish, critical and creative thinking, communi-cation, problem solving, research and decision making too. Thus the curriculum consists of four dimensions as learning outcomes, content, learning process, and assessment   and   evaluation  With  this  new  curriculum these four dimensions of the curriculum should be considered holistically and to determine the problems encountered in its implementation in order to deliver Turkish language teaching in line with its objectives.

Contemporary education paradigm aims to bring up self-sufficient and self-conscious individuals who have their own personalities with sufficient knowledge to tackle the problems they may encounter. This needs independent and critical thinking skills, understanding correctly and acting objectively. An individual needs to understand and internalize the expression capabilities of the mother tongue since the development of these skills depends on it. Its realization is directly related to the quality of the language education. The quality of the language education can be improved by identifying and tackling the problems encountered in this process (Ergenç, 1994: 12; Ahmet, 2005: 37).

Problems often seen in students are using limited set of words, lack of talking subject, inability to use proper terms, inability to enrich the speech with suitable metaphors, idioms, and proverbs, and word misusages. Students use their mother tongue after they start the school too. Standard spoken language is the language free of any dialects. One of the objectives of Turkish language curriculum is to provide students with the ability to use standard language to express themselves (Sa??r, 2002: 12-13).

Alcindor (2001) shows that the students whose mother tongues are different than English have a limited proficiency of English, and he coined the term LEP (Limited English Proficiency) to describe those students in his research. This situation may be generalized for the students with different mother tongues. It is known that the students who have different mother tongues than Turkish have limited Turkish proficiency. Teachers think that these students encounter more problems at school than other students whose mother tongues are Turkish.

The most important component in identifying the problems encountered in Turkish language teaching is the teachers, as they are the ones who face the problems in the first sense and in charge of implementation of the program. Taking the teachers’ opinions into consideration is an effective way to find solutions to the problems. The efficiency of Turkish language teaching undoubtedly decreases due to both problems about implementation of the curriculum and inadequate training of the teachers (Çelenk, 2002: 42). Therefore finding timely, rational, common and practical solutions to the problems in Turkish language learning before for those problems become chronic by the help of students’ and their teachers’ opinions is very important.

Many researches have been conducted on investigating the problems and the reasons of these problems in learning Turkish. In this research, a new perspective and approach has been put forward to solve the problems encountered in learning Turkish and unlike the scientific studies has been conducted so far, it has been  aimed  to reveal the problems encountered in learning Turkish by the primary and secondary school students having a different mother tongue and suggest solutions to them. Hence, it has been thought that this study might be useful for Turkish teachers and classroom teachers and contributes to the studies which have been carried on or to those which are going to be carried on in the future.

 

Objectives and significance of the study

This study aims to determine the problems in Turkish language teaching that students who have different mother tongues encounter by the help of teacher and student opinions and to suggest solutions to these problems. Determining the problems encountered in implementation is important for further development of Turkish curriculum. Additionally, it is argued that the determination of these problems may contribute the creation of new ideas by the educators to solve these problems, the development of more effective plans and programs for Turkish language teaching and the development of Turkish curriculum.

Method of the study

This is a qualitative study which aims to determine the problems encountered in teaching Turkish based on the opinions of the teachers and students, reveal the current situation in pheno-menological design.Data considering the research has been collected, analyized, and interpreted through qualitative research A qualitative research, is a study in which qualitative methods such as observation, interviews and document analysis are used to reveal the perceptions and phenomenon realistically and holistically where a qualitative process is followed (Y?ld?r?m and ?im?ek, 2006:39).  

Phenomenology focuses on individuals' meaning making as the quintessential element of the human experience. The important findings derived from phenomenology are an understanding of a phenomenon as seen through the eyes of those who have experienced it. Phenomenological inquiry assumes that there is an essence or essences to shared experience (Patton, 2002).

 

Scope of the study

Criterion sampling as a purposive sampling method was used to identify the schools in which the study has been implemented in qualitative study. Therefore primary school to which bilingual students attend was determined as the basic criteria by the researchers.

The reason that the research has been carried out in the province of Batman and villages was the bilingual students in Turkey have trouble with learning Turkish. Batman is one of the provinces in the Southeastern Anatolia Region where Arab and Kurdish population is intense. Therefore, the research was decided to be applied in the primary schools of Batman which have intensively bilingual students. The research was carried out with the classroom teachers, Turkish teachers and the students in the schools in districts and villages of Batman.

18 classroom teachers, 6 Turkish teachers and 60 students chosen with convenience sampling of intentional sampling methods participated in the research. The researchers have chosen an easily accessible nearby case for convenience sampling. This sampling method adds speed and practicality to the research. (Y?ld?r?m and ?im?ek, 2006: 113).

 

Data gathering and analysis

Research data was gathered by semi-structured interview forms and Turkish proficiency questionnaire conducted on the students. In semi-structured interviews, the participants are asked a set of predetermined questions. However, new questions may be asked or some questions may be cancelled if deemed necessary (Karasar, 2007: 167–168).

Recorded data was transcribed and analyzed. Furthermore, the findings of the research have been supported with direct quotations from the teachers’ replies to the questions.The students’opinions have been collected by a questionnaire prepared by the researchers. This questionnaire which included 3 items about the conditions of the participants in learning Turkish, 2 items about the activities of learning and using Turkish, and 2 items about the problems encountered in learning Turkish and possible recommendations have been submitted to 3 field experts for inspection.The experts have analyzed the open-ended questions in the questionnaire in terms of clarity and scope. The questionnaire was arranged based on the expets’ opinions. Data was collected from 60 students between 10-18 April by this questionnaire.

Data gathered in the research was analyzed by descriptive analysis and content analysis. The main objective of content analysis is to be able to reach the concepts and relationships that could explain the collected data. In descriptive analysis, on the other hand, gathered data is summarized and interpreted according to the predetermined themes. In descriptive analysis, direct quotations are frequently used to reflect the opinions of the interviewed or observed individuals (Y?ld?r?m et al., 2006).

Validity and reliability are the most commonly used two important criterion in the research studies to determine the credibility of the results. Reporting the collected data in detail and the justifications of the results are among the most important criterion of the validity in a qualitative research. The processes of data collection and analysis are described in detail to ensure the validity of this research. Gathered data has been analyzed individually by two separate researchers to ensure the internal validity of the research. Then, common conclusions have been drawn by comparing the analyses conducted by researchers. In addition, the researchers have to make their own position clear in the scope of external reliability in a qualitative research (LeCompte and Goetz, 1982). In this regard, roles and responsibilities of researchers can be defined as designing, implementing and finalizing the research process, planning of the implementation process, creation and execution of the implementation environment, analyzing and reporting the findings and results. The researchers' personal opinions have also been included while reporting the results.

Results and findings of the research are divided into two major themes as "Teachers’ opinions about the status of the students learning Turkish who have different mother tongues" and "Students’ opinions about their conditions in learning Turkish, who have different mother tongues". Results are shown as frequency distribution tables and are  summed   up   with the direct quotations of the participants.

 

Teachers’ opinions about the status of the students Learning Turkish who have different mother tongues

This theme is divided into four sub-themes as expected learning outcomes, content, learning-teaching process, assessment and evaluation.

 

Problems encountered in expected learning outcomes in Turkish Language

Half of the teachers who have participated in the research have stated that they do not have any problems about the expected learning outcomes of Turkish teaching, while the other half stated that they have some problems. The encountered problems about the expected learning outcomes by the teachers are shown in Table 1.

 

 

The teachers have stated that the problems related with the expected learning outcomes they have encoun-tered are curriculum being prepared with the presumption that students operate in Turkish well, time insufficiency to cover the expected learning outcomes, the expected learning outcomes being set above the level of the students, students not using the achieved expected learning outcomes in daily life.

Teacher 10 has stated his opinions as “It is impossible to teach the same expected learning outcomes both to the students whose mother tongue is Turkish and to the students who have different mother tongues. Because some students are unable to understand Turkish when they come to the school and they are unable to express themselves in Turkish.”

Teacher 8 has stated his opinions as “The expected learning outcomes are above the levels of the students, and it is impossible to teach all of them within limited time.”

Teacher 1 has stated his opinions as “Some students jump up to the second level without learning to  write  and speak fluently in Turkish. This makes it impossible to teach them higher level language skills.”

Findings from the research about the problems related to the expected learning outcomes encountered in Turkish language teaching show that the most frequent encountered problems by the teachers are having too many expected learning outcomes, time insufficiency to reach expected learning outcomes and curriculum being prepared with the presumption that all students know Turkish.

 

Problems encountered in content of Turkish Language teaching

While one third of the teachers who have participated in the research (8 people) have stated that they do not have any problems about content, the rest (16 people) have stated that they had. The problems related with content encountered by the teachers are indicated in Table 2.

 

 

The teachers see the texts being unattractive for the students, level of the subjects not being appropriate for the students, students forgetting the new words they have learned because of not using in daily life, students being unable to follow the written sources and inadequate and wrong teaching of grammar as the mostly encountered problems related to content. 

Teacher 6 has stated his opinions as “Reading materials in the course books should be prepared with short and simple sentences which are easily understandable and enrich the imagination of the students. Reading materials are above the levels of the students so, students have difficulties in understanding the subjects.”

Teacher 7 has stated his opinions as “Students have difficulty in understanding the metaphors and the meanings of idioms and proverbs. Students are unable to use the words they have learned in a sentence. Maybe they have this problem because of lack of reading habits.”

Teacher 12   has   stated   his   opinions   as “The kid has difficulties in understanding long texts and so he is distracted. In addition, selection of boring texts which has low literary value rather than the texts of famous authors prevents the students from having literary taste and reading habits.”

After the analysis of the teachers’ opinions about content, most encountered problems can be stated as themes and subjects being inappropriate for the levels of the students, too long texts, and grammar being ignored.

 

Problems encountered in learning-teaching process in Turkish Language teaching

Nearly all of the teachers participated in the research (22 people) have stated that they had faced some problems in learning-teaching process. The problems encountered by the teachers are given in Table 3.

 

 

Most encountered problems related with learning-teaching process are lack of communication between teachers  and   students    in    the classroom,   physical conditions of the schools being inadequate for education, students who do not know Turkish sufficiently, students with poor listening skills, students who transfer words from their mother tongues into Turkish, reading speed of the students being too slow, and students who do not pay attention to pauses, stresses and intonation.

Teacher 13 has stated his opinions as “Some students come to the school without speaking Turkish and the students who can speak Turkish act as translators for us to communicate with them. Even students who can speak Turkish make sentences by transferring words from their mother tongues in a local dialect when they have difficulty in expressing themselves.”

Teacher 9 has stated his opinions as “It is difficult for the students to talk and make comments on the subject. Activities are too many and mother tongue differences have been ignored.”

Teacher 11 has stated his opinions as “Language training should follow the steps  of  listening,  speaking,  and later reading and writing skills Starting teaching Turkish in the first grade with writing skills makes it difficult for children to learn Turkish..”

Teacher 20 has stated his opinions as “Although teaching with pictures is very useful for teaching vocabulary in the first grade, it does not work with the students who have different mother tongues. Let me tell you an experience on this issue. I showed a “horse” (“at” in Turkish) picture to teach letter “a” to the student and I asked what it is. But he defined it as “hasp'' starting with the letter “h” which is the word used in his mother tongue to define ''horse". Turkish language should be taught with different methods to the students whose mother tongue is Turkish and to the students who have different mother tongues.”

The teachers have stated that the most encountered problems about the learning-teaching process are activities being unattractive and above the levels of the students, physical conditions of the schools being inadequate, language teaching being carried out with wrong teaching techniques, and readiness level and developmental properties of the students being inadequate.

 

Problems encountered in assessment and evaluation in Turkish Language teaching     

While majority of the teachers participated in the research (19 people) have stated that they have problems in assessment and evaluation, 5 teachers have stated that they do not have any problems. The problems in assessment and evaluation encountered by teachers are indicated in Table 4.

 

 

The teachers have stated that most encountered problems in assessment and evaluation process are students getting low marks because of the ambiguities in their oral and written expressions; student errors in punctuation and spelling in the composition exams, insufficient time, some of the assessment and evaluation forms being too difficult for the students, students having difficulties in expressing themselves, and students failing in multiple-choice exams because of lack of reading comprehension.

Teacher 3 has stated his opinions as “We have problems in assessment and evaluation. Time is not enough for our curriculum. We are trying to finish all the subjects in the curriculum as students do not know Turkish enough and so we cannot find enough time for assessment and evaluation.”

Teacher 14 has stated his opinions as “Students have difficulties in expressing themselves in written. They cannot get good marks because of the ambiguities in their exam papers.”

Teacher 17 has stated his opinions as “Students are unable to express themselves in oral exams. They are unable to pronounce the words correctly. They cannot be successful in national exams like SBS due to the lack of reading comprehension.”

The analysis of the problems related with the assessment and evaluation process shows that most encountered problems are insufficient time and students having difficulties in expressing themselves either oral or written.

 

Suggestions to overcome the problems determined in Turkish Language teaching

The suggestions of the teachers to overcome the problems determined in Turkish language teaching are indicated in Table 5.

 

 

Most cited suggestions by teachers are; restructuring Turkish curriculum by taking the students with different mother tongues into consideration, publishing attractive and appropriate textbooks according to the levels of the students, improving physical and technological facilities of the schools, increasing Turkish class hours, increasing parent and student awareness for Turkish education, encouraging students to read in order to equip them with reading habits, training teachers against offenses to the students who use regional dialect and incorrect Turkish, teachers developing students’ self-expression skills and the self-confidence, increasing teachers’ sensitivity about the use of language as a role model, in-service training to teachers, and implementing alternative assessment and evaluation techniques .

Teacher 8 has stated his opinions as “Students should be provided with a rich learning-teaching environment to develop their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills and they should also have necessary facilities to express themselves confidently with various teaching strategies. Turkish teachers of the students who have different mother tongues should be given in-service training. I suggest that textbooks and materials should be prepared by field experts taking the needs of the students who have different mother tongues into consideration.”

Teacher 11 has stated his opinions as “Teachers should collaborate with the families for the students to use Turkish in social life. The time period of students using Turkish should be increased by various activities like theatre and cinema. Students should be encouraged to gain reading habits to follow written sources.”

 

The opinions of the students who have different mother tongues about learning Turkish

The theme about the opinions of the students who have different mother tongues about learning Turkish is divided into four sub-themes as states of Turkish knowledge, the objectives of learning Turkish, effectiveness of learning and using Turkish, and the problems and suggestions in learning Turkish.

 

The States of Turkish Knowledge

The students were asked the question of "Did  you  speak Turkish before school education?" Their answers are indicated in Table 6.

 

 

The students who have different mother tongues have been asked the question of "Did you speak Turkish before school education?" It has been found out that 53 students had not spoken Turkish before school education. 7 students who had spoken Turkish before school education have been asked how much they had spoken Turkish.

Student 8 has responded as “I could made simple sentences and sing songs. I could understand what elder people had spoken.”

Student 52 has said “I could understand the conversations in the cartoons. I had difficulties in makinging sentences with the words I have learned from television while speaking with my friends.”

Student 24 has said “My family used to speak Turkish with me at home for me to not to have any difficulties in learning Turkish at school. So, I do speak Turkish very well. I speak Turkish and I listen to Turkish music. I can easily understand the movies in the television.”

The students have been asked the question of "Where have you learned Turkish?" Their answers are indicated in Table 7.

 

 

Most of the students have stated that they want to improve their Turkish. 42 of the students who have different mother tongues have stated that they have learned Turkish in primary school. 9 of those have stated that they have learned Turkish by the help of their families, 4 of  those  stated that they have learned Turkish in kindergarten.

The students have been asked the question of "Do you want to improve your Turkish?" Their responses are indicated in Table 8.

 

 

Almost all of the students have stated that they want to improve their Turkish.

 

Objectives of learning Turkish

The students have been primarily asked the question of "What is your objective of learning Turkish?" Their responses are indicated in Table 9.

 

 

As seen in Table 9, majority of the students who have different mother tongues want to learn Turkish to use Turkish more effectively and achieve success in other subjects. Also, more than half of the students want to learn Turkish to communicate with friends better, while almost half of the students to access information in Turkish.

 

Turkish learning and practice activities   

The students have been asked the questions of "What types  of   extracurricular  activities   do  you  do  to  learn Turkish?" and "Where do you practice Turkish in your daily life?" Their responses are indicated in Table 10.

 

 

As seen in Table 10, more than half of the students have stated that they practice Turkish at school. Almost all of the students watch Turkish TV channels and listen to Turkish music. 

Student 27 has stated his opinion as "I practice Turkish every day, I read books, I watch TV, I listen to music. At school I speak to my teachers and friends in Turkish".

Student 12 has stated his opinion as "We speak our mother tongue at home. We only need Turkish when we watch television".

Student 5 who does not always practice Turkish has said "We often speak in our mother tongue, we rarely speak Turkish".

 

Problems and suggestions in Learning Turkish          

The students have been asked the questions of "What kind of problems do you encounter while learning Turkish?" and "What are your suggestions in order to solve these problems?" Students' answers to these questions are indicated in Table 11.

 

 

As  seen  in  Table  11,  15  of  the  students  who have participated in the research have stated that they had had some problems in writing, while 32 of those have stated that they had had problems in speaking. 45 of those have stated that they had forgotten what they had learned because of lack of practice while 29 of those have stated that they have poor vocabulary. More than half of the students have stated that Internet can be utilized, while 35 of those have stated that CDs can be used to solve these problems.

With  this   research,  it  has  been  aimed  to  identify  the problems encountered in Turkish language teaching to those students who have different mother tongues and to suggest solutions to these problems. It is very important to determine the problems encountered in Turkish language teaching in order to improve the quality of teaching activities and to carry out Turkish language teaching as intended.

The results obtained from this research reveal that half of the teachers has been having problems about the expected learning outcomes in Turkish language teaching. Most cited problems are curriculum being prepared with the presumption of students operate in Turkish well, time insufficiency to teach the expected learning outcomes, expected learning  outcomes  being set above the level of the students, and students not practicing the achieved outcomes in daily life. These findings yield to take actions including restructuring of Turkish curriculum by taking the students with different mother tongues into consideration and restructuring the goals, can also be counted as the expected learning outcomes have been set above the level of students when Turkish lesson duration is taken into consideration. Expected learning outcomes should be redesigned based on the development and readiness levels of the students.

It can be stated that more than half of the teachers face problems about content of the Turkish language teaching curriculum. After the analysis of the opinions of the teachers, most cited problems are found to be the texts being unattractive for the students, level of the subjects not being appropriate for the students, students forgetting new words they had learned because of lack of practice, students being unable to follow the written sources, and inadequate and wrong teaching of grammar. These findings can be interpreted as the subject level in Turkish curriculum not being appropriate for the students and grammar subjects should be revised and be taught in association with other language skills.

After the analysis of teachers’ opinions on the problems encountered in learning-teaching process of Turkish language teaching, it can be stated that almost all of the teachers have had some problems about learning-teaching process. Most encountered problems are lack of communication between teachers and students in the classroom, physical conditions of the schools being inadequate for education, students who do not know Turkish sufficiently, students with poor listening skills, students who transfer words from their mother tongues into Turkish, reading speed of the students being too slow, and students who do not pay attention to pauses, stresses and intonation. These findings can be interpreted as the students who have different mother tongues are unable to fully participate in the learning-teaching process and education cannot be carried out as intended due to physical conditions of the schools and limited Turkish knowledge of the students. Although it is known that the language teaching required special effort because it is a complex and multidimensional issue, it can be interpreted that the success of Turkish teaching depends on personal skills of the teachers due to the fact that curriculum, family awareness, student motivation, school conditions and social environment are not as in desired level. In addition, it can be concluded that it is necessary to use attractive strategies providing self-confidence to the students such as drama and educational games together with enrichment of the activities in the curriculum.

Majority of the teachers have reported problems related with assessment and evaluation encountered in Turkish curriculum.  The main problems related with assessment and evaluation encountered are students getting low marks because of the ambiguities in their oral and written expressions; student errors in punctuation and spelling in the composition exams, insufficient time, some of the assessment and evaluation forms being too difficult for students, students having difficulties in expressing themselves, and students failing in multiple-choice exams because of lack of reading comprehension. The purpose of assessment is the evaluation of students’ knowledge; however, students who have different mother tongues do not only fail in the exams of Turkish subject but also of other courses due to the lack of expressing themselves and their knowledge. This failure reduces students’ motivation and self-confidence and it leads to a negative attitude towards school. Assessment and evaluation in the new Turkish curriculum includes the assessment of both the process and the product. This aspect of the curriculum requires diversified assessment and evaluation methods to be used.

All of the teachers have stated that students make pronunciation mistakes, while a large portion have stated that students’ lack reading comprehension, speak with a few words, and have difficulties in spelling. The suggestions of the teachers to tackle these problems are restructuring Turkish curriculum by taking the students with different mother tongues into consideration, publishing attractive and appropriate books according to the levels of the students, improving physical and technological facilities of the schools, increasing Turkish class hours, increasing parent and student awareness for Turkish education, encouraging students to read in order to equip them with reading habits, training teachers against offenses to the students who use regional dialect and incorrect Turkish, teachers developing students’ self-expression skills and the self-confidence by using various expression methods, increasing teachers’ sensitivity about the use of language as a role model, providing in-service training to teachers, and implementing alternative assessment and evaluation techniques.

Majority of the students have stated that they had not spoken Turkish before attending school and they had learned it at primary school. Almost all of the students have stated that they find their Turkish insufficient, and they want to improve it. The students want to learn Turkish because of reasons such as communicating with friends better, using Turkish effectively, and being successful in other subjects. It can also be stated that most widely used activity to improve Turkish is music, more than half of the students read Turkish books, while few of them use Internet. In addition, results of the research confirm that more than half of the students practice Turkish, while few of the students do not or rarely practice Turkish. Students have stated that problems they encounter in Turkish are in speaking and expressing, forgetting due to lack of practice in daily life, and poor vocabulary. The suggestions of the students to overcome these problems are mainly related to the use of technology and are using online sources and various Turkish education CDs, extracurricular activities, and increasing Turkish class hours.  

It can be stated that teachers’ and students’ opinions show great resemblance about the problems in learning Turkish: Students practice Turkish mainly with their families. They have lots of problems in learning Turkish in terms of language skills. Their suggestions to tackle these problems are that education should be supported with resources and extracurricular activities.

In the light of the results obtained in the research, following suggestions can be made for effective implementation of Turkish language teaching and to overcome the problems: 

1. Turkish teachers should be given in-service training about how students can be encouraged to gain the basic skills of Turkish, and about which methods are appropriate in teaching.

2. Students who have different mother tongues should be taught with different methods in a different curriculum. Therefore, initially a needs analysis should be performed to these students. After determining the Turkish pro-ficiency levels of the students, an alternative curriculum should be implemented.

3. Teachers should not overreact or humiliate students who speak in a local dialect in the classroom; but they should correct the pronunciation mistakes in a proper manner.

4. Classes should provide an appropriate environment for the students to use and to improve their understanding and expression skills. Teachers should create a comfortable environment for the students to express themselves by making use of fine arts. Turkish language teaching should be carried out in a classroom equipped with a library that includes qualified examples of audiovisual tools for the students to dramatize an event when necessary, since it is necessary to practice language skills in order to develop them.

5. Grammar is very important  in Turkish language teaching. Traditional prescriptive language teaching should not be used in grammar classes. Simple rules should be taught. Focus should be on communication rather than grammar.

6.Turkish language education given in the schools should be expanded to family and social environment. Therefore schools should be continuously in collaboration with the families. Parents’ awareness of the Turkish education should be raised, and they should be sensitive for their children to learn Turkish.

The authors have not declared any conflict of interests.