For my 4th artifact, I documented a cultural exercise that I completed with my language partner. This was aimed to get to know more of the Turkish culture, as coffee is an essential aspect of it. We explored the Turkish coffee culture(we made Turkish coffee) and used the cup to "predict the future." We had a conversation over a cup of coffee about Turkey and Turkish politics as well as how the Turkish coffee culture works. We did use a special "coffee app" to help understand the pictures in the coffee cup.

In my cultural presentation I looked at different archaeological and touristic sites in Turkey and spoke about their history. You can look at it with the link below! I believe this cultural exploration gave me a better understanding of Turkish history and culture as well as new ideas about where to visit first when in Turkey.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1X0i1gq8_INQumDPzdQCGp0vTAMEwfGt5jkSDSHnrVu0/edit?usp=sharing

I used several sources for the pictures and texts, including Wikipedia, Britannica, Turkeytravelcentre, theculturetrip etc.

Here is the text, which includes a number of Turkish words and sentences as well as the English descriptions: 

Merhaba. Benim adım Manya. Ben 19 yaşındayım. Ben Ermenistan'lıyım ama Richmond’da yaşıyorum. Ben Richmond Üniversitesi'nden bir öğrenciyim. Ben Türkçe öğreniyorum. Bugün Türkiye'de farklı yerler hakkında konuşacağım.

The Forgotten City of Ani

On the border with Armenian, Ani ghost city rarely receives visitors apart from an odd trickle who travel purposely to see it. Nicknamed the city of 1001 churches, beautiful historical landmarks like the Fethiye Cathedral and Tigran Honets Church sit in a vast green landscape, with hardly anything else in sight. Previously, many historians campaigned for funds for further excavations. The UNESCO committee added it to their World Heritage list in 2016.

Temmuz ayında eski şehri ziyaret ettim. Muhteşemdi.

Gobeklitepe Temple

Only discovered in 1963, Gobeklitepe, in in the Sanliurfa district of south-east Turkey. Predating Stonehenge by roughly 6000 years, it is the oldest worshipping temple in the world. Once again, hardly anyone visits it because of its “off the beaten track” location, but hopefully, in years to come, its importance will lure in more visitors. Only a small percentage of Gobeklitepe has been uncovered and the next 50 years, could reveal some interesting historical surprises.

Gobeklitepe on bin yaşında.

The Blue Mosque

One of the most photogenic structures and most famous historical places in Turkey, the Blue Mosque is like a social complex. It features a mosque, a madrasa, Sultan Resting Mansion, Turkish bath, a fountain, a hospital, Mekteb-I Sıbyan, rental rooms, and homes. On a visit to this most famous tourist attraction, one must not forget to pay a visit to ‘Arasta’, which is at the back of the museum and is surrounded by Mosaic Museum with shops selling souvenirs.

Gelecekte camiyi görmeyi umuyorum

Troy

Dating back to more than four millennia ago and serving as a key influence on Homer's Illiad. Troy was rediscovered by Heinrich Schliemann in the late 19th century.

Whether you were enthralled by the ancient Homeric epic, the 2004 film adaptation, or any retelling in between, Troy has been a source of artistic inspiration for millennia. With over 4,000 years of history as a connection point between Eastern and Western civilizations, Troy was named a World Heritage Site in 1998.

Ephesos:

The ancient Greek city of Ephesus was famed for one of the Seven Wonders of the world, the Temple of Artemis, which now lies in ruins. After coming under Roman control in the 2nd century BCE, the city flourished, leaving behind monumental structures such as the Library of Celsus. The House of the Virgin Mary and the Basilica of St. John became major Christian pilgrimage sites from the 5th century on.

Mount Nemrut

Another fascinating site located on the heights of a mountain, Mount Nemrut is part of the Taurus Mountains at 2,552 meters (8,372 feet). A personal funerary monument built by Antiochos I, the structures include large statues of the king, two lions, two eagles, and various gods.

Cappadocia

Lying in south central Turkey, the moonscaped region of Cappadocia, southeast of Ankara, is most famous for unique geological features called fairy chimneys. The large, cone-like formations were created over time by erosion of the relatively soft volcanic ash around them. Past cultures have dug into them to create dwellings, castles (like Uchisar) and even entire underground cities like Kaymakli and Derinkuyu, used as hiding places by early Christians. Nearby Kayseri is the gateway to the area.

Bence Cappadocia  gerçekten çok etkileyici.

Aya Sofya

The Aya Sofya (also known by its Greek name, Hagia Sophia) was built by the Roman emperor Constantine from 325 to 330 c.e. during his rebuilding of the city of Byzantium as his capital. It was built as a Christian church.. The present structure dates from the sixth century, when the cathedral was rebuilt by the Byzantine emperor Justinian. In 1453, the Ottomans conquered the city and transformed the church into a mosque. In 1935,it transformed into a museum. The Aya Sofya served as the inspiration for several mosques built during the Ottoman Empire, including Süleymaniye Mosque, designed by Sinan, and the Sultan Ahmet Mosque (popularly known as the Blue mosque).

Aspendos:

Aspendos boasts one of the best preserved ancient theatres of antiquity. The theatre of Aspendos was built in 155 AD during the rule of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius and could seat between 15,000 and 20,000 spectators. Because the stage area was later used as a caravanserai (a roadside inn) in Seljuk times, it was continuously repaired and maintained. Thus, the Aspendos Theatre has been able to survive to this days without losing almost any of its original qualities.

Ankara

Ankara türkiye'nin başkenti.

Turkey’s capital city, Ankara, is a sprawling, modern city home to government buildings, commercial businesses, universities and foreign embassies. Located right in the center of the country and the Anatolia region, Ankara is an important transportation hub, linking travelers to other major destinations in Turkey. The city itself city offers a lively arts and culture scene with a large concentration of museums, including the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.

LAKE VAN

Lake Van, Turkish Van Gölü, lake, largest body of water in Turkey and the second largest in the Middle East The lake is located in the region of eastern Anatolia near the border of Iran. The salt water allows for no animal life save the darekh (related to the European bleak, a small soft-finned river fish of the carp family), a freshwater fish that has adapted to a saline environment.

Geçen yaz bu yeri ziyaret ettim. Çok güzeldi

Sumela Monastery

The Sümela Monastery is in the province of Trabzon in the district of Maçka, and its name came from its location where was previously known as Mela Mountain. In Greek “Stou mela” means “on Mela”. The present name of the monastery originally came from the Greek dialect as “Sou-mela” (Sümela). It is believed that the monastery was built between AD 365-395. As the reason for constructing the monastery was the icon of the Virgin Mary, so the monastery is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and is also known locally as the “Monastery of the Virgin Mary”.

Grand Bazar Istanbul

The Grand Bazaar (Turkish: Kapalıçarşı, meaning ‘Covered Market’; also Büyük Çarşı, meaning ‘Grand Market’) in Istanbul is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world, with 61 covered streets and over 4,000 shops which attract between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors daily. In 2014, it was listed No.1 among world's most-visited tourist attractions with 91,250,000 annual visitors. The Grand Bazar at Istanbul is often regarded as one of the first shopping malls of the world.

Buradan alışverişe gitmek istiyorum.

Umarım sunumumun tadını çıkarırsın. Teşekkürler ve iyi günler!

Hoşçakal.

Throughout the past semester, I managed to accomplish most of the goals in my learning plan. I did revise all the material from the Fall semester and set a good foundation to continue my learning. I learnt more of the vocabulary regarding different topics and am now able to make more complicated sentences, use different cases, ask questions, talk about myself and my plans etc. I have also improved my reading and pronunciation skills as well as am much better at understanding expressions in videos, song lyrics and dialogues. I can use vocabulary of time and space, food, drinks, emotions and feelings as well as say happy birthday, bon appetite, bless you, good luck etc. I also looked at new cultural topics and feel satisfied with what I learnt about Turkish tourism, shopping, archeology etc. Additionally, I am able to somewhat express myself in restaurant and malls and order something, ask for prices and other questions. I can use the polite phrases such as thank you, please, excuse me etc. pretty well as those were much easier for me to remember. Last but not least, I watched a Turkish movie and continue watching TV series to get further listening and cultural practice. I accumulated a vast number of online resources for learning Turkish and am hoping that I can make good use of them in the future.

The only challenge that I am concerned about is how to maintain my language skills as the time goes by. I am hoping to get additional practice in summer or even visit Turkey for a few days to see what I learnt about and practice the language. I am planning to maintain contact with my language partner and possibly further continue to develop my Turkish skills.

I enjoyed the overall process of my language learning!

I have looked at a wide array of cultural topics throughout my Turkish learning experience. I started off last semester by learning some of the features of the collective Turkish culture and its different attributes. I also learnt a lot of interesting cultural phrases and expressions that are used only in Turkey and cannot be directly translated. I learnt about the time culture of Turkey and about how confusing it can be for Western people. I also learnt about the Turkish writing system and how it switched from Arabic to latin alphabet. I also looked at tea and coffee culture in Turkey since it has some unique rituals surrounding it. I reflected upon what sort of cultural shock one can experience while traveling and living in Turkey. I went over the most common expressions used in Turkey and tried to come up with English equivalents, which by the way, in some cases do not exist at all. As I got more familiar with Turkish culture, traditions and habits, I moved on to learning more about Turkish history and politics and learnt more about Ottoman empire, its history, Armenian Genocide, transition to the new Turkish republic and vast changes brought by Ataturk(Father of the Turks). I also continued with looking at some aspects of modern Turkish politics as well as identifying most popular touristic attractions and archeological sites in Turkey. Having had the goal of being able to communicate in the country as a tourist, I also paid a close attention to Turkish shopping culture and possible haggling.   

I think, during this period of time, I have acquainted myself with the most common attributes of Turkish culture and traditions. I finished the semester with a cultural presentation about Turkish archeology and tourism, which was extremely useful in terms of understanding more of the Turkish history. 

I have paid a great deal of attention on Turkish history this semester, therefore this cultural post will be related to some of the famous Turkish archeological sites and monuments. I will speak briefly about Historical Blue Mosque, Underground Basilica Cistern, Gobeklitepe(The Man-mad Landmark of Rocks) and Statue Heads of Mount Nemrut. I will talk more on this topic later on my final cultural presentation, since knowing the touristic attractions and the history of the country whose language one is learning is very important.

"Gobeklitepe is the oldest manmade structure in the world, dating from the Neolithic era and beating Stonehenge by thousands of years." It is said to be around 10.000 years old and is speculated to have been an ancient religious center for locals. 

The Blue Mosque in most famous mosque in Turkey. It dates back to 1616 and still operated daily for muslim prayers. It has 6 minarets and 260 windows and is considered one of the best historical places in capital Istanbul. It also attract a wide number of tourists each year.

James Bond fans will recognize this cistern from the movie "From Russia with Love". Historical texts claim that 7,000 slaves were involved in the construction of the cistern."Designed to service the Great Palace and surrounding buildings, it was able to store up to 80,000 cu metres of water delivered via 20km of aqueducts from a reservoir near the Black Sea."

The giant statue heads that are featured on many holiday postcards of Turkey is a UNESCO World Heritage site, dating back to the 1st century BC. It was built in honour of Greek, Armenian, and Persian gods but "at some point, the heads fell from the main body structure." The statues attract a vast number of tourists even now.

• Teach someone using the activity you created in Week 9; reflect upon the effectiveness of the activity.

During my 9th week I revised a lot of vocabulary of polite phrases in Turkish in order to be able to order something in the restaurant. I also learnt how to ask where the bathroom is or whether someone speaks English. In order to teach someone some of these phrases, I will use an activity I created for myself. This includes learning a number of expressions and words as well as watching short youtube videos for practice. I believe this activity is effective in terms of developing listening skills and being able to understand Turkish as well as being able to read and speak(and possibly write).

Below is the youtube link of the short video of how to order lunch as well as a fun video of beginners ordering food in a Turkish restaurant. I will also add an artifact of the essential expressions to know and memorize. This activity can be done through Quzlet or through speaking practice between two people, which is more convenient for a beginner. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kupCNl-G6Fs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-DD-xaVeYo

For the past 2 weeks I intended to do a lot of revision of what I have learnt not only this semester but also the past semester. I also aimed to create sentences using transitional words as well as go over the most useful expressions in Turkish(bless you, congratulations etc.) Additionally I would go over some time and date words (tomorrow, today, next summer etc.) and make sentences in different tenses as well as speak about my summer plans and do a throw back to my spring break. 

I thought these strategies would be helpful in wrapping up what I've learnt in Turkish. Creating full sentences and being able to use common phrases would definitely improve my language skills. 

As planned I did a lot of revision and asked lots of questions to my language partner. I revisited a lot of vocabulary these weeks and made a lot of sentences using different grammatical structures. I also learnt some transitional words and common phrases. I did speaking and writing practice about my spring break and summer break, thus also revising the 3 tenses learnt so far. It was a challenging week in terms of the amount of the material. Overall, we managed to revise most of the content and add up some new suffix uses(such as ki) used with times and other cases. 

My past week's goals included creating sentences describing my room and other rooms( how many chairs, tables etc there are); learning how to shop and asking for prices, express opinions and even bargain. Although these sounded extremely hard, I wanted to give it a try, since as a tourist, knowing how to shop and behave at shops is essentially important. I decided to ask questions and figure this out with my language partner along with my online resources. 

With my language partner and classmate we created sentences, described surroundings and completed a few paper exercises. The rest of the time we put an emphasize on how to shop or bargain. Since shopping in Turkey is different from shopping in the US(I talked about this in my cultural posts), there is a lot to learn in terms of price negotiation. I learnt to ask prices, say that something is expensive or cheap or that I don't want it anymore etc. We obviously had to also use food and question vocabulary along with other words. This was an effective exercise in terms of combining what I've learnt so far and getting ready to wrap up the semester. I also liked to learn vocabulary and sentences related to a cultural post that I wrote previously. My language partner was of a great help with his native linguistic and cultural perspectives. Overall, although challenging, this week was very productive!

During the 8th and 9th weeks I planned to learn adjectives, watch a Turkish movie, learn the vocabulary of drinks, be able to order in a restaurant, use excuse me, please, thanks, ask where is the bathroom and whatever is close to the content of this plan. I planned to find a famous Turkish movie on IMDB, as well as practice ordering in the restaurant with my language partner. I also intended to do some listening exercises online, as well as listen to Turkish songs throughout these 2 weeks.

As a result, I watched "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" movie with the English subtitles; learnt the most used adjectives of Turkish and paid a lot of attention on pronunciation. I also learnt some new drinks and food vocabulary and made basic sentences of ordering food and drinks. I revised the vocabulary of "polite phrases" as I knew those from the last semester. I also found a couple of resources offering listening practice of the above mentioned vocabulary and sentences. Using listening exercises was very effective, although the overall Turkish pronunciation is easy for me due to my previous linguistic experiences. In order to be able to memorize what I already learnt and build on it, I may need more speaking practice, which I will ensure to have during the upcoming weeks. My language partner has been very helpful so far in combining language and culture learning. Since I also learnt a lot of adjectives, I am now able to create more sentences and expressions and express more feelings. I found these past weeks very helpful. The only challenge remains ensuring I do not forget the content in the future, but I believe more practice will help me reach this goal as well. 

Below are some of the artifacts I used these last 2 weeks. They were taken from a wide variety of resources as I keep on exploring them. 

For my 3rd artifact, I documented conjugations of different verbs, with emphasis on the past and future tenses. Below is the blackboard with the verb conjugations as well as an online resource I used to check other conjugations that I completed.

During my 6th and 7th weeks I had a goal of being able to express feelings, speak and write about winter break, using past tense and future tense, make sentences about wishes and needs, ask questions, revise animal and fruits vocabulary as well as get familiar with the most famous historical sites of Turkey. I intended to use online resources, two of which I discovered a few weeks ago and found really useful( http://turkishbasics.com, https://www.turkishclass101.com). I also was hoping to use Quizlet for vocabulary revision and ask questions to my language partner.

In order to develop speaking and listening skills, I and my language partner spoke about winter break using different tenses and asked each other questions about our plans. I also got to learn and conjugate more verbs when we were creating sentences. I was able to express some of my wishes such as I want to do this/that in the future or I want to have coffee etc. and ask questions. As planned, I used Quizlet for revising the animals and fruits and made a few sentences of shopping for fruits. I also learnt to express negative and positive feelings when asked how I am or how I feel. These past 2 weeks I did a lot of speaking and listening practice both online and with my classmate. As part of our class, we also got to read a small children's book and tried to translate what we read. It was quite challenging with a number of unfamiliar words but also very useful in terms of reading and pronunciation. My language partner also spoke about the famous Turkish historical sites and told a few interesting stories about their architecture over a cup of Turkish coffee.

Below are some of the sentence.vocabulary artifacts that I used during the past 2 weeks.

For the past 2 weeks my language learning goals combined revision, grammar, vocabulary and cultural activities. I planned on revising the future tense, speaking and writing about my spring break plans, learning new actions verbs, going over times vocabulary(since it is a bit harder than it sounds) and briefly going over the past tense along with speaking about Turkey's current political situation, possibly going over a few news articles etc. 

Firstly, me and my language partner went over the future tense again and created a few sentences about my possible spring break plans, such as where I will be going, who with, what I will be doing etc. Secondly, we went over the most common Turkish verbs and worked on conjugating those in present and future tenses. Next, we did some revision of time vocabulary and how to ask what time it is and answer. Me and my language partner got to speak about Turkey as a country in terms of economics and politics and how those factors shape the culture. We also spoke about Ottoman empire, 1915 Armenian Genocide, its history as well as some common cultural habits present both in Armenian and Turkish cultures. Lastly, we briefly went over the past tense and conjugated 2 verbs just to get the idea of the tense and how it works. 

There was a lot done this week and I felt challenged at times in terms of memorizing vocabulary and being on top of the grammar rules learnt during these past 5 weeks, however with the help of my language partner, classroom discussions and exercises with my classmate, I was able to overcome the challenges and memorize at least 80% of the vocabulary and the majority of the grammar rules. I also took lots of notes during these past 2-3 weeks to make sure my writing, reading, speaking and listening skills were equally developed.

How to say times: Example:

Present tense conjugations: 

Past tense conjugations:Future tense conjugations: 

For my 2nd artifact, I spoke about my daily routine. I did use my vocabulary to write down the sentences and asked my learning partner to correct my mistakes, if any. I also did a speaking exercise with the same sentences in order to improve my accent and speaking.

Turkish.m4a

For my first artifact, I recorded myself speaking about myself as well as asking questions to a second person. English translations of some of the things I said or asked are below. I enjoyed speaking in Turkish. I do not seem to have issues with my accent as I am familiar with the sounds of the language due to my previous linguistic experiences. I think for this semester, I will aim to be able to sustain longer dialogues with native speakers and be able to ask more questions, especially if I am ordering in restaurants or doing shopping elsewhere. I enjoyed this experience, as I combined what I knew from last semester and used tenses and what I've learnt these past 3 weeks. 

Some examples:

Good afternoon. My name is Manya. what is your name? Nice to meet you.
I'm nineteen, how old are you?
Where are you from? Where do you live? .....
I also work as an assistant in post office. It is an interesting job. What do you do in your free time? How many languages do you speak? ...

-oh that is great. I did not know you speak Italian....Have you been to Italy?
-Wonderful. It was nice meeting you. I hope to see you soon in Istanbul...

My first 3 weeks of spring semester were extremely productive in terms of my language learning tasks. I planned to generally revise the content of the past semester during the first week, introduce myself to the future tense as well as learn/revise different grammar cases of the Turkish language. I was planning to achieve these goals with the help of my language partner as well as online resources. 

I managed to revise almost everything that we did las semester, including greetings, numbers, colors, days of the week, months, common verbs, family, times, etc. I used quizlet and classroom time to accomplish this goal. I engaged in conversations with my language partner and classmate. I also learnt the future tense this week and practiced conjugation of different verbs (positive and negative conjugations). My language partner corrected my mistakes and we learnt some new words while creating sentences and talking about the next day's plans. We then progressed to learning cases in Turkish language. We briefly went over this topic during the past semester, so I was familiar with some of the cases. We learnt accusative, dative, ablative, locative cases and a few other small grammar rules, and practiced those by creating sentences and expressions and by using cases with different nouns. 

Shopping

I decided to write a post about shopping culture in Turkey, since it is extremely different from that os US. Firstly, except for large international chains such as Starbucks, prices can be largely negotiable. Many stores, especially clothing, will not specify the prices of the items and will tell someone a price based on whether they are natives or tourists or based on whether they look well off or poor. Especially when someone sells rugs, souvenirs or fruit in the streets, prices can be extremely negotiable. It's important to tell the seller that you have already seen the same item somewhere else with a lower price in order for them to decrease the prices. It is also easier to bargain if one is buying several units of the same item. For instance, if something costs 15 Turkish liras and one ways 5 of those, the price can be negotiated to 60 liras. This being said, tourists can often be deceived with more expensive prices compared to what locals usually give, however the prices in Turkey are generally lower compared to the US, related to lower wages and salaries. Therefore, the tourist might not even realize that they are paying twice the actual price of the souvenir or the rug. Nevertheless, why pay more if you can pay less?

I also learnt a few vocabulary words related to shopping stores. 

Cultural learning goals for the semester.

Since I spent significant amount of time last semester in exploring everyday life of Turkish people, traditions, cultural expressions and traditional words, this semester I am planning to spend more time in exploring geographical aspects of the country, along with history and modern politics. In order to enhance my cultural understanding of the country, I will take a look at western and eastern parts of Turkey-they are significantly different ethnically, culturally and politically. I will look at different cities, geographic locations, ethic groups in those cities, political developments in the area, historical sites etc. I will also try to explore some economic aspects of the country and what each region is specialized in. 

Turkey has an extremely rich cultural history and a vast number of historical sites worth reading about and exploring. I will try to familiarize myself with the most ancient and popular cultural and historical sites, mosques, churches etc. If my cultural exploration goes as planned, I will design my end of year cultural presentation around Turkish archaeology and history, how the country started to be modernized after the first republic was established in 1923, how the dressing code and even alphabet changed and how well this transition worked in the country as a whole. 

For my exploration, I will rely on online resources and my language partner's help. I will try to ask questions to him to get a full primary source information and will combine that with the online resources(news articles, pictures, encyclopedia articles etc.) to get the full picture. These goals will provide me with the full understanding of the country, starting from old times and progressing through modern days. I believe every country is shaped by its history, and getting to know some of the Turkish history will make me understand the country and traditions in a much better way. 

I used a couple of different resources to identify my language skills as of January 2018. I will use can do statements below to describe my abilities as of beginning of the semester, and I'll later progress to the list of my language goals for Spring. 

As of now, I believe I am in between Novice Mid and Novice high trying to progress to full Novice high and even intermediate low level. 

My current abilities are:

Turkish Learning plan (Spring 2018)

Learning goal: To be able to communicate with people who I meet for the first time, talk about myself and ask questions. Use travel language to ask directions, order food, do shopping. Besides, acquire basic vocabulary to distinguish cases, tenses and be able to understand simple dialogues and check in/check out from hotels. Read and understand basic texts.

Methods: Watch movies or TV series with subtitles to develop listening skills, talk to my language partner to acquire more speaking and listening skills. Read basic texts, words, expressions in class and online to develop reading skills. Write down what is being learnt in class and chat online for writing skills. Ask questions to the language partner and use the resources below for better learning experience.

Resources:       

https://www.learnturkishnow.co.uk/www.learnturkishnow.co.uk/info.php?p=2

https://www.loecsen.com/en/learn-turkish

https://handsonturkish.com/first-steps-turkish/

www.duolingo.com

www.lingust.ru

www.quizlet.com

Global studio resources

Language partner’s help

Other possible resources that may come along the way

1st week- General revision of past semester content, including colors, numbers, greetings, times, family etc.

2nd week- Introduction to future tense, conjugating verbs in future tense & revision of present/present continuous verb conjugations + vocabulary of asking questions (where, how, what, etc. )

3rd week- Cases in the Turkish language- accusative, locative, ablative etc. Making sentences using different cases; using present and future tenses.

4th week- Speaking and writing about spring break plans(future tense). Adding more vocabulary of action verbs, revisit days of the week, months and time vocabulary

5th week-  Speak about current situation in Turkey/cultural, religious, political; intro to past tense, conjugation of verbs

6th week- Feelings vocabulary, speaking and writing about winter break, using past tense + adding verbs vocabulary; making sentences about wishes and needs, asking questions.

7th week- Intro to the most famous historical sites of Turkey, share information; animals, fruits. Sentences using present, future and past tense.

8th week- Vocabulary of adjectives, watch a Turkish movie, vocabulary of beach, drinks, making sentences, complete some paper exercises upon the request of the language partner.

9th week- Ordering in a restaurant. Use excuse me, please, thanks, ask where is the bathroom. More food and drinks vocabulary.

10th week- Describing the room, saying how many chairs, tables, doors there are. Asking where other things are.

11th week- Ask where the shops are, where the cookies/ ice cream /other things are. Ask how much they cost and say if it’s cheap or expensive. Express emotions vocabulary( fantastic! Worried, sad etc. )

12th week- Revise what have been learnt so far. Ask questions, make sure to remember transition words(because, therefore, but etc.), common expressions(bless you, happy birthday, congratulations etc. )

13th week- Read a short story, write down unfamiliar words. Vocabulary of places and times(here, there, today, tomorrow, etc.)

14th- Revise hobbies, and dialogues about myself, the other person, ask questions and understand the answers(where one studies, lives, what time it is, where is the mosque, etc.) Complete paper exercises and speak about ways to use and maintain the language skills in the future.

• Use all the online resources above to learn new grammar skills and vocabulary. Create quiz sets on quizlet. 
• Complete the Reflections and Journals
• Watch Turkish movies with subtitles. 
• Ask questions to the language partner.

Post Final Reflection Paper (500 words):

Reflect on your learning experiences this semester. 
(a) What insights have you gained about yourself as a language learner and cultural explorer?  What did you find difficult?  What have you enjoyed?  How will you continue your learning?
(b) Which readings and learning activities did you find most useful?  What would you like to learn more about?

I had a great language learning experience this semester. The combination of SDLC 105 and 110 classes gave me valuable cultural and linguistic insights. As a language learner, I found that learning a brand new language in older age can be difficult, but it is not undoable. I had a great experience in exploring my interests in terms of culture and language. I had learnt the languages I know at an earlier age, therefore starting a new one at 19 was an experience I won't regret. I found out that I am not very interested in how morphology or syntax work in the language, but rather I am more prone to practicing the language and slowly understanding its logic and the way it works. I also believe learning about the culture helps a lot in terms of understanding the language itself, since some phrases you hear from the target language have no direct translations. Reading texts, listening to music, or TV series everyday conversations are also very helpful when pursuing a language. I truly enjoyed working both alone and in a group with my classmates and language partner. I also loved to use several resources and eventually picking the ones I find the most useful. 

I also enjoyed having classes with other language learners, although the difference of the languages we all learnt made it challenging to relate the concepts and the concepts to all of us. I enjoyed reading about bilinguals and the best ways to learn languages, although at the end, I believe most of us already knew which methods work the best for us personally, I also loved talking about culture shock and communicative competence, since those gave me some insights about how to understand my target culture better. I did like having presentations where we all reflected upon our interests and passions about certain languages and cultures. I believe my Linguistics class not only helped me understand my target culture better, but also helped in understanding other linguistic and cultural insights from a number of other languages. 

I liked talking abut the basic structure of the languages and the cultural heritage of the languages that are on the verge of extinction nowadays. I found it a bit challenging to relate all the discussions to Turkish, but it was still interesting to hear about other languages. Professor's example from the Russian language helped me understand some concepts better, as Russian is my second language. This class motivated me to do research about the language and culture that I have been learning. My presentations helped me gain extremely valuable insights about Turkey and culture.

It was challenging to keep the track of all the journals and blog posts that I had to write, since some of the questions were repetitive, but I managed to not leave everything for the last minute. 

Overall, both my courses were useful and helped me in my learning goals. I am hoping to visit Turkey in summer and use my knowledge in the country I have been learning about so much.