TURKISH IS ENOUGH FOR US
Not only in these days, but also in the past, a country’s development level have been depend on its level of education which is defined by Crawley and Ashby as teaching somebody about things like reading, writing and mathematics at school or college (1994, p. 106). In Turkey, after students finish high school, they start university where they learn their jobs efficiently. During university years, youngs develop themselves and learn what they want. When this feature of universities’ is thought, there appear two types of schools. While students get their whole education in English in one of them, students get their education in their native language, Turkish, in other type. A result can be clearly seen that students should not be forced to study their departments in English in Turkey because of negative effects of English based education.
Using English as instruction language in Turkey can help students to understand and write academic essays in English for their departments. That is, when they use English in their department continuously, they know English as Turkish too. However, when they do not write any essays in Turkish, Turkey may not achieve academic successes as students write their essays, reports, summaries and outlines in English while they think in Turkish. Not using Turkish in department lessons, they may forget grammar and basic concepts of Turkish and lose their ability of producing Turkish literatures.
Taking education in English forms different problems for university students. The first problem for students is that they may lose their important senses due to their education language. They may lose their not only personal senses such that learning passion or self-confidence, but also their academic senses such that criticism or command abilities during their education life. When they get their subjects in English, they must do two difficult jobs simultaneously. While they listen and translate the topic which their instructor tell them, they should be able to understand what are the main points of the subject and where they should pay attention. As a result of this, they lose their passion for learning the subject. Moreover, they may lose their self-confidence since they may not follow the topic efficiently. That is, they may lose their attention to subject in lesson then they may not be able to catch the lecture again which can make them demoralized. For this reason, they can think that they would not pass the exam ad would fail it. Students may lose their valid academic senses due to their lecture language. In other words, they may not criticize the topic efficiently while they use English in their lecture hours continuously. As when one lose a main point of the topic, s/he may miss whole valid points of topic. Analyzing and criticizing abilities are born with command ability which makes the lessons more understandable for students. Lack command ability may make a student be failed. “ Our clever students are lack of analyzing, commanding and criticizing abilities for Math, Physic or Chemistry lessons which need to command, criticism and analyses. “ (Demirören, 2002, p.1)
The second problem due to their education language is that students cannot learn easily and clearly their department courses .While students sometimes cannot learn some courses in their native languages how can they learn them in English ? Demirören supports my observation in his thesis. In summary, he says that students only want to pass their exams with high grades so they do not try to take the main points of the lesson, which makes them with poor education. (2002, p.1) One can learn a job’s basic elements and develop new things about her/his job if s/he gets education in her/his native language as people should know native terms of their jobs’ but also English versions. Sinanoğlu thinks that a student can develop himself in his job and career life safely if he gets his education in his own language. (2006, p.12) Students may get English courses in their free times such as summer holidays or after lecture hours.
In conclusion, while English Based Education may help students in some ways, it has negative effects on students more. Due to its privative effects on students’ basic senses and learning process, English should not be the medium instruction language in Turkish universities. Despite these applications, students should be oriented for applying language courses in summer holidays not in university education as obligatory. Not only its grammar, but also its meaningful structure, Turkish is enough for a Turkish student in Turkey.
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