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THE LATEST VERSION:
"Describe your own experience of learning a language or languages.
You can cover the following points:
Was it taught or 'picked up'? How?
When did learning start, how long was it for and how frequent was your exposure to the language?
What experience of native speakers of the language?
What was the bias of listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, translation, literature, pronunciation teaching?
What kinds of texts and other materials or teaching aids were used?
What about the teacher's personality?
How efficient was your learning?
Which language varieties did you master?
Where are the gaps in your knowledge or ability?
I can still recall those doubtful times of desperation; the intense desire to be able to speak Turkish, to be able to communicate with my own relatives who I was unable to even form a relationship with. The flash backs of when I was incapable of putting together one basic sentence to express myself still haunt me. A prisoner, captive in my own ignorance, I tried dubiously to tell how I felt. The struggle to be released from my linguistic restraints was so hard. I wanted to shout, tell the world how I had discovered myself. I wanted to understand, be able to open my ears to the harmonic sound of a new language. And most of all, I wanted to sing, sing the song of happiness. However, being unable to do any of this I felt like a deaf child who couldn’t speak.
As a young child, I was always encouraged by my parents to listen to as much Turkish as possible; may this have been from the television or from my Turkish father and his friends’ conversations. I was always told that if I listened to the language enough, my brain would become used to the words and I would be able to pick them up easier in the future. Of course, as a young girl, I was always preoccupied with Barbie dolls and cartoons! It never entered my mind that being able to understand and speak Turkish (or any other language) would ever be important. I was very much mistaken.
Then the day came, the year was 2003 and I was going to Turkey with my father for the first time. I was 13 years old and knew approximately one hundred words of Turkish, including colours and numbers! During my eight weeks there I would be in an environment of people who only know Turkish for approximately four weeks, on my own. Feelings of worry ran through my veins and I was even angry with my father for not speaking Turkish to me when I was younger. I was putting all the blame on him when I should have taken responsibility.
We arrived at the airport and in the first ten minutes of my arrival I had managed to learn one word. Thinking this was something to boast about, I began to feel confident, until I arrived at our first stop of course. All feelings of excitement along with all my skills of self- assurance disappeared. This is the point when I began to realise the importance of language and the doors it opens for us as human beings.
I felt alone. Unaware of what was happening around me, I began to lose my confidence and eventually I was incapable of completing even, every-day tasks comfortably. I was finally meeting all the people I had been hearing about, they seemed to be characters from a bed-time story and even though I was in their world with them, I was still unable to interact with them, thus yet again, leaving me on the outside; the outside of life. No onecould understand even ten percent of that feeling, without being in a similar situation. Wanting so much to contribute to conversations, to participate in group activities and truly get pleasure from it.
One evening, as the sun was gracefully setting beyond the horizon; as the warm rays of evening light delicately kissed my skin; as everyone around me was passionately and enthusiastically singing to the lyrics of Davut Güloğlu’s concert, it struck me. The divine smell of burning wood accompanied by the sizzling smell of beach BBQs lingered in the air. The pink, purple and orange sprays of colour in the clouds merged together tattooing a large zebra-skin piece of art work in the sky above us. This was when I discovered, discovered where I really belong. I had found my home, but how was I to express this? How could I express this burning feeling of love which was growing inside me? The singing continued and I felt ridiculed at every word; everyone’s dancing seemed to make a mockery of my unawareness in this new world. I had to learn Turkish.
As the weeks progressed, I continued on my journey of not only knowledge of another language and awareness of another culture but also on my long journey of self discovery. With no books, and no resources I struggled to identify with new grammatical rules and was perplexed with how this language is structured. It mainly improving my lexis which was improved and of course, this not being adequate enough to convey my innermost thoughts and feelings, I was only capable to say incredibly basic sentences which were a companion to my fantastically atrocious English accent! Spending several long weeks unconsciously accustoming myself to not expressing myself as well as I was able to, I began to reunite with part of the self-belief which I had formerly lost contact with. Expressing myself like this became normal.
In spite of the fact that I did begin to feel better within myself, the aggressive feeling of jealousy still overcome me and I frequently found myself beginning to extremely dislike every person who had what I was far from being in possession of, the gift of speaking Turkish.
When I returned to England, this feeling stayed with me and as I was burdened with more and more school work, I had less time to study for what was really important and essential to me. Those strong feelings which had grown inside me whilst in Turkey however, could not be forgotten and I became more and more determined and strong minded than ever before. Most children of 13-14 years of age would go home from a long day at school, grab a bag of crisps and switch on the television; filling their heads with unnecessary garbage. I however, would have quickly completed whatever school work which had been set in order to be able to spend more time on studying for Turkish. Fortunately I had found myself the “Teach Yourself Turkish†book by David and Asuman Çelen Pollard which gave me a great advantage. Finally, I had something I could work from, in opposition to my solitary studies beforehand. I began to work through the book; I actually read half of it in one go, not even completing the advised exercises. Maybe I thought that reading the book quickly, would enable me to learn the language just as fast! That was the point when I discovered that in life one cannot fulfill a dream without their full effort and work, so I started again.
Every night after school, for approximately a year, I was studying Turkish for at least 3 hours. I had even managed to find some Turkish people my age on the internet that I could practice what I had learnt with. This may have helped me more than anything else as it was keeping everything I had learnt fresh in my mind. At this time, I also found reading the Turkish and English lyrics of my favourite Turkish songs over and over again very helpful. Initially I did this so that I would being able to know the words of a song and there upon be able to sing along at the next concert! More importantly though, so that I would become used to hearing the way the words are said and thus adapt to this way of speaking myself. My main reason however, was the hope that I would actually remember the phrases and their meanings and would actually be able to use them in my own conversations. There were times also when I felt as though I could have given up; forgotton my dream and I would have requested a translation instead of help to write something myself. This was actually an easy way out a lot of the time. Although, when I realised that it was not benefitting me at all, I studied the grammar of all the translations that had been done. I remembered how desperate I had felt before and by merely having text translated I was fooling myself. As I studied the grammar and looked back on the actual text again, I could feel myself learning and I loved it. Gradually, I could feel everything clicking into place.
As the months slowly passed, my Turkish was progressing more and more. Spring was nearing, and as the delicate flowers opened their eyes to the fresh Spring sunshine, I felt refreshed and that I had accomplished something. The newly-born birds twittered in the sky, they sang the song of congratulation. I could taste the encouragement to work even harder in the air and as I saw each aeroplane soar through the clouds I did just that. I completed the book, still not knowing everything as well as I could have done, I progressed to the next step of my journey. I managed to find a couple of Turkish Learning forums on the internet and also used the online lessons there to develop my understanding further. On these forums I also found many members there who are fluent in both Turkish and English; I will never forget how these people explained grammar rules to me over and over again until I understood. They were so patient and their help made so much difference to me. Even to today, I believe that I could not have come this far without them. I will also never forget what a great feeling it was to be able to talk to lots of people who were members on the forum because they were in the same situation as me. My lonliness gradually faded.
Then came the April of 2005, I was now fourteen years old and had decided that another trip to my Türkiye would be a good idea. I still knew that my Turkish was not at the level it could have been and I had been used to having the online dictionary one click away when I was speaking Turkish to my online friends. In regards to everything however, I was sure that it was the right thing to do.
On the plane journey there, I was still studying- making sure that everything I had learnt in the previous week still made sense to me! Once again, I was on my own although I finally felt different. I had not only learnt a lot of Turkish but I had also learnt more about myself. I had learnt who I am. This was the first time I had been on an aeroplane alone and I was not at all nervous. On the plane there were many Turkish people speaking Turkish, and I felt part of them. I could finally believe with my whole heart that I belonged on that aeroplance. Swiflty travelling over the many countries my excitement took hold of me and I counted the minutes until my arrival. As the hours passed, İstanbul Airport neared.
On arrival I was welcomed by all of my relatives. The harmony of their voices, yet again, created a warm and affectionate feeling inside me. And once again, being able to hear the beautiful sound of the language, I could feel myself slowly falling into that absurd drunkenness all over again. I could understand so much more from conversations and the whole concept of the Turkish language didn’t seem as much of a huge obstacle anymore.
During my twelve- day stay in April I didn’t actually speak that much. I remembered watching back the camcorder videos of myself speaking Turkish and I didn’t want to make a repeat of that! I didn’t want to speak unless my accent was a good as a native speaker’s. Eventually I realised that this was another big mistake and that the only way to speak a language with a good accent is to copy other people. I was too proud though and the thought of making a fool of myself again made me shudder. Just keeping quiet seemed easier. The language was not actually that much of a problem for me anymore though; I was used to not expressing myself fully and even though this still did upset me I still felt as though my understanding of everything was much better than it had been previously.
On my second return to England I vigorously continued with my studies of Turkish. By this time, it had become the most important issue in my life and I was spending every free moment I had to learn more. Never was I satisfied, I just kept going. A lot of the time, I even went to the extent of fixing post-it-notes with the Turkish and English translations of words written on, around my house. It was very surprising to find that I was actually capable of learning one hundred words in an hour using this method. This may have been down to my self-determination but overall I found that it is a great way of improving one’s vocabulary. More recently, I have advised many people to do this themselves. I am also aware however, that different people use different methods to memorise words and lists etc. Some people are visual learners whilst other people learn from listening. This is another reason I love this method as words can even be learnt with pictures instead of the translation!
Then was the summer of 2005 and I travelled to Turkey once again. I was very excited to finally be able to use all the Turkish I had learnt in a real-life environment.
At the airport I met some of my cousins and relatives, I thought out what I was going to say, opened my mouth and… the words came out terribly. I was so shocked. I knew that if, like what I had done in April, I didn’t speak much Turkish my speaking level would never improve. For that reason, I ensured that I listened to every conversation I could; not always the words, but usually the harmony and the way words were spoken.
By the end of my eight-week holiday I was very confident within myself; my accent had improved 110% and I could finally say that my speaking skills were as good as my writing and reading skills. In my time in Turkey that summer I managed to form the relationships that I had always strived to, and was finally, finally enjoying myself. Of course, there were still occasions when I couldn’t say as I wished and this still frustrated me more than anything. I would have just said the English though, instead of just keeping quiet. I had to make sure everyone knew I could speak at least one language fluently! At this point, I could look back on when I had first arrived in İstanbul that summer, and be shocked to think that I had to think out a sentence before I said it. Turkish finally felt natural to me. I was so happy.
This time when I returned to England I was faced with my GCSEs and fortunately I had also managed to arrange a Turkish GCSE which I could do through the school. I was still very nervous about this and I was actually expecting exam questions which were beyond my level of Turkish. This gave me another boost of determination to work and I tried my hardest to watch as much Turkish television as possible, finally listening to my parents advice all these years later, I realised that they were right and I was so shocked to find myself actually adapting to the way the characters in various programmes were speaking. This must have been the most beneficial factor, in regards to my speaking and listening skills and overall my accent (which had been bothering me so much!) On the Turkish forums aforementioned, I had also become the number one member and was finally able to give back the help, which I had received, to people whose Turkish level wasn’t as good as my own. I could translate large pieces of text for people and even explain grammatical rules to them.
When the exam time arrived, I opened each of my four Turkish papers and I was overwhelmed to see that everything included was in my level of capability.
The most thrilling part of it all though, was the day I received my exam results. Turkish – A*. I had managed to obtain full marks on all four units; listening, speaking, reading and writing. I felt so proud. It had taken me 1-2 years to get from nothing to this level and personally, I believe that it was my self-will that got me this far and it will be my self-will which will take me further in life. Finally, I had something to prove how hard I had been working.
Turkish was never used in the early years of my life, even despite my father being of Turkish orientation. I’m also sure that if I had gone to Turkey earlier in my life, by now I would be at a better level as learning would have started earlier. I began to learn Turkish at the age of thirteen, which is when learning another language becomes more difficult. “Typically, when pressed, people asserting the superiority of child learners resort to some variant of the "critical period hypothesis." The argument is that children are superior to adults in learning second languages because their brains are more flexible (Lenneberg, 1967; Penfield & Roberts, 1959). They can learn languages easily because their cortex is more plastic than that of older learners. (The corollary hypothesis is the "frozen brain hypothesis," applied to adult learners.)†(BARRY MCLAUGHLIN, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ- 1992.)
I am currently studying A levels at college and have managed to arrange another Turkish exam, this time at A-level standard. More recently, I have also been invited to a new Turkish language forum online, but this time for “advanced learnersâ€, I am thrilled. But most of all, I am looking forward to being able to sit down with a glass of Turkish çay and read some Turkish Literature. I’m sure that this will benefit me greatly and the way more complex sentences are formed will become part of me, at the moment this is the only gap in my knowledge. I have even become familiar with several Turkish idioms and really feel as though Turkish is a part of me now.
It is this, my own experience of learning Turkish, which has inspired me to become a language teacher as I can finally understand how important languages are to the world. We could be nowhere without them and under no circumstances would I want to see other people in the position I was in. As I have been studying I have learnt many methods which can make learning another language easier than it initially appears to be. I can’t keep these methods to myself. I want to help everyone I can! Languages open many doors to us and for that reason… I have also taken a course in Spanish. There is no stopping me now.
C.Yılmaz " 
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