In spite of the increased emphasis since being designated by the United States National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) as one of the sixteen critical languages, the number of students studying Turkish at the university level is small (MLA, 2015). During implementation of this project, several problems unique to Turkish arose. According to the Defense Language Institute (DLI), the degree of difficulty for English language speakers to learn Turkish is greater than that of most European languages because of the vast cultural differences between the United States and Turkey. There is one commonly used textbook at the university level across the United States (Öztopçu) which succeeds in delivering the teaching materials suitable for a traditional classroom but fails to provide opportunities for students to develop cultural and communicative competence. Additionally, it fails to offer digital technology, such as online study materials, which many students would prefer to have included in their academic studies (ECAR, 2014). The Turkish Global Simulation (TGS) project offers a solution: the development of effective teaching materials that would provide students access to the Turkish language and culture using the latest technologies that students already use and enjoy. The TGS was based on the French Apartment Building (Dupuy, 2006a, 2006b), which exemplifies relevant task-based instruction. The French Apartment Building project helps students attain communicative competence and cultural literacy through books and web resources, and focuses on improving students' reading and writing skills. The TGS allows students to experience a virtual life as a tenant in an apartment building in Istanbul. This is accomplished with the use of web applications (Facebook, Google Earth, Google Docs, Google Voice, emails, Blogger, chats, text messages, podcasting, audio-video files, 3-D maps, and Google Bookmarks), and authentic materials (e.g. movie/music clips). I delivered the tasks and the materials—in accordance with the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) standards—through the TGS project, which was first piloted and run successfully for several years to teach second-year second-semester university Turkish learners. The project involves a semester-long simulated life in a Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) environment, and promotes cultural and communicative competence while motivating students to be virtually connected to a new culture, autonomous, and lifelong learners. The specific research questions address: 1. How does the TGS project affect student’s cultural competence? 2. How effective is the TGS project as a context for language learning? 3. How do students compare the TGS with more traditional learning methods? How do teachers evaluate the Turkish textbook? 4. How effective is Internet technology in the TGS project? A number of different instruments were used to measure the effectiveness of global simulation in promoting cultural competence: oral interviews, ACTFL standards textbook evaluations, Flashlight surveys, teacher-course evaluations, and the TGS final exams. The results revealed that the success of global simulation in Turkish has clear implications for teaching not only Turkish, but also other less commonly taught languages, for which the classroom is the predominant method for American university students to learn a foreign language and culture.

This thesis analyzes the use of culture in foreign language classes by the instructors working in a state university in Istanbul, Turkey. The purpose of the study is to determine whether a sufficient degree of attention is paid to culture-teaching in the language classes of the School of Foreign Languages in a state university which is located in a city with a rich cultural heritage (Istanbul) and whether the instructors do their best to maintain or improve their cultural knowledge so as to integrate it in their lessons as well as how they teach culture in their lessons. The data were collected with a questionnaire distributed to the instructors and this instrument was used as guidance by the researcher to select the people to interview. The interviewees were divided into three groups: The ones who showed high utilization of culture were named as &ldquo / HUC&rdquo / , the ones with moderate utilization of culture were called &ldquo / MUC&rdquo / and the ones with low utilization of culture were named &ldquo / LUC&rdquo / . Results of the study showed that the instructors found it difficult not only to improve themselves on this issue but also to allocate a great deal of time to it in the lessons because of the time restrictions of the curriculum of the school and the intense syllabi of their courses. Also, instructors in the HUC group mentioned target culture more, whereas the ones in the LUC group said that they covered Turkish culture in their classes. The interviewees in the MUC group mentioned both the Turkish culture and the target culture. Thus, some modifications in the curriculum of the school are necessary to integrate culture into the lessons and the instructors should be trained on culture teaching with the help of in-service teacher training programs.

La recherche que nous présentons s'appuie sur l'observation du turc langue étrangère, examiner les développements et les enjeux concernant cette langue en France. Le système d'enseignement secondaire en France propose l'apprentissage d'une quinzaine de langues dites académiques. Douze de ces langues sont enseignées comme première langue vivante étrangère. L'enseignement du turc, introduit en 1994 dans le programme de l'enseignement secondaire français par un décret du ministère. Il est dispensé dans le programme d'enseignement de langues vivantes étrangères, sous le contrôle de l'inspecteur général responsable du turc au ministère de l'éducation nationale français. Les élèves ont la possibilité de choisir le turc comme première langue pour l'examen du baccalauréat. Pour mener à bien notre travail, nous nous appuierons sur les publications concernant notre sujet. Nous examinerons aussi les établissements et les instituts (les ministères de l'éducation nationale de France et de la Turquie, le département d'études turques de l'université de Strasbourg, INALCO, l'inspection générale de l'éducation nationale, etc.) à l'égard de notre sujet. / The secondary education offers the learning of fifteen so-called academic languages. Twelve of these languages are taught as the first living foreign language. The teaching of turkish, was introduced in 1994 in the curriculum of French secondary education by a decree of the Ministry. It's taught in foreign language teaching program, under the control of the general inspector responible of Turkish language at the French Ministry of education. Students have the opportunity to choose theTurkish as the first language for the baccalaureate exam. To carry out our work, we will rely on the publications related to our subject. We will also examine institutions, institues ( the Ministries of National education of France and Turkey, The Turkish studies Departement in the university of Strasbourg, INALCO, The General inspectorate of National Education, etc.) with regard to our subject.

The primary focus of this research was to investigate the emotion language and emotion narratives of Turkish-English late bilinguals who have been living in the U.S. Previous research has shown that the emotion language and narratives of second language learners and native speakers of English are different. This study focused on late bilinguals who had learnt English in instructed settings in their home country, and came to the U.S. for M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. The study consisted of two parts. In the first part, the elicited personal narratives of Turkish-English late bilinguals in English were compared to those elicited from native speakers of English with regard to both emotion and emotion-laden word production and narrative structure. The results showed that there were differences between the emotion language and narratives of the bilinguals and native speakers in their English narratives. In the second part of the study, personal narratives were elicited from Turkish-English late bilinguals in their first language, Turkish and their emotion language and narrative structure from their English narratives were compared to their narratives produced in Turkish. Similarly, the results showed that the emotion language and emotion narratives of bilinguals in English and Turkish were different. In conclusion, late bilinguals' emotion language and narratives are different in their first and second languages. Furthermore, they are different from the emotion language and narratives of native speakers.