First literacy teaching process of students whose mother tongue is not turkish: Teacher and parent experiences

The aim of this study; to examine the first literacy learning processes of students whose mother tongue is not Turkish in terms of teachers and parents. This study aims to deeply examine the experiences of students whose native language is not Turkish in the first literacy teaching process from the perspective of classroom teachers and to provide an in-depth look at how families/guardians from different language and cultural backgrounds perceive this learning process and what role they play in this process. This research is a qualitative research conducted according to the phenomenology design. The study group of the research; The 2022-2023 academic year consists of 10 parents of first-grade students whose native language is not Turkish and classroom teachers of first-grade students whose native language is not Turkish, who have completed the first literacy teaching process in public and private schools in Nizip district of Gaziantep province. As data collection tools, two interview forms, namely the teacher interview form and the parent interview form, consisting of semi-structured questions prepared by the researchers, were prepared, presented to expert opinions and used in their final form. Semi-structured interview forms were presented to the opinions of 2 faculty members and 1 classroom teacher; The teacher interview form was reduced from 17 questions to 16 questions, and the parent interview form was reduced from 7 questions to 5 questions and was given its final version and used within the scope of the research. The data was subjected to content analysis by two experts; Themes, sub-themes and codes were created. According to the research findings, the difficulties experienced by teachers in the process and the advantages and disadvantages of the methods and techniques they use to overcome these difficulties have been tried to be revealed. While our teachers had concerns at the beginning of the first reading and writing process for students whose native language is not Turkish, it is seen that they overcame this in the process and continued the process by providing good crisis management. While the experiences of parents due to language and system differences are revealed, findings regarding education levels, income level, frequency of using the Turkish language, communication with the classroom teacher and students' first reading and writing learning processes also come to the fore. The contribution of the research to the field is that, considering the research conducted on the first reading and writing teaching processes of students whose native language is not Turkish, it has been determined that the studies generally focus on teachers' opinions and only examine within this field. This situation created a need for this research.