! (:

Let your students acquire a second language. They should be active participants in your classes. They should make some mistakes and learn through those mistakes.

YAAAAAY!

Hi everybody from a snowy day!

At the beginning of the course, the teacher said that she was very appreciated of the students’ marks. She gave homework from their grammar book for the semester break. Additionally, she wanted them to read their storybooks. She warned them about the difficulties they would face with in next semester. I think sometimes warning is good because students may  need to be aware of difficulties in order to regulate their studies.

They had learnt the terms related with “sport types”.  After teacher pronounced the words, she wanted the students to repeat. Then, it was listening activity time. They listened to the some features and tried to find out which sport it is. In all the activities, the students studied individually. In my opinion, they sometimes need to study cooperatively since they tend to speak. At the end of the course, they revise the simple past tense.

By the way, it was my last week in this class for this semester. My duty was to observe both the students and the teacher, take some notes and improve myself in the field of ELT. I believe that I did my best and gained different point of views thanks to this observation experience. See you next semester when I am more active in my teaching career. 

                                                                                                 Sincerely

Girls With Arachnophobia

      Hi!

      This post is about two weeks ago. At the beginning of the lesson there was a listening activity. After listening, the students read the text and they answered reading comprehension questions. They said their answers one by one. A student from the class mispronounced a word and his error was corrected by the teacher.  Then, the teacher focused on unknown words. As I said before, she gives importance on vocabulary. They had another listening activity.

      The teacher makes them watch a video about nurdles. After watching for the first time, the students want to watch it again. They are always enthusiastic about watching videos. They watched the video for the second time. Then, it was speaking activity time and they discuss the video.

They learnt the terms of “fearful” and “fearless”. There was a test in their textbooks which measured their fear rate. They answered and discussed how much they were fearful or fearless. It was really funny to watch them while they are discussing. Most of the girls confessed that they are afraid of spiders and boys claimed that they are fearful :) We can say that the students become more assertive when they find the topic interesting.

      They also learnt “Gerund / Infinitive”. Actually, the teacher had focused on four skills in previous courses but this time she also taught a grammar rule. She said they would have to memorize some verbs in order to determine whether it takes gerund or infinitive. The course was good but the students were a little bit tired.

Last Post Of November

        Hi again!

        This is a post about last Friday! At the beginning of the class there was a pre-listening activity. The students and teacher talked about the same theme with the listening activity. Then, it was time to listening. After listening, they answered some comprehension questions and did exercises.

During the class, the teacher focused on the verbs of “to get sunburnt/ to get suntan/ sunbathe...etc.”.  She wrote them on the board and explained them.  

        They listened to a dialogue. Then, they are supposed to write another one by working in pairs. They had ten minutes. After writing their dialogues, each group read aloud. Other students sometimes corrected their friends’ mistakes. It was good. Reading aloud was also good to check students’ pronunciations.

        After that, there was a reading activity. When they read the passage about extinction, the teacher and class discussed this topic. Then, the students answered comprehension questions.

        At the end of the course, “because of” were taught. The teacher wrote the structure on the board again and explained the difference between “because” and “because of”. She made some students in Turkish and wanted the students to translate them by using “because of”.

        Teacher handed out some worksheets as homework. 

                                                                                                           See you next week! :)

It was "Cool!" :)

        Hi!

        It is time to share the post of last week.  I had observed the same teacher and class until that day yet I attended a different class and I observed a different teacher for an hour last week. Firstly, I want to share my observations about both class and teacher. I have to say that neither class nor teacher was energetic. Voice of teacher was really low. Additionally, I noticed that there were a lot of students who hadn’t done their homework and teacher didn’t react as I expected. My attendance was just for an hour so I want to believe that she is not every time like that.

         It was exam week so I learnt that there would be no teacher for three hours in the class I observed every week if I didn’t stay. As a result, I preferred teaching for three hours :) It was my second performance as you know. I have to confess that it was a little bit tiring this time because they prepared themselves for being free so it takes a couple of minutes to catch their attention. Apart from this, it was great for me. We did some exercises and listening activities. We focused on pronunciation and students had great fun while trying to pronounce some words. Additionally, we learnt some expressions such as “Cool!”, “What a shame!”. I also wanted them to say these expressions in a realistic way. They tried to say negative statements in a sad manner and positive ones in a good mood. I liked their performances :)

Try To Understand Your Students' Needs

      This post is about last Friday!

It was a good lesson, in my opinion. I have observed the same class and teacher so far. As I said before, I like teaching style of the teacher. Last week, I noticed that she focused on unknown words very much. This is great!

At the beginning of the course, there was a listening activity. During the activity, students answered the listening questions. After listening activity, it was group work time. Teacher wanted them to work in pairs and write a dialog related to the topic of listening activity. All the groups read their dialogs and the teacher gave feedback immediately.

It was a block course. I felt that the student really got bored and they couldn’t focus on anything after an hour.  When they said to the teacher they wanted to have a break, she accepted their suggestion and gave a five minutes break. I liked this attitude very much because this acceptance means that she trusts them and understands their feelings. It was suitable for the situation. I believe that teachers sometimes evince their affections. However, this shouldn’t become a habit and I don’t think it will. When it is unnecessary, the teacher generally prefers catching their attention instead of giving break. That is all for last week. I hope this post is informative enough.
         We should keep in our mind that if we ignore our students' needs, it is likely to fail during teaching progress. We should let our students explain themselves and be assertive voluntarily in our courses. 

Last Post Of October

Hi everybody! Here is the last post of October!

At the beginning of the class, I noticed that students had learnt the structure of “should/shouldn’t” in previous lesson.  It was time to practice it in suitable situations. There were some specific situations and they were supposed to give some advice related to these situations. All the students create different sentences correctly. Then, teacher changed the activity and she wanted a student to make up a situation or a problem. After that, teacher wanted other students to give their friend some advice. When a student spoke, teacher gave him feedback instantly.  When a student made a mistake, she explained everything very well.

She gave different forms of vocabularies such as treat/treatment. She opened a picture by using smart board and she wanted them to make some comments. (speaking activity) She gave enough time to answer the questions. She wanted them to keep a vocabulary notebook and improve their own methods for learning new vocabularies. They learnt how to pronounce the word of “pound”.

At the end of the course, she gave information about the exam they would have. She said time would be two hours. In the first hour, they would be supposed to answer the questions related to “reading & understanding” part. Then, they would answer the questions related to listening part. Finally, they would pass writing part. 

"Got it!"

This post is from my third week. Actually, I want to give you some general information about the features of the students in the class prep B.

I have been together with them just for a couple of weeks but I have observed their attitudes towards English very carefully. They are really enthusiastic in classes. Most of them raise their hands when teacher wants them to do something. During reading activities, they want to read.  They like writing texts or dialogs and reading them aloud. Students generally don’t want to speak or comment on something in English classes. However, they are very assertive during speaking activities.

Underlying reasons for these students attitude is relevant with teacher’s teaching strategies and her manners. She always prompts him/her when a student talks about something. She ignores their simple pronunciation mistakes. If it is really necessary, she corrects him/her. She doesn’t sit all day. She has enough energy for her students. She walks around the class. She cares her students. She asks her grades one by one and gives feedback. She tries to keep them focused during the course.

Students are also aware of what is going on. They like the course, activities and style of their teacher. They like watching videos. They sometimes want to watch videos without subtitles. They find informal language interesting. I noticed that they use “Got it!” in their dialogs frequently :)  

Blogs

Reading ELT blogs will help us improve ourselves. I want to give you the list of some essential ELT blogs you should read:

http://burcuakyol.com/
http://cecilialemos.com/
http://efllecturer.blogspot.com.tr/
http://theteacherjames.blogspot.com.tr/
http://elt-resourceful.com/
http://vickyloras.wordpress.com/

First Interaction With Smartboard

Hello everyone from a cold day!

Due to my illness, I couldn’t share any post last week. I got flu and last week was terrible for me but don’t worry. I will have two nice posts for you to share :)

 Let’s talk about my second week at school. I went to the school at 10 o’clock. When I entered the room, my coordinator teacher seemed to be shocked. She had an accident on the way to school and she felt horrible. Our lesson was a block course. She said she wouldn’t be able to teach because shock effect was  going on. She asked me to teach instead of her until she feels better. Actually, it was my first performance at a high school but I didn’t feel nervous. On the contrary, I was happy since I had a chance. I took teacher’s book and went to the class. They had done homework at home, we answered the questions together. I listened to their writings. (They had written postcards at home). We made two listening activities.
        The most important thing for me on that day was my interaction with smartboard. It was great! I learnt how to use a smartboard. Its usage is really easy and any teacher can learn quickly. I always believe that the classes integreted to technology become more productive. I could clearly see the rise of their energy when I opened the smartborad. I thought a lot of things during the lesson. Smartboards can be useful also for young learners. I think every classroom should have a smartboard. Maybe one day teachers’ -like me- dreams will be real :) 

        

First Week, First Impressions

Hi everyone !

          It is time to share my first post about my school experience. When I saw the school for the first time a few weeks ago, I was impressed by this historic building very much. I wondered also the students of this school. Fortunately, I met with some students last Friday and I had a chance for observation. It was a prep class.

          The first thing I noticed is use of smartboard. Teacher uses smartboard effectively. The book of the class is “Solution (Oxford)” in the classroom. The level of the book is elementary. In my opinion, that book is really good. It gives importance on four skills deeply. Teacher opened the text in the book by using smartboard. Including technology into education is great! Students had already read text at home so teacher started with listening activity. She used smartboard for listening and speaking activities.  Although I was sitting at the back row, I could easily hear the voice. The words were very clear. Students listened to the record for two times. They answered the comprehension questions by rising their hands. When a student gave a wrong answer, teacher asked others to correct their friends. I liked this point very much because I believe that peer-correction is very effective in language learning. Speaking activities were completed in a good way. Students were very assertive in the class and spoke in English. I think the reason for this is teacher’s attitudes. Teacher ignored when she heard something in Turkish. Instead of humilating them, she encouraged students to speak in English. Classroom management was great. Teacher used the tone of her voice in order to keep students focused. Teacher said different meanings of words in order to make it clear or teach a new word. For instance, when she said “about”, she also gave the meaning of it as “approximately”. She provided different words.

          I also want to say something else: Teacher knows name of the students!  She calls them by their names so the students feel themselves important. I liked teaching style of her. I look forward to going there again. I will go on sharing about my experiences next week. See you soon ! :)

About Me

 My name is Büşra Kaçar. I am studying English Language Teaching at Yıldız Technical University. I am a student teacher at Vefa High School in Istanbul. I am 22 years old.
           The aim of this blog is to inform you about my school experience. I want to share my thoughts about the school and the classes. Additionally, I want to make some comments on them. I believe that sharing my ideas about teaching experience will be helpful for me in the field of ELT because I think self-observation is really important. I can see my mistakes during writing and I can correct myself. I hope my blog will be beneficial also for you and you like it!

           Sincerely.