Abstract:

Turkish is one of the most widely learned/taught languages in the world as a foreign language. The increase in demand also increases the need for instructors and academicians to train them. For this reason, it is very important to provide a professional identity to postgraduate programs in teaching Turkish to speakers of other languages as well as founding them. To establish a professional graduate program standard, it is necessary to examine similar programs with strong scientific knowledge in the world in this sense and to take steps by identifying similarities and differences. Master's degree programs in teaching English to speakers of other languages (MA-TESOL) are among the programs to be examined in this context. The study aims to examine the courses in the graduate programs, namely teaching Turkish to speakers of other languages in Turkey and teaching English to speakers of other languages in England. In this qualitative research designed based on a comparative survey model, program guides, course catalogs, European Credit Transfer System forms of a total of twenty master’s degree programs in the UK and Turkey determined via criterion-based sampling method were analyzed using document analysis technique. A general framework regarding the compulsory and elective courses in both master's degree programs is presented in the study. Accordingly, the courses in graduate programs were gathered under five main themes, namely research, theory, pedagogy, sociology and psychology, and many sub-themes. It has been determined that master's degree programs are mainly structured on the first three themes. Based on the results, it may be suggested to increase the number of elective/compulsory courses of the master's degree programs on teaching Turkish to speakers of other languages, related to the sub-themes namely linguistics and language acquisition under the theory theme; the sub-themes namely teaching methods and techniques, curriculum development and measurement-evaluation under the pedagogy theme.

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