Today’s Zaman which is the biggest daily newspaper of Turkey made news about Kathban Evren and her books today. I hope you will enjoy reading it.)
TEACHING COUPLE WRITES STORIES FOR ENGLISH LEARNERS
One problem Turkish learners of English generally encounter is the expense of buying study resources because materials are imported from native English-speaking countries. One couple, who are both English teachers, has used their knowledge of teaching a foreign language to write resources for Turkish learners of English.
In addition to their teaching jobs Kezban and Turgay Evren write English stories that are graded according to their level of difficulty. The 35-year-olds both graduated from Ondokuz Mayıs University in the northern province of Samsun and also taught English at Turkish schools in Canada.
Turgay Evren teaches English at English Time private language school. He has been teaching English for 12 years and began writing nearly 11 years ago. He writes stories in both English and Turkish, as well as poems in Turkish.
From his own experience, he suffered from a lack of resources from which to study English when he was a university student in Samsun. He said the English course books were imported from England and were too expensive for an average student to buy. “These books are priced in pounds (one pound is slightly more than two Turkish lira), and they are very expensive. Then I had the idea of producing English language books in Turkey. In Greece and Italy, for example, they write and publish their English books in their own countries,” he said.
Evren explained that he had decided to write English stories especially after seeing how popular the Greek books were. “Seeing the success of the Greek books written in English, I saw that it was not necessary to be a native English speaker to write a book in English. Then I began writing with the support of my native English-speaking friends.”
Noting that for a language teacher it is important to read pieces in the target language, Evren said one needs at least TL 10 in order to buy a 16-page story in English. He further stressed that foreign language learners perform better when they read stories which are not foreign to them: “Nasrettin Hodja and Keloğlan — famous characters in Turkey — belong to Turkish culture; therefore, Turkish students have a better understanding of these stories. When there is a text about a city in which you have never been, it does not mean a lot to you. You learn something which you have an idea about better than something you do not know at all,” he explained.
Evren, who has a master’s degree in post-colonial literature, also said the English language is not only under the control of English or American people or other countries whose native language is English. “Many people produce literary and other types of works in English. The language does not only represent one culture and country but is a universal language. For example, there are two English language newspapers in Turkey.”
Evren’s books are published by Erdem Publishing and some other publishing houses, and one of his stories, titled “Sad News,” is also translated into Turkish and used by people who are learning Turkish.
He is happy that these books are read by English learners who cannot afford to buy imported books and that alternatives are available. “It is also very good for the future since the belief that such things cannot be produced in Turkey has been broken,” he added.
Evren’s wife, Kezban Evren, has written 10 stories so far as her contribution to English language learning. The stories are divided according to their level of difficulty. “The books are suitable for students of fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade,” she said.
Using the Persian version of her name, Kethban, in the books, she said her books are best-sellers when it comes to English teaching. Some of the books she produces are Turkish stories retold in English while others are her original work.
TODAY’S ZAMAN
Esra MADEN
08 May 2009, Friday
KATHBAN TEACHER 