Idioms

Please look at my slidecast !

cte319 - Ozcakir

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Listening & Hearing

CTE 319 METU NCC Hearing & Listening

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As I was listening to the "context paradox" I tried to guess the unknown words. There were 10 words, and I could guess when there were just two of them missing. My guesses approximately hit the target. I found synonyms of the words. Also, I found this interesting exercise because I didn't know there were researches based on this.. I've finished listening to "why common words" I agree the issue that knowing 7 points make second language learning easier (prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, adverbs, interjections, determiners, and articles. Knowing the common words let students at least survive! Students needed to be taught unless they are not living in the target language's native country. They must be taught the common words, because they do not have the natural environment to practice those words. What I agree is establishing a practice environment is the best way for learning vocabulary. Because, students then must use the words, the words used by students get hardly forgotten. Dictionaries are good; however, they do not teach how to use the vocabularies. To start with this question: Who would score better results in such a test - a native speaker or a non-native speaker? Why? Answer: My teacher who is from Canada, made 100% in his 3rd try, and I, as a Turkish student, did the same too! It is up to the person I think. :) The nature of lexis in English context.. What I already know is when I look at any text in English, I can tell if the word is noun/verb etc by looking their suffixes and prefixes. I may also guess their meaning but most probably I will never know the meaning of the word unless I do not look it up from dictionary. I would like to know more about their roles of use in context when I see them. What they refer to and the like. The color of words; the colors may differ according the use of the words. It could be common words, key words, the nouns/adjectives etc in a text.. When speaking the emotion that exists from our mouth can give the color to the word! I am not sure actually if I could reflect my mind here about colors of words... Creating a vocabulary profile provides teachers a compact tool. The tool is belongs to the teacher here.. Wordle and lextutor are used to get keywords, the keywords could be the profile of a long text which make readers' work easier. The color of the words also reveals the profile of vocabulary. Blue-Light B. and Dark B. Which means they belong a same root or something else.

"DDL" Task 3

After experiencing Concordle, I decided to use it in my long readings... It suggests keywords and when you click on them you see where and when they were used. It is so helpful when we're looking for specific items. It is practical and time saving. I strongly believe that it will help me in my researches, especially in literature review part, when scanning and skimming the sources.

" DDL " Task 1

Data Driven Learning is a constructivist point.. It must be good for students because it helps them to improve their thinking, new opinions could be compiled in the classroom environment when worked together. I think DDL should be applied as group working. Students should share their opinions and rethink and correct themselves when necessary. It may also develop communication & research skills. Besides, when it comes to downsides of it, students might get stuck and they may not create any ideas for any topic that they have never encountered. Here, teacher should have the command and let them know how to deal with it. But, of course, it is better than memorizing.. The data learned for the exams just goes after they are used. However, such DDL should be stable in students' minds. Computers and internet let students to reach various sources. They develop their thinking according to the good researches; by adapting them, by searching about the point they want to believe in. It is also very practical. It saves time, students learn better how to use such technology to find out what they are looking for. Moreover, it might help students and teacher that we are in 21st century. There is no harm from internet and computers...

" DDL " Task 2

I have tried smmry.com and wordle.net for a long text "cte319.pbworks.com/w/page/30720613/activity - introduction to ddl" For such long texts, wordle is very beneficial for interpreting the keywords, after, copy the texy and paste it to smmry.com and then reduce the number of sentence, then it will shorten the text. If the summary of the text will not satisfactory for the user then we can add some more keywords from the "settings" button, then it will be more beneficial for the users. My keywords matched with Wordle's. After, the summary from smmry satisfied me. I read the text before smmry and after reading the summary, i feel comfortable that I can trust them, smmry and wordle.

ASSURE Model

I would like to go item by item. This will be more clearer for me and the reader. To start with Analyze Learners: In my language courses, my all teachers wanted to introduce ourselves in details. I think by doing so, they aimed to learn our learning characteristics, our personal characteristics and so on. They did this both interviewing with us and made us write about ourselves in a paper so that they collect and learn about us. This was beneficial for both students and teacher because we feel relaxed when teacher did this because we knew he or she want to know us and will act/behave according to this. State Standards and Objectives: Again, my all teachers expalined us their expectations orally or written way. Thus, we knew what is waiting for us in the next weeks. We were preparing according to the lesson plan, we were obeying our teacher's rules. Letting students know the rules and objectives is crucial point here in order to have authority in class, in my opinion. Select Strategies, TEchnology, Media, and Materials: In this point, until I took Steve Hoca's lesson, I had a really poor experience about technological materials. The only think was used in the courses were CD Players, so that we can hear and repeat after the recordings. This was the only technological material we have used so far, except Steve Hoca's courses. We are living in 21st century and courses with only CD players are really poor for the learners. Teachers must be innovative, and must improve students' technological development. This was a missing part in my educational background. Utilize Technology, Media and Materials: I think I do not have enough knowledge about how to utilize technology and media.. It is limited with demonstrating videos and power points.. It is because we only experienced 3 courses with Steve Hoca. The rest were all full of textbooks!. This is also another point that we negatively effected. Require Learner Participation: Our teachers let us participate in effetively and efficiently in the courses. This developed our social interaction skills, helped us beat our nervousness and etc. A student's participation loads him or her with full of positive feelings and abilities. I feel lucky here beacuse my teachers let us and prepare the relax environment to participate. Evaluate and Revise: This was no more then examination. However, feedback, commenting on our studies and the like were done by our teachers. But the system required only examination.. This is bad because students mostly study according to the tests.

The activities based on 4 approaches

To start with my, the behaviorist approach, in preparatory school my teacher Engin Kaça made us repeat after him for the pronunciation studies. It was based on imitation, and we did as robots. Also, in high school some of our teachers acted as if we were not in class, they just lectured, gave tests, did examinations and graded as they wished. Engin Hoca's style was good actually, sometimes imitation is needed and enjoyable, however, lecturing as students are not there is not a satisfactory way of teaching. After, cognitivist approach, in both high school and preparatory school, our teachers established a scenery or problems that we had to live. We thought a lot and acted the way as we wish.. This improved our cognitive development. This point is beneficial for me, for us. For constructivist approach, we mainly dealt with social interactions, tasks that served us problems and etc. When it comes to social psychology perspective, actually I do not remember whether our teachers acted according to the classrooms' needs, but in high school, our teachers were acting as they wished. They applied their approaches which were easy for them to use. So this creates the problem in 2nd language teaching. They seemed preparing us for exams more than gaining that language. I say that, we are living in 21st centuary, and only Steve hoca use technology such effectively. So I reccomend my former teachers to meet with Steve hoca, so that they can learn how to use technology in education.

ELT Methodology I.

Learning "English Language Teaching" is the most important issue in our department "EFL". The course ELT Methodology I is the first course I've taken in the way learning ELT. Alev Hoca, made us present the course week by week, she let us think and find a solution when there was a problem. Problem here was generally created by Alev Hoca in order to observe how we react against that. I can say that we have covered the course with eclectic approach; that is, as we covered the methods and their approaches, we performed the methods by considering their approaches in fron of the class, by including our friends as considering them our students. So, we experienced behaviorist, constructivist, cognitivist and social psychologist approaches. We have seen the upsides and downsides of the approaches when used as only. Eclectic requires more then one approach use in classroom. Also Alev Hoca claimed that the combination of the methods requires this eclectic way of teaching. When it comes to the technological or normal materials that used in class, videos only demonstrated by Alev hoca and she wanted us to use the materials that the methods require. We did so, also she let us use various creative materials such as balloons, weird hats, toys, sometimes food etc. By doing so, I have learnt well the students' and the teacher's role, what the methods require by considering the approaches, the benefits of eclectic teaching, the materials that support our teaching, the difference among student centered, teacher centered and balanced teaching.

Is email really dead? (or dying?)

In the U.S.A. teenagers use of email is on the decline. It appears that they prefer to use IM (instant messaging) or social media to cummunication with each other.

Notice that almost 40% of teenagers do not even know how to use email!

Issues

     To start with, use of technology is is not a common thing in Turkey.  Especially, when it comes to the foreign language teaching, the only technology being used is tape player, for the listening activities. Why do not Turkish teacher use websites like www.italki.com in order to make their students do practice? People in Turkey can barely speak English after they graduate from foreign languages department. This is weird. We are living in 21th centuary and still we use tape players, which is funny...
    I actually use Creative Commons copyrights, for example, this blog is protected under CC copyrights, in order not to let other people use my ideas, researches, sharings etc, I use CC copyrights.
    Besides CTE 319, we do not use technology in our class so effectively. Projector, powerpoints and videos are common technologies we use in classes.
   I think it is 50% our responsible to make sure our students develop digital literacy. Because, we are living in 21th century, we have to use technology in order to catch the world. However, it is students' responsibility to catch our teaching (with techology) and develop themselves.

Literacy Skills

   When I finished high school, my English was not enough for starting EFL 1st year. Also, as I go furher, I learnt how my skills are satisfactory and unsatisfactory for academia. For example, my English was okay in understanding, writing and speaking. That is why I could pass the prepatory school. Also, my computer skill was good too. I passed CNG 100 exam in the first time. But of course these literacies are not enough for having a successful academic life. Now, I am writing about EFL Dept., literature, linguistics, classroom management and ELT are the points I needed to develope. I am still developing these skills to be a good teacher. I do not only go to school but also research good sources, watch qualified videos. I also try to develop myself socially. Because, being a teacher requires good relationship with other people. I joined folklore club, being in there for three years developed my managing, teamworking, interpersonal skills. I am still trying to develop myself in my freetime such as working in summers. I really feel it makes me better than who spend their free time just freely. :) As a candidate teacher, in my opinion, a teacher must be professional on his/her area to give the best! It would be better if a teacher is competent in all literacies but if he or she is not, then still he or she can be a good teacher.

Language Acquisition in Babies & An unbelievable subject!

Please watch the videos, you'll be impressed.
The first one is about Language acquisition in babies.

Patricia Kuhl

And here second one is amazing test!
How smart this guy is !!

Deb Roy

Newest Technology

It seems that Turkey is above the average of newest technology use.
However, do Turkish people use it purposefully? I personally do not agree.

Chart

An interesting video

My First Experince

  On 22nd of May, me and my my mate (Meryem) taught a 50 minutes lesson to the class.
While we were preparing, we were very careful about drawing attention of the class, interaction with all students, reinforcement to increase the students' desired behaviour, visual aids and imitation. We planned them all according to our lesson plan. We used some resources to prepare the lesson. We also prepared more materials than we need (if the time flows and we finished before the time). But we didn't need it. So, time management was great I think, 50 minutes lesson, without boring the class. I felt so great because all the feedback was positive, which made me think our teaching was the best among other peers.
 I would like to share the videos that we have used in our class.

1st: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGFaJeoXr6s

2nd:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40y6rtgCX8M

Lesson Plan

Oğuzhan ÖZÇAKIR
Lesson Plan

                                “Unit: English Language Teaching Methodology”
                                                         Course Outline

*Students are native. (Turkish)
*Students are 2nd year of EFL dept.
*Students’ level is upper intermediate – advanced.
*Courses are based on;
- Teaching (teacher based)
- Performing (student based)
~ Performing is also can be considered as homework.
*The course is based on 1 unit and 6 lessons, 1 lesson per week and 50 minutes per lesson.

**After the lessons, students are expected to:
-know the basics of teaching history.
-develop the techniques that they learnt.
-being aware of their leadership.
-get used to perform the methods.
-get used to how to act as teachers.

**Lessons = By Week
1)Direct Method (Will be planned below)
2)Audio-Lingual Method
3)Desuggestopedia
4)Communicative Language Learning
5)Task-Based Teaching Method
6)Multiple Intelligences.

*Materials that be used in class will differ topic to topic.

                                

                           Week 1 – Direct Method ( 50 minutes lesson )


* Start lesson with introducing myself, mention about me, meeting with students.
*Give the general idea of the course and inform students about the course’s requirements.
*Talk about lesson plan briefly
*Tell students the principals and techniques of direct method.
*Perform this method in front of the students
-The task is prepositions, act as a teacher who uses this method in order to teach prepositions. (in – on – under – between – near – etc ) by using realia.
-Reading and fill in the blanks activity.
-Correct students when necessary.
-Make an evaluation with students.
*Show them a video including this method.
*Give 2 students homework to perform next method, as I did in this class.

About Me

ABOUT ME
My name is Oğuzhan ÖZÇAKIR. I was born on 07/11/1991. I am aTurkish and this makes me feel happy because Turkish people are crazy. I am currently at Middle East Technical University studying English Teaching as a Foreign Language (EFL) because I want to be an English teacher and this university is so good for this. My home is in İzmir. My favorite activities are; folk dance, diving, trips, chess etc.The people who support me the most are my family. They helped me to reach the point that I am in it currently.