Simplification of Süleyman Nazif's story "Şehidin Babası" to B2 level for teaching Turkish to foreigners

Every language contains intellectual structures and systems of expression that are specific to a particular culture. Language is the basis for art, literature, music and other forms of cultural expression. Language reflects the culture of a society like a mirror and is used to convey its traditions, legends, stories, tales, fables and histories. It helps a society to connect with its past and maintain its cultural heritage. For this reason, reading materials to be used in teaching Turkish as a foreign language can be used to introduce other cultures to our own cultural values and arouse curiosity. While numerous European languages provide level-appropriate storybooks for foreign language learners, it has been noted that such graded supplementary reading materials are largely absent in the context of teaching Turkish as a foreign language. Addressing this gap, the present study aims to promote the development and adaptation of storybooks tailored specifically for B2-level learners of Turkish. The necessity of producing level-aligned narrative texts—currently underrepresented in the literature—has been underscored throughout the research. Adopting a general survey model, a type of descriptive field research, this study focuses on the adaptation of literary texts in the story genre to the B2 proficiency level. The research population consists of stories authored by Turkish writers, with Süleyman Nazif's ''Şehidin Babası'' serving as a primary example. This particular work was selected due to the author's unique historical position, living during the late Ottoman era and the formative years of the Turkish Republic, thereby representing a literary bridge between classical and modern Turkish literature.In addition to the interesting and intriguing nature of the plot in the story, it will be to reveal what the word "Martyrdom" means to Turks. Any random changes made to the text during adaptation may cause great damage to the text. Given the necessity of aligning texts with learners' language proficiency levels for effective instruction in Turkish as a foreign language, this study focused on adapting the story titled ''Şehidin Babası'' from Süleyman Nazif's Fırak-ı Irak. The adaptation was carried out in accordance with the B2 level descriptors of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), taking into consideration learners' language acquisition stages, grammatical competence, and vocabulary knowledge. Furthermore, expert evaluations indicated that the semantic integrity of the original text was largely preserved throughout the simplification process.