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How did your first day go? 
Did it meet your expectations? 

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How did your first day go? 
Did it meet your expectations? 

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Have your ideas about teaching young learners changed in any way? If yes, how?

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Have your ideas about teaching young learners changed in any way? If yes, how?

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By means of today's sessions, my ideas about teaching young learners changed. First of all, I noticed that giving instructions is not just telling what the learners are expected to do. The facilitator should be sure all the leaners understand the instructions. In that way, there won’t be chaos. To be sure, we can ask some ICQs.  We studied the six characteristics of young learners. This study made me think on my teaching styles and gave me a chance to understand the young learners’ needs better. I will definitely take these characteristics into consideration more. I, once more, noticed the importance of pair and group work, power of visuals, peer learning, learning by doing and experiencing among young learners. Before wanting them to speak I must give time to think. Then I should want them to talk in pairs and finally share with the whole group. The activities and explanations of the sessions really helped me to recognize the needs of young learners.

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1. What needs to be adapted most in your coursebooks to help children improve their oral skills? 2. How can PDCs

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1. What needs to be adapted most in your coursebooks to help children improve their oral skills? 2. How can PDCs

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Meaning is the most important point for children so our coursebooks must be prepared by taking this into consideration. The examples, activities and dialogues aren’t exactly natural and child-friendly. The books are lack of social chunks and clear context. Unfortunately, the coursebooks can’t provide meaningful reason for talking and can’t relate the activities to daily lives and real life situations. Also, there is a shortage of fun game-like activities. The coursebooks haven’t cut and stick or craft activities which especially primary students like a lot. They can be used to help the pupils speak. The listening texts are mostly not interesting or enjoyable for students. As teachers we can adapt the activities to help children improve their oral skills. For example, we can record the listening text again with rhythm and clear context, by adding some social chunks, and support them with drills. We can want them to use the chunks and words they learnt at the classroom while preparing a dialogue similar to the ones at the class. If there are long sentences, we can shorten or divide them. We can want students to change some parts of the sentence and tell them again so we can use drills. The coursebooks don’t offer enough warm up so we may prepare enjoyable warm up activities before speaking. The PDCs I have attended so far help me to put myself into children’s shoes. I’ll evaluate the activities with the view of children and try to make the activities meaningful for them.

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Do you think Shared Learning is a suitable procedure to use with L2 children? Why? Why not?

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Do you think Shared Learning is a suitable procedure to use with L2 children? Why? Why not?

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If we can create a suitable atmosphere for Share Reading, I think it is very useful to use with L2 children. We should arrange the classroom in a way that is suitable for Shared Reading (circle, U-shaped). The text shouldn’t be too long or difficult to understand and the topic should be enjoyable for the children. It must be appropriate for the level of students. Students must be involved in the story with some techniques. By starting an enjoyable warm up activity related to the topic of the text, we can draw children’s attention and help them to predict the story. We can show the cover of the book and want them to guess the story looking at the title and the illustrations. Also, we can use some pictures from the book and want students to order them and talk about the story. In that way, we can encourage thinking. They also can understand the main events or points. Shared Reading encourages students to enjoy reading and gives us opportunities to give examples of fluent reading behaviors for children. Besides, it gives us chance to demonstrate correct pronunciation while reading the text. To keep the children motivated is very hard if we want them just to sit and listen. We should involve them and want them to tell some chunks or drills. In my opinion, Shared Reading improves reading skills in an enjoyable way.

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Maintaining a balance between children’s enjoyment and acceptable behavior is often one of the greatest challenges that primary language teachers face? 1. Do you agree or not? 2. What challenges do teachers face? And how do they challenge it? 

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Maintaining a balance between children’s enjoyment and acceptable behavior is often one of the greatest challenges that primary language teachers face? 1. Do you agree or not? 2. What challenges do teachers face? And how do they challenge it? 

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Making the lessons enjoyable is a desired thing among teachers, but then managing the classroom may be difficult for us. I agree maintaining a balance between children’s enjoyment and acceptable behavior is really challenging. As a primary language teacher, I often use games and enjoyable activities in my classroom. However, most of my students don’t concentrate on the language item that is wanted to be studied. They just play the games or do activities for fun, or they don’t want to attend the activities because of some reasons (they find them childish). To overcome that, I use some small stickers carrying out the activities and ask some simple questions related to the item. The students giving the correct answers win extra stickers. This works to some extent. Also, to prevent the chaos in the classroom I have some rules, responsibilities and routines. However, with the sessions today I realized that I can have some more these three Rs. It may help me manage the classroom easier. Using some nonverbal signs for the teachers can be helpful. I have some signs for my students to stop talking, start the activity and to do some routines. Another challenging point is to let them study as groups. Students having certain duties help overcome the challenge. Creating a peaceful, safe, relaxing and comfortable learning environment is one of the priorities that must be done for the classroom management. Negotiating with students, giving learners equal opportunities, building self-esteem can be helpful, too. The sessions really made me think on my classroom management skills and how to make it better. Thanks.

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1. Is there any tips or techniques from the sessions today that you could use to manage your PDCs positively?  2. Are there any other elements of classroom management in your PDCs that you will have to think about?

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1. Is there any tips or techniques from the sessions today that you could use to manage your PDCs positively?  2. Are there any other elements of classroom management in your PDCs that you will have to think about?

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Today we studied some techniques to manage the classroom and I recognized there are lots of ways to do it effectively. I could definitely use stirrers and settlers in my PDCs. By taking the important points we talked about into consideration I could carry out these activities: “Chinese Whisper, Stop the Bus, Beyond the Basic, Making New Words from the Letters of a Certain Word, Making sentences ending in words having similar sounds, Writer-Runner” in my PDCs. Apart from these we studied some other stirrer and settler activities in the book. A few of them were new for me. Also, I can benefit from the grouping techniques used in the sessions (four corners-four destinations, pandas). They were great and interesting. We talked about how different teachers’ behaviors, when there is chaos in the class, have response on children’s behaviors. By means of this activity I had a chance to think about my behaviors and evaluate myself. We thought on wrap up activities and I realized which are good for the management. We had a look at some tips for getting and holding attention and this was very useful for me. Besides, types of assessment were studied which was helpful, too. There was a new term for me: “child-friendly test”. The features of a child-friendly test were listed and implemented on a test by us. I’ll benefit from all these tips and techniques in my own PDCs.

In my PDCs I’ll treat as a facilitator so I’ll guide the participants. I’ll make them to think about on the topics I mentioned above. In addition to these I’ll make them think about how to give feedback and instructions, how to form groups clearly, how to set up the activity and carry out it, how to prepare the classroom physically, how to work (individually, in pair or group), how to make rules, responsibilities and routines.

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Has your view of assessment changed? How? Which monkey are you? :)

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Has your view of assessment changed? How? Which monkey are you? :)

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I’m using both formal (the ministry wants so to grade) and informal assessment, but I noticed I’m using self and peer assessment less. I already pay attention to assess both the process and product. I appreciate the product but more than it, I value the development of my students that is process. I always make the assessment but I realized that I must give chances to evaluate the students themselves and their peers. Also, I noticed that my feedback isn’t enough and child-friendly for the pupils. I have learnt child-friendly tests which I will benefit from now on. I could use some codes in my feedback. Assessment for learning is more effective for learners than assessment of learning. I will definitely make the participants to think on different assessment types in my PDCs and benefit from them in my courses.

Among the monkeys around the tree I’m the one which seems full but unhappy. It ate something, but don’t know if there was something better to eat. I make assessment for my students’ benefits, but I’m not sure whether my assessment is well enough for my students.

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1. What do you think will be the greatest benefit of being in a Professional Development Community for the teachers of English in your local context who join in your PDC meetings?              2. How do you feel the PDC sessions you have studied in this face to face training programme will help you deal with possible problems when you are planning and conducting PDCs for teachers in your local context?

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1. What do you think will be the greatest benefit of being in a Professional Development Community for the teachers of English in your local context who join in your PDC meetings?              2. How do you feel the PDC sessions you have studied in this face to face training programme will help you deal with possible problems when you are planning and conducting PDCs for teachers in your local context?

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I think learning the basics of PDC by doing will be the greatest benefit for me. By means of the experiences I got here, I could help my colleagues in my local context. I could carry out the activities especially the ones for grouping, meeting, thinking, talking in pairs, sharing and the steps of PDC cycle. In each session we talked about the possible challenges and problems by trying to offer some solutions. In my own PDCs I will take the suggestions and ideas into consideration we studied here. The sessions held here weren’t just theoretical. All of them were practical and gave us opportunities to experience the activities. If they had been theoretical, I couldn’t feel that I can carry out my own PDCs. I will definitely benefit from your activities and ideas in my own PDCs. Thanks for everything dear facilitators Simon and Hatice.