Job Discussion Forums

[molly farquharson]

I know best about Koc Uiv, where students have to pass the TOEFL to get out of the prep program, and they have only a year to do it. I didn't teach prep, I taught freshman comp and presentation skills. The students were ok, but I found that they did have problems with typing formats, even though they were good at computer stuff. The worst ones were the ones from places like Robert College or Amerikan Uskadar, as they were pretty arrogant-- and weren't that good at writing. I ran into an old Koc student on the street recently and was dismayed at his level of English, a year away from graduating. But he was a math major. I wonder if the major has anything to do with it?

At the same time, I have just spent a day at the printer, and he told me that he can understand the computer manuals in English-- something I don't! He doesn't speak English, btw.

[molly farquharson]

Also, univs here don't help the sts once they are in the univ itself. There used to be a writing center at Koc, but apparently it has bit the dust. There are few courses, if any, in any univ I know of here that help sts build on their English knowledge and keep improving it. Sink or swim time...

[scot47]

Yes, why is there such a difference between societies in FL learning ? Why do the Swedes and Dutch manage so well and the Turks, Japanese and Arabs perform so badly ?

In the Gulf countries I have come across the problem of students who have a good level of spoken English but are challenged by having to write one grammatical sentence with no spelling errors. Does that happen in Turkey ? With our students it is often found amongst thoise who have travelled or have a family member who is a native speaker.

[saloma]

[ImanH]

Scot47, it seems to me that you are presenting this as an ethnic/nationalistic issue on the one hand

[Mark Loyd]

At almost all private unis in Turkey the only bar is being able to pay the fees.

One decent generation of Turks-I don`t want to go there. It is so ethnocentric.

No, Turks do not have anything like the writing/spelling/grammar problems that Arabs have. The grammar translation methodology of the Turkish high school teacher put paid to that.

[scot47]

Iman
40 years ago I knew all the answers. Now I am not even sure that I know what the questions are.

[ImanH]

[justme]

Another teacher here's been sedning out the amusing things his students write. Seems fitting...

[Mark Loyd]

I meant that for millions of Turks, Turkish is their second language and they speak and write it fluently. Their first language could be Kurdish or Arabic, neither of which are minority languages. True the majority of Turkish Kurdish or Arabic speakers are unable to read or write it but that is because government policies made it illegal for their first languages to be taught in schools.

Both of the above languages are considered real languages but little value is placed in Turkey to those languages. I was once on a Turkish Airlines plane and we had to wait on the tarmac at Adana airport for an hour in the sweltering heat. There was a group of very elderly Algerians on the plane along with a guide. The guide was very angry with the young blonde stewardess and she protested that she spoke Turkish and English but the guide was trying to speak to her in French or Arabic. Ten minutes later they came back with an airport cleaner who translated in Arabic.

I remember thinking that showed me what value is placed on Arabic-a language spoken by poor and uneducated people in Turkey.

Another point about language learning motivation surely must be that so few Turks travel outside the country and hence do not see the value of communicating in a foreign language. So much of language learning here is like the teaching of Latin a few generations ago.

[ImanH]

[calsimsek]

The point here is that some students don't bother to study, thats not like it is back home is it

Most of the good students in this country go to state schools and they try to work and from my experiance most have good overall skills.

Besides if every kid who went to a Mc Uni did work out how to speak english, then where would all the Mc english schools end up.

[Mark Loyd]

We would be out of a job.

[calsimsek]

So don't rock the boat, let the rich throw some of their money our way via privet classes.

[Mark Loyd]

Rock the boat and drive out the Mc schools.