Language Centre
Turkish Intermediate Course
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Key information
Key information
- Duration
- 1 term per sub-level; 10 weeks per term
- Attendance mode
- Part-time, live online session/blended learning
Course overview
The Turkish Intermediate course is designed for learners who have completed the Pre‑Intermediate level or possess an equivalent command of the language. This course aims to develop students’ ability to communicate with greater accuracy, fluency, and confidence across a wider range of everyday and cultural topics. At this level, learners deepen their understanding of Turkish grammar, expand their vocabulary, and strengthen their ability to express opinions, describe experiences, and engage in more complex interactions. This course is delivered by the Language Centre.
Method
The course is taught mostly in Turkish, with English used for clarification. A communicative and interactive teaching style is adopted, encouraging learners to use the language actively through class discussions, role plays and problem‑solving tasks, reading comprehension tasks with culturally rich texts, guided and creative writing exercises and vocabulary‑building and grammar‑focused activities integrated into real‑life contexts.
Learners are encouraged to engage with Turkish outside the classroom through films, music, short readings, and independent practice.
The course is delivered through a blended learning model: comprised of 15 hours of live, online, structured lessons with the teacher, plus approximately 5 hours of guided independent learning supported by complementary materials (a total of 20 hours of blended learning). The course is designed so that, over the 10‑week period, you should have the opportunity to achieve the stated objectives, depending on your engagement and progress.
There is no formal examination; instead, progress is monitored through class participation, homework, and ongoing informal assessment.
Material
Course materials are provided by your teacher.
Entry requirements and progression route
For the first stage of Turkish Intermediate (i.e. Intermediate 1), previous knowledge of Pre-Intermediate level is required. To be able to join Intermediate 2 or 3 you should have completed Intermediate 1 and 2 respectively at SOAS Language Centre or have an equivalent knowledge of guided learning hours (20 hours per each sub-level). The progression route from Turkish Intermediate 1 is to Turkish Intermediate 2; from Intermediate 2 to Intermediate 3. Upon successful completion of Turkish Intermediate 3 you will be able to progress to the Upper-Intermediate level course in Turkish. Students may request a Certificate of Attendance upon completion of a course, provided they have at least 70% attendance.
Please contact nme@soas.ac.uk to check your level for this course prior to enrolling.
Please note, that each term, courses are subject to quorum requirements.
For course dates and information, please see our timetables.
Structure
Turkish Intermediate 1
Turkish Intermediate 1 strengthens learners’ ability to communicate with confidence in everyday, social, and semi‑formal contexts. The term places special emphasis on the necessitative mood, enabling students to express obligation, advice, expectations, and personal responsibilities in nuanced ways. Grammar, vocabulary, and communication tasks are integrated into meaningful social and cultural themes as well as everyday topics.
By the end of the course you should be able to:
- use the necessitative mood accurately in everyday, social, and formal contexts
- express obligation, advice, expectations, and personal responsibilities
- distinguish between -meli/-malı, gerek, lazım, and modal alternatives
- participate in extended conversations requiring problem‑solving and reasoning
- produce coherent written texts incorporating the necessitative mood
- understand authentic listening and reading materials related to obligations and expectations
Turkish Intermediate 2
Turkish Intermediate 2 places a strong emphasis on zarf-fiiller, one of the most expressive and versatile structures in Turkish. Through these forms, learners gain the ability to describe actions in relation to time, cause, condition, contrast, and manner - allowing for richer, more natural, and more complex communication.
By the end of the course you should be able to:
- understand and use a wide range of zarf-fiil suffixes such as -ken, -ince/-ınca, -meden/-madan, -erek/-arak, -ip, and -dıkça
- connect ideas smoothly and express relationships between actions
- narrate events with greater cohesion and detail
- describe cause–effect, contrast, sequence, and simultaneous actions
- participate in extended discussions using more sophisticated sentence structures
- understand longer spoken and written texts that include complex adverbial clauses
- produce coherent written narratives, descriptions, and explanations using zarf-fiiller effectively
Turkish Intermediate 3
Turkish Intermediate 3 focuses on developing learners’ ability to understand and use the Past Perfect Tense (‑mişti), a key structure for expressing earlier past events, background information, reported experiences, and nuanced narrative sequencing. Through this structure, students learn to describe what had happened before another event, express hindsight, and convey indirect or inferred information with greater precision.
By the end of the course you should be able to:
- understand the form and function of the Past Perfect Tense (‑mişti)
- distinguish between simple past, reported past, and past perfect
- narrate events with clear chronological relationships
- express background information, prior conditions, and earlier experiences
- use past perfect in storytelling, anecdotes, and personal narratives
- understand spoken and written texts that include layered past events
- produce coherent written and spoken narratives using complex past structures
The above is an indication of content that may be covered over the duration of the course but it could vary depending on the level and progress of students in the class.
Contact us
Disclaimer
Important notice regarding changes to programmes and modules.
See more information on the Turkish language on the Language Centre Turkish homepage.
