The Opinions of Instructors Teaching Turkish to Foreigners about the Writing Skills of Syrian Students

Abstract

This study focuses on the difficulties experienced by the instructors while teaching writing skill to Arabians from Syria, and how these difficulties could be overcome. The study group of the research includes 11 instructors working in Turkish Teaching Centers (TTCs) of Cukurova University and Adana Science and Technology University. The data collected through the use of interview forms prepared by the researcher. After the interviews, content analysis was performed on the data collected. Following the content analysis, the data were analyzed by the researchers and grouped under certain titles and codes. Based on the content analysis, it is found that there is a lack of experts in teaching Turkish as a foreign language and materials particularly designed and developed for teaching Turkish writing are needed. Moreover, the teaching of suffixes, umlaut letters and conjunctions are problematic areas while teaching writing skills to Arabians from Syria. Suggestions have been put forward to overcome the difficulties reported by the instructors based on the findings of the study.