My goals at the beginning of the semester were to Improve response time and have more in depth conversations. Through learning the past and future tenses, I have tripled my vocabulary. My response time has improved in conversations. I am getting much better at context clues, which was one of my other goals. I wanted to sharpen my context clue skills through watching Turkish tv. I watched Muhteşem Yüzyıl. I wanted to be able to read short stories and answer comprehension questions about them. I feel confident in my reading capabilities this semester. Even if I don’t know the every word in the excerpt or story, I know enough to get the gist. I also know the structure and vocabulary in the comprehension questions. I wrote more this semester. I wrote for my learning artifacts in Turkish and have written my cultural project presentation in Turkish. I was also able to conduct research for my project in Turkish. I found so many more resources when I used Turkish to Google things rather than googling ‘Turkish funeral customs’ in English.
Another goal was to not translate in my head, but use my Turkish vocabulary to express what I want to say. I did not improve on this skill, as I was not speaking as much Turkish as I should have. It was difficult for me to find people to speak Turkish with outside of class. I wanted to be able to read Turkish news, but this may have been too lofty of a goal. I don’t think my vocabulary is there yet, to be able to read and watch the news.
I have not yet given my cultural presentation, but my goal is to deliver it in Turkish.
Overall, I have learned so much this semester and feel confident in my abilities to communicate and listen. I want to go to Turkey very much and I will continue with this language for a while. Regardless, I have developed language learning skills that I can apply to any language I choose to learn in the future. I have had a wonderful experience with the program and the Turkish language over the past three semesters and I wish I would have started sooner!
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