Secondary school Turkish students' writing skills in Kosovo

The aim of this study is to determine Kosovar Turkish students? writing abilities in their mother tongue, Turkish, in terms of different variables. This thesis composed of two studies. First was preliminary study in May 2012 and second was two months length main thesis study between February and April 2013. Thesis studies were practiced in 5 secondary schools in Prishtina, Prizren and Mamusha cities. In this study, in order to measure students? writing skills Writing Expression Rubric, which was created based upon 6-7-8 and 9th classes? Turkish Language lesson?s attainments, was used. This rubric contains 19 subjects. It was formed as an analytic rubric and 228 students' writing samples were scored with this rubric. After this evaluation process it was found that Kosovar Turkish students failed at creating effective and relevant heading, composing effective and relevant introductory chapter, writing in standard page layout and enriching the text with using various expression techniques. On the other hand, they succeed in using standard Turkish in their texts, writing with readable and tidy handwriting, integrating the subjects in texts and using appropriate punctuation marks. Within these findings some solutions were offered for solving these problems. Additionally, in this study, Turkish secondary school education in Kosovo was analyzed in terms of Colinn Baker?s Bilingual Education Models. According to this analyze, secondary school education in Turkish language in Kosovo was not be accord in with any bilingual education forms. However, this education type was found similar as Mainstream Bilingual Education which is one of the weak forms of the Bilingual Education Models. Also, current conditions of Turkish education in Kosovo were determined and some solutions were offered for solving to these problems in these current conditions. Key Words: Kosovo, Turkish Teaching, Turks Living in Abroad, Bilingualism, Bilingual Education Models, Mother Tongue, Written Expression