Group blog addresses

Dear FLE 200 Section 01 members,
Below are Section 01 group blog addresses:
1.http://canankilic.blogspot.com (Canan Kılıç, Gülşen Özsan)
2.http://personalfactorsfle200.blogspot.com (Begüm AKÇELEBİ, Fikret ARSLAN, Fatma BAŞKAYA, Mesude CİVELEKOĞLU)
3.http://deliktas.wordpress.com (Aysun Deliktaş)
4.http://socioculturalfactorssema.blogspot.com (Elif Çevik, Şerafettin Ayançang, Alp Tekgül, Mert Can Aydın)
5.http://nurten-ozge-aycan-begum.blogspot.com/(Nurten Çelikkol, Özge Aydın, Begüm Abalı, Aycan Çağlar)
6. http://affectivefactors.blogspot.com (Neslihan Bozoğlu, Sevda Aydın, Hayal Akyıldız, Züleyha Ağırsoy, Halnur Çankaya)
7.http://fle200-learningstylesandstrategies.blogspot.com/
(Seda CAN, Özgül BAŞARAN, Melek BAŞDAL, Deniz Hande ÇAKMAK)
8.http://instructionalprinciplesandmethods.blogspot.com/(Samet, hande, nesrin, ersin)
9.http://multipleintelligenceandnlp.blogspot.com/ (Betül Baldan, Şakir Aşçı,Harika Başpınar, Cuma Altunay)




Note: Due to my unexpected health problems, I could not post group blog addresses earlier. The deadline for comment submission is June 16 (Midnight). By the way some of our section members have not sent their blog addresses yet. I am expecting their adresses as soon as possible.

Speaking Skill Lesson_Canan

Here is the link for the speaking lesson I have chosen:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7972705000241772426#

1)Gaining attention: With a smile on her face the teacher starts the lesson with a common question: How was your weekend? After hearing students' answers(not only she listens but also responds to their answers), she starts to talk about what she has done at the weekend. She says sha has bought a bunny and then write down the world on the board and ask the srudent id they know and expain what it means(bunny: a small rabbit). Then ask the student if any of them have a pet or not.

2)Informing the learner of the objective: After some students talk about their pets, she says that they are going to have a debate, then again ask if they know what debate is. And she explain how debates occurs and says that they are going to have a debate on pros and minus of having a pet. After talking about and write on the board minus and pros. She continues with controversial issues topic.

3)Stimulating recall of prior knowledge: The teacher writes the board pros and minus part and the students says some adjective funny, dirty depending on their experince and knowledge about having a pet's good and bad sides. When she passes the controversial issues part she want them to think about and then say the controversial issues in America.

4)Presenting the metarial to be learned: According to the students ideas about the topic, she writes theird words on the board under either the pros or minus part.

5)Providing learner guidance: While getting the ideas of the students, to make them involve more she encourages them to speak. So she talks about her own pet-her bunny and want them to think about how it was when they had a pet. When somebody says something, she makes them explains the reason.

6)Eliciting performance: When somebody says some word, she makes them to explain their reasons. For example one student says ''time'' to be written under the minus part and she want him to explain what he means with it. She want them to think more and come up with ideas, so that sometimes she gives clues to them. When no answer comes , she tells them to images how it would be, what challenges or good thing they would have if they owned a pet.

7)Providing feedback: Everytime when a student come up with a word to be written on the board, for example she say yes, it is so because.... and she first writes the words said by her other students on the board and then explain it to the whole class.

8)Assessing performance: The teacher is relax and the atmosphere in the classrom is friendly. The student makes jokes about their topic and the teacher responds them and also she herself makes fun of with words said. She reinforces her students to talk and gives possitive responds to their ideas. She smiles all the time.(Maybe that sound not good, but you can see that the teacher is not pretending but she is honest in that)

The lesson was good and informative. The students were foreigners. And they were learning English as a second language not a foreign language so that only the target language was used in explainations, it was useful for the students. The teacher sometimes used her mimics to make explainations. Yes, the lesson was really informative for the students, they made brainstorming and learned about the contorversial issuses in America(the country in which they live). The start of the lesson I mean the warm up was good and the teacher was successful in making connection between the topic and the warm up. However the introduction was wrong. What I mean is that the teacher said that they would have a debate but it was not a debate at all. It was just a brainstorming about the topic. The teachers presented the controversial issues and explained it. The student thought and come up with the ideas in the pet activity part. So, I guess she shouldnt have said so. All in all, it was a speaking class and the teacher was good at it. She encouraged the student well and tried to involve each one of them.

Lesson Plan Self Evaluation (to be done individually)

SELF-EVALUATION OF LESSON PLANS
You need to report on the difficulties that you have had during the process of lesson plan preparation, the limitations that you have felt during the preparation of the lesson plan, the points that you would like to change about your plan, the benefits that you think you have gained out of the lesson planning process.

LESSON PLAN EVALUATION

1.You also need to examine TWO of the lesson plans submitted by other groups and evaluate it from the following aspects:
a) the appropriacy of the lesson plan format (for the teacher and for the observer)

b) the relevance of the objectives for the teacher/learner activities (Are the objectives stated in the lesson plan well-formed ? /Do the objectives in the lesson plan cover all the activities?)

b) clarity concerning the descriptions of teacher and student activities (can a teacher or an observer follow the teacher and student activities by looking at the plan?)

c) Variety (does the lesson plan include a variety of activities with different interaction patterns, and in different teaching modes (i.e., the pair/group work, individual activities)

d) smooth transition between activities (whether there is a link between the activities)

e) timings ( Are they clear? Do you ‘believe’ them? Do you think they are realistic? )

f) who does what? (Do you approve of the patterns of interaction?)

g) What do you think of the effectiveness of the closure part (the follow-up task and the assessment of learning)?
h) Is it a good plan? (i.e., what would you a) leave out? b) add to? c) bring in? or d) change completely?
i) Do you find their rationale realistic/ In what ways?
j) Is the learners' previous knowledge specified clearly?
k) Are the unexpected problems and their solutions adequately specified? In what ways?

EVALUATION QUESTIONS FOR BLOG READERS

EVALUATION FOR BLOG READERS

1.Choose any TWO GROUP BLOGS that you liked and comment on them (on all the parts on the blog: Reading materials (articles and/or different extracts of information, discussion questions, pictures, videos, the group blog video and the questionnaire/poll). For each blog, you need to choose ONE FROM EVERY PART (e.g., one reading material, one discussion question, picture(s), one video, the group blog video and the questionnaire/poll). Give the rationale for your choice as well(i.e., why do you think so).
YOU NEED TO GO TO THE GROUP BLOGS AND MAKE YOUR COMMENTS ON THESE BLOGS WITHIN THE BLOGS THAT YOU HAVE CHOSEN INDIVIDUALLY.
2. Evaluate the group blogs that you have chosen according to the following criteria.
(TO BE DONE ON THE CLASS BLOG INDIVIDUALLY)

1= Strongly agree 2= Agree 3= Neutral 4= Disagree 5= Strongly disagree



Put an X next to each of the options that you prefer (Please specify which group blog you are referring to when evaluating)



Features:

I. Pictures:

a) Interesting:

1= strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



b) Well-prepared

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



c) Useful

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



d) Informative

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



II. Questionnaire / Survey (If available)

a) Interesting:

1= strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



b) Well-prepared

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



c) Useful

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



d) Informative

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



III. Articles

a) Interesting:

1= strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



b) Well-prepared

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



c) Useful

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



d) Informative

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree











IV. Discussion Questions



a) Interesting:

1= strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



b) Well-prepared

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



c) Useful

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



d) Informative

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree





V. Videos



a) Interesting:

1= strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



b) Well-prepared

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



c) Useful

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



d) Informative

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



VI. Useful Links



a) Interesting:

1= strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



b) Well-prepared

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



c) Useful

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



d) Informative

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree

VI. Group blog preparation video
a) Interesting:

1= strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



b) Well-prepared

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



c) Useful

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree



d) Informative

1 = strongly agree 2= agree 3= neutral 4= disagree 5= strongly disagree

GENERAL QUESTIONS ABOUT THE GROUP BLOGS
1.What did you find interesting about the blogs that you have chosen? Why?
2. What did you find informative about the blogs that you have chosen to comment on? Why?
3. What did you find useful about the blogs that you have chosen? Why?
3. Was there anything that you did not understand about the blogs that you have chosen to comment on and needed further clarification /explanation? If so, what was that?

4. What would you like to change about the blogs that you have chosen to comment on? Why?

5. What did you like best about the blogs that you have chosen to comment on?

6. Specify something useful to you that you learnt from the blogs that you have chosen to comment on and did not know until you read the blogs, and specify in what ways you find that piece of information useful

7. By referring to the group videos that the group owners made, how similar and how different their blog preparation experience is as compared to you?

SELF-EVALUATION FOR BLOG OWNERS

SELF–EVALUATION FOR BLOG OWNERS

1.Explain the steps you went through during the preparation stage of your own blog (i.e., how you set up the blog, how you chose the layout and the group name, how you collaborated within the group, how you decided on the job division, your selection criteria for the relevant materials that you put in your blog, the sources of the blog materials, any difficulties (i.e., technical difficulties, etc) that you experienced while preparing your blog, the length of blog preparation)
2.Reflect on the blog preparation experience as a group ( mention your feelings about the group work experience, the effectiveness of the group work, how effective you think the blog preparation experience is for you, the benefits that you think you have made by preparing the blog, the things that you have learned through the blog preparation experience, the aspects that you like about your own blog, the aspects that you would like to change about your blog) .
3.Choose the interesting comments that you have obtained in relation to the the entries in your blog (including the comments on the video extract and the discussion questions) and explain why you find them interesting.

Vocabulary Skill Lesson

1.Gaining Attention: This is a video lesson given through internet by a teacher. Before starting, teacher asks how his students are. He asks this question in a funny way that and doublessly it helps students to warm up. He tries not to oppress his students. By using comic mimes and gestures, he gains students' attention very well. It is one of the ways of starting a lesson I like.
2.Describing the goal: The topic of the lesson is "Slang Words". He says the letters of the word slang one by one and respectively. A sound which is thought to be students' repeats the letters. It creates an enjoyable atmosphere. Then he gives a definition of the topic. He tells what slang word is. He mentions about where it is used, what it contributes to the daily speaking and how it is important. He also says generally young people use it and it may be effective to get attention of young students.
3.Stimulating recall of Prior Knowledge: Teacher gives example of slang words. He chooses the slang words which may be used instead of the words frequently used in daily speech. He gives money and great as examples. Then he gives other slang words and explains their meanings. While describing their meanings, he uses the words students should know before the lesson. In other words he chooses the words that help students remember their prior vocabulary knowledge.
4.Present the material to be learned: At the begining of the lesson he tells what they(students) will learn at the end of the lesson. He shows a note ,for example, as a concrete material. Because of the topic, teacher has no chance to use a lot of materials. He presenting the words and then just give their meanings.
5.Provide Guidance for learning:During the whole lesson, teacher teaches the words by using gestures and mimic. He explains the words in a funny way. He is a teacher who has a sense of humour and this feature of him helps students to learn easily. He also appeals to students' eyes with the help of his funny appearance and movements.
6.Elicit Performance: In the middle of the lesson, teacher tells the commonly used slang words and their explanation one after another. He gives examples. Meanwhile, students takes the meaning of words and examples. At the end of the lesson, he finishes the lesson by using slang words. All these will help students elicit their performance because teacher gives them the meaning of words in a perfect way.
7. Provide Feedback: In the video, you can not see a giving feedback step because this is a video lesson. Unless it was not, teacher would give feedback to students by giving a daily dialogue between two people which is consisted of slang words and then he would want students to prepare a dialogue by using slang words. After they present their dialogue, teacher would give them feedback in terms of usage and pronunciation.
8.Enhance retention and transfer: He uses gestures and mimes while transfering the words and these gestures and mimes are the ones which will stick in the students' mind. His intonation also may be effective to enhance retention.
9.Assessing Performance: During the lesson, we hear background sounds such as applause or congragulation sounds. These sounds reinforce the students. They are like a teacher's saying well done to his students who succeed.

Listening Skill Lesson- Aycann

I picked up teaching a listening lesson from the Net and here is the video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91GL21bCjAE&feature=related

1) Gaining Attention: The teacher starts the lesson by warming up the students and mentioning about the international foods which is related to the topic of the day. Then, she tells the students that there are lists of countries and their typical foods, but these foods are mixed and the students should find their relevant countries such as Italy- spaghetti working in two teams and the group that finishes first will be winner. This activity makes the students ready for the lesson and familiar with the topic by having fun.
2) Describing the Goal: As a first step through the listening lesson, the teacher defines mainly content of the listening activity such as ‘’ there are two people talking about their typical food in their country…’’ and she tells that there are two countries, Spain and Thailand, and students should guess the foods belonging the countries the teacher wrote on the board by working two groups.
3) Stimulating Recall of Prior Knowledge: Before the students listen the dialogue, the teacher wants them to work in groups and guess the food belonging the each country and how they think to prepare that dish and so, she tries to make their previous knowledge integrate into the topic and she wants the students to come to a decision with the help of their previous knowledge.
4) Presenting Stimulus Material: The teacher sets the listening atmosphere first and tells the students that they will check if they have right guesses. Then, she explains some words that the students may not know and may be in the sentences of the listening activity such as chopstick, fry and skewer, and tries to monitor their pronunciation on these words. For the first listening, she just wants them to control their guesses and examine how to prepare those foods. After the teacher gave feedback from the first listening and checked if they understood, she makes the students listen the activity for the second time and wants them to answer some questions such as ‘’how prepare food, what it tastes like and when they eat it’’ while they are listening.
5) Proving Learner Guidance: The teacher gives clear instructions and requirements in a very clear way and monitors the students while they are on task and checks whether the students need some more explanations from her.
6) Eliciting Performance: After the listening the teacher wants to students work with their partners and discuss about their own countries’ typical foods and ask each other the questions ‘’how prepare food, what it tastes like and when they eat it’’. Then, the students argue about the issues and improve their speaking skills by this activity.
7) Providing Feedback: After students discuss about their countries’ foods, the teacher corrects the students and gives feedback to the students by describing some words and phrases about the foods such as chopping, grading and grader and wants the students to guess the words and checks their pronunciation.
8) Assessing Performance: The teacher gives reinforcement such as wonderful, thank you very much, well- done and OK to make the students feel more comfortable and relaxed.
9) Enhancing Retention and Transfer: The listening activity is chosen to make the students much more intelligent about the food culture of some countries and they become much more familiar with some words related to topic how to prepare a food such as chop, grate and grater. After the activity they become capable of explaining how to cook a food and the structures used to tell about the process of cooking that food such as questions ‘’how can be this food prepared, what does it taste, when do people eat it?’’.
I think it is a very effective lesson in terms of listening lesson and the teacher tries to order all the steps of listening activities with her small activities such as speaking activity after on- listening part. Moreover, it is an enjoyable lesson in term of interaction between the students, and also the class size is very convenient to make the lesson effective.

skills lesson

1. Gaining attention : In the begining of the lesson teacher mentiones about previous lesson and says that he will make them listen a song about the previous lecture and he also uses some pictures behind him. By these materials he is trying to draw students’ attention and prepare them to the next topic.

2. Informing the learner of the objective: After that, teacher explains that he will teach “how are you?” question and its different kinds of usages.

3. Stimulating recall of prior learning :He explains that we are only taught an answer to this question and it is correct. However; there are some other answers to this question and he tells that he will teach them also. By the answer “I am fine and you?” he tries to remind the students of their past learning and get the help of it.

4. Presenting the stimulus : He starts to teach what kind of answers can be given to the question “how are you?” and he gets the help of the pictures behind so that this will help the students understand the content both by visual and audial ways.

5. Providing learner guidance : He uses his gestures while he answering. For example, for the answer “I am hungry” he is showing his stomach. He explains why it is important to use gestures so that students can understand the logic behind. After he shows the action he wants them to do the same thing(practicing together) and motivates them by celebrating - in this case clapping their own actions.

6. Eliciting performance : He shows a game to the students. They are in group of two and they are acting out by the question “how are you?” and different answers. After that they act out in a given period andcombining their previous learning e.g. “what is your name?” and so on.

7. Providing Feedback : He firstly tries to encourage them so that they can believe they will do and success.After the students act out, he immediately gives feedback such as using phrases “very good” or clapping to congratulate.

8. Assessing performance : In the very beginning of the activity , he shows with a model student and assess his performance as good.Later on he encourages and wants all of them to do that.

9. Enhancing retention and transfer: During the activity, students use other structures that they learned and they combine the old and new. Also; teacher explains the logic that they can communicate well and continue their chats in daily life by using these different answers. He tries to tell them that they can combine and transfer this new structure to their future learning.

I think this lesson is suitable for an effective teaching. Teacher not only shows the activity but also explains the logic behind. He is also a good motivator. He encourages students and gives them positive feedback.

Assignment on the use of native culture in the teaching of EFL

1.What do you think of the idea of using student native culture as content in the EFL classroom as a means of fostering cross-cultural awareness? What might be the possible benefits and shortcomings (if any) of using student native culture?

2.Choose a or b :

a) By referring to the article by Post and Rathet (1996: 12-17) in English Language Teaching Forum, suggest a new language learning activity for Turkish learners of EFL where you use the Turkish culture. The activity that you will design could appeal to any levels of proficiency (i.e., beginners, elementary, intermediate or advanced) and it can involve any language skills. You need to specify the aim(s), your learner profile preparation, procedures of the activity.

b) By referring to the article by Tavares and Cavalcanti (1996: 18-23) and examining the suggested activities in the article, suggest one activity of your own design to develop cultural awareness in EFL classroom (if you like, you could choose a feature film in English and you might prefer to take up a certain cultural practice in the film and compare and contrast it with the Turkish culture.

Assignment on conversation analysis

Choose one or two scenes in a feature film/a TV serial that you like. Do two of the following tasks:

1.Try to identify the language functions used in the conversation.
2.Try to analyze the communicative competence of the interlocutors from the following perspectives (grammatical competence, discourse competence, strategic competence, sociolinguistic competence)
3.Try to analyse the conversations from the following aspects:
a) attention getting

b) topic nomination

c) topic development (clarification, shifting, avoidance and interpretation)

d) Topic termination

4. Try to analyze the conversation in terms of Gricean maxims (quantity, quality, relevance, manner )

Please do not forget to illustrate your comments by giving relevant examples.

Reflection assignment on your cognitive styles and learning strategies

Which cognitive styles do you think you have? Give some examples to illustrate your points. In what ways do you think possesssing these specific leaning styles has a positive impact on your academic and private life and in what ways do you think it prevents or challenges you in your academic and private life?

2. Using the list of learning startegies (see pages 125-126 in Chapter 5 of Brown (2000) and communicative strategies (see page 128) in Chapter 5 of Brown (2000), describe examples of two or three that you have already used or you are currently using. Pick one or two that you don’t use very much and provide your reasons for not doing so.

Assignment on learning styles

Choose a character in a feature film/a Turkish or English TV serial that you like and make comments on the learning styles and the learning strategies and communicative strategies that he or she displays in the film/ TV serial by giving examples. How effectively do you think he or she uses them in the film? In what ways does he/she benefit from them and in what ways do they have a negative impact on him/her?

An online tutorial on how to upload a video with blogger

Reflections on a skills lesson video

Find a skills lesson video from the internet (e.g., from the Teacher's tube) and upload it to our blog or provide us with the link to the video. Taking into consideration the nine events of instruction proposed by Gagne, try to identify the stages in the video, describe them and account for the learning theories underlying each stage.
To what extent do you think this skills lesson illustrate an example of an effective teaching sequence in your own perspective as a prospective teacher, considering the principles of the teaching /learning process and the learning theories that we have discussed in class?

Reflections on the Post-method Era (2)

1. To what extent and in what ways do you think your previous EFL teachers in Turkey reflect the characteristics of the post-method era? In what ways do you think they are different from the post-method era teachers?
2. To what extent and in what ways do you find yourself as a prospective post-method era teacher?
3.Describe a typical postmethod EFL student. In what ways do you think EFL students in Turkey are similar and different from the postmethod learner profile that you have described?

Reflections on the Post-method Era (1)

a) Taking into consideration the macro and micro strategies that are offered within the strategic framework for the L2 teaching in the post-method era (See Kumaravadivelu, 1994), please comment on which of these strategies do you think your previous EFL teachers put into practice? Also comment on to what extent and how effectively they implemented them.

b) How do you think of integrating the macro and microstrategies suggested by Kumaravadivelu (1994) into your own teaching as a prospective EFL teacher? Where would these strategies stand in your own teaching philosophy?

What are the possible challenges and obstacles concerning the integration of the macro and micro strategies in the EFL context?