thisiswhatmakesusteachers

[thisiswhatmakesusteachers]

Welcome To the Final Stage...

Hello everyone, welcome to my final post. Actually, it’s final for the term but I hope I’ll continue to share things in later years. That’s my goal, for now.:) This year I really love the idea of technology integration in education. If you ask me why, I saw so many beautiful, creative, efficient apps, websites that help us to teach English to students and I was surprised. Yes, I really was. While I was learning English in middle school and high school, I didn’t see this kind of websites or apps. I’m thinking that If our teacher would have used maybe we would be more successful in English, more importantly in the practice of English. Since I’ve decided to be a teacher I have always asked myself ‘’How I am going to teach?’’ I’m afraid that I can’t be creative, I even think maybe teaching is not my thing because of this. Yet, in this course, I understand that technology can help us. With my guidance, student’s ideas and creativities technology can be used in the classroom as a helpful tool for learning. This course showed me that technology integration in education, especially in English courses, is a must. We can not promote everything that students need with our knowledge, discipline, etc. In the 21st century, in the age of technology and innovation, can not exist without technology. So my philosophy is ‘’ make students involve in class, integrate with technology, be ready to help and watch them grow.’’

If I talk about this course, it really enlightened me, informed me.  Honestly, it was the most fun course for me after the English literature. It was a pleasure to make all the tasks, not all actually I didn’t like the infographic one😊 but creating a magazine cover was really fun and I’ll do it in my free times. I really loved the course, I wish we had in later years too. It’s sad to say goodbye but I will not give up on posting in my blog and thank you for this. :)

[thisiswhatmakesusteachers]

Let’s Explore Web 2.0 Tools with Me!

Hello everyone, this time I made an infographic, which is a form of visual communication meant to capture attention and enhance comprehension. In this infographic, I talked about the tools that I enjoy while using. There is Reddit, Tumblr -of course-, Twitter and Grammarly.  All of them are my babies but I love Grammarly more because it helps me more. Yet, I can not say that I enjoy the creating process. It was hard to design or I couldn’t find the right website to create one. It took hours to make it. It was really hard for me to choose the right font or colors. I don’t know why maybe it’s because I’m a Libra. They are always indecisive. I think it’s informative but I didn’t like the design much and I hope you’ll like it. Still, It’s good to share these kinds of things with you.

[thisiswhatmakesusteachers]

RSS Feed and My Favorite Blog to Read!

Hello, everyone. Today I’m going to talk about RSS feed and share the blog that I enjoy and get informed while reading. First, I’ll start by explaining what RSS is.  RSS stands for “rich site summary.” At its heart, RSS is just simple text files with basic updated information, news pieces, articles, that sort of thing. I personally use Feedly to follow new updates, information about ELT. It’s a widely used website and it’s easy to use. Even if you don’t know anything about RSS by following the instructions you can easily get adapted. So here are the 40 blogs on the left side. Of course, I can’t read all of them but there are some blogs that I follow and curious about. They are so informative and sometimes while reading writings you can find the things that you thought before and couldn’t find an answer. So, it’s helpful to read these blogs actually. Here are the blogs that I follow:

There comes my favorite blog:  Resources for English Language Learners and Teachers | Pearson English

This blog actually shows you how you can solve problems in your classroom and gives you ideas. Like, dealing with dyslexia, which exam is right for your students, how to engage with teenage learners, etc. As I’m an English Language Teaching student, the more I read about classroom problems and solutions the more I’ll get better year by year. Plus this blog is useful for teachers too because you can come across some problem and don’t know how to solve it. It can happen to all of us. Maybe this blog teaches us to be prepared for this kind of situations. Here are some examples that I’ve talked about:

[thisiswhatmakesusteachers]

Time to Being Creative!

Hello everyone, welcome to my FAVORITE TASK EVER. I mean, I’m in love with this task and I can do it over and over again. This time we were supposed to create an online poster and I chose the second option: Magazine cover project. I’m familiar with this kind of things because I was an editor for an online magazine. So, it was a fun and easy process for me. I chose my favorite singer and songwriter as a cover girl and chose the theme ‘’fashion’’ for adults. The hard part is that I’m a very indecisive person so I couldn’t decide which picture or title I will use for the cover. Here I am, very proud of what I’ve created and I’ll definitely use this kind of task in the future, in my class. Because it’s so open that they can use their imagination widely. They can use this task according to their interest and they can get joy. It’s not boring or outdated. Teachers, also, can know the students and their interests better with this task. 

P.S. When I give this task to my students in the future, I’ll probably create my online poster with them too. :)

[thisiswhatmakesusteachers]

Hello everyone, welcome to my weekly post! If you’re curious what is this week’s subject here it is: Digital Storytelling! But first, what is digital storytelling? Digital storytelling at its most basic core is the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories. So me and my friend Nur made a lovely project together about ‘’how to be good friends?’’. She wrote our meeting story, made a audio recording. I collected our photos –and some other photos about BFFs- and made a video edit. The whole process was fun but editing our video –because I didn’t do something like before- was kinda hard. Still, I’m very happy about the work we did. I believe that digital storytelling will be an effective tool in the future. As a future-teacher I will definitely use it because technology is everywhere and it should be in the classroom too. Plus, students need a fun way to do their projects.  

Here’s my friend Nur’s blog: https://mmnrblgn.blogspot.com

You can find interesting things in there. You can also watch our video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgnrXaLM7KM&feature=youtu.be

[thisiswhatmakesusteachers]

An A-Z of ELT: A website which has a huge dictionary in it

Hello, everyone. This time I’m going to talk about an ELT website that I evaluated. I hope you’ll enjoy and get informed. An A-Z of ELT is a wonderful website which has full of rich content  in relation to the theory of language learning, acquisition and teaching. It aims to provide information for a better understanding of ELT terms and to help people who want to improve their vocabulary knowledge about ELT terms. The website’s target audience is mostly teachers and students. 

Who created the website?

An A-Z of ELT was created by Scott Thornbury who is a teacher, educator and methodology writer from New Zealand. He, also, has a published dictionary of terms and concepts and he created this website for further information and add-ups. 

What is the website about?

The website includes ELT terms and concepts which we have difficulty while understanding them or explaining them. Yet, of course, there are simpler terms which are explained clearly. In the website, terms are not explained by just one sentence but a page long. I’ll leave some examples for you to see: 

Who is the target audience?

Actually, there is no specific target audience of the website. Who wants to improve themselves to understand ELT better can use this website. Teachers, university students who are studying a post-graduate or diploma in ELT. For professional development, one can use this website. 

What is the purpose of the website?

It aims to help future-teachers or ELT students to reach a professional level of understanding of ELT terms and concepts. Also, the creator of the website, Scott Thornbury uses this website for keeping the entries up-to-date, correcting errors and oversights. 

Is there a date that shows when the site has last been updated? 

No there is not an actual date but there is a section named ‘’recent comments’’ and for each term which was shared, there is a date shows when it’s posted. As you can see below:

Accuracy of the information- Are there any errors? 

While digging up the website I did not come across any errors but too much information. It’s a good thing, I think. 

Are there any broken links?

No there is not. You can easily reach the links that have been shared. 

Are the images of high quality and appealing to the target audience?

You know dictionaries, they are huge, boring, full of scripts. Not this one. This one has images for all of its terms and they are refreshing and heartwarming. I’ve already shared some screenshots but there’s a little more:

How can it be applied to EFL teaching?

While I’m evaluating the website I came across some of the terms that I did not understand in my Second Language Acquisition and Linguistics courses. As I can understand, this website helps ELT students and teachers to understand all of the ELT terms. With better understanding, I believe they can teach better in their EFL classes. 

[thisiswhatmakesusteachers]

Raising Awareness For Animal Rights Through Padlet Wall

Hello everyone, welcome to my weekly post. This time I’ll talk about our Padlet project. Padlet is a website that provides users with a digital canvas. So our task is focusing on a global/local problem and giving information and finding solutions for it. We, as a group, chose Animal Rights to talk about. All around the world they suffer from many things such as using them for their furs, to make cosmetics products. We talked about many problems and tried to find solutions. Actually, tried to raise awareness. If we can reach even one person, it’s enough for me. Making this project with 4 of my classmates was really helpful. We made brainstorming, shared our ideas and brilliant ideas came out. If I made this task alone It wouldn’t be efficient enough. Everyone in the group made the parts of their own. Everyone worked well. We used Padlet last year in our Computer class but we did not use It for a purpose like that. This time when our Padlet wall finished, I knew that whoever enters our Padlet wall will realize things, will be more cautious about animal rights because I believe our wall is informative enough to raise awareness. I’ll definitely use Padlet in my classroom in the future because It’s also helpful for group work projects. Students can easily interfere with each other.

Here’s a link to our Padlet wall: https://padlet.com/yagmurayan1/kvp5okuxp4cz

[thisiswhatmakesusteachers]

Bookworms, come here!

Our Book Review - The Bell Jar

There’s another task that I enjoyed while I’m doing it. I love books, stories and everything about them. Our task this week was to make a book review so I chose my favorite one, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I talked about it’s story, why it’s my favorite and make you some suggestions. I hope you enjoy reading my review!

You can click here and see my review.

[thisiswhatmakesusteachers]

Welcomeee everyonee! Today, as you can see, me and my partner Nur made a podcast! I hope you’ll enjoy after listening. Even tough the process making this podcast not much enjoyable for me, when I listened the final record I really couldn’t believe that we made this!

Actually, I was really excited about podcasting but for me, the most exciting part was writing a story. Me and my partner chose the 3nd option and I volunteered for story writing part. The words that given to us was really helpful. The story may sounds confusing after you listen but it’s my style of writing; dark and mysterious. Dream, bridge, lake, fortuneteller were the words that I used. My partner and I decided to voices that we used and my partner found them on the internet. The podcasting part was harder than we expected. It took hours to get a proper recording. Matching the story and voices at the same time was hard actually.  

I can not say that it’s enjoyable for me but I think it’s a must for us to use it in the future in our classrooms. Our students need to hear their voices when they are speaking. With this way we can encourage them. Plus, it’s a perfect way for them to be creative!

You can click here to go to my partner’s blog, Nur. I’m sure you’ll have fun while visiting her blog!

References: 

Background music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmcociyH0d8

[thisiswhatmakesusteachers]

Without technology, language teaching would be nothing!

Hello, everyone. Welcome to my weekly post. As you can understand from the tittle, I will talk about technology use in teaching and my teaching philosophy. 

First of all, I have to say that, I’m grateful that technology has entered in our lives. It’s a treasure for us, for future teachers. Why am i thinking like that? Because teaching is something that you should apply to every one of your student. It’s only can be possible with technology. Plus, teaching with technology is a very effective way too. I will give you an example from my experiences. I’m working in kindergarten in my free times. I teach new words to my little cutie students by using technology; Youtube, bluetooth and speaker. So that they can both have fun by singing and can learn new english words! If we could not using these technologies, the lessons would be very boring, I think. It’s just a simple example about young learners. In schools, technology is more needed. There are more students, they are more active and it’s hard to keep them quiet and teach something. So our lesson have to be interesting for them. Besides our own teaching skills, technology can do so much good about that.

Of course, it has disadvantages. Even tough it is important for teachers, the more important thing is it’s correct usage. Teachers should know which programs will they use, how they introduce these programs with the student and they should know where to stop using it. Too much  integration between students and technology can’t be good because the students are in a very delicate growth age. 

As a teacher candidate in the 21st century, I see myself innovative and actual one. I will use technology as much as possible because I love to learn with technology and I love to teach by using technology. I know that every one of my students will love too!

[thisiswhatmakesusteachers]

What Comes to Your Mind When You Heard the 21st Century Learning?

How we could come here? From scratching things on the cave walls to creating complex word orders in a minute online due to computers? It has been a long process but I’m glad that we are here now.

In the 21th century, technologic developments have lived their best era. Computers and the internet are part of our lives now. In our smart phones, ipads etc. we can reach the information in a minute. Thanks to the computers and internet we are developing our education system and learning with the help of them have never been so easy!  

When we talk about 21th century learning, 4 things comes to our minds! Critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity. 4C and technology make a great team actually. How is that happening? Students can communicate directly due to the internet on their blogs and make a collaboration w/ each other online. They can reach out any information, share their experiences, writings, things that seems interesting to them. In language learning, for example, an unknown word can be found in seconds while in the past we searched for it for minutes. This shows us how learning can be so fast. Students can also use their creativity on internet because the internet give them a very large opportunity to do that.

[thisiswhatmakesusteachers]

Here Is the Historical Timeline of CALL and How It Develops.

To know the history and development of CALL is really important for us, we are the teachers of future. Using computers in our language teaching is the main basis in this century. Students need to see, hear, apply. The traditional grammar teaching is a history now. With the help of computers we can directly appeal to student’s different learning skills and styles.

[thisiswhatmakesusteachers]

But first, let me take a $1,50!

Hello everyone. Welcome! If you send your dollars to my account you can continue to read my very welcoming post!

First of all,  I’m so happy about making a new blog because I was always into that kind of things. I’ve used Tumblr many years ago, and guess what? I’m back again. I’m also excited about writing book, film reviews, poetry or short story suggestions and sharing our own ideas with each other and having communication. 

It’s a good chance to share our experiences too. With this way, we can help each other and take a step toward being a good teacher in the future.

I hope you enjoy being on my site and we can create a new communication link with each other!