Prospective Turkish Language Teachers’ Perceptions of Summarization: Definitions, Rationales and Rules

The aim of this study was to determine prospective Turkish language teachers’ perceptions of the concept of summarization. The study group consisted of 139 teacher candidates enrolled in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades of the Turkish Language Teaching department in the faculty of education of a state university in 2019. A phenomenological design, a qualitative research pattern, was employed in the research. The data analysis was conducted using the Nvivo 10 software. Research data was gathered through a standardized open-ended interview form consisting of three questions. The research findings indicated that the students predominantly summarize based on what they read (f=76), and hear (f=19), from books (f=12), and events (f=12). Regarding the definition of summarization, the students mostly defined it as “writing without changing the essence” (f=84), “shortening” (f=81), and “writing essential parts” (f=51). The identified rationales for summarization were primarily “providing opportunities for permanent learning” (f=65), “preventing waste of time” (f=48), and “remembering essential parts” (f=39). As for summarization rules, the students mostly paid attention “not to deviate from the main idea” (f=69), “to write essential parts” (f=64), and “to remove unessential parts” (f=57).