TURKISH ONLINE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, vol.10, no.4, pp.330-335, 2011 (SSCI)
Cooperative learning is a process through which students with various abilities, gender, nationalities and
different level of social skills carry out their learning process by working in small groups and helping each
other. Cooperative learning is a pedagogical use of small groups which enable students to maximize both their
own and others’ learning.
This study was carried out in order to identify the efficiency and the effects of cooperative learning techniques
on the reading skills of the students who learn Turkish as a second language. A total of 40 students (20 subjects
in experimental group, 20 subjects in control group), who learn Turkish as a second language at Istanbul
University Language Center, participated in this study which was done in accordance with the ‘pre-test post-test
control group’ model as one of the experimental research designs. In the experimental group, cooperative
learning techniques were used for reading comprehension activities, while traditional teaching model was
followed in the control group. The data were gathered through the ‘Reading Comprehension Skills
Achievement Test’ developed by the researchers, and a number of suggestions were made to develop reading
skills in teaching Turkish as a foreign language.