Examination of Turkish language curriculum and 6th grade Turkish textbooks in terms of vocabulary

The vocabulary covers all of the elements such as idiom, proverb, duplication, term along with the words which a language has. The vocabulary bearing traces of many features of societies such as their culture, life, belief and value system paves the way for these element to be passed on to future generations. When it is thought that the most basic resources that individuals benefit from in educational institutions are textbooks, it is expected that Turkish course books should also be arranged in a way to reflect vocabulary elements and to improve students' vocabulary. Within this framework, in the study, vocabulary elements in reading texts in 6th grade Turkish textbooks were determined. In addition to this, the activities which constitute an important part of the textbooks, given after the reading and listening / watching texts, aimed at improving the vocabulary of the students were examined within the framework of the Turkish Lesson Curriculum. In the study conducted as a qualitative research in the scanning model, the data were collected by the document analysis method and these data were analyzed with the content analysis technique. In data collection and analysis, expert opinions were consulted. As a result of the research, vocabulary elements recurring most frequently in texts, how often each vocabulary element (idioms, proverbs, reduplications, terms, aphorisms, phrases / relation words, foreign words, local discourses and proper nouns) was used in texts were determined and lists related to them were created. In the research, it was determined that there are total 12896 vocabulary items, including 3101 different words, in the 6th grade Turkish textbook prepared by a private publishing house and there are total 10517 vocabulary items, 2888 different words, in the 6th grade Turkish textbook prepared by Ministry of Education Publications. Also, it was determined that the most frequently used vocabulary item in both textbooks examined was proper nouns. In the research, the activities given after reading and listening / watching texts were examined within the framework of the Turkish Lesson Curriculum. In this context, 125 vocabulary activities in the 6th grade Turkish textbook prepared by the private publishing house and 78 vocabulary activities in the 6th grade Turkish textbook prepared by Ministry of Education Publications were identified. It was concluded that activities related to reading skills were included the most, the less activities related to the other language skill areas were included in these vocabulary activities and there was not a balanced distribution in the distribution of activities to skill areas in this context. In addition, although the activities seem to be sufficient in quantity, it is thought that they are not sufficient in quality because most of the activities are similar to each other. Based on the results of the research, the suggestions such as that reading text containing more proverbs and aphorisms can be preferred in the textbooks, students' attraction can be drawn by ensuring the diversity of the activities in the textbooks and in the next studies, activities can be examined along with the reading texts in the textbooks have been offered. Keywords: Vocabulary, word, Turkish education, Turkish Lesson Education Program, textbook