An analysis of teaching Turkish to foreigners course from Turkish langugae teacher candidates' point of view

As a result of the recent progress in communication technologies, the interaction of people with each other is rapidly increasing. As a result of this situation, the necessity of knowing a second language arises. Since it is among the widely spoken languages of the world in, it has been a language that has been learned/taught in Turkish as a foreign language due to the recent, military, economic and political relations of our country. In our country, various activities are carried out both abroad and domestic in order to teach Turkish as a foreign language. In this respect, the undergraduate programs in the Turkish Education Department of universities are put into "'teaching Turkish to foreigners (YTÖ)" course. In this study, the students ' attitudes towards this course and their competencies were identified in accordance with the opinions of the teacher candidates who took YTÖ course. The study is composed of teachers who have studied target population of the study in YTÖ courses in the Faculty of Education in Turkey for 2016-2017 years. The sample composes of 236 candidate teachers who are studying in 3rd and 4th year of the department of Turkish language teaching in Sivas province, Cumhuriyet University, Tokat province, Gaziosmanpaşa University, Istanbul province, Istanbul university Hasan Ali Yücel and Faculty of Education, Gaziantep province. Students have developed a positive attitude towards the "Teaching Turkish to Foreigners" course. They have stated that the course will provide them with a new job opportunity and that this course will contribute to their academic knowledge in language teaching. In this respect they emphasized that it is a course aiming to facilitate the communication with foreigners and to get knowledge about different language teaching methods and techniques. However, besides these favorable opinions, the teacher candidates express that the materials used in the "Teaching Turkish to Foreigners" lessons are lacking, that there is no source book for the lesson, the lesson time is insufficient and the practice time is not sufficient also. Therefore, in such conditions is not possible to realize a sufficient and permanent learning. Based on the results of the research, it is thought that the practice time in the "Teaching Turkish to Foreigners" course will increase the theoretical knowledge of the teacher candidates and thus contribute to a more permanent learning process, and to their capacity to determine the problems faced in language teaching and to produce practical solutions. The arrangement of the course content according to the student expectations will increase the interest of the students to the course. In addition, it is considered that having a separate course hour for each sub-heading of the "Teaching Turkish to Foreigners" course and opening a separate undergraduate program for the "Teaching Turkish to Foreigners" course will contribute to the more professional training of the teacher candidates who will teach Turkish to the foreigners.