In your classroom would you prefer using materials and activities in your coursebook, authentic materials and tasks, the ones from other sources or a combination of the three?

In my classrooms I generally prefer using listening materials and activities in our coursebook since it is less time-consuming and tiring. However, I sometimes need to make slight changes in the activities to lower the level, to enable my students to handle the activity. Differentiation is sometimes a must for my classes. I love using authentic materials, as well; not always but sometimes, if it is proper and if I have enough time for it. My pupils can not totally understand it but watching a short video or listening to a popular song attract their attention. I use extra listening activities which I find in online groups or websites as homework but they are never interested in extras, they are never kind of homework-lover students.

Do you think the ideas about developing more active listening skills in today's sessions would be appropriate and useful in your classrooms? Why, why not?

I used to feel guilty when I change and make listening activities easier but today I am so happy to learn that I did it well (differentiation). I feel so sad when my student are hopeless when it comes to listening, my aim is just to show them they can understand and do it. They are rarely successful to understand totally but they understand to an extent. So, no need to be hopeless :) pair working is appropriate and I use it during activities; however, group working causes chaos and too much noise in my classes because there are nearly 35 students in my each class. I also want to thank for attracting our attention to ICQs. I will do it more :)

What do you consider the most common problem in your district related to teaching speaking in language classes?

Classroom management and noise can be challenging. We experienced noise today in the classroom, we are adults, though. Another problem is shy students who are afraid of making mistakes and do not want to speak. I may experience the same problems in my PDCs too.

Do you think the ideas about developing more active listening skills in today's sessions would be appropriate and useful in your classrooms? Why/Why not?

After today's paperslides and flip activity I thought I should immediately apply these two both in my classes and PDCs. I enjoyed a lot and I hope the teachers in my PDC sessions will like and want to apply them in their classes as well. It really seems to work. I will definitely try it!

How would you differentiate a reading task from the Grade 9 coursebook for a mixed ability classroom? Please include the reading text and the tasks with your ideas for differentiation.

(The text I chose from the coursebook and the activities are below on the photos.)

For pre-reading part: Teacher comes to the classroom with Japanese outfit and acts like a Japanese and introduces herself, which is a kind of demonstration. The aim is atract students attention and introduce the topic.

For while-reading part: Names of six people in the text are written on the board in bubbles and the information about each people is written around the bubbles. Then, part d is done. This will help students do it by themselves.

For post-reading activity: Students do pair work. Roleplay Emma and an employee in the students affairs. (part f)

Which idea from today's sessions do you think your colleagues in your contex would find the most useful to solve common problems in teaching reading?

The text with nonsense words and its comprehension questions was a good example to show my colleagues that we do not have to know every single word to do reading activities and improving students' reading skills. So, I will include it to my PDCs. The other activity I will do in my PDCs will definitely be jigsaw (differentiation of pre-while-post reading parts of a text from MoNE coursebook) which will improve my colleagues' creativity and help them in their teaching process.

What do you think the most effective writing/grammar/vocabulary teaching suggestion in today's session for language classrooms in your area? Why?

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

The biggest contribution of being here is gaining motivation about teaching language again. I used to feel burned out. I think my colleagues will think over whether the things I will convey to them will work in their classes or not. So, if I succeed in stimulating them, it will be a big pleasure for me.

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?

Rehearsing is always good. So micro PDC is a very good idea. Your guiding us and giving feedback is so precious. I wonder if I will succed it or not. I hope I will :)