Challenges and coping strategies for preschool teachers with children who cannot speak a majority language

Abstract

ABSTRACT Each year, Turkish public schools welcome many children who have little to no Turkish language skills. This study has been conducted with the purpose of unearthing the challenges that preschool education teachers are likely to experience while teaching children with low Turkish language capabilities. Twenty preschool education teachers, who worked in suburban districts where Kurdish is commonly spoken, participated in this study. A semi-structured interview protocol that was developed by the researchers was used for subsequent data collection. Participants were interviewed on a one-on-one basis in the attempt to determine how early childhood education could support the development of Turkish language skills amongst such children. Miles and Huberman’s [1994. Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Source Book. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications] systematic approach was utilised to analyse the data. The findings revealed that teachers are essentially left to cope with this issue on their own, and are generally unable to gain the support or resources needed to teach children the Turkish language. Although they achieve some progress despite these handicaps, their methods were unsystematic, unscientific or were not pedagogically proven.