The Views of Instructors on Teaching Speaking Skills to the Syrian Students Learning Turkish as a Foreign Language

Abstract

Having a significant role in communication, speaking skill is an inborn and improvable abilty. Since their existence, human beings have consistently improved this ability in order to communicate with others. Besides, one of the most fundamantal keystones of making a healthy contact and living in harmony with different societies are no doubt being a proficient speaker of this language. Therefore, the need for speaking Turkish of Syrian refugees forced to migrate to Turkey, because some political reasons have also increased and Turkish instruction has started to be given accordingly. In this study, the evaluation of Turkish speaking skills of Syrian students through the views of instructors giving Turkish lessons is aimed within this study. The research data were obtained through the interviews with the instructors who teach Turkish to Syrian Students in Adana Turkish Education Centre. In these interviews, eleven instructors were asked to answer eight open-ended questions. The data collected from the interviews were analysed by content analysis method. According to the findings obtained, it was found out that instructors have some difficulties in improving speaking skills of Syrian students; facing some problems like mispronunciations of Syrian students during speaking activities, abstaining from speaking Turkish, regarding speaking Turkish as a difficult ability, and thus the instructors fail to asses and evaluate the speaking skill despite conducting various activities so as to overcome the problems.