Week 1: February 14-18

Dear all,

Welcome back 🙂

We hope you all had a nice break, effective prep days and are ready for the upcoming semester.

Below you can find this week’s news and updates:

1. Teacher Strand

i. Common Time Professional Development Sessions 

This semester, we will continue having our developmental sessions with the help of our voluntary instructors who would like to share good practices with ScOLa.

You may see the complete list of the sessions below and each week we will remind you of that week’s upcoming session through our blog:

Presenter(s)	Title of the Session	Date	Brief Info
Esra Çelik Soydan Kezban Altuntaş Özben Özlem Kaplan Snyder	ScOLa TLDU INSET: Vocabulary Teaching	Session_1: March 2, 2022 Session_2: March 9, 2022 Session_3: March 16, 2022	ScOLa TLDU INSET– Vocabulary Teaching has been designed for Prep Program instructors. The training focuses on a broad range of key areas in vocabulary teaching and address emerging needs of our instructors. By exploring these wide range of areas, the training aims to help participants gain a deeper understanding of how our approach to lexis and vocabulary teaching has evolved in time and what to consider while teaching vocabulary in ScOLa Prep School context. The topics have been divided into 3 sessions, which build upon each other. Therefore, to benefit from these sessions at a maximum level, we invite our colleagues to attend all three sessions.
Kezban Altuntaş Özben	ScOLa Faculty Reading Club	Meeting_1:  February 23, 2022 Meeting_2: March 23, 2022 Meeting_3: April 20, 2022 Meeting_4: May 18, 2022	Reading club aims to allow instructors to become a community of learners by reading and discussing professional literature on social psychology and higher education. In spring semester, there will be 4 online meetings in total, starting from week 2. For each week, we will read one chapter from the seminal book The Social Animal pertaining to different aspects of social psychology and a supplementary article which relates the theme of the topic to higher education. If you are interested in joining a social and intellectual forum to share your experience, ideas, feelings, and reactions to professional literature, please send an email to Kezban by 18.02.2022 to access the readings. kezban.altuntas@ozyegin.edu.tr
Cecilia Rodrigues Griffiths	Encouraging Students to Speak in Online Lessons	March 30, 2022	In this session, Cecilia will present some practical ideas on how to set up and conduct speaking activities in both online synchronous and asynchronous formats. With simple tools, she will demonstrate examples of personalised tasks that will likely engage students into speaking.
Nurgül Keskin	I Have a Voice	April 13, 2022	This presentation, based on a project, demonstrates how encouraging students to speak English outside class using the online application “Flipgrid” affects students’ speaking skills. Nurgül will share some practical ways of using Flipgrid to improve students’ speaking skills in addition to insights that come out of her project. Exploring how the use of Flipgrid creates an engaging learning environment and supports interaction and productivity, participants will gain creative ideas about how to integrate Flipgrid into their lessons.
Can Danışmant	A Glance at Flipped Classroom – Hands-on Experience	April 27, 2022	The main purpose of this session is to provide a glance at what a flipped classroom might be like in our given context of hybrid teaching model, an aspect which may facilitate the generation of (as well as inspiring) further ideas for curricular and teaching needs of any given language school through prioritizing what should take place at home and in the classroom environment. The participants will be in/ assume the role of students and be given a flipped task before the session. Those who do not complete the pre-task before the session will be doing the pre-task during the session (to be in the place of learners doing so in a real classroom environment to provide realistic reflection), while others will be involved in the in-class activities until they complete their task. The sample lesson will cover some objectives in A2 level Portuguese language. The aim for this is to make the participants empathize with the learners and their needs. By the end of the sample lesson, the participants will be asked for their reflections and exchange ideas. All in all, are you ready for a challenge in a language you have no clue about? You are all invited!
Sedef Güzelyurt	Reconsidering Second Language Education as a Way to Touch the Untouchable	May 11, 2022	The aim of this session is to examine the effectiveness and necessity of using literature in EFL classes in light of critical pedagogy which was pioneered by Paulo Freire. According to literature, using literary texts is the best way to explore students’ feelings through experiencing those of others. Critical pedagogy views teaching as a political act, and it focuses on discussing hot topics such as social class, gender, inequality, race, or sexual discrimination in the class environment. Thus, this session entails a sample lesson in which the students discuss all the above-mentioned issues via a literary text, which also paves the way for the participants to deliberate over the advantages and challenges of using this philosophy in the class environment.

2. Student Strand

This semester, we will keep supporting our students through the following support systems we will have in place:

i. Common Time Student Development Sessions

Thanks to our colleagues who shared an interest in helping students in the areas they need support, we’ll be able to provide 6 Student Development Sessions this semester as well as the recommendations to watch some previously recorded sessions. You can see the Student Development Session Calendar below:

2021-22 Spring Semester – Student Development Sessions Calendar

As we did in the Fall Semester, students can find the details of these sessions at the beginning of each relevant week on LMS: “ScOLa-Extra Curricular Activities” page. The students who join these sessions will be getting SEC101 credits, too.

ii. ScOLa Study Center

We’ll also continue supporting our students both online and face-to-face with their individual needs as well as group needs with some level support groups based on the identified needs in the Spring Semester. You can find the Study Center Poster below:

2021-22 Spring – Study Center Poster

iii. ScOLa Clubs

This semester, we are able to offer more variety in ScOLa Clubs for our students who would like to take part in further extra-curricular activities. You can see the list below:

1. B1 Speaking Club by Mojgan Ziaeenejad
2. Discover Far East Club by Betül Selcan Şentürk (B1)
3. Writing Fun Club by Olcay Ergülü (B2 and B1)
4. Engineers’ Club by Özlem Kaplan Snyder (B2)

Club activities will start in week 2 of the course, and the detailed information about these clubs will be shared with you and with students through posters later this week. The students who attend at least 60% of all available sessions of a club will also be rewarded with SEC101 credits.

As in the Fall Semester, all the information and updates regarding our student strand will be shared with students through ScOLa-Extra Curricular Activities LMS page and we’ll be sharing them with you on our blog and on TLDU’s Z-Drive folder:

Z:\z_old_SELI\AAA Level Folders\LS READ ONLY FOLDERS\TLDU\Extra-curricular Activities for Sts\2021-22 Academic Year\Spring Semester

3. Modern Languages Assessment Training Update

MLP Foreign Language Assessment Training, Module 1 has been completed successfully. Module 1 mainly focused on what assessment is and the key principles of assessment.

In Session 1, What is Assessment, the topic of discussion was the definition of assessment, different approaches, characteristics, and types of assessment, and the role of the assessment in the curriculum cycle. After the session, the participants completed a task in which they analyzed the assessment system of their 101 courses based on the session content and made suggestions for further improvement. They shared their analysis and suggestions in a follow-up reflection session with the whole group.

In Session 2, The Key Concepts in Assessment, participants focused on the critical principles of validity, reliability, practicality, authenticity, and washback in foreign language assessment. In the follow-up task, the instructors evaluated a writing test regarding the key principles and shared their evaluation in the follow-up reflection session.

The next module, Module 2, will be held from February to March and focus on preparing tests, particularly addressing Item Writing in session 3, and Testing Different Skills in session 4.

4. Conferences Page Updated

Please be informed that Conferences-2022 page has been updated.  For our colleagues who would like to present at one of these conferences, please make sure that you follow the “Conference Presentation” steps in ScOLa Instructor Handbook. If there is any other conference that you would like to be added to this list, you can always contact us.

We wish all of us a great semester…