Bilingualism in Turkey and Turkish Language Education

Purpose and Method

The main purpose of this study is to define bilingualism with the main lines in Turkey and to be able to describe bilingual individuals’ level of learning Turkish. Turkey is the junction point of many civilizations, ethnicities and languages. The people living in this geography are neighbors to Persian in the East, Arab in the South, Greek and Balkan in the west, Azeri, Armenian and Georgian in the Northeast. Therefore, the status of bilingualism is intensively felt in the nation borders or the regions close to these borders. There are bilingualism situations in the regions of Turkey, i.e. Arabic-Turkish in South cities, Kurdish–Turkish, Zaza-Turkish in South East and East Anatolian Regions, Persian-Turkish, Azerbaijani-Turkish in East boundaries of Turkey, Laz-Turkish in East Black Sea Region, Pomak-Turkish in West Thrace Region, Circassian-Turkish in Middle Anatolian Region etc. Among these, the most significant ones are Arabic-Turkish and Kurdish–Turkish bilingualisms. The sample of the study has been chosen from the individuals who are the members of these two groups. Data have been collected from Çetenli village of Altınözü in Hatay from the schools having similar social, economic and environmental (geographical) conditions for bilingual individuals and they have also been collected from Çilekli village of Sason in Batman for Kurdish–Turkish bilingual individuals. To compare these data and to be able to describe Turkish language acquisition of bilingual individuals, data which have been obtained in similar way from the students at Başöğretmen Atatürk Secondary School in İzmir have been used. This group is the control group of the study and consists of monolingual students.

Many people (219 for Arabic-Turkish, 198 from Kurdish-Turkish bilinguals and 236 from the individuals only speaking Turkish) have joined the study based on a voluntariness. However; among the participants, the feedbacks of 100 people have been taken into consideration for each group with random method and other feedbacks have been excluded.

The questions “How/Where did you learn Turkish?”, “Which language do you speak at home and outside?” and “Which language did you learn previously?” have been asked to the individuals for the purpose of being able to describe bilingualism in Turkey and the formation process of bilingualism. Afterwards, these two answers have been classified and the results have been interpreted by turning them into numerical data.

Three data collection tools have been used to be able to make sense of the students’ status of Turkish language with qualitative and quantitative expressions. A single data collection method has been used for each week. Data have been collected consecutively and from all groups concurrently. These data collection tools are written expression texts that are written in free composition techniques, and they provide students with an opportunity to express their ideas, thoughts and plans. To make comparison between the participants, students have been asked to write texts about similar topics (suitable for age level and Turkish curriculum):The topic of the first week (third week of February in 2016) “tell about a friend you love or a person you appreciate much”, in the second week (fourth week of February in 2016) “tell about a tale, a novel, a film, or a theatre you love”, in the third week (the first week of March) they have written in scales which have been prepared in open-ended style “explain the sentence “Anyone is the architect of his/her own future.” The texts obtained from the writing activities have been discussed with document scanning method and by making their content analysis method; it has been evaluated in term of factors reflecting language acquisition levels such as vocabulary, the suitability of expressions to the grammar rules. In the evaluation, the following criteria have been paid attention.

- Are there any differences or similarities between the students’ vocabulary knowledge?

- Are there any differences between the groups in terms of the suitability of Turkish grammar rules?