Faculty of Foreign Languages

Welcome everyone, I am Ismail Cakir. I am the dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the Social Sciences University of Ankara. I've been working in universities for about 30 years. I have duties as an administrator and educator at different universities. I have studied English. I completed my PhD at Gazi University and Hacettepe University. I have studies in these fields. We were established as the first and only Faculty of Foreign Languages in Turkey. We are a faculty that offers many languages. At first, we were a faculty focused on literature, but in recent years we founded new departments which also focus on language. We started taking in students for the English Language and Literature department in 2016 and 2017. We have undergraduate students. Last year, our first students graduated from this department. In addition, last year we revised the departments related to other literature that existed before, considering the market needs and demands. We have also reopened departments such as Japanese Language and Literature, Russian Language and Literature in the form of Japanese and English Translation and Interpretation. Therefore, last year in the 2020 – 2021 academic year, we took our first students to the Department of Translation in Japanese. This year, we completed the necessary preparations to take the first students to the Department of Translation in Russian. Our aim is not only to provide language and literature education, but also world languages and literatures as well as translation studies. Our faculty strives to be one of the few faculties of our country that provides language, literature and translation studies. Our next objective is to try to open interpreting departments in other languages by taking in additional academic staff. Our language literature departments are the departments that are important for Turkey. But we also want to add interpreting departments. As a faculty, we are about to complete the necessary infrastructure. We are also planning to establish a translation laboratory for interpreting within our university for our faculty. In addition to its undergraduate and graduate studies, our faculty also now has an academic journal. In addition, we have opened a master's program in English Language Education. Starting next semester, we will start accepting graduate students. As I mentioned earlier, we have two departments in our faculty that are now active. Department of English Language and Literature and Japanese Translation and Interpretation Department. In the Department of English Language and Literature, we provide all the material related to the subject. Besides these, we have courses on cultural studies, drama and theater. Apart from the courses related to the field, we also give students the chance to learn other languages that we can provide as elective courses. Therefore, a student who comes to the English Language and Literature does not only learn the related subjects, but also learns about the culture of the language through elective courses. In the updated curriculum, we offer elective courses on language education that students may need if they want to teach in the field after graduation. In addition, the Japanese Interpretation department is one of our important departments. Apart from private universities, we are the first and only department related to a public university in Turkey. Apart from our Turkish teachers, one of the features of this department is that we have two Japanese teachers. We believe it is important to be taught by native speakers. Although our Turkish teachers do not have a problem with Japanese education, we see that our native Japanese teachers contribute immensely. Let me talk about the internship opportunities. We have career planning courses for our students in the English language and literature department. For our interpretation departments , this internship is important. In this regard, our internship plans in public and private organizations continue. Although our students are in the first year, we are doing everything we can for their future. When the students are able to do internships, we will have completed the necessary preparations in the 3rd and 4th grades. As it is the case with many universities, we have Erasmus agreements with ten different universities, focusing on the English Language and Literature departments. Therefore, our students and faculty members participate in the exchange within the scope of this bilateral agreement. In addition, our departmental teachers in the Japanese Interpretation Department are Japanese and are in contact with the relevant universities. Once our student’s education reaches a certain level, we plan to make a bilateral agreement for courses or language education and exchange students in the summer semester starting next year. In the Russian Interpretation Department, we currently have a professor, an assistant professor and a lecturer. Two of these people are native speakers. We are working to establish new connections. When our students are ready for an internship, we will visit the country where that language is spoken, and when they reach the level that they can carry on studying there, we will be ready in the third and fourth grades. We are planning for it. Our faculty is quite new. Therefore, there are international congresses and conferences that we plan to organize. One of the congresses we plan to hold is the International Language Congress. We would like to do this in the form of a symposium that will include other universities, cultures, and languages. We plan to hold an international symposium with the support of our faculty. We also have supported other congresses. One of the stakeholders of the recent International Distance Education Congress was our faculty. Therefore, we would like to organize national and international conferences and seminars with other faculties. We carry on working for this goal. There are suggestions from our colleagues. We also provide the necessary support to these proposals as a university. Students who graduate from the English Language and Literature Department can work in institutions related to literature and press. They also have the chance to work in public institutions. They can also work as teachers. We are working on a tracking system. Since our first students graduated this year, it will be much easier for us to clarify this next year with the graduate tracking system. Because we want to know what our graduates are doing after graduation, and perhaps design the content of the curriculum of the courses accordingly. We know that they become tutors. We know that they work in public institutions and organizations, focusing on the usage of language. We believe this is important. Because we know that students who have graduated from English Language and Literature are well-equipped in terms of language, literature, culture and its use, as we provide quality education thanks to our staff and courses. When our students start receiving education in our faculty, they may face some difficulties in terms of the courses. That's perfectly normal, too. We have observed that our students who do not like to read, who do not think critically, who do not like to do research, are struggling. A student who chooses this department should love to read. We have students who choose the literature department because they love doing that. We are a faculty that provides content related to eastern and western literature and languages. Students should choose us because our academics has produced many international studies. Our staff is composed of teachers who have studied abroad. In addition, our curriculum is quite expansive and the location of the faculty is great. Therefore, we believe that this faculty is a faculty the right place for every student who loves language, culture and intercultural communication. We wish success to all university candidates who will take the exam this year and would like to welcome them to our faculty.