turgayevren's Podcast

Hello, today I want to tell you a story. This story is about me. You will like this story. You will learn a good lesson from this story.
Many years ago, I was a student in high school. I was not a bad student. But I had a bad lesson. It was English. I did not understand English lesson. I did not listen to the teacher. I was a tourist in the class. My teacher was a beautiful woman. She was short but she had very long, brown hair. I liked her, but I did not like English lesson.
This lady was angry with me. “Turgay, listen to the lesson,” she told me.
“I won’t listen to the lesson. I don’t understand English,” I told her.
I always read Turkish books in English classes. I liked reading books. But I was unhappy. I was bad at English lesson. I did not want to fail in the class.
One day, I was walking on the street. I saw a notice: “I teach English in three months. I give guarantee.” What? This teacher can teach English in three months. Is he kidding? Can I learn very good English in three months? I could not believe my eyes. I got the teacher’s telephone number. I called the teacher. He was a man. He told me he had a group. He was teaching in his house. He invited me to his house.
The next day, I went to his house. He took me to a room. In the room, there was a big blackboard and a long table. There were four students in the class. There were ten chairs. The teacher was a middle-aged man. He had white hair. He was very funny. He told me, “Don’t worry. English is very easy. You will learn English.” I liked this man.
“Do you want to learn English?” he asked me.
“Yes, of course,” I said.
Every week four weekday evenings, I went to his home. I liked his teaching method. He was a good teacher. He liked his job. He spoke English very fluently. Yes, English was very easy. I studied very hard. I did my homework. I learned new words. I liked English. I didn’t have a father. My mother gave me money. I paid for my classes every month.
Two months later, I spoke English fluently. My grammar was very good. Now I understood English conversations. I was the best student in the class. I always answered the questions. I got the highest scores. My teacher was surprised with me.
“How did you learn English in a very short time?” she asked me.
I told her my story. She was happy. “Everybody can learn English,” she said. “But you must study. English is easy.”
Yes, this is my story of English. It is a true story. Now I am an English teacher and writer. I taught many people English. I wrote 50 English books. English is easy. Everybody can learn English.

Written by: Turgay Evren
Read by: Kerry Counsell

Today I will tell you a story about my days in New York City. I went to New York City in 2001. I had a student visa but I wanted to work. I was staying with my friends in a home. The home had two floors. All my friends were students. They were also working. Life was very expensive in New York City and my friends needed money. I was new in this city but everybody was so busy. Nobody had time to help me. I had only a subway map.
The next morning, I got up early and had breakfast with my friends. I got on the subway and went to the Manhattan. I had a friend. He was working for a newspaper. His Office was on the 42nd floor in Empire State. It was easy to find Empire State Building. It was so tall. There were so many skyscrapers in Manhattan. I felt like a mouse. I got on the elevator and visited my friend’s office. It was a small office. There were only three rooms in the Office. I drank tea with my friend. Then I left the Empire State Building. I had a walk on the street. There were so many shops and restaurants on the roads. But I did not like the smell.
Now I was very hungry. I needed to eat lunch. What could I eat? Where could I eat? I did not want to eat pork or lard. A good muslim does not eat pork. I wanted to eat helal food. Where could I find helal food. I walked and walked. I looked at all the restaurants. But I could not find a Turkish or muslim restaurant. I was tired and hungry. I had no energy. “What should I do?” I thought. “I wish I were in Turkey.” Then I saw a Pakistani restaurant. I was so happy. “Pakistani people are muslims, so they cook helal food,” I said to myself.
I entered the restaurant. I was a bit shy. I sat at a table. A young waiter came. He was short, dark-skinned man. He spoke English with a Pakistani accent.
“Welcome to our restaurant. What would you like to eat?” he asked me kindly. There was a smile on his face. I did not know Pakistani foods. I took the menu and looked at the names of the foods. I saw pakistani kebab. “This must be similar to our kebab,” I thought.
“I would like to eat kebab and I can drink coke,” I said to the waiter.
“OK,” the waiter shook his head. “Do you want to taste our special Pakistani bread?”
I had no idea about Pakistani bread. “How do you call this bread?” I asked him.
“We call it nan,” the waiter replied. I was surprised now because we called bread as nan in Diyarbakır, my hometown.
“Okay, I’d like to taste nan,” I said to the waiter.
After 20 minutes the waiter brought my order. I was amazed now. I had open, flat bread of my hometown on the table. I started eating kebab and bread. Yes, it was the same bread. It was delicious. I was happy now. I did not feel like a stranger. I was not alone in this big city. There were similar cultures here. I was eating my own bread in New York City. It was difficult to find nan in Istanbul, but I found it in New York City easily. I started enjoying my new life in New York City.

The story was written by: Turgay Evren
The story was read by: Ashley Evans

PC: The word “nan” is read like “nun” in English.

A story read by Zeynep, my my twelve-year-old daughter.

Once upon a time a woodsman and his wife lived in a little house in the forest. They were poor but very happy. They loved each other very much. They were always ready to share everything they had with anyone who came to their door.

One day the woodsman was working in the forest. His wife was working at home. An old man came to their little house. He said he was very hungry. The woman had only a little food, but she shared it with him.

The old man ate. Then he said, "God sent me to test you. You and your husband share everything you have with everyone. God wants to give a special gift because you are so kind."

"What is the gift?" asked the woman.

The old man answered, "You and your husband can make any three wishes and they will come true."

The woman was very happy. She said, "I wish my husband could be there to hear you!" In a minute her husband was there. Her first wish came true.

"What happened?" asked the woodsman. "I was in the forest. Why am I here now?" His wife kissed him and explained.

The woodsman listened to her story. Then he became angry. He shouted at his wife for the first time. "You wasted one of our wishes. Now we have only two left. You are so foolish! I wish you had donkey ears!"

His wife's ears began to grow. They changed into big donkey ears. The woman touched her long ears and cried. Her husband felt very bad about what he said.

The old man said, "You never shouted to each other before. Now you are different. You know you can have power and be rich. You have one wish left. Do you want to be rich? Do you want to have beautiful clothes?"

The woodsman said, "We only want to be happy again, like before."

The donkey ears disappeared. The woodsman and his wife thanked God. They were happy again.

The old man said, "Poor people can be very happy and rich people can be very unhappy. God will give you the biggest happiness a married couple can have."

A few months later the woodsman and his wife had a baby. The family lived happily ever after.

A story written by Turgay Evren and read by Kyle Helke.

It was the holy month of Ramadan. I finished my work at the university at five pm. I got into a taxi. I did not want to be late for dinner. I was hungry because I was fasting. I arrived home in time. Both of my daughters ran and hugged me. They were so happy to see me. My wife was preparing dinner in the kitchen. I started chatting with my daughters.

Now we were sitting at the table in the kitchen. We were waiting for the adhan. There were many different kinds of food on the table. Finally, we heard the voice of the reciter, and we broke our fast with water and a date. I started drinking soup.

Suddenly, the telephone rang in the living-room. My wife was surprised. “It is interesting. I wonder who is calling at this time,” she said. She stood up and went to the living-room to answer the phone.
Soon, she called out to me, “Turgay, the call is for you. A man wants to talk with you. He is a police-officer and he says it is important.” I stood up and walked to the living-room. “Why does a police officer want to talk to me?” I asked myself.
I got the phone. “Hello, this is Turgay speaking,” I said.
“Good evening, I am so sorry to disturb you at this time,” the polite voice appologized to me. “We got your telephone number from the Muhtar. I am a police-officer from Başakşehir police-station. We know that you are an English Teacher, so we urgently need your help for a subject.”
After ten minutes, I was in the police car. There were two young policemen in the car. The police station was a five minute drive from my home. On the road, I learned the subject. The police had stopped a bus in Başakşehir. There were 37 foreign people on the bus. They were illegal immigrants. They escaped from their country and they wanted to be refugees in a European country. The police needed someone to speak English with them. I would translate for the police.
We entered the police station. One middle-aged policeman met us. We went downstairs. There were two cells in the basement. In the cell on the left, I saw many people. I looked at those people more carefully. They were dark-skinned people. Most of them were young. I saw three black people. They were a family: a black father, a black mother and a black baby. I tried to speak English with them. I saw their eyes. Their eyes were full of fear. I tried to speak English with them. Only one of them could speak English well. They were from Pakistan. They were living in the villages and they were poor. The black family was from Somalia.
I learned their story. They had spent six thousand dollars each for this journey. Their dream was over now. The police gave the refugees a good dinner. They were very hungry. I was very sad for these refugees. I knew most refugees died in a truck because there was not enough air.Some refugees fell out of the boats in the sea and they drowned.
“What will happen to all these people?” I asked an old policeman. He was drinking tea.
“We will keep them in Turkey for a few days, then we will send them to their countries,” the old policeman replied. I did not have the answer for one question, “What will their states do those poor people when they learned that those people tried to become refugees in a different country?” I kept this question to myself.

The story was written by: Turgay Evren
The story was read by: Kyle Helke

A very easy story written by Kathban Evren and edited by Turgay Evren.

I had an interview with Meeraa from Srilanka. I hope you will like this interview.

An interesting story that I have lived. The story revolves around Ahmet Hani, the famous Kurdish writer.

In this podcast, I talk about the new house that have recently purchased.

Today I went to English Time for a cover. Yesterday Kay, who is the headteacher called me and asked me to cover for Amy. Amy is an American teacher. She has been working for English time for six months. In the teacher’s room, I spoke to Mark about this class. Mark told me that he shared this class with Amy.
“It is a wonderful class. The students are very nice and positive. They like English. They want to learn English,” Mark said.
I was happy to hear these words. “There is a boy in this class. He is bound to the wheelchair. He is also a very good student,” Mark told me. “His mother is always with him. She helps him.”
I was surprised to hear that there was a student on the wheelchair in my class. I entered the class. It was a level one class. All the students were very enthusiastic. They were eager to learn. First, I introduced myself and then I asked all the students to talk about themselves one by one. Then, the handicapped boy’s turn came. I looked at him. He was a young, handsome guy. There was a nice smile on his face. He spoke English fluently. He was the best student in the class. There was a middle-aged woman beside him. She was his mother. She was wearing a headscarf that showed some of her hair. I also learned that this student came from my hometown. His name was Şahin. I looked at Şahin carefully. He couldn’t walk and he couldn’t use his hands. His mother was obviously unlettered, so she couldn’t write for him.
If you are disabled, your life is very difficult especially in Turkey. We have a good government. The current government did many things for the disabled people. But it is not enough. The handicapped people have still many problems. We haven’t got enough facilities for disabled people. Many disabled people just stay at home. They don’t go to school. They can’t go out. They can’t work. They can’t go to a library or even a mosque. There are not special roads for the disabled people. We don’t have enough audio books for the blind people. There aren’t enough special computers. We often ignore the disabled people. We don’t care about the handicapped people. But we shouldn’t forget, we can have an accident and we can become disabled anytime. Therefore, we should be more sensitive about their problems.
I had two hour conversation lesson in the class. Now I would give the students the grammar exam. But I was confused. I didn’t know what to do with Şahin, the disabled boy. He couldn’t use his hands. He wasn’t able to write. I gave the students the grammar exam in the third hour and I told Şahin, I would give him the exam in the fourth lesson. The students finished the exam and I sat on the chair next to his chair. I read all the questions for him and he told me the answers and I circled the choices. It was a good collaboration.
After we finished the exam, I turned to Turkish and I had a nice conversation with him and his mother. Şahin was 29 years old now. When he was 19 years old, he had an accident. Not a traffic accident. He had jumped into the sea headlong and fallen and broken his neck. He had been bound to the wheelchair after that day. It must be very difficult for a young boy. He told me that his whole body was disabled. But he never complained about his life. He had finished a university after this accident. Now he wanted to learn English. His mother was always with him. I looked at his mother. She was a noble woman. She couldn’t read or write. She didn’t go to school. But she was a great mother. She was a school herself. I admired this woman. I wanted to kiss her hands. I remembered Prophet Muhammad’s saying about mothers: “Paradise lies under the feet of mothers.”
I learned a great lesson from this young man and his mother. You can do anything you want in this life. Don’t lose your hope. Don’t lose your courage. Don’t lose yourself. You are important. You have got an aim. You have got a purpose. You are not only flesh and bones. You are a soul and a mind. Your body can be tied to a wheelchair. But your spirit can fly around the hills of love. You may be bound to a bed. But your mind can be the house of knowledge everytime. Nobody can stop you from learning, thinking, feeling and loving.
Şahin told me that he wrote stories. He wrote a novel. His article was published in a Turkish Daily Newspaper called “Radikal.” Şahin’s life is the biggest story. It is a success story. It is a story of struggle. I told Şahin the story of Christy Brown, who was a giant of Irish Literature. I mentioned his book, “My Left Foot,” that told his lifestory. Christy Brown, was ill when he was born. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t eat and drink by himself, he couldn’t walk. All the doctors told his mother Christy was mentally-challenged, but his mother didn’t believe the doctors. One day, Christy Brown took a piece of chalk by his left foot and drew the letter A on the floor. His mother, brothers and sisters were schocked. After that day, his left foot became a window to the outside world. His left foot became his mouth and tongue. His left foot became his hand. He spoke and wrote with lis left foot. He has written the masterpieces, the best novels of Irish Literature with his left foot.
Şahin will carry on walking on the path of success. His story will inspire some other stories. His life will enliven some living dead. He will teach us to be more than what we are. I’d like to finish this story with the saying of Nietzsche, “Anything which doesn’t destroy us makes us stronger.”

I had a conversation with my eleven year old daughter, Zeynep Evren, who is a real bookworm, about books.

A true story that I have experienced in Diyarbakır.

Here is the audio story of Prophet Adam for kids retold by Turgay Evren and told by Aksen İlhan.

The audio story of Prophet Adam, written by Turgay Evren and read by Aksen İlhan)

A real story that I have lived.

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