Towards a pedagogy for teaching adaptations

This article looks at how I have interpreted the notion of adaptation studies in my teaching practice at a private university in Ankara, Turkey. I begin by outlining the educational context in which I work, focusing on how the top-down model of education dominates local teaching practice. This is chiefly due to a desire to remain true to the principles of Islam and secularism propounded by Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. I subsequently suggest that this approach to education overlooks recent socio-political changes in the country, particularly a move towards more pluralistic models of identity. In the final section, I show how I have tried to reinterpret the concept of adaptation, as understood in the Turkish context, to reformulate an approach to pedagogy within the ELT context (but which could also be applied to other subjects), that encourages individual responses and develops more creative approaches to teaching texts.