The effect of direct instruction strategies on the text summarization skills of İranian students who have been learning Turkish as a foreign language

This study investigates the text summarization skills of Iranian students learning Turkish as a foreign language. The main purpose of the study is to determine the effects of training technics applied to improve experimental group?s summarization skills on their summarization skills. In this study, quasi-experimental model with only pretest and posttest design has been applied. This study is carried out in Tahran Yunus Emre Turkish Cultural Center with 43 students who are having Turkish course from April to June at the levels of B2 and C1 during the academic year of 2012-2013. The students in the experimental group are trained about summarization skills during 8 weeks. The data have been acquired from the texts that the students are asked to summarize at the pre and posttest. The data acquired at the end of the study have been analyzed via SPSS 21.0 (Statistic Package For Social Science) program and checked by `t-test? and `variance analysis? whether there is a difference between pre and posttest or not. On the basis of the study: 1. In this study, the training technics to improve experimental group?s summarization skills are determined to be effective on the student?s summarization skills. 2. As a result of the applied training technics, there is a significant difference between the pretest and posttest points about the experimental group?s summarization skills. 3. No significant difference is stated between the summarization skills of experimental group and their sex. 4. No significant difference is indicated between experimental group?s summarization skills and their course levels. 5. As the results of the technics, there is no difference between their summarization skills and their ages. However, it is indicated that the students at the ages of 18 to 35 are better at summarization than the students at the age of 36 and above. Key words: Summary, text summarization, reading comprehension, Teaching Turkish as a foreign language.