The nature of the learners

The transition to secondary schooling involves social and academic demands that coincide with a period of maturational and physical change. Learners are adjusting to a new school culture with sharper divisions between curriculum areas. There is a need for continuity through change in relation to their language learning. Learners at this level may find themselves in classes that include learners with a range of previous experience with Turkish language-culture. A multilevel and differentiated approach to teaching and task design responds to this diversity of prior experience.

Turkish language learning and use

Turkish is used for classroom interactions and transactions, for creating and maintaining classroom relationships, for explaining and practising language forms, and for developing cultural understanding. Additional opportunities for interaction in the target language are provided by purposeful and integrated use of ICT. Learners work collaboratively and independently, exploring different modes and genres of communication with particular reference to their current social, cultural and communicative interests. They pool language knowledge and resources to plan, problem-solve, monitor and reflect. They use modelled and rehearsed language in familiar and unfamiliar contexts, and increasingly generate original and personal language. They compose and present more complex and varied texts, for example, media and hypermedia texts, shared stories, poetry, songs/raps, blogs, advertisements, reports and journal entries, and plan, draft and present imaginative and informative texts. They design interactive events and collaborative tasks and participate in discussions and activities. They use vocabulary and grammar with increasing accuracy, drafting and editing written work to improve structure and clarify meaning. They make cross-curricular connections and explore intercultural perspectives and experience.

Contexts of interaction

While the primary context of interaction remains the Turkish language classroom, learners are encouraged to engage in interactions with peers in Turkey and other Turkish-speaking regions of the world, including Australia, through electronic means of communication. Learners will have additional occasional access to Turkish speakers through media and community events, websites, social media and radio streaming.

Texts and resources

Learners work with a range of texts specifically designed for learning Turkish in school, such as textbooks, literary texts, videos, readers and online media resources. They also access materials created for Turkish-speaking communities, such as songs, films, magazines, advertisements and websites. They read, view and interact with a growing range of texts for a wider range of purposes, for example, informational, transactional, communicative, imaginative and expressive.

Features of Turkish language use

Learners continue to expand their range of vocabulary to domains beyond their personal experience and interests. They use a range of grammatical forms and language structures to convey more complex ideas and experiences, for example, by using reflexive, reciprocal, causative and passive verbal mood suffixes, Ozan yıkandı ve sonra giyindi. (reflexive), Maçtan sonra arkadaşı ile buluştu.(reciprocal), Dün kuaförde saçını kestirdi. (causative), Bugün işten kovuldu. (passive). They recognise and use formal and informal honorific forms, such as Bey/Hanım, Amca/Teyze, Efendi, Ağa/Hanımağa, Sayın, abi/ağabey/abla, hoca/öğretmen, bay/bayan, different types of reduplication for emphasis and more complex conjunctions, such as hem...hem de, ne...ne, - ki,), ancak, yoksa, oysa, hatta, rağmen, yani, --e göre. They use interrogative word endings and interrogative pronouns, such as kim, hangi, ne, kaç, for example, Bu akşam bize kim geliyor? Babam kahveyi yapacak mı?They use different auxiliary verb forms by adding verbs such as etmek, kılmak and olmak to nouns and attaching them onto single-syllable words, for example, reddetmek, affetmek, kaybolmak butyardım etmek, namaz kılmak geç kalmak. Learners develop awareness of how language structures shape textual features. They use descriptive and expressive language, including onomatopoeic and mimetic words to create particular effects and engage interest. They adopt a wider range of processing strategies and broader language knowledge when encountering unfamiliar texts, drawing increasingly on their understanding of text conventions and patterns.

Learners make connections between texts and cultural contexts, identifying how cultural values and perspectives are embedded in language and how language choices determine how people, issues and circumstances are represented. They are increasingly aware of the nature of the relationship between languages and cultures, noticing, for example, values such as family commitment and respect expressed in cultural practices as well as embedded in Turkish grammatical and vocabulary systems. They reflect on the nature of bicultural and intercultural experience, on how languages change in response to social and cultural change, and on their individual identities as users of two or more languages in a multicultural social context.

Level of support

Particular support is required at this stage of learning to manage the transition to secondary schooling and to encourage continued engagement with language learning. Opportunities to review and consolidate prior learning are balanced against provision of engaging and relevant new experiences and more challenging tasks. Learners require continued scaffolding, modelling and material support at paragraph and whole-text level for written language and for developing fluency and accuracy in spoken language. They are supported to develop increasing autonomy as language learners and users, and to self-monitor and adjust language in response to their experience in various contexts. They are encouraged to engage more critically with resources such as websites, dictionaries, translating tools and other language resources designed to enrich their receptive and productive language use.

The role of English

Turkish is used in more extended and elaborated ways, and English is used when required for comparison or for explanations that are more easily articulated in English. Opportunities to express ideas and feelings, exchange opinions and manage shared learning experiences increasingly involve ‘cultural’ as well as ‘linguistic’ choices, personal and social elements as well as grammatical ones, such as making decisions about the use of titles and polite prefixes. At this stage, learners can move from the what considerations to the why and how questions: from noticing that language and communication are culturally shaped to thinking about the values, experiences and perspectives which lie inside these cultural differences, and about how these impact on their own experience as they move between linguistic and cultural systems.