A language needs analysis towards Turkish language learners in Afghanistan

The aim of this study is to determine the language needs and priorities of students who learn Turkish as a foreign language in different institutions and environments in Afghanistan. Concomitantly, the study intended to analyses whether these needs differ significantly according to gender, class, mother tongue and institutions they study. This study was applied in the fall semester of 2018-2019 on students of Turkology Department of Kabul University, Kabul Yunus Emre Turkish Culture Center as well as private and non-dependent language teaching centers such as the İfsah Foreign Language Teaching Center and the Star Institute. Therefore, the population of the study is the students of mentioned institutions. The participants of the study were 76 students, who were learning Turkish language in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades of the Turkology Department of Kabul University; 49 trainees attending different classes at the Kabul Yunus Emre Turkish Culture Center and 22 participants who were learning Turkish language at İfsah Foreign Language Teaching Center and Star Institute. Totally 147 students participated in the study. In order to collect data, the Turkish version of the questionnaire prepared and used by Iwai et al's (1999) in Japanese Language Needs Analysis, which was adapted and used by Önder Çangal, is re-developed and used. The data obtained from the questionnaire were first transferred to the computer and then the analysis were started. The data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS 24 (Statistic Package for Social Science) program. Accordingly, percentage, arithmetic mean, t-test and one-way ANOVA test were used during data analysis. Based on the needs analysis, the language learning needs of students, who learn Turkish language in Afghanistan, are demonstrated in the following five sub-dimensions, respectively: communication, education and progress possibility, working and merchandising, migration and traveling, individual interests and needs. From the five dimensions, the language learning needs of the participants in the dimension of Working and Merchandising, have significantly differed according to the gender variable; language learning needs of male were found higher than female. In addition, the language learning needs of the students based to their grades, differs at dimensions of Education and Progress Possibility, Working and Merchandising, as well as overall scale. The language learning needs of the participants differed according to the institutions they studied in all dimensions, except for the Migration and Traveling dimension. On the other hand, it was reflected that there was no significant difference between the Turkish language learning needs and native language variable. Keywords: Afghanistan, Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language, Language Needs Analysis, Kabul Yunus Emre Turkish Culture Center, Turkology Department of Kabul University.