Teaching English in Istanbul

生活在土耳其的文化十字路口

Article and photos by Andrew K. Burger

One of the many smaller, but often no less distinguished, mosques in Istanbul dotting the Bosphorous shoreline.

Turkey is a fascinating place with a rich history. Secular in many respects, but with a large, relatively homogeneous and Muslim population, its ongoing quest to develop economically and progress socially, as can be seen by the present round of EU membership negotiations and a more general opening-up to foreign exchanges of all kinds, is bringing inherent political, economic, and social tensions and contradictions to the fore.

I came here several months ago to teach English as a foreign language (EFL) at a private merchant marine academy on Turkey’s rather splendid southeastern Mediterranean coast. I spent an intense month there before moving on to work at a language center in Istanbul, the country’s financial, business, and cultural center. Teaching English is a growing business in Istanbul and throughout Turkey.

English Time

It’s a Tuesday night in mid-March and I’ve been hanging around my language school and office most of the day waiting to teach my first class. It begins around 6:30 p.m. and comes together in piecemeal fashion as five of my scheduled group of eight intermediate English language students assemble first in the kitchen to have a nosh of模拟, something of a cross between a sesame seed bagel and a pretzel, and then head over to the small, efficient modern office style classroom.

As I’ve found is typical on the first day or night of a class, the students eye me somewhat warily. I’ve been told by my teacher trainer that they liked their previous teacher, so I expect that they will look to judge me against that standard.

The class turns out to be a mixed and friendly group eager to learn about foreigners and practice their English. Two are engineers from a company that manufactures boiler systems for export, another tough-talking but good-natured middle aged woman is a criminal lawyer, one is a young wife who has traveled abroad and just landed a secretarial job with a Turkish company that also does international business. The group is rounded out by a new father who is the limousine service manager for Shering-Plough’s Turkish subsidiary, two software engineers, and a well-read, middle-aged accountant who has also worked abroad.

大多数人都在他们的雇主的标签上来这里，并拿英文来帮助他们在工作和职业生涯中。但是在下午7:30开始的课堂上。每个星期二和周四晚上持续两个小时，他们主要想谈论一般生活，他们的喜好，流行文化以及分享他们的经验和观点。

Three of the five have taken the previous class together while the other two are new to the group. I quickly break the ice and happily find out that their English is better than I had expected and for the most part really is at an intermediate level. Though their comprehension and vocabulary are good, their spoken English lags a bit, particularly their grammar and pronunciation, which is not at all surprising or uncommon given that outside the classroom they don’t communicate orally in English much. This is English as a “foreign language” after all.

At language school franchises you are trained to follow and urged to adhere strictly to a particular method, usually a communicative approach to second language acquisition that involves relying as exclusively as possible on the target language, using dialogues, conversations, role plays, and visual aids that have to do with common situations in order to model, illustrate, learn, and acquire spoken language skills and aural comprehension.

老师总是从教科书材料中蜿蜒而行，从学生建议的切线并融合了自己的材料，这些材料涵盖了现代英语的更实际方面。

由于该小组很小，我的学生是成年人对其他人，文化和世界的诚实感兴趣的任何障碍很快就会崩溃。如果您真的收听并听听他们，则可以定制课程以满足他们的需求，相处得很好，并且仍然涵盖所需的材料。We hit it off well from the first night of class and as they are quick learners with a good basic foundation, I don’t mind meandering off the textbook path, letting students lead us into topic areas that otherwise would not be covered and using them to illustrate new language skills.

As to why Turks want to learn English, the reasons are numerous and varied. But there are a few common threads. Perhaps the single most important reason Turks are signing up for relatively expensive English language courses is a very practical one: English has become the de facto international language of business, education and diplomacy. Even if you are doing business with a European, German or Japanese person, chances are that your common language will be English. And as is true in a large and growing number of countries, Turks are exposed to English at an early age.

Most Turkish primary schools provide a basic English language course or courses as part of their curriculum. This is even more true at the university level, where most students are either required to do a year’s worth of preparatory English coursework or where a sizable percentage of courses, typically around 30 percent, are taught in English. Most of the 30 percent, however, were given in the first year and a half of their studies and by non-native English speaking Turkish professors.

Istanbul is filled with many architecture styles. Turn-of-the-century Beaux Arts buildings can be found along the Istiklal Mall. This one is home toEnglish Time, one of the city’s many English language schools.

The Business of English in Turkey

伊斯蒂克拉尔购物中心（Istiklal Mall）是众多英语学校的所在地，包括其他国际特许经营，以及迪尔科（Dilko）等本土竞争对手。毫无疑问，当您在华尔街学院（Wall Street Institute）这样的语言学校专营权中工作时，您会很快了解英语教学是一项业务。销售和学生满意度优先于其他一切，对教师的需求可能是艰难而僵化的。受欢迎的老师每周记录40多个上课时间，而那些不受欢迎的人则难以获得20岁。并且不打算节省一个不错的巢鸡蛋。

Istanbul is an expensive city, and while the pay at language schools in Istanbul can be fair to middling, EFL teachers are in large part viewed as rather expendable and easily replaceable. In some respects, this attitude is justified and pragmatic as EFL teachers are a transient and, in too many cases, impulsive lot. There is no shortage of stories about teachers breaking their contracts and taking off without notice because they didn’t like one particular aspect of an organization, had an argument with someone or another in management, or just decided they would rather be somewhere else.

考虑到所有因素，我建议前往伊斯坦布尔和土耳其教英语。如果您拥有教育或相关领域的硕士学位和一些经验，那么您将在公立或私立大学的职位上占据一席之地，那里的条件更好，更稳定，您将赚更多的钱。如果您拥有本科学位或在其他领域工作后决定尝试教学，我建议获得TEFL或TESOL认证并获得一些教学经验。

土耳其是一个现代的世俗但伊斯兰国家，拥有惊人的文化和自然遗产，再次向世界打开大门。它的人民在大多数情况下感到自豪，开放和友好。尽管没有货币，但在伊斯坦布尔生活和工作的回报是一个美丽，迷人和多元化的城市。只要确保您知道旅行计划的基础和哪些原因；并通过阅读一些良好，及时，准确和多样化的信息来源来准备自己，然后再出发。

安德鲁·伯格（Andrew K. Burger）是一位自由记者和EFL老师，他在中国，哥伦比亚，沙特阿拉伯和土耳其生活和工作。除了教授EFL外，他还撰写了文化和旅行，环境和社会以及信息技术，电子商务和资源开发的文章。