Stone and Wine: A Memoir of a Descendant of the Population Exchange between Greece and Türkiye

This is the English translation of the memoir I originally published in Turkish in 2024.

One September morning, I set off from Kavala (Καβάλα) in Petros’s car. Petros, a native of Kavala, was my travelling companion on my first visit to Komnina (Κομνηνά), the village where my grandfather was born[1]. Komnina is a village in Xanthi (Ξάνθη), Greece, formerly known as Kurular. On the road to Komnina, I thought of my grandfather and my childhood in the village of Gündoğdu (Palladari – Παλλαδάρι, or Filedar) in Bursa, Türkiye. As we slowly climbed the Rhodope Mountains, the scent of olive and fig trees filled my nostrils. Whilst chatting with Petros, I was getting lost in the beauty of the road. I was due to meet another Greek friend, Dimitris, in the village square in a few minutes.

Komnina road sign

Dimitris and I

Months ago, I had posted on a Facebook group that I wanted to visit my grandfather’s village in Greece. Dimitris messaged me straight away, saying he could meet me and show me around. Dimitris was, like me, a descendant of someone who’d been part of the population exchange between Greece and Türkiye that took place in 1924. My grandparents’ route of forced migration was from Kurular in (what is now) Greece to the village of Gündoğdu in Bursa, whilst his grandparents’ was from Samsun-Erikli (the Black Sea coast in Türkiye, where Pontic Greeks used to live) to Komnina. Different routes, similar lives. Dimitris works in livestock farming; he’s actually from another old Turkish village right next to Komnina, whilst his wife is a Giresun (another Black Sea city in Türkiye) exchangee from Komnina. When we arrived in Komnina, we met in the village square and sat down under a mighty tree dating back to Ottoman times. Turkish/Greek coffee was served straight away, and we began to chat. Dimitris had also visited Samsun, just as I had visited Komnina. We began to talk about Komnina and its history.

Kurular has become Komnina

Today, only 150 people live in Komnina. Over time, the young people have migrated to the big cities and abroad. Pontic Greeks from different regions of the Black Sea have settled in the village’s three main neighbourhoods. We had a bit of a laugh together about this situation – different migrant groups in the same village… It’s the same in our village, Gündoğdu… the Pomaks and the people from Xanthi. Even though they’ve breathed the same dusty air on the road, these brothers from different mothers don’t easily come together. Dimitris’ ancestors and mine took different migration routes, but our stories are the same. Our grandfathers and grandmothers, torn from their lands and homes, are what unite us. Whilst talking to Dimitris, I was glancing around me. Behind us sat a villager rolling his tobacco; a couple of people in the distance…that was all. A quiet, peaceful village. In the square where we were sitting, a statue of a woman caught my eye. I asked straight away, a little fearfully; clearly, this woman was either a heroine or a victim. ‘I hope the Turks didn’t kill her,’ I thought to myself. It turns out that the statue was of someone who had been murdered by Bulgarian soldiers during the Second World War. We spoke a little about those difficult times; Dimitris’s and Petros’s eyes welled up. As if to change the mood, we immediately started talking about what remained of the Turks. The coffee was finished, and it was time to head to Komnina to find the footprints left by my people who lived in Kurular.

A house from the Turks in Komnina / Kurular

The Kurular in Komnina: My Grandfather’s Footsteps

I continued to look around me with curious eyes. Trees, houses, neighbourhoods. But where were my grandfather’s footsteps? What remained of the Turks in Komnina? Were stories all that remained of the Kurular, or was there a tree, a piece of stone? If so, where? I asked Dimitris what was left. He pointed to the tree we were sitting under and another one a little further on – these two trees were all that remained from the Ottoman era. I got up and took some photos of them. I felt a twinge of sadness; was there nothing else? A house, a wall? One of the neighbourhoods in the village was called ‘Feleki’: Felek, as we know in Turkish (the word is in fact of Arabic origin). Felek was said to have been the richest man in the village in his day; the neighbourhood was named after him. Only his house and another, now in ruins, remained from the Turks. A flicker of (un)happiness stirred within me… So there were things after all: perhaps I would see the paths my grandfather and great-grandmother had walked. The three of us hopped straight into Petros’s car and began to drive slowly through the village. We saw a church on the left. Dimitris said that the church had probably been a mosque before; I wasn’t surprised. In Türkiye, too, churches have been converted into mosques. ‘Better that than being demolished and destroyed,’ I thought to myself. As we drove along a narrow dirt track, Dimitris and I were chatting. When the Pontic Greeks migrated to Komnina, they’d lived in the same houses as the Turks for the first year or two. ‘Wasn’t that difficult?’ I asked. He smiled; it hadn’t been easy. But ‘they lived there very happily; we’ve never heard anything bad about the Turks living with them from our grandparents,’ said Dimitris. ‘Mums used to speak Turkish to their babies back then,’ said Dimitris; Turkish was a language spoken in the village.

Komnina

As we made our way along the dirt track, we suddenly came to a halt. I couldn’t see much on either side. ‘There’s one of the two houses left in the village from the Turks,’ said Dimitris – a ruin. It had no roof, just stones, but you could still make out where the windows and doors had been. I climbed inside the house; right next to it stood a fig tree, just like the one back in our village in Bursa, Gündoğdu. I started filming a video to send to my dad, while at the same time describing what I was seeing in the video – I had to speak at that moment, as if I was talking to my dad, because I was walking through history, stepping right on top of it. Perhaps my great-great-grandfather, my great-great-grandmother, or my grandfather had once entered and left this house, walked past it, or strolled through this neighbourhood. Thorns were pricking and cutting my legs, but I paid no heed. I took photographs and breathed in the history of the house. I examined the stones on the walls. I bent down and picked up a tiny stone from between two larger ones. I clutched the stone tightly in my palm. This stone was a witness to history; it was history itself. I put it in my pocket straight away. I told Dimitris about it, feeling a little embarrassed; he laughed and said, ‘I wish you’d picked up a bigger stone.’ I couldn’t shake off the spell the house had cast over me. I walked back to the car. I was no longer the same person after stepping inside that house. Dimitris told me he would show me Feleki’s house, the second house, but he said sadly that the exterior had been re-plastered and that nothing of its history remained. We arrived at the house; it was a large house, but unfortunately it didn’t leave the same impression on me as the previous, dilapidated house had.

Stone and Wine

We got back into the car. ‘There’s a hotel at the entrance to the village; we’re going there now,’ said Dimitris. At first I didn’t understand why – why on earth were we going to a hotel? I’d seen this hotel online before; its architecture resembled a stone castle, and it looked like a lovely place. When we stopped in front of the stone walls, I realised why we’d come here. Some of these stones were apparently left over from Turkish houses and had been used in the hotel’s construction. I was delighted to see yet another remnant of the Turks. As we entered the hotel garden, we were chatting; I was telling him about our village in Bursa and how the Pomaks and the people of Xanthi lived together. ‘Ah,’ said Dimitris, ‘the people who run this hotel are Pomaks, too.’ In fact, as soon as we’d finished exploring the garden and entered the hotel, I realised straight away that there was someone in the lobby who looked familiar: a blonde, blue-eyed, smiling woman. Just like a Pomak from Gündoğdu village in Türkiye… While we were walking around the garden, Dimitris mentioned that the people running the hotel make their own wine from the grapes grown in the village. We bought a bottle of wine each as a souvenir. We left there and headed straight for an old royal tomb at the entrance to the village. The tomb was closed, but our main reason for being there wasn’t the royal tomb; it was to see the vineyards. The grapes from my grandfather’s village, the white wine made out of them, and a journey through and beyond history. We dropped Dimitris off in the village centre; I thanked him, and we said our goodbyes. I told him to get in touch with me if he ever wanted to visit Bursa or Sweden. I also made a promise to him: I’d told him there was a book about the history of the village of Gündoğdu, written by one of our fellow villagers. He was very interested in the book, so I promised to find it and send it to him[2].

The return journey from the Rhodope Mountains to Kavala

On the way back, Petros took me to Kavala via a different route: we climbed up into the mountains and then came back down again. Petros is a lovely chap. I’d taken an instant liking to him when we met at Thessaloniki Airport. On the way back from the Rhodope Mountains, we had a good chat; he told me he’d really enjoyed the trip, too. We talked about our favourite foods, football, our home towns, the things we both love, and our worries. When we arrived in Kavala, he showed me the block of flats where he was born and the neighbourhoods where he lived. I still had a few more days in Kavala. Beautiful Kavala… Its shopkeepers, fishermen, börek-masters, the sea, the air, the streets, its history, and its people. One evening, while walking along the seafront in Kavala, I said to myself: I am no longer just Olcay from Gündoğdu in Bursa; I am Olcay, the grandson of Abdurrahim from the village of Komnina/Kurular in the Rhodope Mountains.

Final Words

Stone and Wine

A small stone, a bottle of white wine

Does it matter if we’re Turkish, Greek, or Arab?

We’ve gazed upon the same sea

We’ve shared meals together

Even if a hundred years pass

We’ll meet again, by sea and by land

Kurular becomes Komnina

Palladari becomes Gündoğdu

Even if our grandfathers may be cross,

The daughters and sons shall be friends.

Olcay Sert, 29 September 2024

Taş ve Şarap

Bir küçük taş, bir şişe beyaz şarap

Fark eder mi Türk, Yunan, Arap

Aynı denize bakmışız

Beraber aş yapmışız

Geçse de yüz yıl aradan

Buluşuruz denizden ve karadan

Kurular olur Komnina

Filedar olur Gündoğdu

Dedeler kızıp darılsa da, dosttur mübadilin kızı oğlu.

Olcay Sert, 29 Eylül 2024

[1] As I learned after I wrote the original text in Turkish, the village was attacked by the Bulgarian soldiers during the Balkan war in 1913, and my grandfather was born either in the neighbouring village or in a neighbouring town like Drama or Xanthi. The official documents point to Drama but the specific place is not known.
[2] I found and read the book, and sent a copy to Dimitris. I will write more about this book on my blog and elsewhere.

Capturing journeys of learning – to infinity: An experimental piece of writing

Opening commentary: A practice-based writing workshop run by Laura Watts
On the 3rd of June, 2026, I attended a practice-based writing workshop led by Laura Watts and organised by David Redmalm at Mälardalen University. The only preparation needed was to bring three objects related to my research to write about. The task was to produce experimental pieces of writing inspired by the objects brought to the workshop. I knew what my objects were going to be. I knew that I needed this workshop without knowing about it beforehand. I have been going through hard times at work- and even the times left for my academic writing have not been fun recently. Chasing deadlines, dry writing, without my soul in it. This had to stop. This workshop was going to give me a few hours to write in the ways that I missed to write. And it did. I felt alive.

I was lucky to be in the same room with amazing colleagues. Following Laura’s instructions, we wrote, we read what we wrote to each other, we talked about each piece, we laughed, got moved, and even almost cried. Yes, you heard it right. Writing about our research! We felt that we were humans, once again. When I read that we needed to bring three objects about our research, I knew without thinking what I would take with me:

-My first object was a video camera that I have been using to collect data from and capture interactions in classrooms.
-My second object was a transcription that I used for a data session at Teachers College in New York.
-My third object was an anonymised screenshot based on a recent article, produced using a digital laser cutter.

I am going to share with you three pieces of experimental writing. I had around 40 minutes to write these pieces. Just writing. No time to edit, check grammar, or vocabulary. Pure, good old writing. A journey was the theme of the first writing. How do we use the three objects from our research to depict a journey? My fingers were on fire. I felt creative, again! Now look at the objects in the picture. I hope you see what I see. If you know me, imagine my voice as you read.

Capturing journeys of learning – to infinity.

Standing on a tripod, waiting for the recording button to be pushed. I can almost see the traces of my fingerprints on this camera: hundreds of hours of recordings made in spaces where learning takes place. It is beyond just a tool, beyond a recorder, beyond a data collection instrument. The camera captures moments of joy, boredom, engagement, motivation, unwillingness, relationships, teaching, and learning – as it happens, second after second. This is where the journey begins. Those lives and moments get captured, but they are only imprisoned before I, the researcher, the writer, start writing this journey through the horse glasses my methods provide me with. Don’t get me wrong, the horse glasses can come in handy – they still enable me to see things when I dig into trying to understand the motion captured in the camera. Take, for example, three students, sitting together, discussing the material they have been given by the teacher. They lean forward, they look at each other, at the screen of their computers, at the printed document on their desks. How can I tell their story to other people? I need to freeze the time I captured – freeze their lives as it is visible on my computer. I need to transcribe this – every little detail, milliseconds, the intonation, silences…But wait a minute, they look at each other sometimes – I need to capture their gaze, gestures, hand movements in the transcription. This is getting harder. My eyes and my ears help me a lot to understand what they are doing and why they are doing it, surprisingly both despite and with the help of my horse glasses. I need to capture their journey towards learning so that I can tell everyone about this miracle: they work together, learn from each other, develop ideas, argue, counter-argue. This is magic. I captured every little detail of their learning journey. If I write this up, using the correct transcriptions, correct images, maybe their learning journey will be other people’s learning journey too. The journey of students’ learning, together, captured, transformed, translated, represented in writing. The prisoners of the camera are now freed – they are captured in writing and in printed images. But wait a minute. What if they got into a new prison now? One that I built? The only way to free the learning journey is to spread the word. And the journey will continue in other people’s lives. It will be multiplied. Reborn. Will not disappear.

Midway commentary
I am not sure if mid-way commentary is a thing, but here we are, now it is. When I read the text I wrote to my colleagues in the room, I felt so emotional. I was almost about to cry. I really enjoyed it when they talked about my text. This is awesome. Why don’t we do it for every piece we write? Why don’t we take the time and read to each other? It does not matter what kind of writing it is. It just needs to be read aloud to come alive, I think. Or does this only work with this kind of experimental writing?

Before I move on to the other pieces, well, you know the elephant in the room. Horse glasses – please excuse my Turkish. Of course I meant blinkers. I still like horse glasses better though.

Our second task was to explore “Point of view”. You know it, right? (I did not): first person, when the reader looks through the narrator’s eyes; second person, when the narrator directs the reader’s view; and third person, when the reader is detached from the narrator’s view. We were asked to write the same thing using two perspectives. In 20 minutes! The theme was still “a journey”. I loved what came out. People even laughed after I read the first one aloud. Will it make the same impact when you read it? We will see.

Capture the learning journey!

Congratulations! You have just completed the first day of your fieldwork and data collection. You are now back in your office, transferring the video file to your computer: excited, curious, tired. You start watching the video, going through your field notes at the same time when you try to remember exactly what happened at that moment in the classroom. You watch the whole lesson with an open eye, taking notes as you watch, and as you listen. Those three students who were discussing enthusiastically after each task. You cannot take your eyes away from them. Good that you had an audio recorder in front of them, so that you can synchronise the video and the audio file to witness their learning journey captured by the camera and the audio recorder. This second task they completed. You know that they look so engaged – they take turns rapidly, look at each other, point at the computer screen, laughing, getting excited as they discuss. You see it in their body, you hear it in the tone of their voices, you have to do something about this now! You suddenly start transcribing using a Word file – no time to lose, no time for software. You start working on transcribing their talk first, but while replaying parts of the video, you cannot help but start taking screenshots, embedding them nicely into the transcription you are producing. Embedding embodied learning. You think about titles for research articles already. This is hard work. Slowly coming together, in snail pace, but you see so much, you want to write now! But not yet. You are patient. This is why you are good at this. Keep transcribing. You are going to tell everyone about this learning journey. You know that writing this up for a journal, getting it reviewed, getting it published will take ages. You know the pain. And you like it. You like the journey.

My journey of capturing students’ learning, as it happens

I was back in my office finally, dying to start watching the video I had recorded – this was such a fantastic lesson! I started playing and replaying the whole lesson, taking notes as if I were recording everything all over again, with the speed of my pen. Those three students at the back of the classroom – I had noticed while I was in the classroom already that they were doing a fantastic job. The video was shouting at me – focus on them! I synchronised the audio recording on their desk with the video file, and started digging in. Oh my god! They were so engaged, motivated, happily and positively loud. I started transcribing their second task interactions- so much was going on! How they navigated between the material and the computer screen. It was almost like watching an exciting movie – I could not leave the computer screen to get a glass of water. My mouth dry, I started transcribing what they said; every word they used during the discussion. They leaned forward, they used gestures, their facial expressions kept changing. I needed to capture all these details and embed the screenshots into my transcription. I had to embed embodied learning. Aha! Could this be the title of the first article I produce from this data? So little time for so much work. Publishing it. A dream, isn’t it? Is a painful dream called a nightmare? Such a nightmare to depict the learning journey of students. But I like it. I love it. This is why I am taking this journey.

Final commentary
The first one was probably written to a PhD student or to my younger self, or? No matter what, I enjoyed each second of this workshop. I wrote more than 1100 words in around 40 minutes, without getting distracted with other things. Using three objects. And thanks to Laura. And thanks to my colleagues in the room who shared their writing with me, who “listened to” my writing, and reacted wholeheartedly. We need more of this, we academics, smart asses, who sold their souls to dry pieces of writing. Not all the time. Not everyone. But you know what I mean.

Will I meet you again, in my writing?

How much time do we have? On Countdown timers in Japanese schools and the first week of my “minigration” to Japan

Naoko Sensei puts a digital countdown timer on the board. Sets it to 40 seconds. All pupils stand up: it is time to practice, in pairs, the months in English. One of the students says 2月, the other one responds in English: February. A boy says 4月, and after some hesitation, a girl says April. They test each other, they laugh, they speak together…It is also one of those rare moments when I do not really know if they can hear each other, when there is at least some chaos, a very very rare moment, a move away from the choral repetition. They have 40 seconds. Then the alarm goes off, they all stop speaking and sit down. A few minutes later, the teacher sets the timer again to 40 seconds. The kids open page 24 in their course book. They read the words in 40 seconds. And then the alarm goes off. Loud and clear. Time is up. A few minutes after that the timer is set to 20 seconds. The teacher says February. They have 20 seconds to write it down, in their book. Then March. Then April. 20 seconds each. Then the alarm goes off. 20 seconds is all they have. They then move on to practicing “ordinal numbers”. First, second, third…The teacher accidentally sets the timer to 2 seconds this time. They all laugh together. They know that it is too little time to do anything. They are all (made) aware of the amount of time they have. They all hear an alarm when the time is up, all thanks to a countdown timer. The loud sound tells the students that their little time for a given activity is over.

Do the students like it? Maybe not always. One of the kids walks towards the board to get something from the teacher’s desk, and then the alarm goes off, loud and unexpected for him. He closes his ears with his hands, and he closes his eyes. The irritation is visible. It looks like he does not like the noise of the alarm, at least at that moment. But digital countdown timers and their alarms are obviously what we have in many Japanese junior high schools, as I was told by my friend Mika and Naoko Sensei after the lessons I observed. Every day, in each lesson, kids orient to timers and their sounds – they look at it, they hear it, they act on it, they laugh at it. If there is anything that they all have, it is time. But how much of it? How does each kid experience the 40 seconds they are given for a short activity? How does the teacher experience and manage it? What would have happened without a timer? Without knowing the exact seconds they have before moving to another activity? No matter how short or long time is, it is obvious that what each kid makes out of it and how each teacher experiences it will be relatively different each time. I will not discuss here whether or how these timers obstruct or construct learning opportunities. It is obvious why they are there. We do not know in reality the relationship between these timers and learning1. But if there is one reality that we cannot escape from, it is the fact that time is relative no matter how we want to set boundaries around it with countdown timers in schools, digital calendars in our smart(!) phones and computers, and the number of days, weeks, and months. This is exactly how I have perceived time during the first week of my “minigration2” (i.e., mini-immigration) to Japan.

I am a seasoned immigrant. I moved and adapted to cities like Newcastle, Luxembourg, Västerås where I spent years of my life. My minigration to Kyoto has been a different story though in terms of how I perceive time and space. I have only been here for less than two weeks3, yet it feels like the new experiences and things I have encountered exceeds what I had seen during the first weeks in any other city I’ve lived in (and I still have more than four weeks to go!). Wherever you look, you see something that is totally new to you – the food you taste is not just amazing, but it also takes you to a journey of new experiences mixed with old tastes. When I spent time in Japanese classrooms, I took a spiritual journey which was a mixture of my childhood memories in classrooms in Gemlik4 and all the cultural fingerprints of Japanese culture embedded in the learning activities. Each and every moment I spent in the Japanese classrooms as an observer (and very briefly as a guest teacher) triggered reflections on the spot – it was almost like watching a film in small motion, noticing tons of things in what students and teachers do while at the same time, in the background, recalling classroom memories from my childhood, and then starting to compare, at the very moment, things that I observed in Swedish or Luxembourgish classrooms to what I see in Japan. All at the same time. It was full of life, and at the same time felt like a dream in consciousness. I woke up when one Japanese pupil approached me right after the lesson (in which I also taught briefly) and asked my opinions on the differences between Swedish and Japanese classrooms. I was shocked at first but was pleasantly surprised. This is a question that I have been trying to answer with my colleague Mika Ishino and my student-teachers in Sweden who worked with Japanese student-teachers as part of a teacher education course. Yet, the question comes from a 15-year-old boy, who takes the courage to ask in English a very grown-up question. Smart, courageous, curious, kind. I tried to explain him in just a minute what I think and what I have observed then and over the years.

Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, Kyoto. By Olcay Sert

Where was I. A countdown timer with a built-in magnet helped me reflect on time. How much time do we have? What do we want to do with it? What can be done? In a classroom, in a new city, with the people you know and with those you encounter for the first time. Does it help us if we are reminded about time ‘all the time’, like the students in Japanese classrooms who see the countdown timer on regular basis? So much and so many can go into a limited amount of time. The quality of experience, not its quantity, will matter. Same goes for learning and teaching activities. But what to do as a teacher? How can we manage the limited time we have to create limitless meaningful experiences for our students and for ourselves? We still need to be aware of the limits of time, while also refraining from constantly thinking about the quantitative borders time creates. Embrace every second, observe each pupil, smell the atmosphere of the classroom. Try to see all the little details in the physical environment and in what students do with the time we give them. It is a little bit of being able to slow down, appreciate the imperfection5 in the state of events, and being in peace with that imperfection. How much time do we have? That we do not know.

織在猿人(Olcay Sert )

17-21 July 2025, Kyoto

1. Although I am not aware of any classroom research on countdown timers, Tim Greer published research that investigates students’ orientations to countdown timers in testing settings in Japan:
Greer, T. (2019). Closing up testing: Interactional orientation to a timer during a paired EFL proficiency test. In H. T. Nguyen & T. Malabarba (Eds.) Conversation Analytic Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching and Testing in Global Contexts (pp. 159-190). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

2. I promise I will write a separate post on the concept of minigration.

3. When I started writing this post I was at the end of my first week.

4. I grew up in Gemlik, Bursa, where I completed my primary, secondary school education. 

5. This idea of embracing is strongly tied to Wabi Sabi. Check this out for a good introduction:
Kempton, B. (2018). Wabi Sabi: Japanese wisdom for a perfectly imperfect life. Hachette UK.

Getting out of the comfort zone, again? On our AI-Write project, Limerick, and the future of higher education (in Europe)

We are living in the times when at least half of the LinkedIn users1, AI-influencers, or people you barely know are telling you to get out of your comfort zone, before you have had enough time to spend in and enjoy your “comfort zone” (i.e. doing what you know best – apparently it is “not cool” anymore :/). Every day. Perform perform perform. Yet again, I decided to get out of my comfort zone by accepting to be part of the AI-Write project – focusing on two things I knew little about (from a research perspective): “Artificial Intelligence (AI)” and “writing”. You know what? I am very happy that I did it. Fasten your seat belts. I will tell you why.

I am writing this post from my hotel room in Limerick, Ireland (and in less than 4 hours, at 06:00 am, I will start my journey to go back home, to Västerås). We have completed, today, the third work package (led by the University of Limerick) of the AI-Write project, which is an “Erasmus+ funded project that aims to revolutionise the landscape of academic writing in English through the development of innovative approaches and supporting materials that leverage AI tools2“. No pressure. Today, we had an event during which we showcased the first drafts of our Open Educational Resources (OERs), designed to assist students, teachers, teacher educators, and researchers (and we had an amazing plenary by Prof Mark Warschauer, University of California). The OERs we designed are on (1) AI literacy and data privacy, (2) prompt engineering, (3) pedagogy, reflection, and assessment, (4) planning and drafting, and (5) revising and editing. These are multimodal resources, lesson plans, info-graphics, videos (and whatnot) that are designed to help students and teachers. The OERs were designed by dedicated teachers/researchers/teacher educators from the University of Hildesheim (Germany), University of Limerick (Ireland), University of Antwerp (Belgium), Mälardalen University (Sweden), and the University of Innsbruck (Austria). They are being piloted, they will be tested, they will be disseminated. They are designed by the awesome people (see the picture below 😉 ) in the project, who I am happy to call colleagues and friends now; who care, and are curious, and are good educators who know their contexts well, and who do want to do something, together, collaboratively, beyond their universities, cities, countries (the longest sentence ever). We know now (better) the differences between our (institutional) contexts, but we also love our similarities. One thing we all agree(d) on today: WE LOVE LIMERICK!

Maybe it is the Irish hospitality, our amazing hosts, Guinness, nature, or the campus full of students who enjoy where they are (confession: we have to work on that in Västerås and Eskilstuna). The “human” connection with “the space” is what you immediately notice, appreciate, and fall in love with at Limerick University- on campus. And then you realize the things you might lose when the effect, the role, the say, the spirit of us, the humans, diminish from anything we do – including “writing”. We love writing. It is one of the most human and the most creative things that we have ever done. And now we have decided that we will let some of that power go by collaborating with AI: “sharing the agency”. But wait a minute. Are we sharing a cake – so AI takes a part of the cake and we take the other part?. Why should it be 1.0 cake? When we collaborate, with AI, maybe the cake gets bigger? And you see the parts of the universe that was not possible to see before? (Personal opinion: with AI, I am more optimistic; with LLMs, a bit less optimistic).

Anyhow. This post is supposed to be about our project 🙂 But also, as I promised in the title, about the future of higher education (in Europe). With our AI-Write project, we took a bold step and created open educational resources for teachers and students, aiming to provide them with resources that can support the ways they think, argue, write, edit, revise, present, publish. We wanted to do this by standing on the shoulders of giants: which means we (wanted to) benefit from decades of research findings based on learning sciences, pedagogy, didactics, second language acquisition (SLA), applied linguistics, and TESOL. We will do our best to reach the goal we promised that we would reach. And this brings us to the final part of this so far relatively boring (but come o:::n, kind of engaging) text. The future of higher education (in Europe).

It is possibly quite obvious for our partners in Austria, Germany, Ireland, and Belgium: EU projects are (extremely) valuable as they provide the platform for bringing together and developing skills and competencies from multiple cultures, but also for facilitating global citizenship. In Sweden, however, some universities have gone through a period in the past when EU projects were not supported, encouraged, and appreciated enough (money money money). I am happy to say that there is a wind of change – but we need to make sure that the wind blows. We need each other more than we ever did, not just because AI is out there now and is making us question what is it that is “human” in everything we do in higher education. What went wrong in the ways we do “science communication” within academia that so many people are panicking due to what they call “disturbance” or “distraction” by AI? (i.e. all those research articles that we write for each other and then give to a publisher for free so that they can sell it back to our university, with all those peer reviews by our colleagues who spend 10 hours doing a nasty review the time of which is paid by their employers, which, in most of the cases, pay them through the taxes of the people who live in the country where the universities they work at and for are located in)?3 . We need to remember, collectively, in Europe and elsewhere, that higher education is Higher EDUCATION! The education we design and deliver should be of highest standards, innovative, inspiring, research-based, futuristic, exciting, original, authentic. No pressure (!). AI-Write is an attempt towards this direction and towards the realities of higher education in the future in which “education, research, and collaboration” are intertwined. If we want to design the future of higher education in the world with humans at the center, we need to combine these three pillars (i.e. education, research, and collaboration) with internationalization, with collaboration projects between institutions from different countries, with engagement between researchers and practitioners. We do need to blend human creativity with new understandings of intelligence (see hybrid intelligence).

To make this possible, and to make sure that higher education plays a central role in facilitating human well-being, development, and equity, we do (maybe) need to get sometimes out of our comfort zones, but also use what we know best already. To transfer this developing knowledge to other people and to the next generation, WE HAVE TO WRITE! How we write, OUR control on what we write, and to whom we write shall still stay as the central capital of human hybrid intelligence. We need to learn from the Irish creativity, hospitality, positivity, and develop a humanistic way to approach technology. We will need to write about it. Our project, AI-Write, is a step forward.

Olcay Sert
2 May, 2025
Limerick

1. The other half is busy to be “thrilled(!) to announce that” they have a new Qx publication or something.
2. https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/aiwrite/
3. ok, this might be the longest sentence ever.

Sihirli Ağaç – Amatör bir yazarın macerası

Çocuklarıma yıllardır hikayeler anlatıyorum. Amatörce, seve seve, içimden gelerek, ama üzerine çok düşünmeden anlatıyorum. Yatağın baş ucuna oturduğumda dilimin beynimden daha hızlı olabildiği anlarda ardı ardına serüvenler karalıyorum hayalimde. Amatörce, basitçe, ama seve seve…Çocuklarım bazı hikayelerde maceraların içerisinde olmayı çok seviyorlar. İşte böyle başladı “Sihirli Ağaç” bir gece, hiç planlamadan, önceden kurgulamadan, dilimin kemiksiz olduğu bir gece Teoman’ın ve Defne’nin serüvenleri bir hikaye serisine dönüşüverdi.

Teoman ve Defne birbirini çok seven iki kardeşler bu macera serisinde. Västerås’ta bir ormanın yanı başında yaşıyorlar, ormanda üzerinde sihirli bir kapı olan bir ağaç buluyorlar. Bu kapı sadece yağmur yağarken ve Teoman ve Defne onun yanındayken açılıyor, ve bu iki kardeşi bazen geçmişe, bazen geleceğe, bazen babalarının çocukluğuna, bazen İspanya’ya, bazen Türkiye’ye götürüyor. Uzun zaman bu hikayeyi anlattım geceleri çocuklarıma, her seferinde yeni bir macera uydurarak – dediğim gibi: planlamadan, kurgulamadan, dilim döndüğünce.

Ama söz uçar yazı kalır.

Bir gün Defne’ye hikayeyi anlatırken bilgisayarımın metin yazma programında dikte özelliğini kullandım ve hikaye dağınık bir şekilde yazıya döndü. Dağınık, düzensiz, itinasız, rasgele. Ama önümde duruyordu, budanmayı bekleyen ama 50 yıldır el değmemiş bir bahçe gibi. Aldım elime makası kestim, biçtim, ekledim, çıkardım. Sadece bir kaç saat içinde, çünkü hemen o gece Ipad’den okumak istiyordum Teoman’a ve Defne’ye. Hikayenin olay örgüsünü biraz da olsa yansıtan resimler de çıkarmıştım bir yapay zeka programında. Geceye yetiştirdim, çocuklar sevdi, ertesi gün tekrar okumamı istediler, tekrar, tekrar… Eşim ve dört arkadaşımdan dönüt aldım, ama tabi ki en önemli dönüt çocuklardandı. Şu ana kadar altı çocuk (severek) dinledi hikayeyi.

Benim işlerim hep acele.

Elektronik kitap olarak herkesin ulaşabilmesini istedim bu kitaba ve gelecekte büyüyecek serisine. Halbu ki bekle, demle. Ama zamanı kim kaybetmiş ki ben bulayım. Hem amatörsün, hem zamanın yok…

Eksiğiyle, yanlışıyla “Sihirli Ağaç -İlk Macera” bayilerinizde 🙂 İsterim ki dünyanın dört bir yanındaki çocuklar okusun, sevsin Teoman ve Defne kardeşlerin maceralarını. 5-12 yaş arası çocuklara uykuya dalmadan önce okunabilecek bir kitap olduğunu düşünüyorum. Şimdi sadeleştirilmiş Türkçe baskısı üzerine de çalışıyorum, hem küçük çocuklar için, hem de Türkçe’yi yabancı dil olarak öğrenenler için.

Uzun yazının kısası, 5-12 yaş arası çocuklarınız veya tanıdığınız çocuklar varsa ve tablet üzerinden de okuma tecrübesinin onlar için uygun olduğunu düşünüyorsanız Sihirli Ağaç’ı keşfedin. Eğer verdiğim web bağlantılarından kitabı indiremiyorsanız lütfen benimle iletişime geçin- size kitabı elektronik formatta, ücretsiz, seve seve göndereceğim.

Son olarak, tüm profesyönel çocuk kitabı yazarlarından şimdiden özür diliyorum. Bu benim işim değil, eğitimini almadım, deneyimim yok, zamanım hiç yok. Benim ne haddime dedim bir kaç kere kitabı yayınlamadan önce. Omuzumdaki şeytanın kulağıma fısıldadıklarını dinledim bu sefer: Profesyönel futbol oynayamayacağımız için sokakta top koşturmayalım mı? Nota bilmiyoruz diye dört akorla gitar çalmayalım mı?

Sihirli Ağaç tüm çocuklara, ve çocuk ruhlu amatörlere gelsin.

Olcay Sert, 12 Kasım 2024, Västerås

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Taş ve Şarap: Bir mübadil torunu anısı

Bir Eylül sabahı Kavala’dan (Καβάλα) çıktım yola Petros’un arabasında. Kavalalı Petros dedemin doğduğu köy olan Komnina’ya (Κομνηνά) ilk ziyaretimde yoldaşım oldu. Komnina İskeçe’de (Xanthi – Ξάνθη) bir köy, eski adıyla Kurular. Komnina yolunda dedemi ve Bursa’nın Gündoğdu (Palladari – Παλλαδάρι, ya da Filedar) köyündeki çocukluğumu düşündüm. Rodop dağlarını yavaşça tırmanırken zeytin ve incir ağaçlarının kokusu geldi burnuma. Bir yandan Petros ile muhabbet ediyor, diğer yandan yolun güzelliğine dalıp gidiyordum. Ne kadar güzel bir yoldu bu. Köy meydanında Dimitris ile buluşacaktım.

Dimitris ve ben

Bundan aylar önce bir Facebook mübadele grubuna dedemin köyünü görmek istediğimi yazmıştım. Dimitris bana hemen mesaj atıp beni karşılayıp gezdirebileceğini söylemişti. İşte bizden biri demiştim içimden. Dimitris de benim gibi bir mübadil torunuydu. Benim dedelerimin zorunlu göç yolu İskeçe-Kurular’dan Bursa’nın Gündoğdu köyüneymiş, onun dedelerininkisi Samsun-Erikli’den Komnina’ya. Farklı yollar, benzer hayatlar. Dimitris hayvancılıkla uğraşıyor, aslında Komnina’nın hemen yanı başındaki başka bir eski Türk köyünden kendisi, eşi de Komnina’lı bir Giresun mübadili. Komnina’ya varınca köy meydanında buluştuk, Osmanlı zamanından kalma ulu bir ağacın altına oturduk. Anında Türk/Yunan kahvesi geldi ve başladık muhabbete. Dimitris de benim Komnina’ya gittiğim gibi Samsun’a gitmiş, gezmiş. Bana Komnina köyünü ve tarihini anlatmaya başladı.

Kurular olmuş Komnina

Komnina’da bugün 150 kişi yaşıyor sadece. Gençler zamanla büyük şehirlere ve yurt dışına göçmüş. Köyün üç büyük mahallesine Karadeniz’in farklı bölgelerinden gelen Pontus Rumları yerleşmiş. Biraz güldük beraber bu duruma- aynı köyde farklı göçmen gruplar… Bizde de öyle, Gündoğdu köyünde… Pomaklar ve İskeçeliler. Aynı yolun tozunu yutsa da yoldaşlar kolay birleşmiyor farklı anadan kardaşlar 🙂 Dimitris’in atalarıyla göç yollarımız farklı, ama hikayelerimiz aynı. Topraklarından ve evlerinden koparılan dedelerimiz, ninelerimiz birleştiriyor bizi. Dimitris’le konuşurken bir yandan çevreme bakıyordum. Arkamızda tütününü saran bir köylü oturuyordu, uzakta da bir iki kişi, o kadar. Sessiz, sakin bir köy. Oturduğumuz meydanda bir kadın heykeli çarptı gözüme. Hemen sordum biraz da korkarak, belli ki bu kadın bir kahraman, ya da bir kurban. Umarım Türkler öldürmemiştir dedim içimden bir yandan. İnsan bazen kendi yapmadığı şeylerden suçlana suçlana suçlu hissetmeye başlar yok yere. Bizim biraz kollektif hissimiz bu bazen. Heykel ikinci dünya savaşı yıllarında Bulgar askerleri tarafından katledilen birisine aitmiş. O zor zamanlar hakkında konuştuk biraz, Dimitris’in ve Petros’un gözleri doldu. Sanki havayı değiştirmek istercesine Türklerden kalanlar hakkında konuşmaya başladık hemen. Kahveler bitti, sıra Komnina’da Kurular’dan kalan ayak izlerini bulmaya geldi.

Komnina’daki Kurular: Dedemin ayak izleri

Meraklı gözlerle çevreme bakmaya devam ediyordum. Ağaçlar, evler, mahalleler. Peki dedemin ayak izleri neredeydi? Türklerden neler kalmıştı Komnina’da? Kurulardan geri kalan sadece hikayeler mi, yoksa var mı bir ağaç, var mı bir taş parçası? Varsa nerede?  Dimitris’e sordum neler kalmış diye. Gölgesinde oturduğumuz ağacı ve biraz ileride bir başka ağacı işaret etti – bu iki ağaç kalmıştı Osmanlı’dan. Kalktım resimlerini çektim. Biraz içim burkuldu, başka bir şey yok muydu? Bir ev, bir duvar? Köydeki mahallelerden birisinin adı “Feleki” mahallesiymiş: bildiğiniz Felek. Köyün en zenginiymiş vakti zamanında, mahallenin ismi ondan gelmiş. Bir onun evi, bir de harabe halinde başka bir ev kalmış Türklerden. İçimde (u)mutlu bir kıpırtı…. Yani bir şeyler vardı: dedemin, büyük babaannemin yürüdüğü yolları görecektim belki de. Hemen Petros’un arabasına atladık üçümüz, yavaşça ilerlemeye başladık köyde. Solda bir kilise gördük. Dimitris o kilisenin muhtemelen önceden bir camii olduğunu söyledi, şaşırmadım. Bizim memlekette de kiliseler camii yapılmış. Yıkılıp yok edilmesinden iyidir dedim içimden. Dar toprak bir yolda ilerlerken arabayla bir yandan muhabbet ediyorduk Dimitris ile. Pontus Rumları Komnina’ya göç ettiğinde ilk başta bir iki yıl Türklerle aynı evlerde yaşamışlar. “Zor olmamış mı?” dedim. Gülümsedi, kolay olmamış. Ama “çok güzel yaşayıp gitmişler, biz dedelerimizden kötü hiçbir şey duymadık” dedi Dimitris. Anneler bebeklerine Türkçe konuşurmuş o zaman dedi Dimitris, Türkçe köyde kullanılan bir dilmiş.

Toprak yolda ilerlerken birden duruverdik. Sağda solda pek bir şey göremedim. “İşte köyde Türklerden kalma iki evden birisi” dedi Dimitris – bir harabe. Çatısı yok, sadece taşlar var, ama pencere ve kapıların yerleri belli. Virane evin içine tırmandım, hemen yanı başında bizim Gündoğdu’daki gibi bir incir ağacı vardı. Bir video çekmeye başladım babama göndermek için, bir yandan da anlatıyordum videoda neler gördüğümü – birisine hemen anlatmalıydım çünkü, tarihin içinde yürüyordum, üstüne basıyordum. Belki de büyük büyük dedem, büyük babaannem, dedem bu eve girdi çıktı, önünden geçti, bu mahallede yürüdü. Bir yandan dikenler kesiyor kanatıyordu bacaklarımı, hiç aldırış etmedim. Fotoğraflar çektim, evin tarihini içime soludum. Taşları inceledim duvarlardaki. Eğildim ve küçücük bir taş aldım iki büyük taşın arasından. Sıkı sıkı sıktım avcumda taşı. Bu taş tarihin tanığıydı, tarihin ta kendisiydi. Cebime koydum hemen. Dimitris’e de söyledim biraz da utanarak, güldü, keşke daha büyük bir taş alsaydın dedi. Etkisinden çıkamıyordum evin. Arabaya doğru yürüdüm. Artık ben aynı ben değildim o evin içine girdikten sonra. Dimitris bana ikinci ev olan Feleki’nin evini göstereceğini söyledi, ama üzülerek eve dış sıva yaptırıldığını ve artık tarihinden eser kalmadığını söyledi. Eve vardık, büyük bir evdi, ama maalesef bende bir önceki harabe evin bıraktığı etkiyi bırakmadı.

Taş ve şarap

Tekrar arabaya bindik. “Köyün girişinde bir otel var oraya gideceğiz şimdi” dedi Dimitris. İlk başta anlamadım nedenini, neden bir otele gidiyorduk ki? Bu oteli daha önce internette görmüştüm, taştan bir kaleyi andırıyordu mimarisi, çok hoş bir yerdi. Taştan duvarların önünde durduğumuzda anladım neden buraya geldiğimizi. Bu taşların bir kısmı Türklerin evlerinden kalma taşlarmış, otelin yapımında kullanılmış. Türklerden kalma başka bir şey daha gördüğüm için sevindim. Otelin bahçesine girerken muhabbet ediyorduk, ben Bursa’daki köyümüzü ve Pomaklar ile İskeçelilerin nasıl yaşadığını anlatıyordum. “Hah” dedi Dimitris, zaten bu oteli işletenler de Pomak. Zaten bahçeyi gezip otele girdiğimizde anladım hemen, lobide sanki tanıdık birisi: sarışın, renkli gözlü, güler yüzlü bir kadın. Gündoğdu köyünün Pomağı gibi… Bahçeyi gezerken oteli işletenlerin köydeki üzümlerden kendi şaraplarını yaptığını söyledi Dimitris. Birer şişe şarap aldık hatıralık. Oradan ayrılıp hemen köyün girişindeki eski bir kral mezarına gittik. Mezar kapalıydı, ama orada olmamızın asıl sebebi kral mezarı değildi, üzüm bağlarını görmekti. Dedemin köyünün üzümleri, ondan yapılan beyaz şarap, ve tarihin içinde ve ötesinde bir yolculuk. Dimitris’i köyün merkezine bıraktık, kendisine çok teşekkür ettim ve vedalaştık. Bursa’ya ya da İsveç’e gitmek isterse benimle iletişime geçmesini söyledim. Kendisine bir de söz verdim: Gündoğdu köyünün tarihini anlatan bir kitap olduğunu söylemiştim ona, bizim köylü birisi yazmış. Kitap çok ilgisini çekti, kitabı bulup ona göndermeye söz verdim.

Rodop dağlarından Kavala’ya dönüş

Dönüşte farklı bir yoldan götürdü beni Kavala’ya Petros: dağlara tırmandık ve tekrar aşağıya indik. Güzel insan Petros. Selanik havaalanında tanıştığımızda ısınmıştı kanım ona. Rodop dağlarından dönüşte bol bol muhabbet ettik, bu yolculuğun onun için de çok güzel geçtiğini söyledi. Sevdiğimiz yemeklerden, futboldan, memleketlerden, ortak güzelliklerimizden ve dertlerimizden konuştuk. Kavala’ya vardığımızda doğduğu apartmanı ve yaşadığı mahalleleri gösterdi bana. Kavala’da birkaç günüm daha vardı. Güzel Kavala, can Kavala. Esnafı, balıkçısı, börekçisi, denizi, havası, sokakları, tarihi ve insanı. Kavala’da deniz kenarında yürürken bir akşam kendime şöyle dedim: ben artık sadece Bursa Gündoğdu’lu Olcay değil, Rodop dağlarındaki Komnina köyünden Abdurrahim’in torunu Olcay’ım.

Son söz

Taş ve Şarap

Bir küçük taş, bir şişe beyaz şarap

Fark eder mi Türk, Yunan, Arap

Aynı denize bakmışız

Beraber aş yapmışız

Geçse de yüz yıl aradan

Buluşuruz denizden ve karadan

Kurular olur Komnina

Filedar olur Gündoğdu

Dedeler kızıp darılsa da, dosttur mübadilin kızı oğlu.

Olcay Sert, 29 Eylül 2024

Internationalisation starts at home – but only at the mercy of the landlords and tenants

Internationalisation is both a goal and a process at many universities located in countries where English is not one of the official languages. Swedish universities are no exception. Internationalisation extends to research collaborations, education, and staff and student mobility. It is not just a process of reaching out to and collaborating with universities, researchers, teaching staff, and students in other countries, but it is also a process of building a safe space at home, where your co-workers and students from different cultures, countries, backgrounds can work, socialize, create, and thrive together. Like it or not, English language, as a world lingua franca, is the primary instrument to achieve this. Internationalisation starts at home – but only at the mercy of the landlord and tenants.

I work in the school of education at an emerging university which does not have a PhD programme in language studies (of any kind). The administrative language is Swedish, and the medium of instruction for the compulsory courses in the PhD programme in Didactics (?) is Swedish (I have to note that, though, I have fantastic colleagues, admin staff and academics, who have always been flexible with the use of English – and this is one of the reasons I love them and this workplace). Needless to say, a university has all the rights to decide on the medium of administration and teaching, fair enough. But the problem starts when “internationalisation” becomes one of the goals in the institution, which requires deconstructing local structures and institutional habits. In other words, in transforming from a local university college (a högskola, remember?) to a university (i.e. an international workplace), you need to open a can of worms.

Where do you start? The language of meetings, creating courses in English for Erasmus and other exchange students, the medium of communication in research events, emails, announcements, fika conversations… How do you make sure that you are not excluding Swedish speakers who do not speak English (personal note: I have not seen any), or English speakers who cannot speak Swedish (I have seen many). How do you recruit international PhD students? (surprise surprise: put the ad out in English, create courses in English). One of the arguments I hear is that “educational research” is for teachers and is local, for local needs, so things need to be in Swedish. So educational science (as opposed to other sciences) should be freed from English and internationalisation? How about poor engineers doing their Phd in English then? Should we also stop anything that is in English for them too? Good luck with that. The second argument is that we may damage “Swedish as a scientific language” with too much English. My argument, in response to all this, is that English and Swedish can co-exist in Swedish higher education. A healthy co-existence will create a university for all, and a university that will combine global perspectives with local needs.

Numa Markee’s “technoblurbs” and my technical and workflow choices

Numa Markee created a webpage that has very useful information for Conversation Analysis researchers who want to have an overview of software and hardware for recording, transcriptions, and other tasks: https://numamarkee.com/resources/

The page has a section (please scroll down) that presents real world examples of technical and workflow choices from CA researchers (see, for example, the workflow documents of Klara Skogmyr Marian, Tom Koole, Adam Brandt & Piera Margutti).

I wrote a piece about my technical and workflow choices and described how I use Transana, NVIVO, Antconc, VEO, GIMP, QuickTime, and Wondershare Filmore for my work. I hope this text would be useful for PhD students and early career researchers. I would like to thank again to the one and only Numa Markee for his support for novice researchers and never-ending energy to disseminate knowledge about CA.

“You need to be reminded about those small things that make differences”: Classroom interaction and language teaching

I was invited to write a guest blog for Karlstad University, Centre for Language and Literature Education.

I wrote about the importance of classroom interaction in language teaching, arguing for a focus on classroom interaction in initial teacher education and continuous professional development.

The full text is available at https://sola.kau.se/cslblog/2023/05/31/you-need-to-be-reminded-about-those-small-things-that-make-differences-classroom-interaction-and-language-teaching/

I would like to thank Rickard Nilsson and Andrea Schalley for this opportunity and their constructive feedback on an earlier version of the text.