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Today we're supposed to answer three questions about our Running dictation list. so, I put it here, because I've noticed that I've just used numbers of the tips without writing the whole sentences

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First of all I want to say that I am happy to be a part of such a great project. The first day was so inspiring for me. I have learnt that PDC stands for Professional Development Community, which helps teachers from the same regions to share their experiences and good examples, and find solutions to their problems. There are lots of benefits of PDC. At the end of the course we will become PDC facilitators and arrange the meetings on the local level in the cities we live in. It sounds like a difficult responsibility. I am not sure that I can do it well I feel a little lack of confidence for it. But maybe I will change my opinion at the end of the course

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I'd underestimated the power of reflection before. I have to admit that I didn't always think about the reasons why some things don't work in the classroom, from now on I'll try to improve myself at this point. Because I don't want to be like Jeff :)

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I like the energy of our group everyone is so hardworking! It makes me study better

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I liked this application very much. I think it is applicable in the primary school classroom. The biggest challenge is to provide devices for the students. Here is our slogan for today's scavenger hunt.

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Some positive moments :) Guess who won the Kahoot? of course it was our team. "Stars" team Behiye&Gülsüm&Alyona

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I have chosen the socially oriented (Bicycle model), and as far as we have already discussed the reasons of it in the class I am not going to write it here. In my opinion, during the discussion the constructivist model seemed also logical. I think there's is no one ideal way of teaching a language, we usually use eclectic approach by combining some of them.

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There is a limit to how much can be put in depending on child's aptitude and intelligence.

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And concerning the questionnaire, I was UNSURE about 2 issues: statements number 1 and number 6. But after the discussion I have changed my mind and disagreed with statement 1 and agreed with statement 6. And I still agree with statement 4 about teaching basic grammatical constructions, maybe it would be better if we call them "basic structures" or smth like this.

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What I have learnt so far about it can be summarised as follows:
*young learners focus on meaning (before this session I thought they also focus on words, but I was wrong)
*they pick up language chunks easily by imitation (totally agree)
*they use language creatively (sometimes in the wrong way)
*they learn better when they are engaged with the activity (I agree that they learn from their own experience and mistakes)
*they can't manage their behaviour and unpredictable (unfortunately)
*they have no reasons for learning a FL, (so motivation is important here)
*they lose interests quickly (that's why we should manage the classroom activities carefully)

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I have never analyzed the dialogues from the course books before today. Sts just accepted them as a drill and practised during the lesson. But my opinions have totally changed after todays' sesson. Finding the reasons for speaking, or making the dialogue more natural are great ideas. We should not forget that we teach a foreign language, not only grammar. That is why the dialogues should be simple but child-friendly, they should make sense and contain useful social language.

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Finding solutions to the dialogues from the course book

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Question 1. Is it possible to match the stages of this session with the stages of PDC cycle?

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Question 1. Is it possible to match the stages of this session with the stages of PDC cycle?

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Definitely, yes. There are 5 stages on PDC cycle and I think we had all of them during the first session in the morning.
1. Warm up - What's in my bag? with toilet papers
2. Review - we asked and answered questions about the previous session
3. Engage and share - we predicted the stages of a lesson plan, discussed, and practiced some of the activities. Then we tried to write our own plans and some of us presented theirs.
4. Reflection and Evaluation - we have answered the Questions about the task on page 23, we have discussed the  strong and weak issues of the plans
5. And there were closing remarks as well.

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Question 2. What changes would you make if you were working with teachers from your PDC on using dialogues more effectively in the primary school?

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Question 2. What changes would you make if you were working with teachers from your PDC on using dialogues more effectively in the primary school?

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Today we were supposed to write our own lesson plans on using the dialogues more effectively. Teachers always complain about the coursebooks but I think they are not so bad as it seems to be, not all of the dialogues need adoption.
Maybe it would be better to do it this way:
1. prepare 8 or 10 dialogues from our coursebooks before the session
2. Divide teachers into groups and ask them to decide on which dialogues should be adopted
3. divide the teachers into the pairs, distribute the dialogues that should be adopted and ask teachers to write the lesson plan about how to use it effectively, etc.

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Question 3. What needs to be adopted most in your coursebooks to help children improve their oral skills?

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Question 3. What needs to be adopted most in your coursebooks to help children improve their oral skills?

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Today we have discussed listening activities and I have noticed that the most enjoyable listening activities usually contain TPR techniques. Children like doing actions while they are listening to a song, chant or exercise. But in our coursebooks the listening activities are usually boring, there are so many "Listen and number" or "Listen and match" activities. In my opinion, young learners enjoy "Listen&do" activities more than the others, and they learn better when they are engaged into the process. So there should be more "Listen and Do" activities, we also can adopt some of the listening activities according to the situation.
The second point I want to notice is that listening activities should be easy, clear and natural,  motivational, engaging and challenging, they maybe spoken with different moods.

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Question 4. How can PDCs help you with that issue?

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Question 4. How can PDCs help you with that issue?

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I believe that when teachers really want to find the solution to a problem they do their best to find it, so PDC brings teachers together to discuss their problems and share their experiences. During the session a facilitator may draw attention to this issue and all together teachers can try to change/adopt some of the coursebook activities, they can try them in their classes and then give feedback about what worked well and what didn't work and why.

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I have so many things to learn. One of them is how to get students attention when they are busy with their activity. Our teacher, Mr. Jon De Ath, shows us really great examples for doing this, like "show me your listening ears" or 123 eys on me". They are amazing! I have written all of them to my notebook. In the next video you can see my favourite one :)
Thank you, Jon! We have a lot to learn from you.

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I think this video is a good example of what students feel when they start reading in English. They feel confused because in English words are pronounced differently from their written form.It requires many subskills, so teachers should be aware of how challenging reading can be. Reading needs more background knowledge from the students. They have to know letters, sounds, words and their meaning and pronounciation, syntax etc. and at the same time they should focus on meaning. So it is not easy for young learners.

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Let me start  from the very beginning :) When I was at a low secondary school I have experienced both of the approaches as a learner.
My first English teacher hadn't taught us phonics at all,  she pronounced words and asked us to memorize them. It was ok when we were reading texts with the words we already know, but we couldn't read the texts with unknown words, because we didn't know how to pronounce/read them.
Then to some reasons our teacher was changed and the new one started everything from the very beginning and she started with phonics, I remember that we studied all the letters and sounds one by one for almost  two months and we were able to read mostly everything according to the rules ( open syllable, closed syllable, silent "e", etc.) but still there were some sight words which were not read according to the rules and this was confusing.
And due to my experience as a learner I find the second approach more effective. I believe that using phonics is essential because it helps students to pronounce the words correctly, make them more confident while reading and helps to read texts fluently. But we don't have much time for it in our class and the 3rd option is probably the most useful for us - we can use a little bit of phonics quite often (maybe every lesson). I think, we should care about our students' pronounciation, because in English one sound may change the whole word and this can lead to awkward situations as we have seen during today's session.

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We had really smart students today:)

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In my opinion, Shared Reading is an amazing activity, because it makes reading an enjoyable experience. Mr. Jon has demonstrated us how to do it and we had a lot of fun. I will definitely use it in my classroom. With Shared Reading students have an opportunity to work with the whole books or stories and understand that the texts are meaningful and have a context. The emphasis is made on sharing and working together. And the focus is on meaning. The thing I loved most about today's reading session is getting learners into a semi-circle for reading, after we sat in a circle the atmosphere became more friendly. The other thing I liked is that it involves students in the text actively, teacher asks questions  about the visuals, makes students guess what will happen next and thus creates curiosity, encourage thinking and motivates them.

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Warm up activity is one of the important parts of PDC session. I think our mentors do their best by showing us really good warm up activities, they are not only engaging but also enjoyable and funny, they motivate us before the session. Today we prepared posters in groups making review of the previous session, lasst day we had the "2 truths and 1 lie" which was great, because we have discussed our habits and there were so many unexpected aspects :)  I think these activities are useful not only for the PDC session  but also in the classroom. Thanks dear Deniz and Jon that you show us how to use the warm ups better.

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What is one thing on the list you often do and consider beneficial when managing activities?

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What is one thing on the list you often do and consider beneficial when managing activities?

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I think, I usually do number 3, i.d. wait untill everyone is quiet and attentive to introduce the activity. because it is important to attract students attention to the activity, otherwise they won't focus on it. The other thing I usually do in my classroom is number 9 - I try to give my ss simple and clear instructions, most of the time I use the body language or visuals to promote understanding. Giving clear instructions helps students to understand what they should do to complete the activity, if you don't give clear instructions  the ss won't be successful in doing the task.

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What is one thing on the list you often ignore when setting up the tasks in your classroom?

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What is one thing on the list you often ignore when setting up the tasks in your classroom?

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The thing I often ignore is number 2. I don't always use a familiar signal to attract ss' attention. I wasn't sure whether it is so important to use it. Sometimes, I clap my hands to attract their attention, but not always, sometimes I do other things like just standing silent in front of the board, asking ss' to show me their fingers, sometimes I just say "be quiet, please!" "Look at me!". But after observing our sessions I found out many ways of getting ss' attention and they really work more effectively than "be quiet!" phrase and they are enjoyable and fun. I am going to try them in my classroom.

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What is the most valuable tip you have learnt having done this task

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What is the most valuable tip you have learnt having done this task

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Of course, all of the tips are valuable, but I think the most valuable one is number 6 about creating a context to pre-teach a vocabulary. Children will learn better if they can connect the things they've learnt to the real context.

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I think, there were certainly many tips and techniques during the sessions that can help us to manage our PDC sessions positively. They are like follows:
1. Warm ups - they could create a friendly environment at the beginning of the PDC.
2. Tips of getting and holding attention  such as whispering instead of yelling, using a call and response tecnique (like Izzy-Whizzy), maybe resetting; varying activities( settlers and stirrers), appealing to different learning styles.
3. Tips about managing the activities like monitoring discreetly, reflective thinking and many others

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There are some important elements of classroom management that teachers should keep in mind like those we spoke about today. But we haven't spoken about how to cope with ss' misbehaviour or the ways teachers deal with the naughty students. We mentioned the "early-finishers" but haven't discussed the ways of managing them in the classroom, so I think these are the things we will have to think about.

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Has your view of assessment changed and how?

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Has your view of assessment changed and how?

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Sure, there are some important points that I would like to underline.
1. We should make clear what is being assessed and why.
2. We can show our ss that the assessment is not only about marks but can also be used to improve their learning because it show their progress, strengths and weaknesses.
3. We can use various types of assessments such as self-assessment, peer assessment, formative (Afl) or summative (Aol) assessment.
4. I've also changed my view about the characteristics of the good young learners' assessment.

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What do you consider the greatest benefit of being in a PDC for teachers in your local context?

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What do you consider the greatest benefit of being in a PDC for teachers in your local context?

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I think PDC sessions give teachers the opportunities to improve themselves through collaborative study and professional dialogue. It is an easy way to share best practices. It enables teachers to reflect on their own practices, share their adeas about the local problems and find solutions for them.

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How do you expect the PDC sessions in the programme would help you deal with possible problems about planning and conducting PDCs in your teaching context?

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How do you expect the PDC sessions in the programme would help you deal with possible problems about planning and conducting PDCs in your teaching context?

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I think, the PDC sessions in the programme would help us in many ways, especially in planning and conducting the PDC. They show us how to plan our PDC sessions, how to apply the activities during the session in an enjoyable way, how to monitor the teachers and how to assess them and give feedback. But I am not sure about the possible problematic situations, maybe there would be some more problems than we expect.

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Our charismatic teacher with his hardworking students

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Our charismatic teacher with his hardworking students

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Our beautiful teacher with her lovely students

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Our beautiful teacher with her lovely students

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Working hard for the presentation, Day 8 time: 23.00 p.m.

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Hanife & Alyona & Fadime

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I think this was the best course I've ever attended as a teacher. Thanks for all people who managed to bring us here. It was an amazing experience for me