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First of all, like yesterday, today was an interesting and productive day to me. I am happy to attend such a special training program. I especially enjoyed the warm-up activities that are done at the beginning of the lesson. I am looking forward to apply them for my classes. In addition to this, discussion activity is one of my favorites so I’ll allocate time to integrate it into my lessons.

My answer to the first question is that I prefer using a combination of the three because they all have useful and unique effects on students. Also students have different skills and ways of learning so that a combination will be better for them.

As answer to the second question : Yes, I do. Because I see that tasks are changeable and I can modify them to my students’ level. For example, I can choose the basic ones for my weaker students and harder ones for my stronger students. This way will contribute a lot to them.

Best regards, Tuğçe.

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Today’s session was about how the speaking skills can be taught effectively.

Most of the teachers encounter a lot of problems with speaking skill. This case can be because of the weaknesses in language learning processes, low motivation, similar and ordinary ways of teaching speaking. That’s why, teachers should pay attention to use new methods and techniques in teaching process.

On the other hand, students generally say that ‘Why am I learning English, Will I use it?, Where will I use it?’ so we clearly understand that they have no idea how and why they improve the language. Besides, in general, students can be shy at the classroom atmosphere especially when they try to speak English. This is the main problem I have. They are worried about the errors and mistakes they make.

Thankfully in this program we can learn new techniques and activities that can be applied in our classrooms and get students speak.

Just because those activities and techniques are enjoyable and encouraging, students probably will think that this activity is kind of game and I can try it. So that they will have fun while they are learning. As we think of their age and interests we can be sure that they are very interested in games. As a result this way is the effective one I think.

Thanks

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Firstly teacher starts his/her lesson with a warm-up activity and then explains and gives clear instructions about what are the students expected to do.  Because of the students’ low level of English skills, teacher starts with giving the meanings of the words that are included in the passages. As a pre reading activity, teacher uses key words and asks that ‘What are those two passages about?’. Students are expected to predict the content. Then, students read the passages quickly(in two minutes) and they provide titles for them as a gist task. And also teacher uses True/False activity as detailed task. The teacher additionally asks the question ‘Why?’ for the false answers. This part is used for stronger students.  For the post reading activity, students are expected to paraphrase the passages according to themselves. And then they discuss about their own passages with a friend of their group. Surely, teacher supports kindly their students via monitoring during the tasks. As the final part, teacher gives clear feedback.

On the other hand, students often try to translate the paragraphs. This condition can be one of the most challenging problems in our lessons that’s why in my context there is no permission to translate.

A note to me: To be honest, I always teach the grammar subject before reading passages. So I learnt in today’s sessions that this way is not effective just because students should learn the grammar subject inductively in the passages. From now on, I will change my way of teaching reading.

Thank you

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To be honest, I need to say that contolled and guided activities are the most appropriate ones when I consider the number of my students but this is not to say that I never use freer activities. That’s why integrated ones can be more effective for my classes.

I think that my colleagues would want to discuss about that inductive learning. Because of our time limitation and crowded classrooms we usually try to teach grammar directly. On the other hand we know that learning grammar inductively is more permanent and meaningful for the students. Because they make the students active and motivated.

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For teaching vocabulary I use generally the matching synonyms method in higher grade clasrooms. But for lower grade students I use flashcards and repetition methods in my lessons. I also benefit from the reading texts to teach specific vocabularies.

As I said above I use vocabulary notebooks to match the synonym words and synonym&antonym words activities for my language classes. For the other classes, the students are expected to find a picture and stick it under the word or draw sth describing the word.

Additively I noted the games for teaching vocabulary in this session because all of them are creative and unseful I think.

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I think that the biggest and most common problem in assessment is about time. Because we have 4 different types of assessment as reading&writing, speaking and also listening. Contrary to this situation we have only 4 lessons in a week unfortunately. So how can we support the students effectively and evaluate their progress for each skills in such a short time? It really demotivates the teachers.

Of course I think that could help both teachers to save time and students to learn their peers in their safe zone. For instance, the stronger student can check the answers of the weaker one so that stronger one is able to repeat the topic and the weaker student feel himself/herself relaxed. But of course after this part, teacher should give the true answers to all learners.

According to my opinion PDC meetings are a vital chance to speak English. Because we can not have a chance to speak English. Also PDC meetings are very useful and beneficial for self-development.

I want to stay in touch with the teachers that I meet in my training program. So that we can keep discuss about our opinions and PDC meetings to improve our meetings.

Actually I have already had the planning and conducting drafts with me. Thanks to notes which are taken by me and our trainer’s pack, it will be easier I think.

Thank you🌹