Utilization of pedagogical content knowledge of the instructors teaching Turkish as a second language regarding reading skill

This study was conducted to define how, to what extend and why the instructors teaching Turkish as second language use their pedagogical content knowledge regarding teaching reading skill. Accordingly, stages of reading skill and three components of pedagogical content knowledge were matched to generate the conceptual framework. This study was conducted using the case study method which is a qualitative research design. The participants were constituted using the criterion sampling technique which is a purposive sampling method. The study included five volunteered language instructors (one male, four female) working at the Turkish Language Teaching Application and Research Center (TÖMER) of a state university in Turkey. The data were collected through interviews, lesson plans and observations. The data obtained from the study were analyzed through the descriptive analysis and content analysis methods. Learner knowledge of the participants reflected to the teaching environment regarding teaching reading skill was examined under preparatory and motivation themes. The findings obtained from data collection tools revealed that instructors mainly reflect their teaching strategies to the learning environment regarding learner knowledge component. Curriculum knowledge component was discussed based on vocabulary teaching, grammar teaching and pronunciation teaching themes. The results indicated that the participants focused more on the unknown words in the reading text compared to the already learned words; didn't tend to utilize the texts to exemplify and/or remind the grammar rules and mostly gave prompt feedback to the errors of the learners when they were reading the text. The findings obtained in terms of knowledge of assessment component presented that the participants utilize not only the questions they generated during reading the text bot also take advantage of the after reading questions of the text. It was also found out that they gave feedback to the learners when necessary. The findings of this very study are intended to shed light on the teaching strategies of the instructors teaching Turkish as a second language as well as contribute to the studies to be conducted on Teaching Turkish as a foreign/second language.