Turkish Language in the Perspective of Syrian Refugee Students: A Metaphor Study

Abstract

One of the biggest obstacles to learning a language as a foreign language is the perception developed against that language. The obligation to learn the foreign language to be learned determines how the perception towards language is. In this context, Syrian refugees, who took refuge in Turkey leaving their country due to war and especially wish to continue their education in Turkey, had to learn Turkish. In this sense, knowing the perceptions of the relevant audience towards Turkish will directly affect many issues from developing a language education program to preparing books, from teacher training to redesigning methods and techniques to be used in lessons. In this connection, Turkish perceptions of Syrian refugees were tried to be determined through metaphors with this study. The study group of the study consists of 235 Syrian students who learn Turkish at Aydın TÖMER, Istanbul Aydın University. While collecting the data of the study using phenomenology approach, one of the qualitative research methods, students were asked to complete the sentence “Turkish is like ..............., because ...............”. Based on the findings obtained in the research, it was determined that 46% of Syrian students learning Turkish consider Turkish as a need, 25% have a positive feeling towards Turkish, 8% find it confusing, 7% find it easy, 6% find it difficult and 5% find a similarity between another language and Turkish. When the themes are examined in terms of their effect on the Turkish learning process, it is possible to say that the themes of need, positive feeling, finding it easy and similarity between languages have a supportive effect on students' motivation to learn Turkish, whereas the themes of finding it difficult and finding it confusing have an inhibitory effect on the learning process. When an evaluation is made in this respect, it is possible to say that nearly 90% of the students have a supportive perception of their own learning processes.