Reasons for university students in France to learn Turkish as a foreign language

Abstract

Knowledge of foreign languages besides ones native language is indispensable to maintaining relations in the fields of science, culture, art, education, politics, tourism, commerce and communication in the society. Today, teaching Turkish as a foreign language has become a hot topic that needs to be highlighted. This study seeks to determine why university students in France prefer to learn Turkish as a foreign language. Within the domain of qualitative research, this study embraced a "holistic single case design." It was performed with a total of 66 university students studying in France and learning Turkish in the second semester of the 2016-2017 academic year. The research data were obtained using an interview question answered by the participants. The content analysis of the data showed that the students chose to learn Turkish for the following reasons, which may be grouped under "personal reasons", "academic reasons","social reasons","economic reasons" and "Turkish-oriented reasons" An analysis of these reasons showed that the students, whose native language is French, mostly reported that they wanted to learn Turkish "to stay or live in Turkey" whereas the students, whose native language was not French, mostly stated that they wanted to learn Turkish "out of curiosity." The findings of this study may offer insights into designing materials in Turkish for university students in France.