Özet:

Bilingualism has been a key area of research interest lately and has spread so rapidly that many parents want their children to acquire two languages equally well. There has been a lot of research on bilingualism. However, teachers’ and parents’ views of bilingual education are not available. This is a significant gap and this study wants to fill this gap. This research aims to investigate the effects of bilingualism on pre-schoolers at a private preschool in İstanbul as being bilingual is vital for language acquisition at an early age. In this research a questionnaire, which is a quantitative data collection tool, was conducted in order to identify parents’ and teachers’ attitudes towards bilingual education. The participants were eight instructors and forty parents. The data collected were analysed descriptively and evaluated. In the light of the findings, parents have a positive attitude towards bilingualism and are aware of the importance of bilingualism. Native speakers teaching children English consider bilingualism to be very important. Children should be encouraged to pick up a second language in a natural environment and bilingualism should be part of the education system in Turkey.

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