Should I take Turkish GCSE?

As a short and firm answer yes!

Whether it’s widely spoken or not, it’s always good to study another language not just for your GCSEs but also for your own benefits. It’s an excellent way to master your communication skills as well as broadening your understanding of other cultures too!

Never underestimate the contribution on the brain as well!

Why should I take Turkish GCSE?

Having been teaching Turkish for many years, I had some adult learners who wanted to improve their Turkish as it would help with their professional lives. Some wanted to start learning from scratch to be able to communicate with non-English speakers in their family. So you never know when you might need to use your language skills but you will be thankful for taking the challenge when the time comes! For students with a Turkish background, it’s a great chance to discover more about their roots and boost all four areas of the language skills: reading, listening, speaking and writing along with translating. This is something that could have been hardly achieved without studying academic Turkish.

I clearly remember how my vocabulary had expanded when I was preparing for my own exams. It was the year when I made the biggest contribution to my language skills in my whole life!

Would Turkish GCSE help me with college and university applications?

Without any doubt, it will! It will help as it will be counted as a GCSE for your applications. Needless to say, how much universities value the language skills and some -including UCL- even ask their students to do a language at GCSE level!

I understand and can speak Turkish, yet I am not quite sure if I can get a good mark in the GCSE?

This is why I am here to help! The content of Turkish GCSE has recently been changed as the exam board conducting the exam is switched to Edexcel. This means the students really need to work to get a good mark.

The importance of Turkish…

• Although a quick research on Google say over 75 million people speak Turkish that is much more than that. It could easily reach over 80 million if we count the Turkish immigrants living abroad -around 7 million. Turkey Turkish is also spoken officially in Cyprus, and widely spoken in Iraq, Iran, Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and some other regions of Eastern Europe as well as in Turkic countries such as Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan.
• The British Council’s ‘Languages for the Future’ report set out in 2013 to research which ten languages are likely to become increasingly important to the UK over the next 20 years. The list includes those languages which are already widely taught – French, Spanish and German, as well as Italian, Russian and Japanese, which have a smaller presence in our education systems. But the list also includes Turkish!
• In the British Academy’s Lost for Words report, Turkish is mentioned as one of the languages required for diplomacy and security.
• With nearly 20,000 speakers in 2011, Turkish is the 11th most frequently spoken language by English schoolchildren with English as an additional language. It ranks as the seventh most frequently spoken additional language among schoolchildren in London, with numbers rising by about seven per cent over the last decade.
• There are over 1,200 entries for Turkish GCSE each year and nearly 400 entries for Turkish A Levels.
• Although the number of entries at A-level for Turkish is small, there are still over 250 candidates every year.
• Turkish can be studied to degree level at four universities in England, but not in the other UK nations. There are no Scottish equivalent examinations for Turkish.

Just a little joke…

If you can understand the jokes in a language, you understand that language well enough. So let’s see 😊

İdam cezasına çarptırılan Temel’e son dileğini sorarlar.

“Beni oğlumun yanıbaşına gömün” der.

“Ama oğlun hala hayatta!” derler.

Temel de, “Önemli değil, beklerim.” diye cevap verir.

Temel, who is condemned to death, is asked for his last wish.

“Please bury me next to my son”, he says.

“But your son is alive!”, he’s told.

Temel replies: “No problem, I can wait”.

Dil öğrenmek hakkında Atasözleri:

Bir dil bir insan, iki dil iki insan (Türk Atasözü)

Bir dil öğrenmek, dünyaya açılan bir pencere daha demektir. (Çin Atasözü)

İnsanlar bildikleri dil sayısı kadar hayat yaşarlar. (Çek Atasözü)

Yeni bir dil, yeni bir hayat (İran Atasözü)

Bir dil öğren, bir savaşı önle. (Arap Atasözü)

İnsanların seni anlamasını istiyorsan onların dilini konuş (Afrika Atasözü)

Here what some of the celebrities say about learning a language:

Arsène Wenger (former footballer): I would like to take this opportunity to say how advantageous it can be…To have knowledge of foreign languages…I would have no hesitation in advising people of any age to learn another language.

Paula Radcliffe (former runner): Although I’m known first and foremost as an athlete, my foreign language skills have given another dimension to my career. I regularly use French and German when I travel to compete in Europe.

Alain Prost (former Formula1 racing driver): It’s always better to speak the language of the team. Not only for direct contact with everyone – sometimes it also helps you to understand the mentality of the people in the team a bit better.

Ignacio Padilla (Mexican author and cultural attaché to London) says of his parents: They taught me that every language you speak is an open door to an entire world.

Gary Lineker (sports broadcaster and former footballer): I learnt Spanish and Japanese when I played at Barcelona and Nagoya. I spent hours and hours in tuition – yet I could have learnt either language at school. Modern languages prepare you for modern life. As the world gets smaller, there’s never been a better opportunity to get into languages. I’ve really enjoyed learning Spanish and Japanese. Getting to grips with a new language can be great fun, and you learn so much about other people and what makes them tick.