A Qualitative Study: Training of Skills in the Turkish Language Course

The purpose of this study is to manifest Turkish Language teachers' opinions on having the students gain the basic skills in the Turkish Language course. Within this context, qualitative research method was used in the study and data were collected through semi-structured interview forms. In the study where simple random sampling was employed, the participants consisted of the Turkish Language teachers that attended Turkish Language courses in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades in the secondary schools in Canakkale central district within the 2013-2014 school year. In order to determine the participating Turkish Language teachers' opinions on having the students gain the basic skills in the Turkish Language course, a semi-structured interview form consisting of nine open ended questions prepared by the researcher was used. The findings obtained at the end of the study were interpreted within the themes of 1. How teachers rank basic skills in terms of their level of importance, 2. Teachers' prediction on the five basic skills that are brought in the most through Turkish Language textbooks, 3. Teachers' prediction on the five basic skills that are brought in the least through Turkish Language textbooks, 4. Teachers' opinions on the suitability of the activities provided in Turkish Language textbooks in terms of bringing in basic skills, 5. Teachers' opinions concerning how the basic skills provided in Turkish Language textbooks vary between the different grades, 6. Teachers' opinions concerning how the basic skills provided in Turkish Language textbooks vary between the books of different publishers, 7. The problems teachers experience in having the students gain the basic skills in Turkish Language course, 8. The suggestions teachers make in order to overcome the problems they experience in having the students gain the basic skills in Turkish Language course, and 9. The suggestions teachers make in order to bring in basic skills in Turkish Language course to the students in a better way. In order to be able to manifest teachers' opinions more effectively, direct quotations were made. According to the results of the study, while the top five basic skills that are introduced the most were determined to be the skills of using Turkish in the correct, proper and effective way (16 people), research skills (14 people), communication skills (13 people), creative thinking skills (12 people) and intertextual reading skills (11 people), those that were determined to be brought in the least were determined to be entrepreneurial skills (17 people), problem solving skills (15 people), decision making skills (15 people), skills to utilize information technologies (13 people) and critical thinking skills (10 people). In addition, while 45% of the teachers consider that the activities in textbooks are suitable for introducing basic skills, the remaining 55% do not consider them to be suitable for this purpose.

Keywords

Basic Skills, Skills Training, Turkish Language Teacher, Turkish Language Textbook