Are Turkish Teacher Candidates Ready for Migrant Students?

Abstract

The mass migration of Syrians with a high rate of school-age children into Turkey brought together the need for teaching these students Turkish for integrating them into the society and Turkish education system. The Ministry of National Education gave this responsibility especially to Turkish teachers. Therefore, these teachers should have the required pedagogical formation and skills to teach Turkish to these students, as well as intercultural sensitivity and cultural knowledge about them. In this study, 19 newly graduated Turkish teacher candidates from a state university in Ankara from the Turkish Education Department were interviewed with the aim to gather their views about Syrian students, their readiness if they are to teach them and their evaluation of their pre-service education in terms of preparing them to this kind of teaching. The qualitative data were collected via the semi-structured interview form prepared by the researcher and was analyzed with descriptive analysis method. The results show that Turkish teacher candidates do not think they are definitely ready to teach Syrian students. However, they have positive attitudes and believe in themselves that they will do their best to teach them. Teacher training programs should be updated according to the multicultural structure of the schools with Syrian students and these programs should provide the pre-service teachers with the required current information about the student profile in schools.