The Journey

Back to Ankara

2009-03-14T17:54:00.004+02:00

Hi everybody,

I want to share some news with you about my life if you are interested. I quitted my job at Metu College in Manisa at the end of the first semester. If you wanna ask why, I can basicly say that the conditions were different from the Metu College in Ankara, as the former does not belong to Metu, but only gets consultancy. Whatever, I wanted to work for state schools and was appointed to Evren, one of the districts of Ankara, in February. It is a really small district of Ankara near Şereflikoçhisar and it is too far from Ankara; however it is a lively place with the Hirfanlı Barajı around. It was my third preference and it is one of the compulsory service areas.

I am happy to be here, doing my compulsory servise in Ankara near a barrage, though it is so far from the city. Of course, I cannot compare my new school to the college I worked for the last semester in any respect, esspecially in terms of students' English level, but I believe I will do whatever I can for them as I am the only English teacher at the school. I live in the district and trying to get used to the life here. I will be in Ankara for the most of the weekends, so if you are around and wanna see me, we can meet and drink sth. For now, see you...

A New Life in Manisa

2008-11-28T20:23:00.005+02:00

Helloeverybody,

Long time no see, huh? How is everything going? I did not have an internet connection up to now, but I am back :)) Actually, I should admit that I miss METU and Ankara very very much and the life in Manisa and the life I have expected to live after graduation is different. However, I believe this is because we are at the start of a new job. There are a few things that I do not like about being not a student anymore, but I am very happy with my students for the time being.
I have three classes; kindargen (age 5), 3rd grades, and 6th grades and these are my students:)

Comenius

2008-06-24T21:54:00.004+03:00

Hi everybody,
What have you been doing since we last got together?
We cannot see each other very much as we are all trying to get prepared for the graduation ceramony. I want to share another think with you. I have been admitted to a school in Berlin with Comenius programme but I am not going, as I said ok. to Metu College. Do you think I chose the right option? What would you do if you were in my shoes?

I am looking forward to hear good news from you related to your jobs and I wish success for the ones who will enter KPSS this weekend.
Let's keep sharing even after METU. see you...

Now I have a job :)

2008-06-04T15:00:00.003+03:00

Hi everybody,

I have some news for you. I will work at METU College in Manisa for the following years and this is my new school. I am so happy to work for a college like METU College as all of us know how wonderful an institution it is. I will return to my hometown after eight years and I think it has both advantages and disadvantages for me. However, it is a great feeling to have a job and I am so relaxed now. I hope all of us will find good jobs and we will all be happy. I am looking forward to hear good news from you. see you all....

Assessed Teaching :(

2008-05-15T12:08:00.003+03:00

My assessed teaching was on Tuesday, but I did not have time to reflect on it up to now. First of all, it was not good and I made lots of silly mistakes. My mentor teacher frankly but without offending said that it was not good compared to the teachings I have done previously. I want to share one of my silly mistakes with you :) In a matching activity, there were two columns with sentences and phrases and the students began to do matching according to the first column which is numbered. However, I said that they should go according to the phrases. After the first one, I understood my mistake but it was too late. I still cannot find the reason why I said them to do so :) But I think it was due to the unnecessary excitement I had that day. Anyway, I am aware of my mistakes and I am aware that they were out of anxiety. Of course, I will not do such silly things in my own class, which is the point.

Galatasaray

2008-05-11T16:41:00.004+03:00

No need to say much,

We are the champion,
We are the best......

A Game for the Comparison of Simple Present and Present Continuous Tense

2008-05-05T13:58:00.006+03:00

Hi,

I have taught a lesson last week and my topic was the comparison of Simple Present and Present Continuous Tense. If you have read the comments on my post "some help" you may know that Sibel hocam liked the game I included in my lesson plan and wanted me to post it. Actually, I have changed a game that I found on the Internet to include both of these tenses.

The picture is the game board I stuck on the board. I divided the class into two parts and chose a student from one of the groups. The student chosen came to the board, rolled the dice and forwarded on the game board according to the dice. Once s/he came on one of the pictures, s/he tried to guess what is being done in the picture using Present Continuous Tense. When s/he could say it correctly, s/he asked a question related to everyday life to one of his/her group members. For example, s/he first said “She is dancing.” and asked one of the friends “Do you like dancing?” When s/he could do all of these correctly, s/he chose one of his/her group members to continue to give change to every student in the group. If s/he could not form a sentence and a question, the other group took turn.

The students liked the game very much and they were so motivated to take part. They asked so many varied questions that I could not guess earlier. One of them for example asked "Where do we usually wash the dishes?" for the first picture :)

KPDS

2008-05-04T22:03:00.002+03:00

Hi everyone,
First of all, how was your exam? Mine was ok I think and I hope all of we can have good results. What I want to ask about this exam is that do you know how much will be added to our salary if we get A from this exam. Lately, I have heard that it is only 30 liras but I do not think that it is that low. Do you know anything about it?

Some Help

2008-04-27T16:02:00.003+03:00

hi again everbody,
I need help for two things and I hope you can make some suggestions for me.
The first one is that this Tuesday I will have a lesson at METU College and I am supposed to be teaching Simple Present and Present Continuous Tenses. I will not have a presentation part but only practice and production activities and make the students see the difference between these two tenses. so if you know any good activity to emphasize the difference, can you share it with me? But please be quick if you help me, because as I said it is for Tuesday morning:(
The second one is that I have a three diamentional audio and I want to share it with you but I cannot apload it. Is there anyone who knows what I should do?

Teaching Inductively

2008-04-18T22:13:00.001+03:00

Hi everybody,
I wanted to say something about grammar teaching. Our mentor teacher teaches the grammar topics in a very effective way that I really appreciate her. I always thought that teaching grammar inductively would be too difficult although I am sure that it would be effective. However, our mentor teacher manages it perfectly; she teaches inductively in a very simple and natural way and I begin to think that I can manage it, as well. She simply creates an environment where the students can only use that structure and she gives chance to every student to speak. Now I do not think that teaching grammar inductively would be that difficult. What do you think?

Our Photo

2008-04-09T22:56:00.004+03:00

Hi everybody,

you can download the photo this way. But please be quick because after some time, I can delete this post as I look like a boy in front :))

Showing the Wrong Version

2008-04-03T13:08:00.003+03:00

Hi everybody,
I want to share another thing with you and learn what you think about it. Our mentor teacher always shows the wrong version of something in the class, crosses it and then shows the correct form such as spelling of a word. She, for example, writes "musn't" on the board, crosses it and says it is wrong and writes the correct spelling. She even does this with sentence structure. She writes on the board that “She must speaks English in the class”, says that it is a common mistake among learners and crosses the “s” sound. I know that she is doing that to prevent such mistakes but I think it is wrong. If there is any mistake, we should correct it after it occurs but we again should not write it on the board or mention it a lot. I believe that we should not expose our students with the wrong usage no matter what our aim is. It may cause a lot of problems. What do you think?

Just a Question

2008-03-24T21:05:00.003+02:00

Hi friends,

can any of you help me change my blog's template? I do not want to use the ones supplied by the blogger. do you know any website that I can choose a beautiful one .

Pronunciation

2008-03-20T21:18:00.003+02:00

Hi friends,
I want to share something with you and I know that reading long posts sometimes bore people so it will be a very short reflection instead of my task of the week.
Our mentor teacher applied a very useful activity last week. I previously wrote that the class is divided into two parts according to their English level and the second group needs to improve its pronunciation a little bit. Our teacher made the student in the first row begin to read the story and the student continued to read until s/he made a pronunciation mistake. When it happened the teacher made him or her stop and the other student began to read and it went on like that. The student who read the longest part was the winner of the game and the student liked the activity so much. Our teacher gives so much importance to pronunciation that she makes the students read a sentence sometimes even eight times until they read it correctly. I think it is vital and a must to make the students pronounce a word correctly. Do you agree with me or do you think that making the students read a sentence seven times may give harm to them in a way?

Two Addition

2008-03-18T15:52:00.004+02:00

I want to add two things to my list ....

I hate washing dishes and it disgusts me when I do it compulsorily:(
I like riding bicycle very much and I had four bicycles up to now but I could not ride any of them as much as I want. Two of them were stolen unfortunately and one of them was stolen here :( One of my friends had one and I will ride it this spring :)

The five things about me that you would not die if you did not know:)

2008-03-06T21:53:00.004+02:00

Here are a few things that you may not know about me.

I think all of you know that I am a vegeratian but do you know since when? Actually I have not been eating meat since I was just three years old. I am a lacto vegetarian but trying to eat fish. Actually I know that it is not healty to be a vegetarian and I am not happy about being one.
I am a "mom". But I do not have any children yet of course :) My niece calls me mom and it is a great feeling. I have three niece and a nephew and I am fond of them.
I am a crybaby and I hate that.
Although I am from Manisa, I love İzmir very very much and I visit my sister as much as possible there.
I love METU and being on the campus so much that I do not want to leave here and graduate.

Here we go... :)

2008-03-04T23:03:00.005+02:00

Hi friends,
Today we started our practice teaching at Metu College and I am very pleased about the attitude directed towards us. Actually I was at Arı College two years ago and it was a very valuable experience for me as well but I liked the environment of Metu Collage much more as far as I can comment on the first day. Our teacher was very helpful towards us and behaved us in a very kind manner. Also the students were so good at English that I really appreciated the education given there. I did not get bored even once throughout four lessons and the teacher was very good at her profession. There was another thing that we appreciated there: the classes were devided into two according to their English level and it was very useful I think as the teacher does not need to spend much time with the students whose English levels are not as high as the others or go fast according to the ones who know English better. These are my recfections related to the first day and I will write again if I remember anything else. Lastly, I feel lucky to be there a student teacher. Happy to us :))

Hi World :))

2008-02-29T11:57:00.002+02:00

This blog is created to share my ideas and reflections about my practice teaching with the rest of the world..