Prospectus

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Intermediate Turkish

Course
2020-2021

Admission requirements

Pre-Intermediate Turkish or equivalent.

Description

““Intermediate Turkish” is designed as a continuation of “Pre-Intermediate Turkish” and introduces new grammar and vocabulary to reach a “threshold level” of Turkish around particular themes, such as education, family, art, sports and travel. Different from previous courses, this course is reading intensive such that new concepts, words, expressions and grammar points are introduced through a variety of texts tailored for student needs. By the end of the course, students will have achieved a B1 level of Turkish proficiency.

Course objectives

By the end of the course, students will have achieved a threshold level of Turkish proficiency in order to communicate in daily and professional settings, and understand facts and opinions in written texts such as newspaper articles and stories. By the end of the semester, students will have a better understanding of Turkish language and culture needed to successfully interact with the native speakers in Turkey and elsewhere.

  • Grammar: Subject relative, non-subject relative, compound tenses, lexical and grammatical reflexive and reciprocal, standard passive and impersonal passive, lexical and syntactic causative, conditional and subordination will be the main grammar points that we will cover in this course.

  • Vocabulary and use: New vocabulary items and expressions will be introduced thematically. By the end of the course, students will reach a threshold level of vocabulary knowledge and have skills needed to guess the meaning of unknown words and expressions using contextual clues.

  • Reading: Students will develop an intermediate level of reading proficiency, and will understand main ideas, supporting ideas and reference in authentic texts. Students will also improve strategies to read “between the lines.”

  • Writing: Writing will be introduced in combination with readings. Students will learn how to summarize and paraphrase texts. Although translation is not the main objective of the course, some activities will require them to translate parts of a text, which will become handy in the thesis writing stage when they need to use Turkish resources during their thesis work.

  • Listening and speaking: We will have some listening and speaking activities to supplement grammar and reading tasks. Although the course is reading-intensive, students will receive some implicit teaching of listening and speaking strategies.

European Common Framework goals after fulfilling Beginners' Turkish II
Listening A2+
Reading B1
Spoken interaction B1
Spoken production A2+
Writing A2+

Timetable

Visit MyTimetable.

Mode of instruction

Seminar with mandatory attendance.
Class participation is extremely important in learning a language. It is even more important in learning a language for which the classroom context is the main source of input. You are therefore required to attend every session. The percentage of absence may affect your grade. In case you have to be absent in order to observe any religious holidays during the semester, you must let the instructor know within the first two weeks of class through email. Assignments or projects are expected to be submitted on time. Deadlines will be enforced strictly with exceptions like documentation from a hospital or athletic/academic excused absences. Mobile phones and electronic devices are allowed only if they are used for classroom purposes, such as when using a dictionary app.

Course Load

10 EC x 28 hrs = 280 hrs
Lectures 56
Assessment 4
Self-study 100
Homework assignments 120

Assessment method and weighing

Student performance in this course will be based on the following distribution:

Partial Assessment points Weighing
Quizzes 4 x 5 20%
Creative projects 2 x 10 20%
Homework assignments 10 x 2 20%
Midterm exam 15 15%
Final exam 25 25%
Total 100 100%

Resit

Important note: The resit exam is a make-up for your scores for the midterm and the final exam only.

Blackboard

Blackboard will be used for course information (syllabus and deadlines), course documents (homework assignments and review materials for each module), announcements, student grade center and for some occasional links to websites of Turkish language and culture.

Reading list

  • Türkçe Okuyalım Yazalım - Yabancılar İçin Türkçe (Aslı Altan, Elif Aka, 2017, Papatya Bilim)

  • A Student Grammar of Turkish (Nihan Ketrez, 2012, Cambridge University Press)

We will also be using a number of extra materials provided by the instructor.

Registration

uSis

Contact

B. Erdem-Boonstra MA

Remarks

Students with disabilities

The university is committed to supporting and accommodating students with disabilities as stated in the university protocol (especially pages 3-5). Students should contact [Fenestra Disability Centre] at least four weeks before the start of their courses to ensure that all necessary academic accommodations can be made in time conform the abovementioned protocol.

Academic Integrity

Students are expected to be familiar with Leiden University policies on plagiarism and academic integrity. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. If you submit any work with your name affixed to it, it is assumed to be your own work with all sources used properly indicated and documented in the text (with quotations and/or citations).