INTRODUCTION

Türkçe ile Yaşam 1 is designed for beginning level students who would like to speak, read and write modern Turkish. The book contains many activities and exercises that help learners increase their language skills in four areas: listening, speaking, reading and writing. In particular, these materials build listening and oral communication skills in social and informal settings. Communicative tasks on personal, informal, and daily life topics aim to develop fluency. through the activation of vocabulary and structures in various contexts and functions.  In these activities, it is important for learners to push themselves to say as much as they can without fear of making mistakes.  At the same time, it will be helpful for learners to memorize phrases and expressions in addition to individual words, and to spend time practicing the mechanics of pronunciation and grammar at home to prepare for speaking in class.

Three basic principles of successful language learning guide the design of these materials:

1.  Prepare at home, activate in class.  It is crucial for learners to read, listen and write our the at-home exercises so that they will be prepared to interact with their peers in class.

2.  Listening skills represent a crucial part of developing all four language skills.  It is important that learners develop good listening comprehension skills, including the ability to guess the meaning of words from context, and to distinguish sounds and sound combinations accurately.  Students should repeat listening activities many times—just as we all did when we learned our native language.

3. It is important to avoid translation to and from English as much as possible.   This helps learners develop confidence in their ability to understand what they hear and read.  It also helps develop fluency by helping learners think in Turkish rather than in English.

Keep these principles in mind as you work through the materials.  We hope that you will find them helpful in developing yor Turkish skills.

The course consists of ten units, organized functionally. Some of the units contain several lessons, each of which focuses on a specific  task, such as greeting others or describing the rooms of a house.  The grammar and vocabulary presented and activated in these units derive from the contexts and functions.  In other words, the functions and contexts come first, and vocabulary and grammar follow.

All four skills are integrated in each unit.  The structure of the units is designed to develop aural and oral skills as the basis of communicative ability.  Each unit starts with a listening activity in which target vocabulary is introduced in context, avoiding the use of English translation as much as possible. Students are encouraged to deduct new meanings and patterns from these activities. In the next section, learners imitate and practice what they have learned, initially through mechanical exercises and then through more interactive activities. Interactive activities range from role-plays to open-ended discussions and allow students to personalize the material so that they come to “own” it. Through the end of each unit or lesson, there is a reading activity that expands students’ ability to read for comprehension. These exercises are based on authentic and simulated authentic texts letters, ads, and receipts. Reading texts also recycle vocabulary that students have learned before and give them opportunities to develop reading fluency by guessing the meaning of new words from context.

We hope that these materials will be helpful to learners and teachers and we wish you an enjoyable and successful journey with Turkish!