AN ANALYSIS OF TEXTS IN TURKISH COURSEBOOKS STUDIED AT OPEN EDUCATION SECONDARY SCHOOL

Head spinning pace of change and development in information and technology has not yet discredited coursebooks as the major classroom tool and equipment. Coursebooks, as they have always been, are still the primary source and tool of teaching and learning process. As with the mainstream education, well-prepared coursebooks and texts are also a necessity for a high-quality Turkish course within distance education. Distance education is a legitimate education activity providing opportunities for students, teachers, and materials located in different places to meet. All the responsibility of teaching within distance education falls onto the course material. Among the printed materials, it is almost solely the coursebook and class notes that shoulder this responsibility. Texts within the current coursebooks should be analyzed in order to depict the current status, which will help increase the quality of distance education. Designed on the basis of this need, this study is expected to contribute to teaching Turkish through a realistic analysis of the texts in Turkish coursebooks studied at Open Education Secondary School (5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades). Bearing a descriptive research design, this paper aims to examine and assess the texts in Turkish coursebooks used in Open Education Secondary School in terms of genre, topic, and moral lessons. Research data has been collected through document analysis, one of the qualitative research methods. Each of 96 texts found in Turkish coursebooks were meticulously analyzed, and findings are presented in frequency tables.