An Overview of the Coursebooks for Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language Within the Context of Core Values in Education

Abstract

The objective of this research is to examine the reading texts in the coursebooks for teaching Turkish as a foreign language in terms of their reflection of core values. Employing a qualitative research model, data were collected through document analysis method. The data set of this study comprises 124 reading texts in the B1 and B2 level of coursebooks published by Yedi Iklim, Gazi, and Yeni Istanbul publishing companies. These texts were scrutinized according to ten core values in Education (justice, friendship, honesty, self-control, patience, respect, love, responsibility, patriotism, altruism) determined by the Board of Education of the Ministry of Education, Turkey in the year of 2017, and the obtained data were analyzed using content analysis technique. The results of the study have revealed that Yedi Iklim B1 Textbook contains 90 core values, whereas B2 Textbook contains 156 core values. Likewise, Gazi B1 Textbook comprises 82 and B2 Textbook has 152 core values. It has also been determined that Yeni Istanbul B1 Textbook is composed of 156 core values and B2 Textbook contains 87 core values. In total, it has been found out that, 723 core values are comprised across all texts in the dataset. Among these values in the texts, altruism (f=91), honesty (f=88), and self-control (f=78) are the most frequently addressed core values while justice (f=64), patience (f=63), and love (f=62) are the least addressed ones.