The examination of basic level writing skills of Syrian refugee students learning Turkish as a foreign language

The aim of this study is to determine the status of the Syrian refugee students who learn Turkish as a foreign language in terms of basic level writing skills according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL) competence levels and to determine the opinions of the Turkish language teaching teachers to the basic level writing skills. Syrian refugee students who learn Turkish as a foreign language are at the level of achieving the basic level descriptive objectives stated in the CEFRL, how they are in terms of language use in their written expressions, what kind of mistakes are made in their written studies and what situations affect the writing process, the answers to the such questions are needed. In this study, evaluations of Syrian asylum students and teachers in terms of basic level (A1-A2) writing skills according to CEFRL proficiency levels, language usage status of student written expressions about descriptive objectives of writing activities, wrong types of written expressions and opinions of teachers about basic level writing skills are revealed. The questionnaire for students and teachers, semi-structured interview form, student written documents and rubric used to evaluate written documents were used as data collection tools in the study. The use of the content analysis of the written documents and the qualitative data to determine the opinions of the teachers about the basic level writing skills and the quantitative data obtained from the teachers and students show that the mixed method was used in the research. At the A1 level, it was concluded that only half of the students could reach the descriptive goals such as "Can request / transmit personal information in written form." and "Can write a short and simple postcard." and the majority of the students could reach the other goals. At the A1 level, it was concluded that most of the students partially follow the rules of grammar, very few of them follow the spelling rules and the students used punctuation. A total of 529 errors detected at A1 level; 337 are spelling, 125 are punctuation, 31 are morphology, 17 are vocabulary and 19 are syntax errors. It was determined that capitalization in spelling mistakes, lack of dot usage in punctuation, suffixes mistakes in morphology, misspelling in vocabulary, and predicate mistakes in syntax were made. At A2 level, it was concluded that less than half of the students achieved "Can write three simple sentences about life conditions / work", "Can write three simple sentences about family / education", "Can write very short and simple descriptions about personal experiences / past activities", "Can write interconnected sentences about his environment", "Can write a simple personal letter to thank / apologize" and "Can rewrite key (important) words in a short text" goals. At the A2 level, it was concluded that the majority of the students partially followed the grammar and spelling rules and the majority of the students did not use punctuation. A total of 660 mistakes made at A2 level; 377 are spelling, 177 are punctuation, 31 are morphology, 29 are vocabulary and 46 are syntax errors. It was determined that capitalization mistakes in spelling, missing dot usage in punctuation, suffix mistakes in morphology, word spelling mistakes in vocabulary and predicate mistakes in syntax were made.