Analysis of Improving Communicative Skills in Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language

Communicative skills are seen as factors that enable individuals to express themselves effectively in daily life. Through these skills, people can express their wishes and goals, and they can comprehend and code various factors. The same applies to foreign language learning, as is the case in the mother tongue. Individuals make use of their communicative skills to express themselves in the target language which they want to learn. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine how speaking and listening skills are evaluated in the process of teaching Turkish as a foreign language, what kind of activities are done to improve the skills and the level of development of these skills. The study was carried out with a phenomenological pattern within the framework of qualitative research method. The study group consisted of five teachers and ten students. Data of the research is collected via standardized open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interview form. These data were analyzed by content analysis. As a result of the interviews, it was found that communicative skills were handled separately, that the development of these skills was not at the desired level and there were several deficiencies in the development of skills. Based on the results, it has been suggested that more life-like activities should be utilized in order to develop communicative skills and individuals should have real experiences in the form of group activities by giving unique tasks.