Ilknur Lider

  • Turkish Instructor, Turkish Program Coordinator, Turkish Minor Advisor

Teaching is a life-long passion for Nur grounded in her desire to help students develop confidence in their abilities, realize their potential as learners, and establish links between what they do in the Turkish classroom and their personal narratives in life! Originally from the Black Sea region of Turkey, Nur is a native speaker of Turkish and she has been teaching Turkish at the University of Pittsburgh’s Less Commonly Taught Languages Center since 2008. Nur holds an MPIA degree from the University of Pittsburgh and she is fully certified by ACTFL (The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign languages) as an OPI tester for the Turkish Language. In addition to language classes, Nur teaches a general education course on Turkish Culture & Society, and she will advise students for the new Turkish Minor beginning in fall 2018.

Nur is a fellow at the University Honors College, the Chair Person for the Turkish Nationality Room, and the advisor for TASA (Turkish American Student Association). She also coordinates weekly meetings of the Turkish Language Table for students to experience language and culture outside the class. Nur serves on scholarship committees and has extensive experience mentoring students for nationally competitive scholarship applications. Her recent research focuses on communication strategies like circumlocution and language competency. She gets her inspiration for teaching from students and hope that she will inspire and help students become more discerning observers of the world around them through learning Turkish Language and Culture.