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1. The most common problem related to speaking activities is the Ss’ lack of self-confidence.  They believe that they cannot speak English and they don’t even try. During a question and answer session, they think of the answers in Turkish and try to translate it into english.  Thus, they try to make long and complicated sentences like they do in their native language.  When they cannot, they get the assumption that speaking English is very difficult and beyond their skills.  I encourage them to split their answers and state their opinions in 4 separate sentences instead of one long and complicated one loaded with unfamiliar vocabulary.  However, they cannot internalize this simple technique as they have got used to memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules for the exams since second grade and they don’t see English as a means of communication. They don’t look for ways to express themselves easily, for that reason.

2. I liked all the activities and Web 2.0 tools today.  I already use some of them like that particular way of grouping, chatterpix and voki.  I’ll definitely use ‘I have never’ because it’s a very fun way to revise the present perfect tense.  Maybe I can also adapt it to other topics and subjects like ‘have got/has got’ or other tenses. I’m planning to use paper slides, too.  I’m sure Ss will come up with perfect presentations.

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1. In my classes I prefer using a combination of materials created specifically for language teaching and authentic materials.  I prefer course books or other sources as they provide me with activities suitable for every step of a good listening exercise.  Moreover, in such materials target structure is more easily detected by the learners and it is introduced in a more direct and simple way.  If I cannot find suitable activities in those sources, I adapt authentic materials to prepare a full listening activity.  I also use authentic materials to introduce a new topic or attract Ss’ attention at the beginning of the lesson, or just as a wrap up like listening to a song containing examples of the target structure at the end of the lesson.

2. I really like today’s activities and am planning to use them in my classes.  Especially “Text with lies” will be great as I’m sure my students will love the opportunity to shout ‘Liar!’ in the middle of the class!  I am going to explore the website ELLO, too as I’ve never heard of it before.

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1.  Even though I always use most of the examples of different types of feedback provided today’s session, I have never thought about them before and I didn’t know their names.  That was new for me.

2. I would like to try line up discussion and adapt it to other topics in my classes.  I also plan to use KWL chart.  I definitely found it useful.  I can use these two activities in PDC meetings, too.  Reading race would also make a good to start a PDC meeting.  I’ll use that as well.

3. I think monitoring and feedback are very important as they ensure the success of an activity.  No matter how carefully you plan an activity, it means nothing if Ss don’t or can’t participate in it.  Today, we saw both good and bad examples of monitoring and feedback and experienced the outcomes directly.  We also discussed different types of monitoring and feedback to use in different situations, which was really helpful.

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1. I think, cooperation would be useful in my writing classes as the English levels and motivation of my pupils vary a lot.  If I make my pupils work in groups which consist of both motivated high achievers and low achievers with low motivation, they can assist each other during writing tasks.  That can also provide me with an opportunity to digitalize my tasks as there are some pupils in each classroom who participated in my Erasmus+ project on using coding and digital skills in language learning.  They have learnt a lot during the project and are very willing to use those skills.  One or two of them in each classroom will suffice to direct the whole class towards a more digitalized English classroom.

2. I think my colleagues would be happy to learn about some web tools which will decrease their work load in evaluating writing assignments.  One of the biggest problems of English teachers in high schools is performance task, which we have to assign and evaluate each term.  English teachers are having difficulty in choosing an efficient performance task.  When we assign them a writing task they can easily find ready essays on the Internet or ask a friend to write it.  In the past I could detect the site from which they took the essay but now, I think they use some paid websites which do not appear among search results.  Personally that makes me really upset as it creates an unfair situation.  Some students who have no interest in English classes hand in really good essays found on the web and get the same high grades with those who really care and do the task on their own.  If we assign recording a video, the result doesn’t change.  They make somebody write the script and they only read it.

3. How can I prevent Ss’ cheating in writing tasks given as homework or performance task?

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1. I believe that guided discovery is the most useful idea for the teachers in our area.  Language levels of students in our district is not very low, so we can refresh their grammar knowledge with a little push.  They lack motivation, especially in 11th grade.  (I have only them this year, which makes me a bit discouraged.)  However I know that if I can find sth to attract their attention, they really enjoy contributing to the classes.  For example, when I use my own photos (while playing the guitar, enjoying a heavy metal concert, working as a cashier in a bar, etc ) to explore ‘used to’, each S contributes to the activity.

2. I think the density of classrooms and the nature of evaluation in Turkey will be put forward as the main obstacles to effective grammar instruction in PDC’s.  I fear that few of the them will be convinced of a possibility of changing the way we teach.  But they might like some web tools which will provide them with easier means of  grading Ss’ performance.

3. CCQ is the most useful idea I got from today’s sessions.  I am planning to use it especially in vocabulary activities. As our education system is focused on exams and grades, we do not pay much attention to vocabulary.  I think we consider grammar to be more difficult, thus we believe that Ss need us to learn and revise grammar rules, but they can learn vocabulary on their own.  In my school, Ts present the vocabulary lists with their Turkish meanings.  These are ready to use lists from the Internet and mostly give only one meaning of the word among many others.  (Most of the time that meaning is completely irrelevant to that word’s particular meaning in the text in the course book).  These lists also include some fill in the gaps exercises and Ts think that that would suffice to teach Ss vocabulary.  I don’t use those lists but honestly I don’t spend a lot of time on vocabulary, either.  I try to present vocabulary in more memorable ways than lists such as miming, defining or giving examples to elicit the words from Ss but I don’t use CCQ’s.  Sometimes I tell different ways of revising vocabulary for the exam for their individual studies at home as I’m aware that they all have varying learning styles.  When I go back, I’ll try to include more CCQ’s in my classes.

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1.  We are expected to assess four skills together with grammar and vocabulary.  And we cannot assess these skills during classes.  They have to be done through separate exams according to regulations.  These take too much time and we have only 4 class hours a week.  Moreover, grading a student’s 4 skills doesn’t seem fair to me as we can’t teach them properly because of the curriculum, compulsory use of textbook provided by MoNE and crowded classrooms.  This is the biggest problem about assessment when we take the term as grading.  If we take it in a broader sense, the most common problem is lack of motivation on Ss’ part.  In some classrooms, especially 11th grades, only one-fourth of the class participate in the activities.  Even if I want to use formative assessment tools, I feel discouraged and see it as a waste of time.  If I ignore the reluctant Ss and focus on the assessment of those who are interested in activities that will mean losing the others forever.

2.  I see PDC’s as an opportunity to use English for communicative purposes. This is the biggest advantage of being in PDC’s.  I have observed that English teachers get nervous when they have to speak English in real contexts like Erasmus+ projects.  The vocabulary and structures we use in classrooms are very limited and we lack ‘real’ everyday communication skills, though we teach it several times in different grades.

3.  We can share our experiences of our own PDC’s and take precautions for problems they encounter which we couldn’t think of in our micro PDC’s, or wasn’t mentioned in the guide.  We can also share tools and sources.  More importantly we can motivate each other when we feel discouraged and exhausted.

4. I think everything is clear for the time being.  Thank you.

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As it was a group activity there were some problems about boundaries. My activity started earlier than planned because of the wrong instructions of the previous activity. But I think I managed to make a smooth transition to my activity. I could have made the mind map larger but I wasn't very confident about using it on an unfamiliar smart board. I didn't want to make a mistake and close other members' windows. If it wasn't a micro pdc I would definitely visit the venue of my PDC and practice the tools I'd use on smart board. I would also prepare a presentation where I could embed all the links of the tools I was going to use so as not to be busy opening and closing windows all the time. We could have written the activities we did on the board, too but as everyone is familiar with all the activities and tools, we didn't do it. I thought telling the name of the web tool I used would suffice as it was the only tool we hadn't used before.