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Hello from the 7th beautiful day in Erzurum💫 I'm glad to meet my hardworking colleagues and my great tutors here.

The role of a PLC facilitator (I'll keep writing) is like a representative of their local area, an intermediary (between teachers and The Ministry of National Education, a moderator of PLC sessions. PLC facilitators take attendance, report it to PLC coordinator, coordinate the date and place, facilitate the activites, make sure that all participants are focusing on the task, reflecting on the meeting, encourage and support teachers to reflect on the meeting, prepare materials and trialling of new activities in new classes.

I feel that it's challenging, maybe in the beginning we will be demotivated, but we are not alone and later on just small changes will make us happy, in the end we'll be happy to see changing the ideas, changing the classrooms, changing the motto and seeing the students who says "I can understand and speak English confidently".

I met great tutors and colleagues here. Everyone likes to support each other. We have whatsapp and telegram groups. I also follow PLC accounts of other cities. Seeing some examples of them are precious. English teachers like to share, I always see how hard they work online. Now thanks to British Council, Sabanci Foundation and Ministry of National Education, English Language Teachers will be united. Together, we're stronger 🦋

I think I'm the only one in Yozgat. I hope I will have other PLC facilitators in my area. I would share my experiences, my favourite web 2.0 tools and activities, I'd also learn from them.

There aren't any questions I have about the role of PLCs and facilitators. Today in the session, a lot of questions were answered. The posters that made in groups about barriers and solutions were great. Special thanks to Fatih Şallı.

Now, it's clearer what we will do in our areas. It doesn't matter how slow we go, as long as we don't stop ✌🏻

Thank you for everything. I'm sure we'll keep in touch 💐

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Hello from a bright day in Erzurum🌤

The flipped classroom can be described as hot on spot (we can support our students in the class while they are practising, we can do corrections at the right time), time-saving (if every students come to class prepared) and student-friendly (since they can learn at their own pace).  It's like a reversed classical class. We can record our videos for them to watch and send them by whatsapp groups. When students come back to our classes, we can work on productive skills like speaking and writing. At home, they wouldn't get help from their parents mostly but at school, we can guide them and help them. It's time-saving, because in classes when we tell the subject, we do not have enough time to practise. It's student-friendly, because at home they can watch the videos or reading texts at their own pace.

I have concerns about applying the flipped classroom. Some students won't have time to do at home because they also work with their parents at home (farming etc.). Therefore, some students will be more active. Another concern that I have, in a village school, some villages do not have internet connections, so some of my students may not watch the videos that I record. By the way, in pandemic times, I was recording videos for my students, but it did not work out well. There can be technological problems, but it doesn't have to be online. So, we can give texts to students beforehand, for the next lesson.

My colleagues who work in the city centre would love this idea since their students use technology more and they would like to know more about flipped learning. Time is very important and in the city centre classes are more crowded. Flipped learning is a great idea for time-saving. The meatier part will be done at home. So teachers will be able to practise inside their classes. They'd also like the idea using web 2.0 tools for post-reading like postermywall, mystorybook, learningenglishteens. Students may write their own stories by using mystorybook one and another. In the end, they will have another story book to read before the class. Then, they can even prepare some questions in the class as an activity. Later on, they can swap their papers and answer those questions. I am sure that my colleagues will also share their brilliant ideas.

I am glad that we learn new activities and alternatives. Can't wait to share those ideas with my colleagues 🥳🤩

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Hello from a freezing cold day in Erzurum 🥶❄️☃️

There are more disadvantages than advantages in using translation to teach meaning. When translation shows up in the class, students always demands to hear the translation of the words. Therefore, learners do not expand the capability of thinking in the target language. It is harder to memorize the words when translation is used. Students remember the words if they had an experience with it like singing, solving a problem, having trouble but later learning the right meaning. Teachers should guide while eliciting the words in the beginning. Otherwise they should convey the meaning. For better thinking skills and good memorizing translation should not be used in classes.

It's not really important teach learners how to keep vocabulary notebooks to store all the information about new words. Each student is different. They can use digital tools to learn and practice English. Gamestolearnenglish, learnenglishkids are great tools to practice vocabulary. If students like to have vocabulary notebooks, they can use them, but it should not be mandatory. Autonomous learners can find their own way to study. Teachers just should guide them.

"Getting to know words is like getting to know a friend - you learn more about them bit by bit" is a great saying. Knowing words is not easy. Their meaning, pronunciation, spelling, word families, synonyms/antonyms, register, grammar and so on... By using the language more, students will get to know words better. Concept check questions, different task types and using every chance to use target langugage would help our students.

The extra task is about my own practice. I actually prefer informal assessment, so we don't have many tests in my class. Just two exams are officially done, but in depth, I try to focus on my students' use of the target language in classes.

Another day I've learnt a lot. Thank you 💐🦋

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Greetings from a foggy day in Erzurum 🌁🌫😶‍🌫️

In my opinion, in my area, presentation, practice, production method is mostly used. Maybe as teachers, we can focus on achieving results in a short time. A heavy curriculum and little time can make teachers panic and they can choose this method. They're also mostly learned English deductively in their school. Explicit learning may seem easier at first, but in the long run, spicing our lessons with guided discovery helps students perpetuate what they've learned in a more relaxed environment. Students will be cognitively active and more autonomous with guided discovery. Additionally, they will have the chance to learn at their own pace.

There are so many key ideas we've learnt and shared today. Explicit learning has so many advantages for students as I mentioned before. I'd like to share about them in the first place. I was a little bit confused about freer, guided and controlled activities. I am sure some of my colleagues have the same problem with me. Now, it's easier seperating the activity types from each other thanks to our tutors. I'd like to pass this on to local teachers. In addition, communicative task ideas would help teachers to create brand new exercises to energise the students and improve their higher thinking skills. So many brilliant ideas, and of course, Loom made my day :) I am sure teachers in my area will be loved it like I did. We can create great videos, and present grammar as "flipped grammar".

Teachers in my area, will love the ideas. Maybe they'll hesitate to apply guided discovery in a whole lesson, but day by day, I guess they'll see the positive results of it. Differentiating the activities for stronger and weaker students, thinking about how to digitalize our tasks gave us a different perspective, this perspective will spread like a butterfly effect. As I mentioned before they'll be appreciated for Loom and I'm sure they'll use it frequently. Every idea is precious, I'm sure teachers in my area have another brilliant ideas and can't wait to listen to them.

We can make our classes more communicative with communicative tasks and by creating a positive class environment.  Students are relaxed, they can speak English without worrying and get feedback immediately or in the end of the lesson. Communicative tasks like guessing game, drama, information gap, jigsaw would keep them active in the class and the language they use would retain. Using realia, using some apps, stickers, and authentic materials would take students' interest. And when they interest and love the lesson, they will learn. We will grow up together 🦋

Grammar is essential for language use. So, all the ideas we learnt about grammar teaching are very precious. Thank you for today. It was another awesome session. We'll have and share more ideas in the near future. I'm so excited. #englishtogether 🦋🦋🦋

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Hello from a snowy day in Erzurum 🌨❄️⛄️

In the PLC,  I'd like to explore what we can do for shy students with my colleagues for listening and speaking sessions. In speaking or listening sessions, choosing the right context and content is the key. Planning would help it. As teachers, we should know our students' interest and how they can feel relaxed. Controlled activities, arranging exercises for weaker and stronger students would help students to feel better. Teachers should encourage the students to speak English like giving them small stickers or gifts, using mimics, gestures and praising them. Group working, peer working would also work for shy students. Teachers should give enough time for them to prepare. Students also can use web 2.0 tools like vocaroo or chatterpix. Since they do not show their face, they would feel more confident.

Major challenges my learners/other colleagues face related to listening or speaking are crowded classes. In crowded classes, it may be hard to do error correction. Error correction must be done to prevent fossilization. And it needs to be done in a polite and balanced way, so students may not be discouraged. It is necessary for accurate usage of vocabulary, grammar, collocations and pronunciation. In crowded classes, teachers can walk around the classroom and listen to their students during listening and speaking tasks. They can take notes and give an overall feedback in the end of the session. Sometimes, for pair work, if errors make students hardly understand each other, teachers can recast, try to elicit the right answer, use finger techniques or do echoing immediately. Teachers also can use web 2.0 tools like flipgrid. Students can record their videos one by one, and in the class other students can comment on those videos.

The most useful suggestion I have taken away from Listening and Speaking sessions is "error correction". It sometimes can be complicated when and how we can do it. Now, it is clear. And giving enough time to our students is vital.  For speaking lessons, we have learnt precious web 2.0 tools (seesaw, chatterpix, vocaroo) and good suggestions like repeating the tasks with different students from different levels/ 4 3 2 rule. For listening lessons, we learnt great sources for authentic materials like podcasts (British Council, Oxford, etc.) breakingnewsenglish, and ed.ted.com. Finally, differentiating listening and speaking tasks for weaker and stronger students helps both groups feel satisfied with the lesson.

Another fruitful day with great ideas 💐

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Another great day in Erzurum😍

Coursebook listening activities help teachers to save their time. For lower level students, teachers may need easier listening texts instead of authentic ones. Coursebooks sometimes are like roadmaps for teachers.

Students will use the language in real life. Therefore, they need to be exposed to authentic materials. They will get use to all the conditions and accents thanks to authentic materials.

A good plan always helps teachers to develop more active listening skills. Teachers should know students’ needs before the lesson, listen to the text beforehand and write the plan. An energizer task would be great as a warmer. Then, we can set the scene according to the context. After that, pre-teaching vocabulary by using visuals like pictures, posters and videos would be helpful for them to get the text. For active listening skills, eye-contact, body language like head nodding, gestures, asking relevant questions and feedback are important. Group works are precious, after listening peer checking would help them to understand. Students must get the instructions right before the activities. Asking instruction check questions are vital. Firstly, listening for gist then listening for details should be asked. Different web 2.0 tools including different question types by taking into account the level students’ levels. Giving enough time is also important. After a productive skill like writing a paragraph for post listening, peer-checking and teacher’s feedback would help students to improve. Students also should reflect the activities, that would help for future lessons.

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It was a great day. I'm so excited to be here :)

My thoughts are positive about using online tools for writing, since students can work on them collaboratively easily. It's also easier to make corrections and some comments about their writings.

The most important idea related to writing for today is rearranging the activities in our classes is not that hard and they are sooo useful ;)

My colleagues would be most interested in exploring web 2.0 tools, their unplugged alternatives ,and rearranging activities. They would also like the idea "Sharing is caring" :)