Serra’s Reflective Journal by Serra Nur Ünlü https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs en-us 2022-09-01 13:16:43 UTC 2022-09-10 05:17:56 UTC hello@padlet.com How did your first day go? Did it meet your expectations? serranurozcelik https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2279285420   Before coming here, I was very nervous about what will be done and how everything will be done. I am just a one-year teacher and I do not know whether I have the qualities to attend this course or not. But at the end of the day, I clearly see this everyone who wants to be good in their profession should attend it. Everything is planned elaborately and this creates an effective environment for us.
  It was beyond meeting my expectations. I did not expect this much joy, information and friendship at the same time. After the university, I did not have a chance to spend a day like today.
  So it was a wonderful day for me. ]]> 2022-09-01 13:29:26 UTC https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2279285420 How your ideas about teaching young learners change in any way? If so how? serranurozcelik https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2281118791   It is certain that as teachers we have to modify, simplify and adapt our activities when we guide young learners. 
  One of the reasons is that they cannot control their behaviors and reactions and what they feel can be understood by looking at their faces and gestures.
  Also, young learners cannot decide on learning English by themselves. They learn it, because it is decided. Their motivation can be loving their teacher and doing the activities. So, we should create the environment that they need. 
  Additionaly, children learn by doing and experiencing. They need to take action in their learning process and need to be guided carefully. 
  Today’s PDC evokes my previous knowledge of young learners. It also advances my perspective of what can be done for children in the classrooms, because we exchange our ideas, try to focus on the appropriate examples.  

]]> 2022-09-02 19:35:21 UTC https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2281118791 An example of listening songs & chants plan serranurozcelik https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2281120305 2022-09-02 19:37:14 UTC https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2281120305 What needs to be adapted most in your coursebooks to help children improve their oral skills? serranurozcelik https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2281613370   Students need to be given a meaningful context to talk. So, every dialogue that is given should make sense to them. Teachers need to check the dialogues before using them in the classrooms and change the unsuitable parts according to the aim of the dialogue.
  The language of the dialogues should reflect real-world speech. For example, when somebody asks us “Where’s the car?”, we do not reply it as “The car is in front of the tree.”. We just say “In front of the tree.”.
  The dialogues should be natural and the topic should be child-friendly. We cannot use topics that can harm children. 
  The dialogues also need to have social chunks in them for making the students see the usage of them in conversations. If there is not any, we can add some chunks like “Hey, look!”, “Good morning!” etc.
  The sentences in the dialogues should be short and simple. The message should be clear and every student need to understand the same thing. By adding or removing some parts, we can change the dialogue. 

]]> 2022-09-03 18:40:29 UTC https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2281613370 How can PDCs help you with that issue? serranurozcelik https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2281613456 In the process of PDCs, we are getting familiar with the adaptation of the materials we use. As an example, today we use a dialogue from our students’ books and adapt it to our classes. My teammates and I need to change the whole dialogue as our purpose of teaching. We create a new one and this leads us to the final version of our lesson plan. Also, we comment on other plans and by doing this we can get the main idea of how to improve oral skills in our classrooms. PDCs creates an opportunity to be in the action and we learn by doing. If we get confused about anything, we have chance to ask. So, our minds can be clear about what we do and how.

]]> 2022-09-03 18:40:48 UTC https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2281613456 Do you think "Shared Reading" is a suitable procedure to use with L2 children? Why/Why not? serranurozcelik https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2282179307   Students are not aware of how to read in English. To be a model "Shared Reading" can be done in the classroom. 
  Also, by the process of "Shared Reading", it can be seen that who struggles and teacher can give full support for those.
  Additionally, teacher can use "Shared Reading" for developing students’ vocabulary and their fluency in reading.
  Moreover, they can feel encouraged to be a part of the class, the activity and the material. Also, they can be aware of the feeling of achievement.  

]]> 2022-09-04 20:19:33 UTC https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2282179307 Maintaining a balance between children's enjoyment and acceptable behaviour 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 manage it? serranurozcelik https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2283396405 I agree, because when I think about my classes I can clearly see that if my only focus is students’ joy, they can lose their attention easily. Some of them use this as an opportunity to distract others, behave unappropriate and even joke about their friends. To manage these kind of situations, I think everything should be done in certain amount of time. For example, singing and dancing should be used in the classes but not through the whole lesson. It is needed to be done in a short period like 10-15 minutes, not much than that time. Also, at the very beginning of the term, teacher and students can decide on the rules together and the feeling of being a part of the community can make them feel responsible.]]> 2022-09-05 19:19:31 UTC https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2283396405 Are there any tips or techniques from the sessions today that you could use to manage your PDCs positively? serranurozcelik https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2284865844   Today we have a picture inluding monkeys around the tree and we are asked to choose the monkey which describes our way of assessing. I like that one very much and I think we can use that kind of pictures to ask participant describe how they think and feel about their assessment, teaching or the feedback that they take from their students.
  Also, we can use Chinese whisper as a warm-up activity. We can give them a sentence that is related to our topic in PDC and create a fun activity and we get their attention by doing it.
  Moreover, we can give a word about our topic and they can think about the word and write about words that related to that topic.
  In addition to those, we can also use grouping techniques. Odds and evens, number 1-2 or 1-2-3-4, calling them by A-B or A-B-C-D is great options for creating bigger groups like as we did it with Chinese whisper or onion ring. Maybe we can also do it by giving them colors or shapes.
  Additionaly, I really like the idea of giving each corner a city/country name and ask them to move accordingly. Choosing captains, changing places is also good for them to talk to everybody. 
I think we need to create an environment that everyone can share their ideas and talk to each other, because sharing is caring. :)]]> 2022-09-06 15:29:58 UTC https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2284865844 Are there any other elements of the classroom management in your PDCs that you will have to think about (managing Feedback for example). serranurozcelik https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2284866807   When the environment gets too noisy, I can use to whispering to get everybody's attention. Also, there is a call & response technique, it can be used. I really enjoy when I complete the sentences like this and I think everyone likes it (Izzy Whizzy - let's get busy). Sometimes we can choose people to answer the question that we ask, by doing that we can keep their attention. Moreover, sometimes we decide a person to answer and then s/he chooses someone else from the class. It also gives them the feeling of responsibility.]]> 2022-09-06 15:30:30 UTC https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2284866807 Has your view of assessment changed? How? serranurozcelik https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2290204020 Before examining the assessment of teaching, I do some overcorrections about students mispronunciations and sometimes I give them immediate correction. But I learn that if the message is clear and students can talk without interruption, we shouldn’t correct them. Maybe we can correct them in the last 10 minutes of the lesson by not addressing directly the student that makes the mistake. 
Also, we can lead them to find the correct thing by themselves. 
I will be careful about this. ]]> 2022-09-09 19:33:42 UTC https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2290204020 serranurozcelik https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2290207933 I think I am the monkey that hangs on the tree with a face that she is unsure about what is happening. Because sometimes I feel like I don’t know what to do. I mean should I correct them, does the correction make them feel bad, or if I do not correct them will they learn it in a wrong way and it goes like this. But after seeing the assessment techniques here I think I can handle these kind of situations. ]]> 2022-09-09 19:38:02 UTC https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2290207933 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? serranurozcelik https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2290211287   In our PDC sessions we always talk about what problems we may face. When we plan our PDC, we also think about them. For example, there may be some participants they may not want to attend the meeting. Also, there may be some participants that want to speak in Turkish always. I observe and think about our facilitators while they conduct our PDCs. They give me some clues about these kind of situations. 
  We can use our relationship skills to make them engage in the activities. Also, we can encourage them to feel that we are all colleagues here and no one is superior. Everyone here may face with problems in their classrooms and we are here to think about the solutions together. ]]> 2022-09-09 19:41:43 UTC https://padlet.com/serranurozcelik/1sxfkygnoqt9fmgs/wish/2290211287