Burcu Yagci

High’s new ELL teacher has taught English and Turkish in not only America, but her home country, Turkey.

Every teacher has a reason as to why they wanted to teach the subject they do, they’re all different and unique in their own ways.

“I think because of my English teacher, English Foreign Language teacher. We used to sing; we used to act out; we used to use a lot of visuals. I wanted to be like her, because teaching the language is really challenging,” Yagci said. “You need to differentiate a lot. You need to integrate a lot of different types of intelligence methods, that’s why I’m an ELL teacher in [the] USA.”

With English being a very different language than every other language spoken, it is not an easy language for people to learn as a second language.

“It’s really challenging for students to not be a native speaker in a different country, it’s challenging in terms of their emotional and social development, and also their learning because they need to learn all other subject areas, all the academic knowledge to be successful in life, to have a future,” Yagci said. “I wanted to help them; I wanted to guide them. Besides helping them to learn the language, I wanted to guide them to help them be successful, both in English and other content areas.”

Everyone has a hobby or 2 they do outside of their job, sometimes they do their hobby with another person. “I like singing; I play musical instruments which is Turkish origin, I play tennis with my husband, and I read a lot in my first language [Turkish] and in English.” Burcu said.

Burcu doesn’t just teach English to those who are learning it, she also teaches a few other things. “My certifications are in English language teaching, English Language Arts and also ESL, so I have 3 different certifications,” Burcu said. “I like to teach language, whatever the language is.”