Dear all,

We hope you had a great start to the new module.

Here are this week’s items:

1. Please be informed that there has been a change in the venue of Bedra Girgin’s session entitled “Photography in the Classroom”.  The session is going to be on February 9 at 09:00 and 14:45 in 314. Depending on your timetables, you can join the session either in the morning or in the afternoon. Please find the details for the session below:

The majority of our students are quite fond of shooting photos, most of the time selfies, with their smart phones to share on social media.  Can it be possible to reshape their perception of photography and at the same time enable them to practice language by using photos more effectively in our classes? Can our students even become the providers of these photos and contribute to the lesson?  The session aims to offer various uses of digital photography in a language classroom to increase student participation and promote creativity.  Finally, further suggestions and questions will be invited.

 

2. We would like to update you about the ML Sessions through Nergis Enmutlu’s message:

ML Instructors had the opportunity to have a fruitful Spring Semester Prep period.

Below are the sessions organized by the ML Instructors:

  1. “Teacher Talk Time: What is it? How can we reduce it?” Whole group sharing session.

We had identified “Reducing TTT” and “Error Correction” topics after the MLP observations. For that purpose, we opened a folder on Z-Drive and all the ML instructors  uploaded the articles/links they found useful there. The articles were in different languages but mostly in English. 2 days before the session, we read the articles, took notes and then we got together to discuss the following questions:

  1. Why do teachers talk in class? (We listed the functions on the board)
  2. Which functions are crucial/ which of them could be reduced?
  3. How can STT be increased?
  4. What is the role of lesson planning in reducing TTT?
  5. How can we allocate meaningful tasks to the students in A1 classes?
  6. How can we extend the production of the students? How can we enable them to produce longer chunks?

We concluded that awareness on the issue helps teachers to find ways of reducing TTT. Lesson planning and the Interaction Pattern obviously are the key indicators. The group decided to do peer observations to learn from each other.

“The comparison between the connotations of the words for animals in Russian and Turkish” by Elena Napolnova.

 

In this very interesting session, we gained insights into the Russian and Turkish cultures as well as the different perceptions about some animals in both cultures. It was a thought provoking session.

  1. “German Education System” by Handan Yıldız.

 

In this session, we learned about the German Education system. We discussed the impacts of some practices as well as the differences between the Turkish and German education systems.

ML instructors attended 2 more sessions during the prep days. Ernoyan Çavdar, the person responsible for LMS gave a session on the advanced use of LMS. Scorm Packages and  Lesson functions were among the topics.

Another very fruitful session was  on Proctorio. We learned how online proctoring is done by experiencing it ourselves. Most of us proved to be cheaters!!

 

It was great to be together and learn together. We hope to carry on with the sessions.

I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the sessions by giving a session or attending a session.

Nergis Enmutlu

 

Wish you all a smooth and fruitful new week.

TLDU