Teaching Semantically Stereotyped Compound Verbs Through Drama Technique With Using Karagöz and Hacivat Plays in Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language

Abstract

Teaching Turkish as a foreign language has been gaining significance, developing day by day and will continue its development in the future. Nevertheless, there is a need for field-specific researchers and qualified teachers who will develop programmes and materials within this context. It is crucial that the researchers, aware of these needs, can distinguish between teaching Turkish as a foreign language and Turkish as a native language. Within this context, there is an assorted number of methods to be utilized in teaching Turkish as a foreign language. For example, the drama method is used as a group learning method in teaching Turkish. This study aims at sugessting that students learning Turkish as a foreign language will be able to comprehend a difficult linguistic unit (semantically stereotyped compound verbs), by means of the drama technique. To this end, students were involved in the drama technique through the use of a play named ''Bilmece''-from Karagöz and Hacivat-and were tested accordingly in order to comprehend their learning level of the semantically stereotyped compound verbs, followed by a questionnaire regarding their opinions of learning through drama. Karagöz and Hacivat is a two-dimensional shadow puppetry supported by imitation and dialogues. As these plays are based on folk stories and daily life, they contain a myriad of cultural elements. Within this context, selecting Karagöz and Hacivat plays holds significance for the cultural use of language. To collect the necessary data, we conducted research with 29 students learning Turkish at the B2 level at Yıldız Technical University's TÖMER. Our study benefits from inclass action research method. Identifying the problem(s) in the course of language teaching, drama activities and worksheets were produced in order to solve the problem(s) in cooperation with the students. Data were collected through class observations, semi-structured interview forms and document reviews, and analyzed with content analysis by thematizing the data with codes. Students provided positive feedback regarding the contribution of drama technique-Karagöz and Hacivat in particular -to teaching Turkish as a foreign language. The study concludes that this technique will be beneficial for teaching semantically stereotyped compound verbs.