Middlebury on the Mediterranean: Energizing Kids and Teachers in Türkiye

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Experiential learning was the key to Camp cARTal's success. Here the students take part in an art activity. Photo by Savanna Lim.

When Banu Gulecyuz and Savanna Lim met in 2021 during their Fulbright English Language Teaching Assistantships (ETA) in Türkiye, they bonded over their interest in the country and a shared mission to take their English teaching beyond the classroom. Years later, the two ExchangeAlumni extended that mission, partnering on a Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund (CDAF) project in the Mediterranean coastal town of Alanya, in the province of Antalya. 

For one week in summer 2023, Camp cARTal 2023 brought together 100 middle school students from a range of backgrounds and cultures for an immersive English language camp through art, creativity, and self-expression. 

“After I came back from Türkiye last year, I really wanted to go back and I felt really connected to Türkiye for multiple reasons,” said Savanna. “On Linkedin one day, I saw that the ExchangeAlumni LinkedIn [account] posted about this grant. And I thought, ‘Oh, interesting… What is this?’ I looked through the previous grant winners decided, ‘Okay. This is definitely something I could do.’” 

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Savanna Lim, Fulbright Exchange Alumni, Camp cARTal project co-lead, and an Impact of Exchange winner.

Savanna, a photographer whose work is featured in the “Impact of Exchange” exhibition, noticed that there hadn’t been a CDAF-funded project in Türkiye for the past two or three years. She thought there was a gap she could fill with her background in the arts. 

But the real inspiration for Camp cARTal’s revolutionary structure comes from both the U.S. and from Türkiye, from both Savanna and her co-project lead, Banu. While putting the camp together, Savanna drew on her experience at Middlebury College’s well known language immersion program and her time in arts high schools in Singapore, where she was born, and Houston, Texas, where she was raised. Banu, a Turkish-American from Illinois with family roots in Eskişehir, where she was placed for her Fulbright, drew from her time working at a similar camp at an elite private high school called Robert College in Istanbul, Türkiye. To this day, the school – founded by an American philanthropist and an American missionary – provides an American-styled education. 

Hatice Türkel noted that the project and approach to pedagogy were something else. The English Language Teaching student from the Black Sea town of Samsun, Türkiye, was one of the teachers recruited for the camp. Hatice says that normally, language learning in Türkiye focuses on grammar and textbook learning. Camp cARTal focused on a task-based teaching approach,

“It's a very different way of teaching from the Turkish education system with regards to languages,” said Hatice, who studies at Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University. “Our main goal was to make them create something about art and something that they're interested in. And we used English as a tool in this process. We didn't directly teach them English...And I think it was more fun than being in an actual class.” 

Hatice, who is now a final-year student, said that the students rapidly grew in their confidence in English with this more dynamic method. But it also gave her confidence as well. 

“In my second year or first year [of school], I always thought that I wouldn't be the perfect teacher in a classroom because I thought that maybe I don't have that much patience for the kids,” she said. “Maybe I can't control them in a class. So I always thought that I wouldn't be such a good teacher.” 

One of the goals of the camp was to hire local university students in the English Language Teaching Department – and to hire an ethnically and nationally diverse group, which Banu and Savanna managed to do, with two Kurdish teachers from Türkiye and one from Myanmar – and Turkish teachers from all over Türkiye. What helped was that Alanya itself is very diverse, with a large expatriate community that lives there year-round, in addition to the steady flow of international tourists in the summers.  

The main criteria was that the teachers spoke English at a high level and were passionate about teaching, Savanna said, and this showed up in the curriculum and lesson plans they designed, as well as the activities. 

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Activities also included active games outside. Photo by Savanna Lim

To maintain the immersive experience, all the teachers took on different names, like Jelly Bean and Brooklyn, including the ExchangeAlumni. Some of the kids loved that so much that they too took on different names, feeding into the immersive experience, which was the main aim of the camp. The final aim of the camp was that the student body be as diverse as its teachers, with a focus on including students who had been displaced by the twin earthquakes in southeastern regions of Türkiye earlier in the year. 

In the end, Banu, Savanna, and Hatice all reported that the parents had never seen their kids so energized and so happy to come to school. 

“Some of the parents were even like, ‘You know, my kid never has liked to go to school,’” Banu said. “‘This is the first time I've seen them want to go to school. I wish all our education constantly was like this. It was really hands on.’” 

While there have been requests for another iteration of Camp cARTal in Alanya, Savanna and Banu are setting their sights elsewhere in Türkiye for another community impact project. Banu herself continues her work giving back to the country with her non-profit, Kuzum Foundation, which provides small scholarships for university students in need from rural Türkiye. 

“There's so much potential in them,” Banu said.  

She wants the students to know that someone sees them and that they have a future –the same spirit of generosity and belief in the power of small actions to make life better for others that inspired Camp cARTal. 

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The Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund (known as CDAF) is a funding competition for up to $10,000, open exclusively to U.S. citizen exchange alumni in teams of at least two, to carry out public service projects that utilize the skills and knowledge they have gained through their exchange experiences.  More information on CDAF can be found at alumni.state.gov and  https://www.globaltiesus.org/cdaf/.