A Qualitative Study of the Affective Characteristics of Students Who Learn Turkish as a Foreign Language
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Abstract
This study aimed to gather the opinions of students who learn Turkish as a foreign language.Consistent with the study objective, this study examines the foreign students’ Turkish learningprocess and classroom environment as well as their opinions about each other. This is a qualitativesurvey. The study sample included 15 foreign students at upper-intermediate level who learnedTurkish at the Atatürk University Language Education Application and Research Center. In thecontext of the study, the researcher created a semi-structured interview form. The data wereanalyzed using content analysis. The researchers presented the findings, which were provided by theexamined data, in codes and categories and sought answers to the research questions. Based on thestudy results, students’ feelings during the learning process were determined. The studentsexpressed that they were mostly happy to learn new things; they learned from their failures and feltambition to study harder, liked to actively participate in the lesson, had positive feelings in anenvironment of close relationships and negative feelings in an environment of undisciplinedbehaviors, helped each other when their achievement levels were different and were glad to be toldwhen they made mistakes. Knowing about their affective characteristics will provide data that can beused to design effective Turkish learning environments for foreign students
Keywords
Abstract
This study aimed to gather the opinions of students who learn Turkish as a foreign language.Consistent with the study objective, this study examines the foreign students’ Turkish learningprocess and classroom environment as well as their opinions about each other. This is a qualitativesurvey. The study sample included 15 foreign students at upper-intermediate level who learnedTurkish at the Atatürk University Language Education Application and Research Center. In thecontext of the study, the researcher created a semi-structured interview form. The data wereanalyzed using content analysis. The researchers presented the findings, which were provided by theexamined data, in codes and categories and sought answers to the research questions. Based on thestudy results, students’ feelings during the learning process were determined. The studentsexpressed that they were mostly happy to learn new things; they learned from their failures and feltambition to study harder, liked to actively participate in the lesson, had positive feelings in anenvironment of close relationships and negative feelings in an environment of undisciplinedbehaviors, helped each other when their achievement levels were different and were glad to be toldwhen they made mistakes. Knowing about their affective characteristics will provide data that can beused to design effective Turkish learning environments for foreign students