An Analysis of the Persuasion Strategies Used by Turkish Language Teachers to Persuade Their Students

Abstract

“Persuasion” has been a key concept for human communication throughout history. Humans constantly try to persuade or are persuaded since they are in a continuous state of communication and interaction. The aim of this study is to determine the persuasion strategies related to understanding and explaining skills used by the teachers of Turkish language in creating learning environments. For this purpose, a semi-structured interview form was created with the Google Docs and 46 Turkish teachers volunteered to answer the questions. Examination of the Turkish language teachers’ opinions revealed that they developed positive and negative persuasion strategies. The positive persuasion strategies by frequency are rewarding, experience transfer, arousing interest, establishing condition-and-effect relationships, giving responsibility, conversing, trusting, motivating, caring, empathizing, performing needs assessment, building cause-and-effect relationships, establishing positive style, creating environment, developing a culture of reconciliation, giving feedback, establishing rules, building aim-and-effect relationships, body language, creating consciousness, using the question-answer method, listening, providing feedback, being respectful, presenting alternative sources, making a difference, getting to know the student, going from the known towards the unknown, being student-oriented, guidance, going from simple to complex, working together, drawing attention, creating awareness, cooperative learning, perseverance, the separation into small groups, being patient, and association with real life. The negative persuasion strategies by frequency are punishment, competition, verbal warning, using grading as a threat, admonition, singling students out, doing nothing, comparison, negative style, conscientious pressure and necessity. Preservice or in-service teachers may be given training on persuasion strategies so that they can become aware of these strategies and apply them more effectively.