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Language Tree

Funder: European CommissionProject code: 2021-2-TR01-KA220-YOU-000048606
Funded under: ERASMUS+ | Partnerships for cooperation and exchanges of practices | Cooperation partnerships in youth Funder Contribution: 244,130 EUR

Language Tree

Description

"<< Background >>Speaking, which is the mainstay of the project, is the most difficult skill to develop, although it is widely used in daily life. The basic elements of communication are the speaker and the speech. Developing “speaking” for learners of Turkish as a foreign language depends on practice and exposure to the target language.Today, the need to learn Turkish has increased due to various reasons, especially immigration. Various materials have accordingly been produced to meet this need. As of the beginning of 2020, the use of digital materials in the teaching process is an essential need. In the pre-pandemic period, digital materials were developed in the teaching of Turkish as a foreign language. Learn Turkish, Turkish in 3 Minutes, and the studies of Yaşar University and Anadolu University are a serious step in the field. There are also apps like Mondly, Duolingo to teach various languages. Unfortunately, although these materials improve reading and listening, they are insufficient in the development of speaking. These applications are only pronunciation exercises that repeat the sentence heard by the learner from the system. While proper pronunciation is important for speaking skill, it alone does not improve speech. Therefore, it cannot meet the needs of its learners in daily life.Speech modules planned in the Language Tree project are different from the these applications. The Language Tree does not only practice pronunciation. The learner is in touch with authentic space simulations created through videos. The learner has the opportunity to answer the questions asked by the system in the videos, and to speak interactively thanks to the dialogue maintained by the system according to the answers given. In the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), it is written that the individual should be “social actors” who perform tasks in different social environments. The individual, who is a “social actor”, is both active and in interaction with other individuals. The application meets the definition of ""social actor"" recommended by the CEFR, as it offers users the opportunity to practice speaking interactively in different social environments.Immigrants are the ones who have the most difficulty in becoming social actors. In the last 10 years, Turkey has been one of the countries receiving immigration for various reasons. Considering the density of immigrants in Turkey, Syrians are at the forefront of these, and there has been intense migration from Afghanistan to Turkey recently.At the same time, there has been an intense migration of workers from Turkey to Europe since the second half of the 1900s for various reasons. Children of Turks who immigrated to these countries by being included in the labor policies of European countries face various language barriers. These individuals, who have difficulties in mastering two languages at the same time, shift the code and create a new communication language of their own. This prevents them from mastering both languages. If the people concerned cannot develop their mother tongue sufficiently, they are defined as ""incomplete bilinguals"" because they have a deficiency in using the language of the country they live in. Due to the fact that these individuals, defined as deficient bilinguals, failed in learning a second language and that those whose mother tongue was not developed had low academic achievement. Bilinguals were selected as the target group in the project in order to eliminate these inadequacies and failures.Within the scope of the 'Language Tree' project, bilingual Turks and immigrants in Turkey constitute the focus groups of the project. In the project, it is planned to develop the speaking skills of immigrants in Turkey and bilingual Turkish youth outside Turkey by progressing interactively and pedagogically through the themes to be determined. The digital material to be developed in the project will assist learners in completing their language deficiencie.<< Objectives >>Speaking skill cannot be developed without interaction. It is known that especially immigrants have difficulties in integration due to their social status and financial opportunities, and that the most important reason for this is the language barrier. In the preliminary needs analysis, it was revealed that the immigrants have the fear of being ridiculed while speaking Turkish, and that they have problems arising from embarrassment and lack of self-confidence. Motivation for the target audience has an important place in language learning. In gaining language skills, the learner's belief that s/he can learn triggers the person and affects the learning process.With the Language Tree, it is aimed to provide learners with the opportunity to develop dialogs in the target language. In the project, it is aimed to develop Turkish speaking skills through dialogues created depending on the themes that will meet the basic needs of the learner at A1 level. Individuals who have increased motivation at the basic level, developed self-confidence, reduced language anxiety, and broken the language barrier will express themselves more easily in the target language and accelerate their language development. In the Language Tree, which will be prepared in 3 different modules, learners will first learn sentence patterns with both visual and written clues, pronounce words and sentences correctly, and thus develop a dialogue. In the second module, only visual clues will be given and the learner will be able to continue the dialogue by creating their own sentences. In the third module, the learner will be asked to answer the questions presented audibly by the system without visual and written clues and to continue the dialogue. The learner who successfully passes all three modules will move on to the next theme and continue their speaking practice. The system will return the unsuccessful learner to the beginning and enable him/her to improve his speaking skills through repetitions.Thus, learners' fear of making mistakes and being ridiculed by those around them will be minimized by means of the digital material to be prepared. Through this material, the learner will be able to repeat until he/she feels sufficient. In addition, the presence of real people in the videos prepared for each dialogue will allow learners to observe the accent, intonation and mouth movements of the target language, while also providing the opportunity to observe the body language of the target language.Immigrant learners who improve their speaking skills will adapt to the target society, gain social status by gaining a place in the society they live in. And bilinguals, who are a second target group, will increase their academic success by eliminating their shortcomings in their mother tongue with the Language Tree project. All this will also support CEFR's multilingualism and multiculturalism policies.The main ultimate output of the project is to help immigrants and bilinguals to improve their speaking skills in Turkish. Another focus group of the project is young language teachers. Particularly the diagram of the project results, will be shared as a guide for young language teachers. They will have the opportunity to learn how to prepare and apply interactive digital materials for their future classes, and thus will be able to produce their own materials. The guide will be shared both in print and electronically, and how the diagram system to be used will also be presented as a video.<< Implementation >>Within the scope of the project, three transnational meetings will be held so that the relevant project results can continue in accordance with the schedule. In addition, all stakeholders at local and national levels will periodically organize seminars and workshops on digital transformation in language teaching. These dissemination activities will include the following topics: - digital transformation in language teaching,- the methods of improving speaking skills interactively via digital tools,- problems in speaking skills of young immigrants in Turkey, - problems in speaking skills of bilingual Turkish youth in Europe.Additionally, two international symposiums were planned as multiplier events within the scope of the project. The main theme of these symposiums to be organized in Belgium and Turkey has been determined as ""the digital transformation in language teaching."" However, papers will be accepted under the headings related to the project results. In addition, interest group sessions on project results will be held at these symposiums.These dissemination and multiplier activities will cover all language skills but will focus particularly on speaking skills. In these activities, the priority will be to bring together language teacher candidates and field experts and to discuss digital transformation opportunities in language teaching. In addition, these activities are also important in delivering the project results to young immigrants and bilingual Turkish youth in Europe. To summarize:1.What are digital materials for language teaching? a.Which ones are effective for the development of speaking skill? How do they affect?2.Are the available tools sufficient for teaching speaking skills? a.What are the shortcomings of these tools? b.How can they be developed?3.Do the speaking skills developed with digital tools support the speaking skills in real life? a.To what extent? b.What are the positive and negative aspects?4.How do the needs of speaking skills differ among young immigrants in Turkey and bilingual Turkish youth in Europe? What should be considered in the digital materials to be prepared for these groups?These are the questions to be answered, and the answers obtained in the results of the project will be delivered to those concerned with these activities.LTT activity will be held for young language teachers and language teacher candidates, the third target group of the project. The aim of this activity is to increase the creativity of these tutorials so that they can develop digital speaking materials and to inspire them to use and develop what they have learned at LTT in their professional life.Education and training activities will be about how to improve the speaking skills of young language teachers and language teacher candidates, especially with digital materials. This LTT activity is to be hosted by “Lehrerverein Ruhr e.V.,” Germany. Participants of the activity will be a maximum of 7 people (4 students, 3 researchers or 5 students, 2 researchers) from each partner institution.In this activity, there will be academic courses, social activities and practices in order to increase the knowledge and application skills of participating young language teachers and language teacher candidates in preparing digital materials. Researchers from each partner institution will conduct seminars and workshops. In addition, young language instructors and language teacher candidates will make some practical applications, especially about the diagram system, so that they can use their creativity.<< Results >>The targeted results of the project will be as follows according to the project calendar: 1.“Speaking Skills Needs Analysis for Bilingual Turkish Youth in Europe and Young Immigrants in Turkey"" The speaking skill needs analysis to be prepared will be a detailed analysis on bilingual Turkish youth in Europe and young immigrants in Turkey, unlike the needs analysis conducted before the project writing phase. A curriculum will be created for the preparation of interactive speaking activities by the researchers according to the identified needs. 2.The Curriculum of Interactive Speaking Activities: The curriculum that will be developed as a result (output) of this project will determine thematic structures based on needs analysis. The sub-headings required for the two target groups that the project focuses on will also be determined as a result of this project. Many variables such as vocabulary, grammatical structures, speaking environments will also be determined in this output. The result of this project will form the basis for the ""diagrams"" together with the result of the 1st project. 3.The Diagram: Diagram is the most important part of the project that will enable the development of students' speaking skills. Thanks to the probable chain of speech presented with diagrams, learners will have the opportunity to speak interactively according to various possibilities, unlike the existing applications. Thus, the dialogue will continue with different scenarios according to each answer given by the learner.4.The Pre-Dialogue Videos, Dialogue Videos and Activities: After the tutorial videos that will be prepared according to the topics in the themes, the learner will switch to the video chat application with dialogues. Thousands of videos will be shot in this context in order to provide a dialogue opportunity that can respond to as many different possibilities as possible. Thanks to these dialogue videos, the learner will gradually improve his speech by practicing on the subject. These videos, which are planned as modular, are discussed in 3 titles ""written, visual, and audio"". Those that have completed a module will be able to move on to another."

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