Bibliometric analysis of the efforts for mother tongue education before and after the Covid-19 pandemic

The purpose of this study is to present a bibliometric analysis of the efforts for mother tongue education before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike other studies in the literature, this study compares the publications made before and after the pandemic. The data set were created via searching the keywords "mother tongue education”, “teaching mother tongue”, “first language education", and "teaching first language". As a result of the search, 90 articles before the pandemic and 19 articles after the pandemic were identified in the Web of Science (WoS) database. The articles were evaluated in terms of inter-country collaboration and keyword networks. Visualizations were obtained using the VOSviewer program. The results revealed that there was a greater emphasis on mother tongue education and literacy before the pandemic. South Africa was found to be the leading country among the countries studied. After the pandemic, the focus shifted towards cognitive linguistics, discussion, artistic creativity, communication, competence, educational tasks, and independent thinking. South Africa and Turkey were found to be the leading countries among the countries studied.