Digital Writing in Foreign Language Teaching: Learner Views

Abstract

The present study explores Turkish learners’ approaches toward digital writing and how digital writing contributes to their language learning. For this purpose, we recruited 21 international students from 16 countries, 10 males and 11 females, who attended B2-C1-level Turkish language classes at the Akdeniz University Turkish Language Teaching Center in the 2021-2022 academic year. We recorded and transcribed the data collected through face-to-face interviews with a semi-structured interview form consisting of 6 questions. The data were then coded to generate themes, and the findings were grounded on the interpretation of these themes. Accordingly, the results uncovered that all participants engage in digital writing and mostly utilize WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, YouTube, and Twitter as digital writing platforms. Moreover, they were found to usually mind proper spelling and punctuation and tend to use the T9 typing system in digital writing in Turkish. We also discovered that participants find auto-correction useful and sometimes misspell vowels, consonants, and longer words/consecutive suffixes due to differences between spoken and written languages. They particularly thought that digital writing contribute to their learning of Turkish. Overall, we comprehensively discussed the findings and raised some recommendations for future research.