The Experiences of Peer Students and their Teachers Teaching Turkish to Foreign Students: An Example of an eTwinning Project

Abstract

This study aims to examine the opinions of the teachers who lead an eTwinning project and the peer students who teach Turkish to foreign students studying in Turkey within this Project. The study group consists of eight Turkish language teachers working in different provinces of Turkey in the 2021-2022 academic year and four students (32 students in total) determined by each of these teachers. The teachers in the study group were informed about what to do by coming together with the online zoom meetings. During the process, the students determined by the teacherss organized various activities to teach Turkish to their foreign peers. Which resources these students will use and which subjects and how they will teach were destermined by the executive teachers. The research is a phenomenological study designed according to the qualitative research method. In this six-week project, effective use of Web 2.0 tools by teachers and students is among the goals. Forms consisting of five questions each were submitted online via Google Forms to get the opinions of teachers and students about their experiences; The responses to the forms were analyzed separately. As a result of the analysis, it was stated that the teachers participated in this project to increase their professional competence, contribute to the integration of foreign students into the society, and increase the motivation of the peer students whose mother tongue is Turkish and who want to voluntarily teach Turkish to their foreign friends. It has also been determined that the students mostly participated in this project upon the request of their teachers and their desire to be useful to their foreign friends. The students stated that one of the main problems they experienced in the process was that their foreign friends did not show the necessary importance to the project.