A New Target Group ？n Teaching Turkish As A Foreign Language: Illegal Migrants

One of the most disadvantaged groups in Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language is irregular immigrants. This group happens to need various things during the time they stay in Turkey the most important of which is the language education. The aim of this study is to detect the language needs of this growing body of irregular immigrants through the perspective of the present lecturers in the field and determine the way in which a language education will be given according to this perspective. The fact that no study on the language needs of the immigrants in question has been present yet during the related literature review reveals the importance of the study. The study is descriptive in character and in this context, the views of the lecturers on the teaching Turkish to irregular immigrants are scrutinized. Phenomenological analysis was adopted in data analyzing. The population of the study consists of all the lecturers and administrators responsible with the task of teaching Turkish as a foreign language. The research sample of the study consists of three lecturers and two administrators teaching in TOMER (Turkish Language Application and Research Center) language center of Sakarya University. Based on the results obtained from the study, a majority of the lecturers revealed that there isn’t any solid and regular policy aimed at irregular immigrants. Based on this study it is possible to argue that the facilities aiming at the educational needs of the growing body of these irregular immigrants in Turkey should be increased