Challenges faced by the Jordanian students in learning Turkish idioms and proverbs and suggested solutions

Proverbs and idioms are one of the important parts of foreign language teaching in terms of reflecting the way of feeling, thinking and living, that is, culture of a society. In this sense, it is necessary to teach the correct use of proverbs and idioms in the right way in order to realize the cultural transfer, which is one of the goals of language teaching. However, since expression elements such as metaphors are frequently seen in proverbs and idioms, learning these language elements brings some difficulties for students who learn foreign languages. From this point of view, our study aimed to identify the difficulties of Jordanian students learning Turkish in learning proverbs and idioms and to suggest solutions. In this regard, a knowledge test about proverbs and idioms was applied to a group consisting of 3rd and 4th year students studying at the Department of Turkish and English at The University of Jordan and students at B2 and C1 level of Amman Yunus Emre Institute. In addition, 20 students from this group were interviewed on a voluntary basis. In the analysis of the test and interview results, it was observed that students confused the meanings and characteristics of proverbial and idiomatic concepts, could not determine how and in which situations they should be used, and confronted proverbs and idioms with similar meanings. In addition, it was observed that they learned Turkish proverbs and idioms that are found exactly one-to-one in Arabic more easily. Based on these results, along with the sample activities and classroom practices prepared for the teaching of proverbs and idioms, 200 common proverbs and idioms beteween Turkish and Arabic were included in the solution suggestions section. Also, sample images from the website prepared and made available by us are also presented in the suggestions section.