The Cactus Course Outlines provide a learning framework for the Cactus Foreign Language Evening Courses. They are designed to provide you with a good idea of what you might cover over a 10-week period, and include typical themes, grammar and vocabulary fields. They are flexible rather than prescriptive, in that our teachers may decide to adapt their learning plans to the specific level, aims and interests of their classes. Use the tabs below to view the relevant Turkish course outline for your level.
Turkish Beginner 1
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Introducing yourself : greetings – saying “Hello”, “Goodbye” and “How are you?”;
- The Turkish alphabet
- Numbers: 10-100
- Basic colours
- Spelling names
- Basic phrases in daily life situations
- Question words
- Titles: Mr, Mrs, Ms
- Offering & ordering drinks and snacks at a bar or café, Eating out, ordering meals at a restaurant, asking for the bill
- Enquiring what dishes there are at a restaurant and what’s in them
- Talking about professions and making profession names using suffixes “cı / ci / cu / cü”
- Asking what something means
Grammar:
- Introducing the main characteristics of Turkish
- “Bir” as the indefinite article
- “Değil” means “Not”
- Question tag “değil mi?”
- Verbless sentences (“be”)
- Personal and demonstrative pronouns
- Personal endings in the present tense
- “There is/are…” / “There is/are not…”
- The plural suffix “–ler / -lar”
- Numbers: 100s and 1000s
- Five cases of a noun
- Question forms
- The plural suffix
- Word order
- The negative suffix –ma / –me
- Talking about yourself
- Making country, nationality and language names using suffixes
Cultural Content:
- The language family that Turkish belongs to
- The relationship between Turkish, European and Middle Eastern languages
- Titles – Mr, Mrs; addressing others in appropriate ways
- Difference between singular and plural “you”
- Greetings
- Turkish snacks and drinks
- Turkish food and drinks
- Reading signs
- Place names in Istanbul
- Map of Turkey
Skills Work:
- Speaking activities: Using classroom conversation regularly
- Simple chats about the weather
- Listening activities
- Writing practice: Describing pictures, finding differences between pictures, etc.
- Basic rules of pronunciation
- Pronunciation of the letters in the alphabet
Turkish Beginner 2
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Enquiring about accommodation in person and over the phone
- Asking about facilities when booking an accommodation
- Filling in forms
- Asking for addresses and giving directions
- Giving instructions
- Getting around a new place
- Asking other people about themselves
- Talking about your country, nationality and language
- Saying what you have got
- Introducing one’s family
- Explaining the reasons using “because”
Grammar:
- Major and minor vowel harmony
- Personal and demonstrative pronouns
- Personal endings in the present tense
- The main case suffixes: locative, dative, ablative and accusative
- Consonant changes (hardening and softening)
- Verb stems, the infinitive and the imperative
- The negative suffix
- Present continuous tense in positive, negative and question forms
- Harmonizer y
- Direct and indirect object pronouns
- Comparisons
- Making adjectives using suffixes “-lı / -li and -sız / -siz”
- The present tense in verbless sentences
- Introduction to possessive pronouns
- The negative form of verbless sentences
- Asking questions in verbless sentences
Cultural Content:
- Layout of Ataturk Airport – Istanbul
- Shopping culture in Turkey
- Presents to buy from Turkey
- Holiday places in Turkey
- Family relations and relatives in Turkish culture
Skills Work:
- Speaking activities: Using classroom conversation regularly
- Simple chats about food and places
- Listening activities
- Writing practice: Describing pictures, finding differences between pictures, etc.
- Basic rules of pronunciation
- Shopping themed role plays
- Haggling
Turkish Beginner 3
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Talking about the weather
- Comparing months and seasons
- Talking about likes and dislikes
- Shopping for presents and clothes
- Asking prices, sizes and colour
- Talking about the past
- Writing postcards
- Having a social chat
- Talking about good and bad experiences
- Using telling-the-time skills talking about the past
- Use of ever / never (hiç) in the past tense
- Time words in the past tense
- Talking about what you have
- Building simple compound nouns
Grammar:
- “Let’s…” and “Shall we…?” forms
- Narrowing and softening
- Past tense in positive, negative and interrogative forms
- Consonant change in the past tense
- Minor vowel harmony in the past tense
- Past tense in “be” phrases
- Learning some daily conversation phrases that are used in the past tense
- More possessives, possessive pronouns
- Possessor and possessed suffix
- Noun phrases
- Buffer consonants “s” and “n”
- The use of “for”
- Object and verb agreement
Cultural Content:
- Special days and public holidays
- Common forms of public transport in Turkey
- Employment in Turkey
- Atatürk, the founder of the modern Turkey
- Cooking Turkish food and making Turkish coffee
Skills Work:
- Filling in online reservation forms
- Speaking activities: Using games (e.g. Puzzles, Guess who? Crosswords, etc.)
- Writing practice: Writing about your holidays, writing postcards
- Giving presentations and asking questions
- Talking about yourself and answering questions about yourself
- Taking notes when listening
- Pronunciation
Turkish Elementary 1
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Revision: Exchanging greetings and farewells
- Revision: Basic phrases
- Asking goods in shops
- Asking simple questions and making simple statements
- More about nationalities and languages
- Making basic dialogues
- Adjectives
- Questions
- Addressing people: Bey / Hanım
- Talking about yourself and your profession in detail
Grammar:
- Vocabulary building: Adjectives.
- Importance of suffixes when making adjectives
- Turning a statement into a question: mi? mu? mı or mü?
- Making a question negative
- “There is”, “there are” “are there?” “is there?”
- The verb “to be”
- Personal pronouns
- Keeping vowels apart
- Talking about yourself using appropriate personal endings
- Revising the importance of buffer “y”
- Past tense verb forms
- Practicing some daily conversation phrases that are used in the past tense
Cultural Content:
- Titles – Mr, Mrs; addressing others in appropriate ways
- Talking about yourself in detail
- Shopping
- Turkish food and drinks
Skills Work:
- Speaking activities: Talk about yourself
- Simple chats: Getting to know each other
- Listening activities
- Writing practice: Writing about yourself
- Drilling: Improving pronunciation
Turkish Elementary 2
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Describing people and objects and the actions they are doing
- Commands: Telling someone what to do/ what not to do
- Ordering a meal with your friends
- Revision: Five cases of a noun
- Introducing a friend
- Directions: Reading signs
- Saying what is happening and what will happen shortly
- Addressing people: Abi / Abla
- Telling what belongs to whom
- Saying what you have and what you want
Grammar:
- Object and verb agreement
- The word order
- Making negative with “–me/-ma” when giving commands
- The main case suffixes: locative, dative, ablative and accusative
- Revision: Present Continuous Tense
- Possessives
- The possessor ending “-in” and possessed ending “–i” or “–si”
- Revising the importance of buffer “s”
- Suffix “–ci, çi”
- Avoiding vowel clashes
Cultural content:
- Addressing people
- Reading signs
- Turkish food and drinks
- Some city names in Turkey
Skills Work:
- Speaking activities: Practice five cases of the noun
- Speaking activities: Introduce your friend to a group of friends
- Listening activities
- Writing practice: Practice five cases of a noun (e.g. Talk about your holidays)
Turkish Elementary 3
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Talking about the past, telling what has happened
- Talking about the present and future
- Diaries, talking about regular occurrences and habits, describing unchanging facts
- Making suggestions
- Informal suggestions -sana / -sene
- “With / by” preposition (the instrumental) in both word and suffix forms
- Prepositions of place “on, under, inside etc.”
- More about telling the time (minutes past etc.)
- Saying where things are in relation to each other
- Describing one’s home
- Asking for help
- Expressing requests and making offers
- Stating intentions and willingness
- Telling stories and jokes
Grammar:
- Revising the previous level’s grammar
- The future tense in all forms
- Future tense of verbless “to be”
- Time words for future tense
- The pronunciation of the future tense
- The present tense in all forms
- -erek / -arak : “by … doing”
- The present tense of verbless “to be”
- Time words for present tense
- Formal “is”: “-dır/dir” suffix
Cultural Content:
- Jokes from Nasrettin Hoca, the famous Turkish scholar
- Differences and similarities between Ottoman and Turkish socio-cultural life
- Results of the language revolution in modern Turkey
- The role of the Turkish Language Association in “Turkification” of the language
Skills Work:
- Telling a joke in Turkish from one’s own country
- Listening activity: Dialogues and songs
- Reading simplified essays
- Discussion in pairs and groups
- Pronunciation
Turkish Advanced
Converstation – Situation based dialogues:
At this level, students should be doing plenty of speaking practice. Conversations based on daily life situations are essential. It could be pair work or group work dialogues; using appropriate props & materials in the classroom. Taking students out to put the dialogues they have learnt into practice is another useful practice for tactile learning. These could include outing events such as ordering food at a restaurant or shopping at a Turkish supermarket.
At this level, Grammar should be covered and revised according to the students’ needs. Therefore, assessment tests and progress tests are very good to check on their needs during this level.
Turkish Proficiency
Converstation – Situation based dialogues:
At this level, students should be doing plenty of speaking practice based on daily life situations as well as serious discussions about a specific topic. It could be pair work or group work dialogues; using appropriate props and materialds in the classroom. Taking students out to put the dialogues they have learnt into practice is another useful practice for tactile learning. These could include outing events such as ordering food at a restaurant, cinema days (e.g. Turkish Film Festival) and theatre plays.
At this level, Grammar should be covered and revised according to the students’ needs. Therefore, assessment tests and progress tests are very good to check on their needs during this level.
