Z'report

      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...

Image resource https://kell0w.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/6a00d83451ccbc69e20111685e8760970c-400wi1.jpg Multimodal Discourse Analysis considers how texts draw on modes of communication such as pictures, film, video, images and sound in combination with words to make meaning. It considers how multimodal texts are designed and how semiotic tools such as color, framing, focus and positioning elements contribute to the making of meaning in the text. (Othman, 2017) Halliday offers three types of social meanings, or metafunctions in the use of language, which are ideational metafunction, interpersonal metafunction and textual metafunction. These metafunctions help us analyze different discourses such as commercial campaigns and advertisements. For instance; looking at the Arby’s ad, we observe that there are a pair of hands crossed in the center, covering up the product, which evokes us the way women hide their breasts. Around the hands, there is light brown shading, as though the produc...

      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...