Language & Cultural Awareness: Is it possible to achieve with American kids via Turkish instruction? Özlem KAYA, TURKEY

My motivation to teach Turkish  Fulbright FLTA Program  The requirement of my Action Research class  A new experience  A challenge  An opportunity to develop myself  An opportunity to introduce Turkish language and culture in another context

Why foreign lang. at an early age?  Rapid and efficient  Native like pronunciation  Positive feelings and attitudes  Language and culture awareness  More creativity  Better critical thinking and problem solving skills  Popularity in preschools

Context:  Children Development Lab.  Open to research and new ideas  4-5 year old kids  All American  First observation, then teaching  Classroom teacher’s involvement  Sticking to the established rules

The Purpose: To find out:  the affective reactions of preschool kids, the parents, the classroom teacher, and the researcher- teacher towards Turkish instruction  the effectiveness of Turkish instruction  the challenges of developing materials for Turkish which is a less commonly taught language in the US

Methodology:  min. teaching  twice a week  visual aids, songs, games, hands-on activities  basic words and expressions  reflective teaching journals  the feedback of the leading classroom teacher  the article of a parent posted on her blog.  the informal talks with parents

Findings: Affective reactions of kids  Curiosity and eagerness  Awareness of Turkish as a lang.  Short attention span  Interesting material: interested students

Findings: Affective reactions of the classroom teacher  Welcoming and helpful  Cooperative and involved in the process  Modelling the kids how to do things  Continuous feedback on my teaching

Findings: Affective reactions of parents  Parents: aware of the benefits of foreign lang.  Positive and appreciative  Motivating for me  NOT: blog link ver!!!

My teaching performance  Anxiety at first  Transfering my ELT experience  Mood reflected on teaching  Complex tasks: confusings  Hands-on activities: active participation  Life-related teaching: more effective

Materials Development and Adaptation  Demanding and challenging  A lot of time and energy  Turkish: less commonly taught lang.  Experimental process  Puppet: the cleverest material I used  Colorful materials: more effective  Souvenirs and Turkish penpals for cultural awareness

Effectiveness  Mostly oral instruction  A lot of repetitions  Imitating the classroom teacher: faster communication with kids  Individual differences affected performance  Well-prepared materials: effective class  Awareness of Turkish lang. and culture  Accurate pronunciation

Conclusion  Turkish instruction: breaking the routine  Different experience  More exposure: better results  Different learning styles, different achievements  Teaching kids differ from teaching adults  Tranfering knowledge and experience works

ÖZLEM KAYA, TURKEY THANK YOU!