EXPLORING TURKISH PARENTS’ INVOLVEMENT IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION AT AN EARLY AGE

Abstract

The first five years of a child's life are very important in terms of social and language development. Therefore, foreign language learning at an early age has become widespread in many countries around the world, including our country. While English education starts in the second grade in public schools in our country, it starts in kindergartens in private schools. However, the environment is as important as starting language education at an early age. Parents are the first to create this environment. The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which parents participate in their children's language education. The study was carried out in 3 schools in Tarsus. The questionnaire was applied to the parents of preschool and primary school 1-2. grade students on a voluntary basis. The data obtained were analyzed with the SPSS program and it was concluded in a concrete way whether the demographic characteristics of the parents had an effect on their participation in English education. Afterwards, interviews were conducted with the parents. These interviews were recorded after a short briefing. The themes that emerged from the interview transcript were analyzed and read one by one and codes were extracted from them. Re-read and citations extracted, categorized and commented on to support the themes.