Abstract:

Today, teaching Turkish as a second and foreign language is being practiced within official or private organizations in Turkey and abroad through Turkish teaching set which are prepared for this process. Individuals, who learn Turkish with different language teaching sets and under different organizations, are being given a certificate of C1 according to the exam results which is conducted after 920 hours of instruction. However, the absence of implementation unity among organizations, preparation of the certificate exams by the institutions themselves and conducting of Turkish Teaching process with different language teaching sets in each institution suggest that Turkish learners may have different language levels at the end of the teaching process. From this point of view, the aim of this study is to determine the reading proficiency levels of learners, who have learned Turkish in different language centers and with different language teaching sets, to compare equivalence of these levels and to reveal whether reading proficiency levels in Turkish are affected by some other variables. The sample of the study consists of 120 foreign students who have completed C1 level in 8 different institutions and with 4 different Turkish teaching sets. The Turkish Proficiency Exam (TPE) which is a standard measurement tool of Turkish with international validity was used for data collection. When whole points obtained from reading understanding test of 120 foreign students who attended to the research and completed C1 level are evaluated all together, it was found that learners are at B2 level average in terms of reading understanding levels. When the maximum and minimum scores of the learners are examined, it was seen that among these foreign students in the sample, there are those at the level of C2 as well as learners at the level of B1. Having a wide range of reading understanding levels of learners who received C1 certificate after completing 920 hours of language education that C1 level requires and being below C1 level of half of the learners in the sample in terms of reading understanding levels indicate that there are important problems on qualification, achievement, seriousness and equivalency of language teaching.

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