Problems in Teaching the letter in Turkish Sound Based Literacy Education

Abstract

<ğ> in the Turkish alphabet is a distinctive letter, which does not have a sound value but performs important functions in speech. However, it is traditionally accepted by the Turkish Ministry of National Education that this letter corresponds to a consonant sound. Literacy education, syllabi, applications, and exams of Turkish and Turkish Language and Literature courses are arranged with this acceptance. This situation causes many problems in practice, which have been mentioned in literature for thirty years and which deepened, especially in 2006 with the transition to the sound based literacy-teaching method. In this research, it was aimed to describe the participants' knowledge and experience related to literacy teaching, basic phonetics, and literacy competencies to examine their problems in the teaching of the letter <ğ> on a wide plane, holistically, and to develop some practical suggestions. For this purpose, thirty-nine classroom teachers, working in four primary schools in the central district of Yozgat province, were interviewed within the framework of the phenomenological research method. These teachers answered several questions related to literacy teaching, phonology, orthography, and the teaching of the letter <ğ>. The collected data was evaluated by content analysis. Because of this analysis, it was observed that the participants have several misconceptions about the basic concepts of phonology, orthography, and the sound value of the letter <ğ>. In addition, the participants have difficulties in teaching the letter <ğ> and try to overcome these difficulties with activities that are not valid in terms of phonology and orthography. Furthermore, the participants’ suggestions on the subject are described within this analysis.

Considering the experiences of teachers in teaching the letter <ğ> as an independent topic, this research stands out and underlines the need to use phonologic findings in sound-based literacy education.