The conference was held on March 08, 2019, at Türk-Alman University in Istanbul and was based on a presentation of the famous German professor Hermann Funk. Although it was not organized in the form of a workshop, Funk prepared an interactive presentation so that the participants also got the opportunity to express themselves. The presentation was about learning vocabulary and remembering words (Mentales Lexikon & Wortschatzlernen). In the first half of his presentation Funk informed the audience about the human brain and the process of memorizing things, which he tried to demonstrate with the help of some experiments. He explained that regarding these processes the way of teaching vocabulary must be reevaluated and changed accordingly.

Funk is one of the authors of the coursebook Studio 21. In the second half of his presentation he showed some parts of the coursebook designed by him and his colleagues and tried to explain to what extend the book takes the memorizing processes of the brain into account. Studio 21 is a coursebook, which is really peculiar. The first pages of the units contain mainly chunks to make students be able to communicate rather than being forced to learn grammar first and then be able to speak. The book also does not contain much text. There are many other books which try similar things for sure, however Studio 21 is the most radical one in terms of introducing words and phrases and ignoring unknown grammar.

The audience consisted of German instructors working at different universities and high schools in Istanbul. After Prof. Funk finished the second half of his presentation a very fruitful discussion followed. Among the participants I represented the only institution, which used this coursebook once so that everybody was interested in the experience we made at ÖzÜ. I informed the participants and Mr. Funk about major issues we experienced with this book.

It was a very fruitful conference, which gave me the opportunity to share experiences and learn from colleagues.