Dear all,

Please find the news and updates for this week below:

1. Our new colleagues

This year 12 new instructors joined our family:

BABAK JAHANARAY
MUHAMMET NURİ AYDEMİR
MİNE GÜNDÜZ
ENGİN ONUK
ESRA ÖZİLHAN ÇİFTCİ
HUSSEIN ABDULRAZZAK
CECILLIA RODRUGUES GRIFFITHS
IŞIL ÖZDEMİR
DERMAN KAHRAMAN
SHIVA KHOEI OSKOUEI
ÖMER ÇİFTCİ
MOJGAN ZIAEE NEJAD

The orientation week started with a “welcome breakfast” and Nergis Uyan’s presentation.

Then, our new colleagues learned about the university and the system of the ScOLa through different activities such as participating in a scavenger hunt, joining sessions and microteaching.

They will continue getting support throughout the year in their induction programme but we know that you are all there whenever they need support or guidance.

Once again we would like to say WELCOME to them and wish them all the best in their new journey.

2. ScOLa Symposium

As you all lnow, we will have our symposium on 16 September, 2019. If you haven’t had a chance to register for the sessions yet, please feel free to join. The registation is still open.

Looking forward to seeing you all at the event and learning from each other.

3. Session by Gareth Rees

Gareth Rees, who is one of the authors of Language Hub B1, is going to visit our school and give a session on enhancing and extending our use of video for language learning. After this session, he will also meet the relevant groups who will be using the Language Hub. You can find the bio-data of Rees and the abstract of his session below. The venue and time for each session will be announced later.

Bio-data:

Gareth is an English language teacher and ELT materials writer, currently working for the Language Centre at the University of the Arts London (Head of Programmes: EAP Overseas / Credit Bearing Language Units / Intercultural and Communication Training). He also teaches filmmaking short courses at the Beijing Academy of the Creative Arts.

He has taught in a range of ELT contexts in Spain, the UK, Afghanistan and China, Particular areas of pedagogic interest are authentic source materials, video (viewing and production), classroom dynamics and intercultural competences. The latter two have led to recent use of coaching and dialogic teaching techniques to facilitate cross-cultural discussion e.g. Lego Serious Play, Ketso and P4C approaches.

As an ELT author, he has written for varied purposes in different media e.g. British Airways (English for Air Cabin Crew), BBC Learning English (video and radio series, course book and online materials), course books with ELT publishers including Macmillan Publishers (Language Hub B1+). He was a producer for www.teachingenglish.org (British Council / BBC) for its founding years.

Abstract:

Press PLAY, press REC; don’t press STOP
Enhancing and extending our use of video for language learning; creating opportunities for productive skills practice.

In this talk, I present ways that we can create a video and image culture in the language class to match that in which we live, identifying approaches and activities that encourage language production and experimentation.

With regard to video-as-text and the skill of viewing, I discuss how visual literacy skills can be used to enhance and extend our use of both ELT-purposed and authentic video materials.

To explore the skill of representing (students creating video for communicative purposes), I feature the work that I led with the teaching team at the Language Centre, University of the Arts London, in which we set out to fully embed video as a communication tool into our teaching and learning approaches.

The background contexts referred to are contemporary digital culture, student learning and engagement styles, the nature of communication, communicative pedagogy and creativity as a component of meaningful communication. With a range of practical examples, I will prompt reflection on how we can all purposefully create a video culture in our classrooms, and give tips for making this as effective, achievable and straightforward as possible.

3. September Birthdays