70017 B Turkish - Reading and Writing Skills in Turkish
Sofia Prokou
Specialised Teaching and Research Staff (EEDIP/EEP)
3 hours per week
Course Objectives
The course aims to consolidate knowledge of written Modern Turkish in its standard version, at an intermediate level. Given that teaching Turkish as a foreign language in the Department of Turkish Studies complies with the basic principles of the Common European Framework for Languages, this particular course focuses on the development of reading and writing skills at level B1.
With regard to the reading skills, students of the 5th term level are expected to be able to comprehend a simple text of general interest and guess the meaning of unknown words, identify the main points of a text and grasp the required information in everyday texts, both formal and informal. As a result of their training they must be able to understand the feelings, wishes etc. in personal letters, understand the main points of the news in newspapers and magazines, as well as find relevant information, such as who has done what and where, by skimming texts such as news summaries.
As for the writing skills, students are expected to be able to write a simple text including personal views and opinions as well as their own experiences. They should be capable of corresponding via e-mail or personal letters with friends, express their feelings and write asking more detailed information on an announcement.
Course structure
Given the aims stated above, a selection of fairly simple texts from news papers, magazines or brochures constitutes the corpus of this course. Topics selected for the current term are, e.g., magazine articles concerning well known or every day heroes in various fields (e.g. short interview with a female sports hero, Ms. Dee Caffari), social aspects of phenomena such as fashion, popular or social festivities (e.g. special days such as Bayrams and relevant traditions), simple historical texts (popularized history, etc.) – Ottoman and contemporary - shortened and if necessary simplified political articles by famous Turkish columnists (e.g. newspaper articles about the international relations of Turkey with its Middle Eastern neighbours) and simplified newspaper articles about the development of personal skills in parallel to formal education, with regard to employment.
As for the development of writing skills, apart from the open-end questions related to the texts examined in class, and the brief summaries prepared by the students as homework, vocabulary exercises and work on Turkish sayings bear a special importance during this term. Excerpts from fables about popular heroes such as Nasreddin Hodja are analysed and summarised in brief paragraphs, discussed and corrected collectively in class. Written accounts from students’ own experience or thoughts and opinions about a topic discussed in class is given as homework nearly each week, at the end of the weekly three-hours lecture. The texts produced by students are e-mailed to the lecturer in order to be commented and sent back.
Assessment
Progress is assessed through the mid-term and final written exams which (20% and 80% respectively of the final result). An extra bonus which can count for up to 20% of the final result, is attributed according to the quality of the texts produced and corrected by the lecturer or collectively in class, as well as the overall participation to collective work done in class.
Bibliography
1. Turkish Daily Newspapers and weekly or monthly magazines.
2. Selected readings from textbooks such as:
Özsoy Sumru, Türkçe-Turkish, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınları, İstanbul, 1999.
Tömer, Hitit-Yabancılar için Türkçe, ve Yeni Hitit, vol. 2, Çalışma kitapları Ankara Üniversitesi Yayınları, Ankara , 2002, 2008.