School of Foreign Languages

Hello everyone. I am Lecturer İsmail Gürler. I am the Director of Sakarya University of Applied Sciences School of Foreign Languages. First of all, I would like to inform you that our college has 2 departments. One of these departments is the Foreign Languages Department and the other is the Translation and Interpretation Department. We work and operate mostly under the Department of Foreign Languages. As the Department of Foreign Languages, we provide compulsory English courses and preparatory education. Let me talk a little bit about what the compulsory English courses are. This includes the English course provided by YÖK (Council of Higher Education) for all universities. We also offer two different types of training as a part of preparatory education. One of them is compulsory preparatory education and the other is optional preparatory education. In addition to the compulsory English courses, we transformed the format of the English courses in these schools after consulting the faculty deans and vocational school principals. In this regard, we have rearranged the English courses of the Faculty of Health Sciences, the Faculty of Applied Sciences, the Faculty of Tourism and the Maritime Vocational School. We provide education to 5500 students with 6 faculties and 12 vocational schools in total. How do we reach these 5500 students? 17 academic staff members of our school support us in this regard. We can say that students make a serious effort not only to acquire knowledge but also to integrate this knowledge with “skill”, which is the motto of the university. We have created 5 different commissions within our college in order to meet the current needs and future needs of our university and our school of foreign languages. One of these commissions is the measurement and evaluation commission. This commission is responsible for the level determination exams, proficiency exams and exemption exams and their evaluation. Our second commission is the material development commission. This commission is responsible for developing existing materials or new materials based on students' needs. Our third commission is our translation and legislation commission. This commission is responsible for the translation needs of the university and of the School of Foreign Languages, and it is also our commission in charge of creating handbooks for students and teachers. Our fourth commission is our academic and career development commission. This commission researches the available programs and training that can benefit the academic development of both our teachers and our students, and present them for the benefit of our teachers and students. Our final commission is our preparation and remote inspection commission. This commission helps us to integrate new and developing approaches or solve problems regarding the preparatory and distance education courses. In addition to all these commissions, we also established an advisory board where we reflect the brainstorming culture of our university for the benefit of our institution and our college. This advisory board consists of employers who will help out students in the sector and the job market. Therefore, we care about their views while providing our current education and we take the necessary steps to ensure that our students acquire the qualifications required by the labor market upon graduation.
Another important service we provide as the Department of Foreign Languages is to provide preparatory education. Preparatory education is divided into two parts as optional and compulsory preparation. Let's briefly explain what optional preparation means. Optional preparation is a special service we offer to the faculty students who have got into our university, as well as the Tourism Vocational School. After clicking the “I want to study optional preparation” option in the ÖSYM (Student Selection and Placement Center) preferences site, the students make their final registration after they send the printed forms to the relevant unit of our faculty and school. Since there is a quota, we determine these quotas according to the academic success score of the students. As for the compulsory preparatory classes; These include departments that will study 30% in English or more in their faculties. If students have won one of the departments that require 30% or more English, they are automatically registered. We make formative and summative evaluations in order to evaluate the education we have given in our school. We use formative evaluations to put what we learned into practice, taking into account the form of our education, student needs, and developing technology. On the other hand, we use summative assessments to see what we have achieved at the end of the year. Thus, we can say that we have a dynamic curriculum that can take shape according to student needs. According to the level determination tests we have done at the beginning of our preparatory training, we form A1 and A2 level groups within the scope of the European languages common framework program CFR. These level groups that we have formed graduate with an average score of 70 as a result of a total of 680 hours of preparatory training, consisting of 32 weeks. Students develop B1 + and B2 level language skills when they complete the program. We offer 20 hours of English language instruction per week in our preparatory education program. Of these 20 hours of English education, 12 hours are spent on the main course and the other two-hour consist of skill-developing courses, such as listening, writing and speaking. Thus, we have solved the problem of skill-based or skill-integrated education. In skill-Integrated education, a curriculum that partially focuses on skill development is provided. By presenting both applications to the benefit of our students, we have thus solved one problematic aspect of education as an institution. Dear students; We invite you to our university to integrate this knowledge with skills rather than just learning, and we invite you to the School of Foreign Languages in order to solve your problems related to foreign languages and to minimize your concerns. I wish success to students who will take the university entrance exam.