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   Vocabulary learning has always been challenging for most of the students. They are given a long list full of irrelevant words and they are expected to memorize all the words with their meanings in L1. If this is the way how we teach vocabulary, of course it will be a torture for our students. Why do we make this process so difficult? It is very simple to teach vocabulary by using some techniques. Today, I'll share those techniques, Dos and Don'ts with you. Let's dive into the subject!   First thing to be careful about teaching vocabulary is to provide a written or audio context . We should get students to spot unknown words in the text and tell them to guess the meanings from the context. While teaching action verbs like 'walk', 'run' and some adjectives, we can make use of facial expressions, actions and mimics.    It is the best to use real life objects, if possible, to point out the object but if it is not, we should draw on the board or bring some

   WHAT IS A LEXICAL SET?     A lexical set (sometimes called a word set) is a cluster or group of related words. Words can be related in several differebt ways, for example: By topic:  furniture, clothes, family relationships, animals By similarity of meaning or synonyms: gorilla, chimpanzee, orang-urang, ape In pairs; a) Opposites in pairs: hot/cold, old/new, hard/soft b) Synonyms in pairs: slip/slide, rough/harsh, booklet/brochure Idioms:  black and white; black and blue In series of a scale: boiling, hot, warm, cool, cold, freezing By subordinates and hyponyms: Supeeordinate: fruit Hyponyms: orange, apple, pinapple, banana, strawberry By activity or process: steps in making a cake or building a bookcase Word families: paint, painter, painting, paint work OR know, knowledge, knowing, knowledgeable, known     WHY ARE LEXICAL SETS IMPORTANT?         We probably don't store words in our brains in alphabetical order like a dictionary does. Research into memory has

    RING RING RING!    It is time to move to another world!    Today, we're going into the Virtual World of Second Life. I have learned about SL for the first time this year in the Instructional Technologies and Material Design course by Mr. Tuncer CAN and  I have been taking an online course provided by  Guinevere Project  for a while. I LOVE IT! There are lots of opportunities in the game. You can create or buy objects. For example in one of the courses, we created board games from scratch at the online course. I will give more detailed information about how to make use of Second Life and OpenSim later.     Now I want to tell Second Life to the ones who are not familiar with.  SL is a 3D virtual world, sometimes referred to as a multi-user virtual environment developed  by Linden Lab,  which allows its user to meet, interact socially and even manipulate the environment around them (Deutschmann & Panichi, 2009) It allows users from different countries to meet in the same wo

Hello friends! I am very happy to announce to you that I have completed my first online course on udemy.com I took TOEFL iBT Speaking courses online. And this is my Certificate of Completion!    It was the first time I had had such courses but to tell the truth, it was awesome! I want to thank Keino Campbell for the tips he gave for each type of speaking questions in TOEFL iBT. I wish we had all the courses online at university while sitting at home and eating something. I highly recommend you to check out courses on these websites: -  udemy.com - coursera.com - edX.com    It does not matter which website you choose. There are lots of free courses available there. After you finish a course you get an online certificate. If you want a hard copy, you should pay 20-30 dollars (i don't remember the price exactly, sorry) This is a great chance for you! You can take free courses even from Harvard University.    Don't forget to share your opinions in comments. I will see yo

   Hello, it's me! :)    I am back with an amazing website. It is Storybird . It provides learners creative writing and basic writing and even comic writing. This is my favorite, without any doubt! They can create both science- fiction, adventure, crime books and scientific books, poems. It has a wide range of categories which broadens the learner's creativity. Thousands of pictures are available for each group of learners (both young and adult learners) Students have no limit to write. They are completely free in writing unless you give them some restrictions.     I think this website should be used by every teacher. Writing classes will turn from torture into fun.  With a free classroom account, teachers can create assignments, and review and comment on submitted stories. Not only teachers but also st udents can view, comment and give feedback on each other's work and get inspired by the writers on a global scale.   Even I got crazy writing this short story, I cannot im

   Hello friends!    Today I will share a very practical website with you. If you are fed up with copying worksheets, doing some stuff on paper, this one will help you a lot.      What is QR Code?     QR, or Quick Response codes, are two-dimensional barcodes that can be read using smartphones, tablets, laptops and dedicated QR reading devices. If you’ve never heard the term before, you may be scratching your head right now.  For those who don’t, here’s what a common QR code looks like: (It is my social media pages' QR Code. You can reach to my YouTube channel, blog and Instagram.) Today, QR codes are seen everywhere, from menus to posters, to stores, and even t-shirts. They link directly to articles, emails, websites, phone numbers, videos, social media pages and more. If you use technology in your class actively, you will make use of these QR Codes. If you want students to be able to access tutorials, tests, classes, and course information, you can create a QR code fo

   Hola!    I'm back with another super useful website which is similar to Kahoot. It is Quizlet . You can prepare quizzes by using this website but one extra advantage from Kahoot is that you read information cards first, like a pre-study, then you take the quiz. It would be amazing to apply quizzes on Quizlet periodically. Thus, learners would be able to revise the most important points and test themselves.    Here is a short quiz I prepared for myself for the SLA course. You can check it and see how the website works by clicking on  THIS LINK . I'm sure you will like it. Take care. Zey.

   In the 21st century, students prefer pictures and comics to texts. They have shorter concentration spans that's why they easily get bored of reading. In regard to this situation, we should differentiate our materials. Instead of giving them texts, we should give comics which were created by us or we can want them to create their own comics. Do not feel stressed about drawing pictures because you don't have to draw anything. You just need some clicks on the keyboard.    There is an excellent website called  Pixton where you can create your own comics.  It is a great way to infuse creativity and higher-order thinking skills through comic creation. Students just change the setting, choose their characters, and add text. Student projects can be printed and shared with other classes or shared online.    This is my work on Pixton: Hope you find this post helpful. See you next time. Bye. Zey.

   Hello again! I am back with another useful software and also an app called  Mindmeister . It allows you and your students to create a mindmap. It is useful for especially field-dependent learners because it helps them see the content and links apparently. Students can create their own mind maps to organize their notes after they explore the software. It is very easy to use so you don't need to teach them how to use it. The website itself gives some steps at the beginning. Here is my example mind map for vocabulary learning.  Let me know your opinions in comments. I'll see you next time. Zey.

   RING RING, it is time to kahoot today! Kahoot is one of my favorite tools which helps you create your own fun quizzes. It is easy to use, suitable for each group of students, and completely free. All you have to do is to create an account then to create your quiz. You can add pictures or video links in your questions and you can give more than one answer to the questions. You can also choose how much time the players will have to answer the questions.     It enables students to work collaboratively. You can assign them either in team play or individual play. Everyone in the team should press the same answer, otherwise the ones that know the right answer need to convince the rest of the group to press the same answer. Students get points when they answer correctly. The quicker they answer the questions, the more points they get. After everyone has answered you see a small leader board with players who get the most points. Later, you can check which questions they did right or w

Nearpod is a platform where the teacher can share their powerpoint presentations or any materials before the class. So, when t he teacher uses Nearpod to present a lesson, students can also follow the lesson as fast as the teacher allowed. They couldn't go ahead or miss what the teacher says. In the end, the teacher can take a quiz, open-ended questions and so on and the teacher is able to check their understanding immediately.     I personally find it a bit challenging to use. It is maybe because I had no chance to apply that in a classroom but as far as I watched videos on YouTube, some schools use Near Pod very actively and effectively and the feedback from students is always positive. They like to do some stuff on the computer and they get happy when their answers are shown up. It is an engaging and interactive tool but I think I couldn't manage to use it :')     This is my PDF presentation I uploaded on Nearpod.  CLICK HERE  to check it.  Zey.

   Aloha! Today, I have another review for you. It is a graphic-design tool called Canva. You can create worksheets, banners and so on by using it. Just to mention, you can even use it for your Facebook, Instagram or Twitter posts, make invitation cards but I’ll specially talk about using Canva for education. You can use it either on website or as an application. When you open up the app, you’ll see a wide range of templates. You can choose one of them and edit that template or you can create your own templates from scratch. Instead of using monotonous worksheets, you’ll have your unique, attractive and, most importantly, authentic productions. You can motivate your students by making certificates for your them as a reward to their hard work. Not only teachers but also students can also use Canva. They can create posters, stories, cartoons and thus get much more productive with their work.    I’m leaving here one of my previous work I prepared for teaching phrasal verbs: And, a

   Hello friends!    I am back with another useful review of an educational tool, which is called VOKI. It is a great tool which can be used in education and it is fun to share information between students, parents, and teachers.    As you know, the vocal practice of the language is crucially important in language learning. Most of the students are not comfortable pronouncing the foreign words many times during the lectures. Voki allows them to speak into their phones privately and then listen to the avatar presenting it to them. Students can create profile pictures that are fun and entertaining. There is a wide variety they can choose from. There are people like Jesus, Gandhi, and even talking corn with purple hair. Students can put your their voice in those characters or even just type in what they want to say and it will read it for them!         Regarding my observations, the only limitation of Voki is the time restriction. You have just 60 seconds of recording time.    You can

Hello friends! I created a material about daily routine by using Powtoon. CLICK HERE   💕 to watch my animation.  You can use it either at the beginning of your course as an introduction or after you finish your explanation. It will help your students look at sentences with the simple present in a context. The animation is about the daily routine of a student, w hich is a familiar context for them, that's why students will not have difficulty in understanding. What is Powtoon? Why should we use it? I feel like you're wondering about Powtoon. It's a web-based animation software which allows you to create short animations. You can have a professional look by using pre-created objects, you don't need to have any coding skills. It is  very straightforward and  simple to use but of course, you should spend some time to create your story and to prepare your presentation.  I absolutely love Powtoon for a number of reasons.  As I mentioned you can use it to prepare

   Hello guys. I will share my first experience with Augmented Reality (AR) today. First of all, I want to thank Mr. Tuncer CAN for giving us the opportunity to meet Mr. Gökhan KARACAN. He introduced AR and VR to us, HAYEF ELT students yesterday and we have learned about some applications which are based on AR and available on IOS and Android. These programs are HP Reveal Augment 3D AR UniteAR layAR BLIPPAR We practised with HP Reveal because it is completely free and easy to use. I took a kind of a tutorial video about HP Reveal app. We used it in vocabulary teaching for 3rd graders. If you want to learn more about it, you can check my video on YouTube.

   Hi guys! I'm sharing a new website or an app with you today. It's Padlet . As far as I explored, it is a great tool for collaborative learning and student engagement. It allows students to record, organize, and share their ideas both inside and outside of school. Students can add texts, images, and even multimedia to a shared board. Padlet can help you create digital discussion groups in which students can suggest resources, and discuss what they have learned with each other. As you know, everyone is equal on the digital platform so all of your students from vocal ones to quiet ones can have a voice on Padlet by contributing their group's work.   I left a picture of my first padlet on the left side.  CLICK HERE  to have a look at it. I recommended a few songs which I found useful for grammar spots or vocabulary learning. You can double click on anywhere if you want to add some other suggestions on my board.    If you enjoy the content, please leave comments below. Hav

   Seesaw is a program where students can start a digital portfolio online. It allows not only teachers, students but also parents to keep track of their work. Students can take a picture of their work, they can video themselves while speaking or reading, they can record their voice and they can draw on things or add from the camera roll. Meanwhile, teachers get notifications and they can send feedback immediately. They can share activities with their classes and they can make announcements to both students and parents.    It's an amazing app which enables to connect school to home. The quality of the students' works increases as their audience changes. Students can comment and like each other's work, which provides them to interact and collaborate with others.    I highly recommend you to use that app. I'm leaving my first activity I prepared for 2nd graders and the response from my student as an example. Please check them:  1)  My Activity - Rooms in a House  2) 

Hey guys, here is my very first video on Youtube. In schools, we have all learned to say "I'm fine, thank you." when we are asked "How are you?" It is like a habit which we cannot stop saying. I still see a lot of people using this phrase frequently.  That's why I decided to take a video to show you five  commonly used different ways to say "I'm fine." By using those phrases, you will sound like a native. If you enjoy the video, please hit the like button and subscribe my channel. Thank you very much and see you soon! Zey.

   Hey guys, 'sup! This is my first podcast in which I suggest ten alternatives to the question "How are you?" I gave examples for both formal and informal phrases. "sup" is one of those phrases as well. You can start listening by clicking on the link I left below. Hope you enjoy it. https://soundcloud.com/zeynep-etinta-770431224/10-alternatives-to-how-are-you    Thanks for listening and let me know your opinions. I'll see you soon. Take care. Zey.