Examination of the classroom status of refugee children can't speaking Turkish according to pre-school teacher's opinions

In this study; it is aimed to examine the classroom situation of refugee children who can't speak Turkish according to the views of preschool teachers. The research is a phenomenology study planned in a qualitative design. This research was carried out with the teachers working in the kindergarten and kindergarten located in the neighborhoods where refugee children are concentrated in the province of Adana in the 2019-2020 academic year. The study group of the research consists of 14 pre-school teachers who have at least two refugee children in their classroom who can't speak Turkish. Criterion sampling was used to determine the participants. The first part of the data in this study was obtained from demographic information, and the second part was obtained from semi-structured interview questions created to determine the situation of children who can't speak Turkish in the classroom. The data obtained from the interviews with the teachers was transferred to the computer environment by the researcher and coded with the help of the MAXQDA qualitative analysis computer program. Sub-themes and two main themes were obtained from the codes obtained from the data that was subjected to content analysis. As a result of the research, it was determined that refugee children who can't speak Turkish try to communicate with their teachers and peers with hand gestures. It has been observed that refugee children listen to their peers more carefully and try to understand them than the children of the host country. In addition, it has been observed that refugee children in the study who can't speak Turkish can resort to violence when they are not understood during the communication process. Refugee child; in the process of trying to communicate, it was seen that the support of the teacher helped the child to feel that he belonged to the class. Teachers make some educational preparations in order to minimize the losses experienced by refugee children in the education process. While it was determined that the most attended activities by refugee children who can't speak Turkish were games, music and art activities, it was observed that the least attended activities were Turkish-language activities and literacy preparation. It is seen that refugee children who can't speak Turkish prefer the dramatic game and block center the most. It is seen that refugee children mostly play in small groups or alone with children who speak the same language. Teachers face various problems with the families of refugee children because they don't know the language. Some problems were identified with the families of host country children, such as prejudice and exclusion of refugee children. In order to overcome these problems, various meetings and interviews were held. As a result of the meetings, it was seen that the attitudes of the parents became positive. Keywords: Refugee, preschool, interaction with peers