We constantly strive to find creative ways to teach Turkish effectively and believe that our teaching methodology differentiates us from all other language schools. Below is a quick glimpse of what we try to achieve in our classroom:
Interactive and conversation-focused classes
The main difference between taking a history class and a language class is that in a history class you can just sit back and listen. Understanding abstract concepts would suffice. In a language class, however, just understanding the concepts wouldn’t mean much if you can’t use them fluently. Understanding and speaking are two different skills.
In the NYC Turkish Club, we have developed our own communicative learning approach and we will teach you how to fluently use what you learn. Hence, we make sure that the classes are as interactive as possible and each student gets to speak Turkish as much as possible from day one.
Practice-based learning
Practice is the key to mastering any foreign language and thus, our teaching style is based on encouraging our students to practice nonstop throughout the class. Besides in-class exercises, there are also weekly assignments aiming to further strengthen our students’ speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills.
“Even though we will teach you all four skills, our main focus will be your speaking and listening skills. You will forget a language in no time if you can’t speak and understand it!”
Empathy, empathy, and more empathy
The Turkish language doesn’t come from Latin and it has a distinct structure. These differences don’t necessarily make it more difficult to learn Turkish – Indeed, the Turkish language is easier than most non-Latin languages. So, here comes in your teacher’s ability to empathize and teach the language in a way that English speakers can understand more easily. However, most Turkish teachers think like a Turk, while creating their lesson plans and teaching the language, and they don’t address the needs of an English-speaking audience. This stems mainly from a lack of empathy and/or good English skills.
In NYC Turkish Club, empathy is the key. Complex grammar constructions are broken down into more understandable pieces considering the thinking pattern of our audience, and explanations are simplified and clear. We do our best to make sure that our students feel comfortable in class and don’t feel overwhelmed.
Productive and fun sessions
We know that your attention span will significantly decrease after the first half hour and we want to neither bore you nor waste your time. Thus, engaging the audience and increasing our students’ attention span are the two important goals that we try to achieve in our classroom for a superior learning experience.
Moreover, our lesson plans are designed to make the most effective use of your time while making sure that you don’t get lost. You will have a very productive and efficient class every week, during which you will be learning AND practicing a lot while having fun.
“It is not about how long you sit in class, but how much you learn. Efficiency is the key.”
Besides making the most effective use of your time, we also encourage you to use scientific learning techniques to maximize your performance. Accordingly, we teach you the techniques to learn Turkish more effectively when we first meet you, and then, we make sure that you apply them in and outside of class afterward.
Remember, it is not about how long you sit in class, but it is all about how much you learn!
We are having lots of fun teaching Turkish and we want to make sure that you enjoy taking our classes as much as we enjoy teaching them. Thus, besides aiming to create a fun atmosphere in class, we also included fun activities in our lesson plans, such as playing games and singing Turkish songs.
Student progress monitoring
We constantly monitor our students’ progress in the classroom and offer a test at the end of every semester to evaluate their progress. This process helps us in two ways:
- We encourage our students to improve their performances by giving them our constructive feedback.
- We strive to improve our own performance by addressing our students' needs better.
This is how we have been teaching Turkish effectively with proven results for many years. You can watch the Turkish Hour TV Show’s clip “Learning Turkish in New York” below to see how we apply all these teaching principles and teach Turkish effectively (courtesy of the Turkish Hour TV Show). This segment was filmed in one of our classrooms and broadcast in the United States via satellite in 2008.
Our Turkish classes in NYC are designed to offer the highest quality language education at a low price.