Comparison of project and idiom vocabulary of bilingual students (Şanlıurfa province example)

Purpose of the research; The aim of this study is to compare the proverbs and idioms vocabulary of bilingual (Arabic-Turkish) students and monolingual students and reach an evaluation. Based on this, a questionnaire with 82 statements was prepared and applied to 7th grade primary school students studying at the Official Imam Hatip Secondary School and the Official Secondary School affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in the Haliliye district of Şanlıurfa. The implementation was carried out in the 2022-2023 academic year. The data obtained by the questionnaire applied to 200 students in total, were analyzed one by one and the findings were expressed numerically. At the end of the research, it was found that bilingual students (Arabic-Turkish) had difficulty in understanding the difference between proverbs and idioms, they had difficulty in using proverbs in sentences compared to idioms or they could not use them, and the vocabulary in the questionnaire form or in their repertoire separately from the form was significantly less than that of monolingual students. It was concluded that, compared to monolingual students, they had difficulty or could not comprehend the figurative meaning in vocabulary. When the answers given by bilingual students and monolingual students were examined, it was determined that the majority of bilingual students had problems in writing and therefore reading compared to monolingual students. In addition, based on the answers given by all students to the forms without making a bilingual-monolingual distinction, it was determined that the number of proverbs and idioms that the majority of them knew was low. Some suggestions are presented to increase the number of vocabulary in students' vocabulary and to minimize the aforementioned problems. Key words: Proverb, Expression, bilingualism, Vocabulary