Teaching academic writing in Turkish as a foreign language

This study aims to determine academic writing problems and needs of graduate or post-graduate students who are educated in different departments of Social Sciences. Within the scope of the study, the characteristics of academic language, students' academic writing problems and teaching academic language policies of universities are evaluated. The characteristics of the academic language were identified through the review of 32 articles selected from academic journals. In order to determine the students' academic writing problems, 12 foreign students and 5 Turkish students' written materials were examined and classified according to certain criteria. Then, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 students and 4 field experts to obtain qualitative data. The data were evaluated with descriptive and content analysis method. In line with the assessment, foreign learners' problem with grammar, vocabulary and terminology was the result of interlingual transfer from their mother tongue and lack of academic language education. The common problems of both foreign and Turkish students were found to have difficulty in using the academic language to produce a text that is fluent, literal, coherent and can fullfil the expectations of the audience. Based on this study, some recommendations were presented for teaching academic writing and designing materials for the academic purpose of higher education students.