Abstract:

This study aims to reveal the reading culture and determine the characteristics and dispositions of pre‐service Turkish language teachers as readers. The study was conducted with 160 pre‐service Turkish language teachers studying in the Department of Turkish Language Teaching at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University’s Faculty of Education in Turkey. The study took place during the 2015‐2016 academic year and all participants were volunteers. The data were obtained through questionnaires, and data analysis was conducted by using frequency and cross tabulation analysis. Pre‐service teachers’ responses were analyzed using the content analysis method. According to the results of the study; it was identified that pre‐ service Turkish language teachers prefer “reading books” in order to make good use of their leisure time and also their teachers and friends have some influence on the development of their ʺreading habitʺ and ʺreading cultureʺ. Additionally, the pre‐service teachers proposed ʺdoing research as a course requirementʺ as anotherreason fortheirreading. Nonetheless, they remarked that they prefer “literary works” among the book types and especially “novels”. In addition, the pre‐service teachers stated that they often prefer ʺborrowing from the libraryʺ to buying books they would like to read. It was also determined that they also read an average of 11‐20 books in a year and therefore they might be classified as ʺmedium level readersʺ.

Keywords: