Z'report

     Hello dears! How have you been? I have great news for you. We had the last presentation meeting with all the groups and our instructors. As you know, I have been working at my dear instructor Melda YILMAZ's PhD research project, 21st century Skills Training and Project Based Learning , for 11 weeks. After our intensive 6-week theory-based training program, we had a 5-week practice and product creation section. In the first section, we worked on various skills and topics such as global language, critical thinking skills, digital literacy skills, information literacy skills and in the second section, we designed a website as a product. You can learn about the whole process by reading my previous blog posts. Today, I will briefly explain our website, also mention about my friends' products and I'd like to talk about my overall opinions about the program.     We created our website on ' English As a Global Language and Its Pedagogical Implications ' topic ...

     Hi everybody! Hope you're all doing well. This is the last week of our project. We'll present our websites next week and happily, we are almost done with creating our content for the website.         We, the team ELT-Z (this is how we call ourselves hahaha), had several meetings with my teammates this week. We reviewed our research papers one last time and we figured out creating our conclusion and further suggestions part by using multimedia tools. We had a meeting which lasted an hour, we talked about the conclusions of our papers and suggested some ideas for our further recommendations. We love to share ideas since we get very creative ideas while discussing. Then, we divided the roles again: Bilge and Zeynep Ahsen were supposed to gather all the conclusions and create a video on Animoto  and share it on Youtube. As the website doesn't allow to share videos, we're going to share the link. Meanwhile, Öken and I were supposed to create furth...

      Hello again my dear readers! I hope you are all fine and you enjoy your time. I was busy with my final exams for the last two weeks so I was not available here but don't worry I'll let you know about the updates of our project. As we were going to be busy with the finals, we agreed on postponing the deadline of writing our research papers with my teammates.  I will upload my blog and share the link of my paper when I post it on our website yet, for now, I will share the key points of my research.      In Turkey, students start to learn English starting from the age of 8 and they receive a high exposure to the language; however, learning English is still problematic. One of the main reasons is that  English is taught as a subject lesson instead of as a tool of communication. Students know the grammatical system of the language yet they cannot use them in practice of speaking. For instance,while they can fill in the blanks by using present pe...

      Hello dears! How have you been? I was ghosted for a while since I was busy with my research on English Language Teaching Practices in Turkey. As you know, we shared the tasks with our group members and each of us is to search different sub-topics  so that we have a great advantage in time. As we have a limited time to create our website, searching for the same topics and trying to write a research paper with three other people would be a waste of time. Therefore, I am very satisfied with this decision we made with my teammates. After we conclude writing our papers, we will meet and suggest solutions for the problems we identified during our research and create activities.      Now, I'd like to tell you about my week of research. My topic was ELT Practices in Turkey so, I was supposed to search for how English was being taught in Turkey. I did my research by using Google Scholar. I read tens of articles on the topic and I saved those articles on M...

  Hello darlings! How have you been? As you know, we have finished the first module of our training program. The theory part is over and now it is time to create a website and apply what we have learned. We had several meetings with our group members this week. Firstly, we decided on our main topic for the website easily. We were just not sure about our implication. We agreed on working on English as a Global Language since all of us were interested in this topic and it was one of the main issues we focused on during the training program. It’s a contemporary topic and it indicates the main features of English in 21st century that’s why wanted to extend our knowledge and work on it.  We will present our topic from general to specific. So, English as a Global Language is our umbrella term. We will search the ELT practices all over the world and in Turkey context. We will explain Standard English and the effects of teaching standard English both all over the world and in Turkey. ...

  Welcome again! After the final session of our teacher training, we designed an activity under the title of ‘Global English’ as team ELT Z. For the process of preparation, we met on Zoom at 2pm and had approximately two hours of meeting to brainstorm, exchange ideas and distribute the duties. We wanted to use what we learned during the sessions of teacher training while trying to maintain World Englishes as the main focus. After sharing various precious ideas and placing most of our thoughts on the project, we decided to benefit from Lino.it and IDEA: International Dialects of English Archive as the materials we learned through the teacher training sessions. Here comes our activity below, take care! XOXO,  Team ELT Z   Global English Activity of “ELT Z” Designed by: Bilge Güral, Zeynep Ahsen Karasoy, Öken Demir, Zeynep Çetintaş Classroom setting: 20 students  Level: B2+/C1  Skills: Speaking, Listening *It is assumed that the students are being taught ‘B...

     Hi folks! How have you been? Today, I'll be sharing my reflections on Week 6, which was the last session of our first module. I still remember our first meeting in this training program. I have always been eager to attend to the meetings and been looking forward to get in discussions. The team was full of bright ideas and I was always learning something new or extending my ideas. I also sincerely thank our dear instructor Melda Yılmaz. It was a very well-structured program: each activity, each detail was created and selected on purpose. I have learned a lot in this process. Now, it is time to apply what I have learned.     In this session, we basically talked about EIL (English as an International Language). We based our discussions on Aya Matsuda's Teaching Materials in EIL (I highly suggest you to read it to learn about material evaluation) The main aim of EIL is to prepare the learners to use English in order to become a part of globalized world.   ...

     RING RING! It is time to learn some multimedia tools for language teaching in the classroom today. In this productive session; we focused on media literacy which, basically, means the ability to use digital media tools and we, later shared some useful multimedia tools as groups. I will explain you how each works and here is the list:  -  edpuzzle.com  : This one is one of my favorites. When we assign our students to watch a video and ask them some questions before the class, we cannot be sure if they really watch and understand the content. However, Edpuzzle enables learners to engage with the video and content. You can check their comprehension and provide them practice critical thinking skills by adding either open-ended or multiple choice questions and adding notes in the video. You can block skipping in the video so that you can be sure if they watch the full video. It will help your students interact with the content. You can add videos from websi...

      Hi there! Welcome back to my blog! I will be sharing my reflections on Week 4 of our training program. It was an enjoyable session since we were familiar with the topic so that we had long discussions.     In this session, we focused on the integration of technology into language teaching with benefits and drawbacks and information and communication technology (ICT) skills. Firstly, we worked in groups and discussed on reflection questions. We divided the roles as soon as we met in breakout rooms in Zoom, thus, we had no problem with time management and other stuff. With the help of  ICT , we introduce, reinforce, extend, enrich and assess students' mastery of new concepts in a natural way. It is natural since most of our students will be digital natives who grow up using technology. Teachers need some skills and knowledge to achieve implementing ICT, which are technological, pedagogical and content knowledge, which is called as TPACK. I also think th...

      Hello everybody! Welcome back to my blog :) I'll be sharing my reflections on Week 3 of our training program. This session was very enlightening for me cuz I have learned so many things on a topic which I had not been very familiar with.      In this session, we have learned and discussed about digital literacy, digital safety and copyright & licencing issues. Digital Literacy is an umbrella term that includes ICT and media literacy skills which require digital tool knowledge, critical thinking skills and social engagement. So, a digital literate person is adaptable, creative, confident, collaborative and a critical thinker. We, as teachers, should be aware of our skills and our students' so that we can encourage them to engage in activities. Students use digital tools for fun and entertainment that's why we should guide them to use the tools in a diverse and creative way. It is important to have digital information since teachers should be ...

      Hi there! Hope you enjoy your week. Today, I'll be sharing my reflections of the second week. It was a really enjoyable one as we had lots of group work included. So, let's get started!     Before we had the session, we had some pre-tasks to do. Firstly, we had to read a chapter from Galloway & Rose (2015) and answer the reflection questions. It was basically about English Language Teaching in a global scale and nativeness of English teachers. After I read thechapter, I realized both native and non-native speakers have their own advantages and being native does not make a person more proficient in the language education. As the writers mentioned, professional qualities are more important than nationality. Secondly, we had to  check the website called 'IDEA: International Dialects of English Archive' ' which includes a world map of all countries with speakers of different dialects. It helps us obtain the scope of World Englishes and recognize ...

      Hello everybody! How have you been? I have been busy with work during summer that's why I couldn't write anything here for a few months. Nowadays, I have an online course named '21st Century Skills Training and Project-Based Learning' carried out by Melda YILMAZ  and Assist. Prof. Dilek INAL . It is a training program that aims to cultivate prospective teachers on 21st century skills. It is critical to have skills such as critical thinking, media literacy, information literacy in the globalizing world. Thanks to this program, we are going to focus on different skills each week on the first module, for the second module, we will work in groups and eventually, we will create a website. I am super excited about the process. I think I have a lot to learn. Don't worry I will be sharing all my experiences with you.         Before we had our first session, we had CCTDI (California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory) to measure our c...