Teacher Training Week #2

 Hey ! 

We did our second lesson and it was about collaboration skills and of-course English Language Teaching. This lesson was even more interactive and more fun. We firstly try to make sense of a word cluster and then wrote a short story with those words. We worked with groups of three. I must say I wasn't expecting such good short stories in such a limited time. Then we listen a song which contains all the words of the word cluster. Be careful of my word choice please we only "listened". It was a lovely song called "The A Team"  written by Ed Sheeran. Then with the groups that we wrote a short story we designed a video clip for the song. Me and my group members almost got the same as video that originally made, another group got even closer than us. It was enjoyable as a group work and I would love to try that on a language class. It was difficult at first but when we decide what to do and how to do it we moved quickly. The second activity that we worked on was a murder case. This time we worked with groups of four, each one of us had different cards that contained a name and what they did before and during the time of murder. We also had a print of the place and an empty time table with character names. This activity was much harder because we didn't know what information other team member hold. We try to share it but it got too complicated, then Melda hoca said everyone could read one by one what information we hold. I had the blueprint and the time table printed so I wrote down what my group members told me to paper and we checked which one had witness and which one did not and also which one had time to sneak out for murder. We had 15 minutes but we cracked the case in time ! In addition to this my group was the only one who find the murderer. This activity because of its more complex nature demanded more organize work, and clear communication.

 Thirdly we talk about ELT and a worldwide problem of ELT. The discrimination between native and non-native speaker language teachers. With the references to Introducing Global Englishes by Galloway, & Rose. The writers ( Galloway and Rose ) suggest that Global Englishes as a new approach that puts the native and non-native speaker language teachers on the same status. The main argument of our discussion was the necessity of a "standart language and standart accent". I don't believe that we should impose children to change their accents for another language. The language is a communicative tool and a language that has a global status should be more tolerant to other types of accents. The factors that determine the better teacher are not their exposure to the language when they are young but the factors that make any kind of teacher good. I also don’t think nativeness is a quality of an ideal teacher but the general public believes it is the case. The paper is also talks about that there are some barriers to innovations in English language teaching, we also discuss these factors. The writers listed five elements which are ; lack of materials, language assessment, teacher education, attachment to “standard” English, and lastly teacher recruitment practices. I do agree that there is a lack of variety in the materials. Even if they suggest different methodologies for the class most of them are not attainable. As English is the global language and people want to learn it to have more options, language assessment has a big part in their learning. I do agree with the writers that it has a wash-back effect on the objectives of many language classes. Third factor, the teacher education, again I agree with the writers. The education for teachers is  improving and raising awareness of teachers will help the innovations in ELT. I also agree that one must stop looking upon English as something that cannot and should not be changed. I also agree that the teacher recruitment practices should change. The implication of one can teach the language better because they are born into the language is an absurd thought.  

Here the link to the song that I mentioned : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAWcs5H-qgQ

How would you design the video clip for this song ?

"Integrating 21st Century Skills Training With Project Based Learning to Cultivate EFL Pre-service Teachers' Professional Skills

Hello!

Yesterday was the first day of  "Integrating 21st Century Skills Training With Project Based Learning to Cultivate EFL Pre-service Teachers' Professional Skills."( It is so long so from now on we will call this teacher training) After filling lots of forms and self reflection questions I was so excited to finally getting started to the lesson but before I that I need to tell you about the readings that I did and how they change my opinion. So this week's subjects were Critical Thinking Skills and English as a Global language. First reading was "Critical Thinking Skills for Education, Students Critical Thinking: Why is it Important and what is it Anyway?'' It was very short and very useful paper. It contains all the terminology you need to know and it gives small explanations about these terminology. It really did not change my opinion on anything what did change my opinion is this reading that I did "Why a global Language" by Crystal. There is a certain fact that English is a global language but have you ever thought why ?  Crystal argues that  contrary to popular beliefs what made English a global language were not reasons like ease of learning, its size of vocabulary, or its association with a great culture or religion but simply the power of the people who use this language to establish the global language and the economical power to maintain and expand it. He also says "with the technological developments English became the number one language that fuelled new mass entertainment industries which had a worldwide impact." So  I learned that it was not about how many people do speak the language, but rather its influence on world with its military power, economical power, technological power and cultural power, all combined makes a language the global language in our case this language is English. Now, let's talk about the lecture. It was more interactive than I thought. In the first part of the lesson we created a presentation collaboratively, we did group work together and shared our findings , we had a competition about the critical thinking skills( I came out 6th :( ), it was a lot of fun. In the second part of the lesson we talk about our understanding of English, we did a lot of speaking and our teachers contribute us with some facts. So to the end of the lesson it was very interactive. I'm so excited for the next lesson !

P.S : I'm sharing the link of the video we watched for the lesson by David Crystal. I advise you to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kvs8SxN8mc