Yabancı Dil Olarak Türkçe Öğretiminde Dede Korkut Hikâyeleri'nden Yararlanılması

Abstract

This thesis investigates the abilities of reading and understanding of the Dede Korkut Stories by Romanian students learning Turkish as a foreign language. The main aims of this study are to indicate the usability of Dede Korkut Stories in teaching Turkish as a foreign language and to offer concepts on how to utilize Turkish stories in the Turkish language by taking the Romanian students who learn Turkish in Bucharest and Constanta Yunus Emre Institutes in Romania. There has been disagreement on the use of literary works without any regulation or simplification on the texts and their re-use according to their language level in teaching foreign language among experts. In this regard, some think that the use of original texts in teaching foreign language should beneficial while some regards that due to the original text in the intensive knowledge of the field and the complex grammar structure the employment of these types of stories has disadvantages and therefore it would be more appropriate to benefit from simplified text. Based on these hypothesis, in this thesis, the story of Kanlı Koca Oğlu Kan Turalı from the 12 Dede Korkut Story, considered as one of the most important and oldest works of Turkish literature in the transition period of oral culture to written culture, which is determined by taking expert opinions, is simplified in accordance with the level of C.1. For simplification, I take into account the grammar list included in the Seven Climate Turkish B2 textbook prepared by the Yunus Emre Institute, the word list created by Murat Aydın and the word frequency dictionary of the written Turkish prepared by Gökhan Ölker and the carried out the simplification procedure on a scientific basis. I utilized the multiple choice tests to measure reading skills. I applied the simplified text to 20 students learning Turkish at C1- C2 levels in Bucharest and Constanta Yunus Emre Institutes during their course hours in 2017-2018 academic year and measured the rates of student’s understanding skills. Based on the findings of this thesis, it has been shown that original literary texts suitable for the language proficiency of Turkish learners as foreign languages can be chosen and adapted to different language levels by making them simplified within the framework of the text-linguistic criteria. The main hypothesis of this thesis is to show how the simplification of original text in Turkish stories for teaching Turkish as a foreign language and application of this practice to foreign students and to eliminate the lack of reading materials in the field.