An applied study for developing academic writing skills in teaching Turkish as a foreign language

AbstractWhen it is searched for the reasons of learning Turkish among the foreign students in the language schools where Turkish is taught as a foreign language, higher education takes the first place as the main aim of learning Turkish. Thousands of students from different continents and countries come to our country for that reason every year. Foreign students are required to be able to use Turkish at advanced level to be academically successful. Accordingly, students who come to our country, firstly go to TÖMER for a year and then they go on studying Turkish in the departments of their universities.The studies which are made in the areas of basic skills of language of foreign students show that students are the most unsuccessful at writing. This is an important obstacle for students, who learn Turkish for academic purposes; since most academic achievements are based on writing skills such as exams, assignments, projects, reports etc. in higher education. Therefore, this study aims to develop academic writing skills of foreign students.This study consists of two parts. The first part deals with writing skills in teaching Turkish as foreign language. Thus, the importance of writing skills, the differences of writing skills in mother tongue and second language, writing skills in second language, writing approaches and writing types are explained. Academic essay which is one of the most used types of academic writing in higher education is explained, concordantly the reason of preference of academic essay term is explained, and structural features of academic essay are shown. Introduction, development and conclusion parts of an academic essay are analyzed in a sample text. Acquisition for developing students writing skills of academic essay types are identified in that part which organizes the conceptual framework of study and consequently activities are generated.The second part of the essay carries out some applications based on activity researches. The process of activity research was fulfilled in three steps; determining the academic writing problems, developing solutions for the problems, performing an application and evaluating the results. Prior to the application, acquisitions of academic writing and activities, which were generated according to the conceptual framework expert opinions, were made ready. Application took place on 30th of July and 28th of August for five weeks (30 hours). Five types of data which contain observer?s diary, student diary, work pages of students, observation form, and interview records are analyzed.Before starting the applications, written expressions of students were evaluated and there had been an interview with the foreign students, the instructors and the lecturers who teach the course. When the data which came from the specified resources was assessed, it was seen that academic writing study is a need. The necessity of the academic writing to improve the Turkish writing skills of foreign students in universities was emphasized and which themes should be included in these courses were also determined. Students were realized to encounter problems with title, academic vocabulary, structures of sentence, syntax, paragraph logic, content of paragraph, text, planning text and coherence of text.The study was performed with the process base approach. The process base handling of academic writing increases the quality of written expressions. With the application, which was handled with vocabulary, sentence, paragraph and text, the students were shown the difference of academic writing from the other forms. Thanks to the activities carried out, the students practically learned how to write a given topic in an academic way .This experience, on the one hand, increased the quality in writing expressions; on the other hand it positively affected the attitudes of writing ability.Writing skills are a fundamental necessity for academic development of nearly thirty thousand foreign students in our county. It is clear that the acquisition of Turkish as a second language is not possible without the acquisition of writing skills. Since perspectives and opinions are conveyed and assessed through academic writing in higher education, students? needs of academic writing skills should be taught benefiting from the data which was gained in the workshops.