Farewell meal with Turkish students on Sunday, May 6, 2012 at the Bosphorus Restaurant, in Cary, NC
Allison Gaby, Gina Suarez, Chris Smith have been taking Turkish classes here at the Department of Asian Studies at the UNC-Chapel Hill since August 2010. They took four semesters of Turkish language courses. Elizabeth Johnson joined the third semester Turkish class in fall 2011 and continued her Turkish studies in spring 2012. They have been very successful. Their work has been admirable and excellent. Allison Gaby received a FLAS award to study Turkish during summer 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey. Elizabeth Johnson received a CLS award and she will continue her Turkish studies in Izmir, Turkey during summer 2012.
To recognize their success the Turkish Studies Program distributed awards to them on March 21, 2012 while we had the honor of having a prominent Sufi teacher Ms. Cemalnur Sargut visiting UNC Chapel Hill. Students presented their skits and then received their awards from Ms. Sargut.
Their awards were the Turkish to Turkish dictionaries prepared by the late Ms. Ilhan Ayverdi, donated by Prof. Dr. Semahat Yüksel of German Studies of Marmara University from Turkey.
Allison Gaby served as the Turkish Students Association president for spring 2012 with Chris Smith as vice president. Gina Suarez helped them to promote the Turkish Studies Program here at UNC while distributing Turkish baklava at the pit, in front of the Student Union on February 29, 2012. They also organized a Turkish movie night and showed the documentary Hiphopistan.
Their Turkish speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills progressed by their enthusiastic studies. They wrote five beautiful skits, prepared 3 presentations, kept Turkish journals with four different writing assignments. Turkish students’ voice/video recordings were also on various topics, such as:
1. Pick 3 things that you think represent you the best. Talk about their function, purpose, etc. and make connections to yourself while explaining. After that, think about your favorite person in life. Pick 3 things that represent this person. Make connections between the things and this person. Talk about this for at least 5 minutes.
2. Advertise something. Pick an item, create a brand name for it, and talk about it for at least 5 minutes.
3. Write an announcement or news about something you want. You can search the internet to find out what’s on the news for real or you can make up something and write about it. Minimum length of speech is 5 minutes.
4. Imagine you won the lottery and got 1 billion. What would you do for yourself, for the ones you love, and for the world? Talk about this for minimum of 5 minutes.
5. Turkey is trying to enter the European Union. Do you think Turkey should be a part of the EU or not? Whatever your answer may be, give reasons and explanations. Talk about it for at least 5 minutes.
Grateful to have you all there at this farewell meal, and many thanks for these two wonderful years, Allison, Gina, Chris, Elizabeth, as well as alum Clark Hines. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.
Görüşmek dileğiyle sevgiler! Cangüzel hoca 🙂
May 10, 2012