THE LANGUAGE NEEDS ANALYSIS IN TEACHING TURKISH TO FOREIGNERS: AN EXAMPLE OF IRAN

The aim of this study is to describe the language needs of Turkish learners at Yunus Emre Institute-Tehran, and to analyze these language needs according to variables like age, sex and educational background. Additionally, the data was collected using the scale of Iwai et al’s (1998) Japanese language needs analysis, converting the form to Turkish language and testing validation and reliability of this scale by Çangal (2013). The target group of this study includes 575 students who learn Turkish as a second language in Yunus Emre Institute-Tehran in 2014. This questionnaire was conducted to the students who learn Turkish at B or C level considering the understandability of the questions. Actually, the sample group was determined as 274 students for this questionnaire and it was conducted to 100 students.Percentage, arithmetic mean, t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze the language needs of participants. According to the data obtained from this study, the language needs of the students learning Turkish in Yunus Emre Institute-Tehran were prioritized four sub-dimensions including “communication inside class, individual interests and needs, education and business opportunity and merchandising”. It was figured out that there was no significant relation between the language needs and age, sex, educational background of participants