Abstract
A GUIDE IN THE HISTORY OF TEACHING TURKISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: OTTOMAN - TURKISH CONVERSATION - GRAMMAR
The purpose of this study is to examine the book titled as “Bedrika-i Lisân-ı Osmânî” (Ottoman-Turkish Conversation-Grammar) written by V. H. Hagopian in 1907, within context of the period and thus reveal its significance for both then and now. The significance of this work lies in the fact that writer was a Turkish language teacher at a Protestant school with English as a medium of instruction. This book was particularly written for native or non-native speakers of English to teach them Turkish at that time. Also, its remarkable features are about its content, which emphasizes the teaching of Turkish language through reading skills, conversation examples and vocabulary exercises as well as incorporates the cultural elements and presents the political and social characteristics of the Ottoman Empire. In this study, primarily the activities of the missionary schools of that time and the way of teaching Turkish in those schools were tried to be explicated; then, the book was analyzed in terms of its contribution to teaching of Turkish as a foreign language.
Keywords
Teaching Turkish as a foreign language (TTFL), history of teaching Turkish, V. H. Hagopyan, teaching