Characteristics of Learners of Turkish: Motivation, Investment, Beliefs, Autonomy and Strategies

Abstract

This article describes a study into the multiple interacting factors which are involved in the successful learning of Turkish, the demand for which has been steadily increasing given the geo-political realities of the region at this time. The participants were 250 students of Turkish learning Turkish as a target language. A 12-item questionnaire was used which examined motivation, investment, beliefs, autonomy and strategy use on a rating scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The highest ratings were for motivation and the belief that Turkish is a good language to learn (median rating=5). None of the biographical variables (gender, age, nationality, length of study or length of time in Turkey) was found to be significantly related to the test score. The findings, which would seem to suggest that all of these multiple factors contribute to successful course outcomes, are discussed and compared with existing literature. Possibilities for further research are also suggested. (C) Association of Applied Linguistics. All rights reserved