UNT to collaborate with Turkish university to offer English language classes

by Chris Speight of North Texas Daily

Students in Turkey and surrounding areas will have the opportunity to perfect English as a second language thanks to collaboration between the University of North Texas and Zirve University in Turkey.

Zirve is a foundation university in Gaziantep, Turkey, where the population is about 1.7 million people.

All courses at the university will be taught completely in English, said Saleha Suleman, assistant vice provost for international education at UNT.

The program will help establish the first English language university in Turkey.

“The program will offer seven levels of classes to improve the English proficiency of its students,” said Carol Ogden, assistant director of the Intensive English Language Institute at UNT.

UNT was approached by Zirve in April 2009 about outsourcing UNT’s Intensive English Language Institute to the Turkish university, Suleman said.

The program started in late April, and the agreement between Zirve and UNT was signed on Aug. 24. The staff has been at Zirve since Labor Day weekend.

“The university is going to deliver content courses in English to a student who goes there, for whatever their major is,” Ogden said.

The Turkish university was looking for a consultant university to help it and was recommended to UNT, Ogden said.

In July, Suleman assisted in the hiring of more than 20 English language instructors for the program, all from Turkey. Suleman said that there were also 20 fluent English speakers hired, most from the U.S.

“UNT will serve as a consultant,” she said. “We are helping them to start an English language program.”

Suleman said Zirve University funds all aspects of the project.

Students who wish to participate in the program must be accepted to Zirve and then submit to diagnostic testing to distinguish their fluency of the English language, Suleman said.

“The first tier will be devoted to English only,” she said. “First they must be proficient in English and then the academic class will kick in.”

The university will be inaugurated on Sept. 28. The projected enrollment for Zirve is 12,000 students by 2013, Suleman said.

“UNT will have a great presence in Turkey,” Suleman said. “This institution will also think to us about building their other academic programs like education, engineering, communications and business.”

Suleman said because Turkey is geographically close to Syria, Zirve will benefit from the exposure to other cultures.