Bekir's Place "Theories and Methods of TESL"

Class Time Reflections (Peer Review/Week16-4/27/2009)

2009-05-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

The week of peer review! We had a chance to review our works; we could not believe that we had more than 50 pages for the final portfolio. We had nice comments about the final projects and arranged the meetings for the poster presentation.

Class Time Reflections (Assessment-2/Week15-4/20/2009)

2009-05-03T21:29:00.000-07:00

This week we started class by taking the test. It was an interesting experience. I am still wondering how the writing can be scored by computer it is very interesting because I wrote so much abstract issues for example, I wrote “the city of beauty and inspiration the best place to be an author” I have no idea how the computer scored those “emotional” phrases.

Assigned Reading Reflections (Assessment-2/Week15-4/20/2009)

2009-04-27T18:11:00.000-07:00

This week the reading assignment is about classroom-based assessment. In chapter 24 Brown discusses the topic. Firstly, he explains the difference between the norm-referenced and criterion referenced testing. Secondly, some practical steps to test construction such as identifying clear objectives, drafting the test, revising the test etc.. Thirdly, some fundamentals of testing are described in the book such as validity, wasback, and authenticity etc.
Brown also discusses alternatives in assessment. Portfolios, journals, conferences, and observations are discussed in details. In my opinion if the test is not high-stake then alternatives in assessment might be useful. Because in this kind of assessment teacher has a chance to scaffold the students better and since students are not supposed to take the test in certain time and setting they are friendlier.
In terms of comparing tests to alternatives in assessment, for example for a medicine doctor it is essential that for decision makers to be sure that he is qualified to does that job. If he is not well qualified then the results might be severe for patients. On the other hand, in terms of life-long learning I think alternatives in assessment are useful. Since the aim here is to develop the society it had better to facilitate learners instead of putting them under the pressure by asking them to take stressful test within certain times. To decide what kind of assessments we should apply it is essential to consider the aim of learning activities so that it can be decided if it is appropriate or not.

Class Reflections (Assessment-1/Week14-4/13/2009)

2009-04-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I was late to the class this week. So I missed Jodi’s presentation. When I came to GLL she was till presenting so I was able to listen to some part of presentation thanks to her stentorian voice. I wish I had such a powerful voice.
In the small group activity about assessment I speculated some of new reading assessment techniques which I just learned it was helpful to heard some comments about it. The time is passing super fast these days for me. There are tons of assignments to do but I will enjoy vocation during summer.

Assigned Reading Reflections (Assessment-1/Week14-4/13/2009)

2009-04-17T17:51:00.001-07:00

This week, reading assignment was about second language assessment. I found the content very useful because there were a lot of essential information about assessment. Firstly, it was stated on students perceptions about testing which is fearful. Then the reasons why do we need to assess the students were explained. Types of assessment and test items were also described in details. After that, the fundamentals of testing were listed such as reliability, validity. I think the very heart of testing is validity because every valid test is reliable but not every reliable test is valid.

Class Time Reflections (Writing-2/Week13-4/6/2009)

2009-04-07T21:37:00.001-07:00

This week, the class went so smoothly. It started with the presentation about Korean education system. It was so sad that education may cause so severe consequences. The comparison between the number of people who were killed in Vietnam War (5000) and the number of people who suicide because of that examination (8000) are worth to think about it. I am glad that we had an opportunity to show our presentation at the class it helped us a lot in terms of feedback. Today, we present is in the seminar and fortunately, we are done now. I really liked the activity made by Aaron and Kizuna it was a good summary of reading assignment. In our group we dealt with writing tasks it helped us to refresh and add valuable contribution to our knowledge about the topic. Sharing and listening other groups opinion was a great pleasure, too. Lastly, the whole class discussion was interesting in terms of handling the challenges of writing. These weeks are extremely, busy for me. But I feel that we exposes a great number of knowledge each week and hopefully it going to be very helpful in teaching in the future.

Assigned Reading Reflections (Writing-2/Week13-4/6/2009)

2009-04-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

This week, reading assignment was about how to develop an effective writing curriculum. Among a great number of information was discussed such as feedback, error correction, types of writing tasks, the role of grammar in teaching writing etc.
In the light of reading assignments, I think students firstly needs to be introduced the fundamentals of writing ability. It is a fact that among four skills writing is the least used one. With speaking writing is considered to be a productive skill. To be able to teach efficiently ESOL teachers firstly need to state on the nature of writing. Bearing in mind that every individual is unique, students need to be introduced with writing by a variety of techniques and materials. There is a cycle in writing. This cycle basically consists of pre-writing, drafting, and revising activities. Students need to be familiar with this cycle before they start to writing activities. Writing is a process and at the end of the process there is a production. To help students to reach that product an ESOL teacher needs to consider a number of techniques in the process. One of them is engaging students to writing task. It might be helpful to let students choose their own topic and ask them to study collaboratively at this stage. In the drafting stage since students already have something written they need feedback and some advices at this stage. I think this stage should be expanded enough because students need time to discuss and organize their thoughts at this stage. Finally, at the revising stage students need comments on their product to improve their ability. It is critically important to provide as much as possible feedback to help student to correct himself and improve his ability at this stage.

Class Time Reflections (Writing/Week12-3/30/2009)

2009-04-04T20:40:00.000-07:00

My Presentation
Firstly, the presentation was really helpful to see my strengths and weakness. Secondly, it is almost impossible perform your ideal plan. As a warm-up activity I chose a short video clip and I thought it could be helpful engage students into topic. But I could explain why I want the class to watch video and how it was related to the topic. Since, I had very limited time I could not explain that. I am a visual learner I like to see the picture of issue. So I think providing agenda is always useful. Another issue that I should bear in mind is my sound level. I have a soft voice. Since I am aware of this I was planning to ask the classmates to move one part of the classroom so that they could hear me easily. But I changed my mind when I started to presentation. To grasp audience interest it is helpful to ask something interesting. So I think the question about whether writing is more like art or like swimming was helpful because I felt that the class was engaged. I preferred to start with writing in general and then bring the students to teaching writing specifically. In term of voice and identity firstly I reminded the class that I have a very limited time this caused them to not share their opinion I think time management is a big deal when you are presenting something. Another issue for me I tried to present the issue in an interactive way so that the class could get involved in actively. To manage this I asked a number of questions. And I like how you got your classmates to answer the questions of other classmates. I could have not mentioned about the tips already mentioned so that I could save some time. Last but not least, for the groupings giving a rationale was helpful. I divided the class into group of three and in each of the group there was a TA. This was helpful to activate the groups.

Assigned Reading Reflections (Writing/Week12-3/30/2009)

2009-04-04T20:38:00.000-07:00

This week, reading assignment was about teaching writing. H.D. Brown, book focused on three basic things.
1. What do good writers do?
Focus on Writing Goal (main idea)
Gauge audience
Take time to plan
Let their ideas flow onto paper
Follow general organizational plan as they write
Get and use feedback
Are not fixated on a particular surface structure
Revise their work (willingly & efficiently)
Make as many revisions as needed
These points give us an insight about the nature of writing ability.
2. Tips for Teaching Writing
Teach effective writing strategies
Balance both process and product
Allow for cultural and literary backgrounds
Connect reading and writing
Provide many opportunities for authentic writing
Use prewriting, drafting, revising stages
Provide opportunities for interaction (pair/group work)
Respond to writing sensitively
Provide clear instructions on rhetorical and formal conventions of writing
In my opinion these tips are really helpful in terms of teaching writing.
3. The third issue was about assessing writing
USE A RUBRIC
Create a checklist to ensure that you FAIRLY evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the writing, not the character or attitude of the writer.

I found these three points quite helpful to understand the nature of writing, how to teach it, and how to assess the writing.

Class Time Reflections (Reading/Week11-3/23/2009)

2009-04-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

This week, the class discussion about gender differences & literacy was interesting for me. In my opinion more than gender the issue is about individual differences. Some people are able to start to read or write early, while some of them are not. Similarly, some people are able to read and understand faster than others. I think these are quite normal and they are related with individual differences. As ESOL teachers being aware of this fact is essential. So that we can tailor our classes, accordingly. Although, it is a fact that there are individual differences among people. We still can help our students by exposing them literacy in early ages. For example, in Finland, the government changed the education policy and students started to learn in early ages (3 and 4). The results are great. Because, literacy and is not like riding a bicycle it is about providing input in various ways, using a variety of teaching methods and techniques and activate the potential of human beings.

Assigned Reading Reflections (Reading/Week11-3/23/2009)

2009-03-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

This week’s reading focuses on teaching children literacy skills. It is stated that reading is a complex and interactive process. The importance of early teaching is emphasized. The role of L1 is discussed and it is stated that L1 literacy directly affects L2 literacy. At his point it an important development that a number of country has changed their foreign language policy because a great number of research shows that “early language teaching is essential” for instance in my country children start to learn a foreign language when they are at 4th grade. Two main teaching approaches in early language literacy are discussed in the book. The first one is Part centered approach according to this approach a language should be taught from the small units to the whole. The second one is Socio-psycholinguistic approach. According to this approach students should be taught from the familiar units to unknown units gradually. I learned my L1 by starting from the small units to the whole units. I can remember it clearly it was the first day of the school. Our teacher asked us to draw some lines first, and then he asked us to read and write the alphabet. After that we learned syllables, then words and finally sentences. This system changed long time ago. Students are starting to read and write by sentences. It was really hard for me to learn English. Sometimes your L1 can be a disadvantageous to learn L2. Especially for adult learner this is a big challenge. They want to learn L2 as they learned their L1 and this might not be possible sometimes.

Class Time Reflections (Reading/Week10-3/16/2009)

2009-03-22T22:08:00.000-07:00

This week, we had a chance to discuss about teaching reading skills. I found techniques explained by the presentation team useful. We explored lots of creative activities for Pre-reading, During-reading, and Post-reading. Then we evaluated some books in the light of the techniques described in the apple book. That exercise was helpful, too. As an English teacher I am planning to arrange some reading sessions to engage my students to reading.

Assigned Reading Reflections (Reading/Week10-3/16/2009)

2009-03-22T20:09:00.000-07:00

An ESOL teacher should bear in mind that a great amount of input comes through reading. In this sense, especially extensive reading is significantly important in language teaching. On the other hand it is obvious that people can spend hours and hours in front of computer screen but most of them cannot stand to read even for ten minutes.It is clear that people lost their passion and skill to read. Why is that? What can we do as teachers? How can we prove that reading is fun?
In my opinion, reading should be for pleasure. The classrooms should be designed accordingly. Teachers should read by themselves, in the class so that they could raise students’ awareness. It is a scientific fact that reading helps in mental development. Reading helps people to have information on various topics. Because of all those reasons reading should be promoted in language classrooms.

Spring Break (Week-9/3/9/2009)

2009-03-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

Class Time Reflections (Speaking/Week8-3/2/2009)

2009-03-22T19:47:00.001-07:00

This week’s class topic was teaching speaking skill. It is an extremely interesting topic for me because I strongly believe that speaking is the very heart of the language. In addition, more than a receptive skill it is an productive skill. Here is the question then. How can we manage to make our students productive in terms of speaking ability?

In terms of accuracy and fluency, I think both of them are essential. In my opinion we should concentrate only one of them each time because it is almost impossible to ask for both of them at the same time. It had better to emphasize the importance of accuracy in grammar classes and the importance of fluency in speaking classes.
To be able to speak properly in the target language students need to be familiar with target culture, too. This is really a hot potato issue. Should we teach or exposed the students to the target language’s culture or not. We had harsh arguments during undergraduate years about this issue. I think it depends on the context.
Peer review of Final portfolio was quite useful, because we need help for this amount of workload.
I started to worry about my presentation. Could you please share your opinions about the presentations? It would be great to hear some suggestions.

Assigned Reading Reflections (Speaking/Week8-3/2/2009)

2009-03-01T22:20:00.000-08:00

This week there is a discussion about “Developing Children's Listening and speaking” in the Apple Book. It is stated that teaching young learner is different from teaching adults. So those who have not got any teaching experience can find a number of useful activities and techniques in this chapter. It is emphasized that teaching needs to be student centered and communication should be authentic because of the characteristic of children. A number of recommendations are listed here such as: focusing on meaning not on correctness; this is really important because children learn through games and they do not need to be corrected. Focus on the value of the activity, not the value of language; this is another aspect of teaching young learners because children tend to internalize the knowledge they do not care with the grammar they use the language just as a vehicle. Focus on collaboration and social development; this is another significant issue that an ESL teacher should bear in mind while teaching young learners. Provide a rich context, including movement, the senses, objects and pictures, and a variety of activities; young learners have a great imagine they can imagine anything they can act as if an astronaut, an actor, a parent etc. They are very active so the teacher needs to tailor the class accordingly the class should contain a variety of interesting activities which grasp everybody’s interests. Teach ESL holistically, integrating the four skills; this is something related with real-life situation in real life this skills are altogether it needs to be same in the ESL class, too. Treat learners appropriately in the light of their age and interest; a teacher need to consider the learners age and level while teaching. Treat language as a tool for children to use for their own social and academic ends; the language should facilitate them to prove students needs. Lastly use language for authentic communication, not as an object for analysis; more than theoretical knowledge something authentic should be focus of the classless while teaching young learners. These techniques might be so helpful in young learner context.

Class Time Reflections (Listening/Speaking/Week7-2/23/2009)

2009-03-01T17:54:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama as a good speaker of English:
In my opinion Mr. Obama is a good speaker of English. Firstly, he has an appropriate tone of voice. Secondly, he is able to use his body language effectively. Thirdly, his gestures and mimics are appropriate. Fourthly, his speech is clear and he is able to address to the listener directly. His word choices are so impressive and touchy. Finally, he is able to affect the audiences with his friendly manner.

Assigned Reading Reflections (Listening/Speaking/Week7-2/23/2009)

2009-03-01T17:28:00.001-08:00

As it is explained in the apple book speaking is the most difficult skill among the four skills. Why is that? Firstly it is not a passive skill but an active skill. Secondly, you need to be productive, because speaking is a production. Thirdly, to demonstrate this skill you need to listen appropriately have sufficient grammar and vocabulary and more importantly you need to be familiar with the foreign context. Another important issue is L1' effect in some language people do not prefer to speak directly but indirectly or in some languages you supposed to be silent in some situation but especially in English the speakers need to be explicit, and direct.
In terms of teaching speaking skill I think firstly this skill should be integrated to the other skills. Speaking should continue hand in hand with other skills. Learners need to be informed about the target culture so that they can figure out what they are supposed to say in certain contexts. Instead of unauthentic classroom activities it had better to use the power of technology and create some real-life situations for learners to demonstrate their speaking skills. Such as vidcasts, podcasts, synchronous chats etc.

Class Time Reflections (Listening/Week6-2/16/2009)

2009-03-01T17:17:00.000-08:00

One of the interesting activities this week for me was 'the best listening activity you ever taught.' It was so interesting that each of us has different favorite listening activity. I really enjoyed the Neuro Linguistic Programming listening activity the best among the listening activities I exposed :).
Secondly I find Voice of America, MPR, and BBC very helpful in terms of listening.
Lastly, I found Solen's presentation quite useful. Because it gave us an insight about ESL context. I strongly recommend EFL learners to learn pronunciation by Vodcasts they are really useful.

Assigned Reading Reflections (Listening/Week6-2/16/2009)

2009-03-01T17:00:00.000-08:00

The content of this week’s reading assignment is about listening skill in language learning process. It is clear that listening is one of the crucial components of language but it was regarded a passive skill throughout history. The importance of listening is emphasized in the apple book “We can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times than we write”.
Four model of listening is explained in the book:
Model #1 listening and repeating (imitating)
Model #2 listening and answering the comprehension questions
Model #3 task listening (listen and do)
Model #4 interactive listening
It is stated that listening is not a passive skill but a receptive skill which needs special attention in language study. It is described as highly active, clearly participatory, verbal experience.
Some of the listening ways are:
Bidirectional listening two way listener to speaker vice versa
Unidirectional listening input comes from a variety of ways
Auto directional listening self dialogue communication
The motto of listening skill might be “It is not what you say it is how you say it!”
Some of listening types are:
Transactional listening: message oriented
Interactional listening: personal oriented
Bottom-up processing: from sounds to words, words to grammatical relationships to lexical meanings.
Top-down processing: general to details

Class Reflections (Teaching the Language Skills/Week5-2/9/2009)

2009-03-01T16:52:00.000-08:00

This week the class was focessed on teaching grammar and teaching vocabulary. Teaching grammar has always been questioned while teaching vocabulary always has been considered a self study. In my opinion these are two essential skills for English learners and according to students needs teachers should benefit from both of them. In terms of teaching vocabulary Diana's presentation was useful because I strongly believe that it is helpful to expose students to new vocabularies many times in different contexts so that they can acquire them unconciously. To me vocabularies need to be acquired more than learned. According to me my experience and also researches support this view to the word list are not useful at all.

Assigned Reading Reflection (Teaching the Language Skills/Week5-2/9/2009)

2009-02-09T11:12:00.000-08:00

Form- Fucused Instruction
Teaching Grammar
Grammar has always been a challenge in Language Teaching. Although still there are lots of critiques about Grammar Translation Method, what has been placed? Do scholars really replaced something? To me, it is worth to think about it! HDB book somehow answers to the above questions. “Grammar tells us how to construct a sentence and discourse rules tell us how to string those sentences together. Semantic tells us something about the meaning of words and string words. Then pragmatics tells us about which of several meanings to assign given the context of an utterance or written text. (Structure, semantics and Pragmatics)”
GMT was concentrated on just form and mostly information was isolated. On the other hand “grammaring” is described as a dynamic process of engaging learners to knowledge of language more than solid information grammar is treated as a skill.
How “grammaring” can be applied?
According to Brown learners age, proficiency level, educational background, language skills style, needs and goals should be considered while teaching grammar. Since all these criteria’s are different teaching should be occurred accordingly.
According to students need and context grammar can be presented both inductively and deductively. More than meta-linguistic knowledge functional information is useful. Grammar should be integrated to the other language skills. It is clear that error correction is not useful. Charts, objects, maps and drawings, dialogues and other written texts are suggested as some helpful techniques to teach grammar.
Teaching Vocabulary
Allocating specific class time to vocabulary: Especially for young learners there are a lot of joyful vocabulary teaching techniques. For adults some teaching time for essential vocabulary is crucial. As teacher helping students to learn vocabulary in context is better than ask students to memorize them as it was in past. Bilingual dictionaries could be very useful in case of emergency but it is clear that they are not useful in terms of learning vocabulary in long process.

Class Time Reflection (Teachers and Their Classrooms/Week4-2/2/2009)

2009-02-02T19:20:00.001-08:00

In terms of cross-cultural communication "waiting time" was a kind of interesting for me because I realized that Mediterranean countries' people are relax so they do not wait 30 seconds. For instance I have been in Spain two times although my Spanish was not good enough people were so friendly and relax that you can communicate easily. I mean Spanish attitudes encourage you a lot to keep on communicating.
Another point that I realized during the class was proverbs. In Turkish we support our thesis by proverbs, I have not seen any sample of this here.
In the "apple book" it is stated that American people would mostly say "no" to the question of "Can I borrow your notes?" I was surprised when I heard that most of our classmates' answer would be "yes", that is really impressive.

Assigned Reading Reflection (Teachers and Their Classrooms/Week4-2/2/2009)

2009-02-02T13:09:00.000-08:00

Integrating the "Four Skills"
Brown states that teaching skills separately is not authentic. Because in the daily life we do not separate these four skills from each other. We may need 2/3/4 of them once so he suggest that it had better to integrate the four skills as it is in the real communication. In the next step of the book several models of skills integration are presented such as content-based instruction, task-based instruction, theme-based instruction, experiential learning... Among these models experimental learning grasped my interest. This model simply gives students a chance of concrete experience, which is good. But on the other hand I could not stop myself to ask HOWCOME!
Culture and Language Relation
This topic has always been a kind of HOT topic. We used to have lots of debate about this it during the undergraduate years. I come across lots of useful information throughout the chapter. But I am not quite sure about the conclusion yet. Hopefully, I will conclude during the class time.
As the author states that it is important for both teachers and students to be aware of the target language's socio cultural values, concepts, norms and behaviors because these help to communicate. On the other hand it should be bear in mind that the aim is to learn the target language not to be assimilated into the target culture.

Class Time Reflection (Issues in Professional Development/Week3-1/26/2009)

2009-02-02T12:43:00.000-08:00

I strongly believe to life long learning and sustainable development. Since teaching is a dynamic process it is essential for teachers to develop themselves. It was really useful to explore and discuss about teacher development in the class. I find inservice training course and conferences very useful in terms of teacher development.
I have participated in several conferences so far;
Ø European Union Support to Basic Education Program in Turkey “ Techniques and
Methods in Teaching English”
Ø NLP Neuro Linguistic Programming: British Council
Ø Teaching Young Learners: British Council
Ø International English Language Teaching Conference: Classroom Dynamics: Kultur
College
Ø International English Language Teaching Conference: Jazzing up Your Classroom:
Terakki Vakfi Schools
Ø International English Language Teaching Conference: Drama in ELT: Marmara
Schools
Ø International English Language Teaching Conference: The Very Heart of English
SPEAKING: Bahcesehir College
During the class time we had an oppurnutiy to share our experiences with clasmates that was really useful.

Class Time Reflections (Language Assessment: Principles and Issues/Dec1./Week15)

2008-12-03T19:44:00.000-08:00

This week the discussion about TOEFL was really interesting for me and I think it is worth to write for this week class time reflection. So I want to share my opinions about TOEFL here. To understand TOEFL first of all we need to clarify its purpose. Although this exam is used for various purposes the most known purpose is to measure the proficiency of English for students who want to study at the USA colleges. TOEFL has used three kinds of test throughout its history the first version was Paper Based which mainly concentrated on grammar, reading and writing abilities. The second version was a Computer -Based Test (CBT) here besides the previous skills listening skill is intended to be measured finally current version of it is Internet Based Test (IBT)which is based on communicative approach here four skills -integrated-are intended to be measured. In terms of wash back it is aimed to be a useful test especially in terms of communication but especially the speaking part of this test seems insane because instead of communication students desperately have to use some formulas for 45 seconds speaking questions. Last but not least there is a saying they say "In the blinds country someone who has got one eye is king" Among all other tests this test seems the best but it still needs to be developed.

Assigned Reading Reflection (Language Assessment: Principles and Issues/Dec.1/Week15)

2008-12-03T19:43:00.003-08:00

I think firstly the difference between testing and assessment is worth to be highlighted and it should be double considered by ESOL teachers. Realizing the difference between testing and assessment which is testing is basically measuring a person's knowledge or proficiency on the other hand assessment is described as an ongoing process of teaching activity is helpful for ESOL teachers. Furthermore, principles of language assessment are another crucial issue for ESOL teachers to be considered. Among those five basic principles of language assessment principles “1)Practicality 2)Reliability 3) Validity 4) Authenticity and 5) Wash back- wash back grasp my interest since it is a kind of reflections in terms of feed back to decision makers about whether the intended aims are obtained or not so this principle is significant. Finally since testing and assessment seems to terrify students and they are considered as a disadvantage a successful ESOL teacher can shift it to an advantage by knowing the difference between them.

Assigned Reading Reflection (Language Assessment: Principles and Issues/Dec.1/Week15)

2008-12-03T19:43:00.001-08:00

I think firstly the difference between testing and assessment is worth to be highlighted and it should be double considered by ESOL teachers. Realizing the difference between testing and assessment which is testing is basically measuring a person's knowledge or proficiency on the other hand assessment is described as an ongoing process of teaching activity is helpful for ESOL teachers. Furthermore, principles of language assesment are another crucial issue for ESOL teachers to be considered. Among those five basic principles of language assessment principles “1)Practicality 2)Reliability 3) Validity 4) Authenticity and 5) Wash back- wash back grasp my interest since it is a kind of reflections in terms of feed back to decision makers about whether the intended aims are obtained or not so this principle is significant. Last but not least since testing and assessment seems to terrify students and they are considered as a disadvantage a successful ESOL teacher can shift it to an advantage by knowing the difference between them.

Class Time Reflection Assigned Reading Reflection (Styles and Strategies/Nov.24/Week14)

2008-11-25T04:59:00.000-08:00

This week I quite like free writing activity about
"What are the way your learning Styles effect your teaching strategies"
I think you cannot teach more than you know, so firstly being aware of your own knowledge and how we acquire this knowledge is an important issue. After that we can analyze how we get our current knowledge and how we learned this knowledge by which learning styles and strategies. This analyze can gives us clues about us.
in my case I learned language in a variety of settings I started to learn in a rural area my hometown then I moved to a metropolitan city and then I prepared for TOEFL exam and now I am in an English speaking country all these settings play a great roles in terms of my styles and strategies.
On the other hand when I thought about my teaching experience I noticed that I mainly asked students to do visual things for as assignments then I am thinking now what if my student is not visual so as a teacher you have to have broad collections of styles and strategies. This week class time add valuable contribution to this progress in my mind.

Assigned Reading Reflection (Styles and Strategies/Nov.24/Week14)

2008-11-25T04:33:00.000-08:00

This week groupwork subject was really interesting for me. As a teacher I believe that more than any other roles teacher should be faciltator s/he should believe that every individual has a great potential all he needs to do is acting as a god model scaffold them and when they had a problem help them to solve. In this sense group work can be really useful? I was thinking about group work and I was aware of how much it is a useful activity but I could not figure out how can I apply it to my classroom thanks to this week reading assignment and HDB book the blurry picture in my mind became a bright picture now. I think sharing my presentation part about "planning to group work" could be useful for my classmates. So here a part of presentation. I found this group work very beneficial and I hope you like it, too.
1 Introduce the technique
Now in groups of five you are each going to get different aspects of group work:

Advantageous of group work
Excuses for group work
Selecting appropriate group techniques

and your job is making a poster and presenting it for the whole class.
2 Justify the Use of Small Groups for the Technique
Since our aim is to convey the unit 14 from HDB’s book in a short time we need to work collaboratively
in this sense group work seems the best technique for this activity.
3 Model the Technique
4 Give Explicit Detailed Instructions
The purpose of this task is making a poster about the topic and presenting it for the whole class.
Work collaboratively and follow the steps on the book (HDB).
You have 10 minutes to complete the task.
You can present the poster by choosing representative or you can present it collaboratively.
5 Divide the Class into Groups
We are going to divide you into three groups of five members.
You are free to make you own groups.
If not we can give each of you a number (1,2,3) and then make groups of ones, twos and threes:)
6 Check for Clarification
Is there any volunteer who want to restate or explain shortly what groups are supposed to do in this task.
7 Set the Task in Motion
Okay ladies and gentlemen now lets get into our groups and do our best!
Go mavericks!

Class Time Reflection (Integrating Learning/Nov.17/Week13)

2008-11-20T02:25:00.000-08:00

Teaching Literature may come some people challenging but since I love literature I love to teach literature, too. But here is the question how can we teach literature? This week in the class we had a chance to see two great implementations of teaching language by using literature. The first one presented by Adip, you chose a short story you ask students to answer the questions by providing two versions of story. You scaffold and modeling the story after as a teacher you are sure that the students understand and discuss the features of the story you ask them to write their own stories collaboratively.
The second story was an interesting story of a student. Here much more interesting point was we produced as a class more than 100 hundred activities which can be done by using the story it was amazing.

Assigned Reading Reflection (Integrating Learning/Nov.17/Week13)

2008-11-20T01:43:00.000-08:00

This week among the reading list classroom management by HDB grasp my interest. In my opinion classroom management is crucial in education. In this sense as the author states that "Is teaching an art or a science? Are teachers born or made? Is the learning-teaching connection poetic or predictable?" these are really interesting topics for me. As the author discuss classroom management another phase or cycle of of the teaching style. The Author lists a number of principles to provide classroom management. The physical environment of the classroom is first of them. I strongly agree with the author because a well designed, comfortable and equipped classroom is essential for a good education. Another fundamental issue for classroom management is teacher himself/herself. So an appropriate tone of voice and body language is important. I have heard a research about communication according to that research communication evaluated
33% of communication is body language
33% of communication is tone of voice
34% of communication is verbal language
By considering this amounts we can understand how importance of our voice and body language.
About unplanned or unexpected events (e.g. an unexpected debate among students)the author suggestion is "you will keep the respect of your students and your own self -confidence by staying calm, assessing the situation quickly, making a midstream change in your plan and allowing the lesson to move on." this really happens to lots of teacher and you may not know then what should you do this is a good suggestion for such situations. Teaching under adverse circumstances is another significant issue in terms of classroom management, since I was teaching in such classes in my home country I was really curious about the solution. assigning students as much as possible, trying to make each student feel important, pair work and group work, using different learning strategies, peer editing, making the written work systemically are some of good suggestion I have learned from the book. I am planning to share this techniques with my colleagues who are suffer from the same problem.

Assigned Reading Reflection (Classroom Dynamics/Nov.10/Week12)

2008-11-17T01:49:00.000-08:00

Error Correction&Feedback
To me most important issue of this is "Error Correction and Feedback" the authors discuss these in details by providing some samples. As it is stated in communicative approach instead of accuracy fluency is important this does not mean that we should totally ignore the accuracy but as it is behaved to baby when s/he make an utterance the parents support him and scaffolds so to me we should scaffold instead of correct him. Feedback is another important issue of teaching an appropriate feedback could help students so much because feedback are the best time of teachable moments.
About Natural Acquisition Approach I had lots of students who works in touristic places in my country since they learn the language they have a perfect pronunciation which is one of the biggest problem for instructional based students, but the students who learned the language just concentrate one aspect of language for instance if he is a waiter he could be professional in terms of foods but he may not produce any language in another field of language this students need to be taught about the language I am sure that they will be so proficient in language after some basic knowledge of language because they will be able to combine the theory and practice then.

Assigned Reading Reflection (Lesson Planning/Nov.3/Week11)

2008-11-17T01:34:00.000-08:00

This week H.D Brown book discuss about Techniques and Materials,Technology in the Classroom and Initiating Interaction in the Classroom. Among Mechanical, meaningful and communicative drills I like the communicative one quite useful because it could be very useful as a current technique the other two seems old fashioned but still could be use in some context if needed. After this there are 38 teaching techniques which is so useful. To me a teacher should always renew himself and follow the academic works in the field because each day a new technique is find out and if you do not follow developments you could be so ignorant about the new techniques. In the last decade the technological developments are really amazing following all these improvements and applying the appropriate ones and not standing behind the current developments should be one of the most significant due of teachers.

Assigned Reading Reflection (Lesson Planning/Oct.20/Week9)

2008-11-17T01:23:00.000-08:00

TEXTBOOK EVALUATION
As a teacher we should bear in mind that textbook is just a material but it is an essential matter for teaching So "Textbook Evaluation" is one of the most crucial point of teaching. How to choose the right and most appropriate students for our students? This is a big question for decision makers. I would say that the answer is considering the "students need". A detailed research is needed for students need analysis. We could ask our students, their partners and also keep in mind the current developments in the world to choose the best textbook for our students. I spent one semester and one class for this issue when I was an undergraduate student and I am so happy that this week reading assignment contribute more to my knowledge.

Class Time Reflection (Lesson Planning/Oct.27/Week10)

2008-11-17T01:11:00.000-08:00

When I was teaching to young learners my students love to competition. They really had lots of fun and the production was really good, too. It must be something about age thing. At that each they could anything to win. On the contrary I was teaching adults at the same time then and competition was useless for them because they found the competition very childish. So instead of competition collaborative task could be much more useful for adults. For instance when I asked them to come in front of the class and speak they were blushing but when I asked them to do the same task with their partner it worked. To me competition is really a useful technique for young learners while group work or any other collaborative task is useful for adults.

Class Time Reflection (Classroom Dynamics/Nov.10/Week12)

2008-11-17T00:49:00.000-08:00

Although I observed classes lots of times during my undergraduate this week observing a teacher was so interesting for me for several reasons. Firstly teaching is totally different from observing. I tried to observe the class as an ethnographer the teacher was so self confident and he was a native speaker these two features were so good sides of him. On the other hand he was dominating the class there was not comprehension check question and this caused to be a teacher centered class. Another point was the material he used was so far away from the students instead of that some familiar materials could be used so that students participation could be provided. Since teacher aim is to help to students to be successful in their life students needs should be the first priority in teaching.

Class Time Reflection (Lesson Planning/Nov.3/Week11)

2008-11-17T00:37:00.000-08:00

This week Brian and I we had a presentation at the class. Before presentation we met several times with my dear partner, we tried consider and read about all the presentations before us. According to us one of the crucial thing was about the layout about the presentations so we decided to put ours presentation layout on the display so that everybody could see and figure out what is going on. Although three units of HDB was to long for a 30 minutes presentations we tried to convey a little bit from each and let you to taste from each topic so we prepared 7 activities in total. Especially text book evaluation was one of the best activities to me because it is so useful for next. In our case we feel that content vs. time. Since we had just 30 minutes we had to squeeze all the activities which was so hard for us. But generally having a presentation is always useful and enjoyable for me. I think I am one of those who was born as a teacher!

Class Time Reflection (Lesson Planning/Oct.20/Week9)

2008-10-27T04:36:00.000-07:00

This week a term "teachable moment" mentioned in the class grasped my interest. Although I could easily estimate about it in the class I have not heard about it before. I decided to search on the net and I wanted to put here just in case. Teachable Moment
Moment of educational opportunity: a time at which a person, especially a child, is likely to be particularly disposed to learn something or particularly responsive to being taught or made aware of something.
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_561539567/teachable_moment.html

A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Professor at the Breakfast Table, Ch. 10

We can have in life but one great experience at best,
and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ch. 17
http://wilderdom.com/experiential/TeachableMomentWhatIs.html

A teachable moment is an unplanned event during the day that adults can use as a learning opportunity for kids. When a child displays an action or behavior that can be used as a learning tool, parents and providers should capitalize on the moment, and provide the opportunity to extend or expand the child's learning.
Teachable moments are important for kids because they provide meaningful contexts to introduce or expand on something you want children to learn about. This way they can be used to open conversations with kids – to find out what they’re thinking about. Conversations with the kids will help in the development of their language, communication and reasoning skills.
Infants’ and toddlers’ level of curiosity is much more basic than for preschoolers. For infants and toddlers, it’s as basic as how to open and close a door or how to get food to your mouth. Preschool kids have a sense of language and have more advance cognitive development. Preschoolers have a natural curiosity about all aspects of life. They have more of an imaginative quality and they can express it. Their language skills are more advanced so they have a greater dimension to their learning.
A provider identifies teachable moments by observing and listening to kids, following their leads and looking for interesting occurrences. Listening and observing the child’s behavior is very important. If they’re spending more time on a particular toy or squishy grass, ask them open-ended questions about what they’re doing. Listening to what they’re saying and if they stay engaged in the conversation and the activity, encourage them to discuss it.
The “unplanned” part is the whole essence of what a teachable moment is all about. It’s about speaking to the moment. It’s spontaneous and addresses what sparked the interest of the child and gives a different flavor to the learning. You’ll notice during teachable moments that the provider becomes more enthusiastic and so do the children.
http://www.aplaceofourown.org/question_detail.php?id=101

Assigned Reading Reflection (Lesson Planning/Oct.27/Week10)

2008-10-27T03:03:00.000-07:00

I wish I would have known such valuable information about curriculum design before this week. It is clearly explained how a curriculum should be designed through the entire chapter. Once with a group of students we were going to have 15 days-long trip to Spain within the framework of European Union Education Program Leonardo Da Vinci. To help this group survive in the sense of communication we were supposed to develop a curriculum. We sat down on the table and start to think about what we should do. Considering the goal of the program and the needs of the group we worked hard and developed a good curriculum based upon the basic needs during the trip. We decided to teach English for everyday communication based on communication approach. We tried to pretend all those situations which our students were going to face during the trip and we concentrate on those specific situations. Such as asking someone something or somewhere, introducing, apologizing, thanking etc. the learner group was so motivated and they were so willing that the classes were really good. At the end of the program we were in Spain with our perfect English! But there was a problem no one were able to speak English but Spanish!

Class Time Reflection (Context of Teaching/Oct.13/Week8)

2008-10-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

NESTs and NNESTs
In terms of NESTs & NNESTs discussion, it is clear that both of them have advantageous and disadvantageous as it is emphasized in the apple book “it is becoming a generally accepted view that outstanding teachers cannot be squeezed into any pigeonhole: all outstanding teachers are ideal in their own ways, and such are different from each other.”
Feedback
In my point of view feedback is always useful for everyone. Since it is a kind of mirror for both instructors and students I am planning to apply feedback surveys in my classes, too.
Jodi’s Presentation
Different accents clips
Do you speak American activity
NESTs vs NNESTs debate and her friendly tone of voice helped us too much to grasp the subject. Good Job.
The clip about refugee was not only a different dimension of teaching but also life:(
Thank you very much Mariya for that useful presentation about adult education (CASAS)
Thank you very much Mai for that clip. It was so interesting!

Assigned Reading Reflection (Context of Teaching/Oct.13/Week8)

2008-10-13T21:55:00.000-07:00

While I was reading this week’s assigned reading I thought about my country, Turkey. English is a foreign language in Turkey. Although it is taught mostly by nonnative English-speaking teachers still it is taught by a small percentage of native English-speaking teachers especially in private courses and schools in metropolitan cities such as Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir etc. Because of globalization and great developments in the field of technology and communication English has gained a significant attention not only in my country but also in all over the world over past decades. More and more people want to learn English day by day and since there is a significant amount of young population in my country the government wants to educate them properly. In terms of English language policy the government signed European Language Policy which promotes multilingualism and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). English language education starts at fourth grade –ten years old- at public schools and it is compulsory foreign language until 12 grade at high schools. Generally college students have to attend one year English prep class to continue their education in most number of majors. There are lots of state and private adult education center offering English courses for adults.

Class Time Reflection (Language Learner Characteristics/Oct.6/Week7)

2008-10-06T21:53:00.000-07:00

As far as I observed most of students spend most of their time in the library because the library is considered to be the heart of education. If you have not got information about the opportunities and sources which you need for your academic studies, then you feel yourself like tourist who is travelling in a foreign country. Hence the presentation of Miss. Piehl was dramatically important in terms of academic success. Furthermore thanks to Rachel presentation the classroom discussion about error correction, comparing young and adult learners, the role of IQ and motivation in language learning was useful.

Assigned Reading Reflection (Language Learner Characteristics/Oct.6/Week7)

2008-10-06T02:32:00.000-07:00

It is clear that there is no certain definition of good language learner but some characteristics of learners’ are worth to know. Firstly, it can be concluded that intelligence is important in terms of language analysis and language rules but the role of communication and interaction is also important. Secondly, aptitude is defined as learning quickly and it is stated that the students with high aptitude might learn better than others it also explained that it had better to arrange classes according to various aptitude levels. It should be bear in mind that each individual is unique and has his/her own learning style this feature should be considered. Thirdly, it is claimed that personality plays an important role in language learning process. Anxiety grasp my interest here because I thought it always affects learning negatively but interestingly it is discussed that sometimes it affects learning positively, too. Motivation in the classroom is another interesting issue for me, in my opinion competitive leaning can be applied to young learners because they love competitions and cooperation is useful in adult education. Having a consensus is critically important in the sense of both learners’ and teachers’ belief. I think if the goal is being native like learner then the education should be started in early ages but if the goal is just communication and interaction then starting in early ages is not so much important. In the light of the discussion through the chapters I feel that I obtain lots of useful information about language learner characteristic.

Assigned Reading Reflection (Language Learner Characteristics/Sep.29/Week6)

2008-10-06T00:29:00.000-07:00

By presenting the 12 fundamental principles of language learning and teaching H. Douglas Brown aim is to help us to construct our own approach among a great numbers of approaches we have faced during the long journey of language learning. The three category of this principles-cognitive, socioaffective and linguistic- help us to capture them as a whole. Since my teaching experiences strongly support, I highlighted meaningful learning and the anticipation of reward among the cognitive principles. Willingness to communicate can be related to motivation and motivation is considered to be one of the most important parts of language learning process. In terms of linguistic the native language effect is worth to discuss here if native language is close to the target language it might be so useful on the other hand if it is not within the same language family it might even affect the learning negatively.
I believe that intrinsic motivation is very important in the language learning process because it helps learner to develop himself continuously. An ESL teachers must be lucky if he has such kind of learners in his/her class if not teacher has to motivate them by using a number of methods to motivate them extrinsically.

Class Time Reflection (Language Learner Characteristics/Sep.29/Week6)

2008-10-05T23:05:00.000-07:00

It was so helpful to learn and discuss about the principles of language learning and teaching in details. I believe that teachers are able to teach as much as they know. So discovering basic principles about cognitive, socio affective and linguistic aspect of second language learning added valuable contribution to our current knowledge. In addition, I am fond of discussing new information so that instead of being exposed to it we can eliminate, analyze and internalize it. I personally appreciated the discussion about the principles. For sure, I am going to consider these principles in my teaching process.

Class Time Reflection (Second Language Acquisition/Sep.22/Week 5)

2008-09-23T23:01:00.000-07:00

In my opinion each day it is getting better because people are getting to know each other more closely and leave out the hesitation and depression outside of the class. This week the presentation by Stephanie&Brain was so nice furthermore it was even fun. A number of peer and group works are really helpful in the sense of productiveness and creativeness. It helped us a lot to comprehend the second language learning theories. Creating both physical and emotional environment for learning is very helpful. In addition supporting and encouraging enable students to desire to learn.

Assigned Reading Reflection (Second Language Acquisition/Sep.22/Week 5)

2008-09-23T22:36:00.001-07:00

In Turkish Culture “spoken literature” is still quite popular and moreover it is very enjoyable. One of the important characters of this literature is Nasreddin Hodja. In his short stories there is both wise and humor. Here is one of his short story;
Every One is Right
Once when Nasreddin Hodja was serving as qadi (judge), one of his neighbors came to him with a complaint against a fellow neighbor.
The Hodja listened to the charges carefully, and then concluded, "Yes, dear neighbor, you are quite right."
Then the other neighbor came to him. The Hodja listened to his defense carefully, and then concluded, "Yes, dear neighbor, you are quite right."
The Hodja's wife, having listened in on the entire proceeding, said to him, "Husband, both men cannot be right."
The Hodja answered, "Yes, dear wife, you are quite right."
This week, as I read the second language theories when I read the behaviorists’ theory I said, they are quite right. Then when I read the innatists’ theory I said, they are quite right and finally, when I read about the interactionists’ theory I said, they are quite right.
All the kidding aside, I think these three theories are right in a certain point, we should consider all of them during the language learning process.

Assigned Readings Reflection(First and Second Language Acquisition/Sep.15/Week 4)

2008-09-23T21:47:00.000-07:00

In my opinion the very heart of this week’s reading assignments is a fascinating quotation.

Peregoy&Boyle (2005) in recalling his younger years, novelist John Steinbeck (1958) spoke of just such a teacher.

"In her classroom our speculations ranged the world. She breathed curiously into us so that each day we came with new questions, new ideas, cupped and shielded in our hands like captured fireflies. When she left us, we were sad; but the light did not go out. She had written her indelible signature on our minds. I have had lots of teachers who taught me soon forgotten things; but only a few who created me in a new energy, a new direction. I suppose I am the unwritten manuscript of such a person. What deathless power in the hands of such a teacher.

May you be such a teacher!!”(p.30)

It is not sure what kind of ESL teachers we are going to be but at least we know very well what kind of teacher we should be!

Class Time Reflection (First and Second Language Acquisition/Sep.15/week 4)

2008-09-15T22:40:00.000-07:00

Although I completed the reading assignments for the week, my mind was flu and overloaded with all the acquisitions process and early language learning theories before I came to class. The presentation and game was helpful to make the image clearer.
Furthermore the group work activity about demonstrating each method as a poster makes my mind bright about the eight important theories.
I and my partner (Mai) we were responsible to demonstrate Vygotsky’s ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT (ZPD) method. We had fun while preparing the creative! poster and I myself find this theory very useful. According to this theory language develops primarily from a social interaction and Vygotsky argued that in a supportive interactive environment, children are able to advance to a higher level of knowledge and performance. I have two lovely nieces who are just two years old all family members try to encourage them to speak whenever they make an utterance it repeated lots of times by other family members and I think this is very helpful in the sense of language learning process. As an ESL teacher I am going to keep in mind this and appreciate my pupils any kinds of product in language field.

Class Time Reflection (Methods and Approaches/Sep.8/week 3)

2008-09-14T21:42:00.000-07:00

Chris and Veronika’s presentation was all about assigned readings. It was a nice presentation especially the visual part. The discussion about native and nonnative teacher was helpful to understand the advantageous and disadvantageous of both.
Considering the native and nonnative discussion during the class, in my point of view there is another aspect of English that should be considered by ESL teachers. That is “Global English”. Nowadays “English World” is discussing the global English. Nearly five of the world's population speaks English, and the number of people speaking English as a second language will exceed the number of native speakers within the next few years.
The activity about ESL theories, approaches, methods, techniques was so useful and it helps us a lot to capture as an image of each.

Assigned Readings Reflection(Methods and Approaches /Sep.8/week 3

2008-09-14T21:39:00.000-07:00

It was an enjoyable language learning history journey for me. There were lots of stop- overs. I wasn’t in hurry so I preferred to stop and spent some time in each stop. The first stop was in Grammar Translation Method this was the oldest stop most probably. Since there weren’t mass communication vehicles in those days, the only way to communicate was reading. So learners had to learn about grammar rules in details, read a lot and learn as much as vocabulary they can. Next stop was in “Direct Method” the scholars thought that the second language learning should be more like first language learning- lots of oral interaction, spontaneous use of language, no translation between L1 and L2 and little or no analysis of grammatical rules. Then I pass through a number of other approaches, methods and techniques. For me the most interesting one was Communicative Approach or Communicative Language Learning time has been changed and people needed to communicate by lots of communicative vehicles such as media, cinema, literature … etc. People crossed the border so the language should be something provides people to communicate with each other easily. In this approach the very importing points are communication, use of L2, student centered. According to CLT “language is a system for the expression of meaning; primarily interaction and communication“I find myself quite close to this approach.
According to me; teaching is an art and the artist should be so talent, creative and innovative. S/he should consider the circumstances and context of teaching be selective and choose whatever s/he needs among all these approaches, methods and techniques. Once I have read from a book “Do not forget young wo/man! Teachers, just open the gate, you yourself entered the inside.” In this sense all these written materials are just guide for the teachers they are on their own in their classes.