Student views on the use of educational games in teaching Turkish as a foreign language: A study at the Ethiopian Sebata Campus of the Turkish Maarif Foundation

In this study, it is tried to examine the student views about teaching Turkish to foreigners with educational games. Creating solutions with educational games to possible problems that students may encounter, especially in the areas of applying basic language skills while learning Turkish as a foreign language, making the language learning process more fun and engaging, and ensuring that students can develop positive attitudes towards the learning process are the main pillars of the research. Action research is used as a method. The study group consists of 6 students selected from various classes. These students are encoded as H.T, H.U, H.Y, H.A, M.Y and A.Y. They are 4 female and 2 male students. Average age of the students is 15. In the selection of students, their levels, four basic language skills and Turkish speaking skills were taken into account. The study was conducted in the Turkish classroom by taking required permission of the school administration. The study was carried out during the hours deemed appropriate by the school administration so as not to disrupt the students' classes. Within the scope of the study, a Semi-Structured Interview Form and educational games prepared by the researcher were used as a data collection tool in order to implement the action plan. The interview recordings of the students were transferred to the computer environment and subjected to thematic analysis. In order to ensure consistency, the decodes determined by the researcher were examined both in relation to each other and the theoretical structure created earlier, and it was understood that they reveal a meaningful and consistent whole. To ensure the confirmability of the research, the scientific method, sampling technique, data collection tool and data analysis processes followed in the research were stated in detail. In order to ensure the credibility of the study, the opinions of the participants were evaluated as they were expressed without any comments. For the transferability of the research, first of all, the role of the researcher in the data collection and analysis processes was tried to be clearly expressed. It has been understood at the end of the research that Turkish teaching to foreigners, which is carried out with educational games, positively affect the students' attitudes towards Turkish learning, their interest in learning Turkish increase, educational games facilitate the teaching of Turkish as a foreign language and they make it fun and Turkish learning activities with educational games help students to overcome the difficulties they face in language learning.