Transmission of culture on textbooks of teaching Turkish as a foreign language: A sample of teaching Turkish Set of Yedi İklim (Level A1-A2)

In a process of learning a foreign language, it is important to learn a target culture and how and where to use a structure or word for accurate and effective communication besides improving four basic language skills. Transmission of culture takes place with many materials. Both linguistic structure, vocabulary and cultural elements are included via texts in textbooks which is the most preferred for foreign language teaching as a course material. The subject of our thesis study has been selected as transmission of culture on textbooks of teaching Turkish as a foreign language and in this context "Teaching Turkish Set of Yedi İklim " prepared by Yunus Emre Institute has been selected as a sample. In this thesis, it is aimed to contribute to the development of teaching Turkish as a foreign language and provide data for new course materials. This study has been designed as a qualitative research in the screening model. The data has been collected by document analysis technique. The scale "Cultural and Subconscious Items Reflected in Texts" used by Okur and Keskin (2013) has been taken as a basis in the study. Then this scale has been examined by four specialist lecturers in the department of Turkish Education and the final version of scale has been designed. 345 cultural items have been found in the textbook of Teaching Turkish Set of Yedi İklim (Level A1). From these items, 50 of them belong to daily life category, 79 of them belong to interpersonal relations category, 14 of them belong to values and education category, 24 of them literatüre, arts and music category, 15 of them belong to traditions and folklore category, 1 of them belongs to social life category, 69 of them belong to geography and space category and 93 of them belong to different cultures (intercultural interaction) category. 398 cultural items have been found in the textbook of Teaching Turkish Set of Yedi İklim (Level A2). From these items, 83 of them belong to daily life category, 67 of them belong to interpersonal relations category, 18 of them belong to values and education category, 72 of them belong to literatüre, arts and music category, 14 of them belong to traditions and folklore and social life categories, 82 of them belong to geography and space category and 47 of them belong to different cultures (intercultural interaction) category. When two textbooks are compared, it is seen that cultural items are not balanced and there are too many target cultural items in terms of quantity. Furthermore, it has been concluded that there are not enough possibilities to carry out intercultural interaction and compare the target culture with their source cultures for learners. In this study, it is aimed to provide data facilities for new teaching materials that will be prepared in the future. Key Words: Teaching Turkish as a foreign language, textbook, culture, cultural transmission.