ASSESSED TEACHING

ı have just did my assessed teaching and as my feedback is still fresh, ı would like to share them with you.
first of all, ı have to say that ı am not so pleased with my teaching, ı mean it could be much better. ı'd like to make you become more careful about some points that ı made mistakes.

• be very careful about time management because things may not go as you estimated. ı know this is not the first teaching we've done so far but ı saw that ı can still make mistake on this issue. ı couldn't do the last activity in the classroom which ı thought would be very helpful for the structure.
• prepare each and every item beforehand if you think you will write them on the board because when you turn your back to the students to write something for the activity on the board, they lose all concentration and it becomes very hard to make them alert again. do not waste time by wrting the things on the board that you can prepare beforehand. bring them ready to the class.
• do not let the students speak Turkish in class and do not answer them if they ask something in Turkish. we are there to teach English. we sometimes automatically answer them but we shouldn't!
• if you want to integrate different skills and cannot find to-the-point material, you may do something related for fun at the end of the lesson. firstly, make the target structure (or what you are to teach) clear, and let the students do it for fun at the end.
  

these are the main things ı'd like to share with you after my teaching. ı got a very detailed feedback from my mentor teacher and an overall feedback from Nurdan Hanım (she will give the detailed one on wednesday). they were very kind to me and the feedback ı got was a very constructive one .this was the most beneficial teaching for me even if the mistakes ı've done is far more than the previous ones. ı saw my mistakes and I'll make most of them. ı hope you'll benefit from what ı've written and have a better assessed teaching. good luck:)

JUST A SUGGESTION TO FIND A JOB

dear frinends,
we are going through a very difficult stage of our life;finding a job! some of us want to find a job in private institutions like colleges, private universities etc. but again most of us try the option in big cities and towns (ankara, istanbul...). what ı want to suggest you is that if you have the chance to find a job in your hometown, try it for your first year, until you finish your internship, at least. because there are too many teachers for the colleges in big cities to employ and undoubtedly they prefer the experienced ones. even if they employ new-starters they give very low salaries demanding great efforts. ı tried one of the schools in my hometown and they were so interested in me. besides, the salary was much better than most of the schools in ankara, and they provide some other things like lunch and transportation. ı just suggest you to try other options if you have the opportunity. experience is experience!the only thing we should do is to be patient for some time and we may find a job in big cities later on. ı am sure that everything will be as we dreamed at the end. please do not misunderstand my suggestion, ı don't mean to act like a professional. ı just want to make you think of other options. ı think all of us deserve the best places. by the way, ı hope the ones who puts their all effort on kpss exam will be succesful, too. good luck for all of us!:)

A LATE -BUT FRESH- START

Hello everyone,
ı know that ı am a bit late to write on my blog. first of all ı'd like to say that ı am always busy with working, studying and so on, but ı was really over-busy recently for some special reasons and some of my friends know that ı hate doing something on the net. ı know this may not be a good excuse for most of all, but ı hope you understand me. but in anyway, ı followed what you've written.

to start with, ı'd like to say that ı am really happy to be in METU college for my last year practice teaching and ı believe that it is a real big chance for us, at least for me. ı have been going through some big changes about my prospective profession (in a positive way, for sure) and ı see the big difference between me at the beginning of the term and me at the time. ı was not sure about handling with the clasroom in a college, as you know the student profile in a college is generally thought to be the most difficult one to be controlled. however, ı saw that it is not as horrifying as ı thought before. ı don't mean that the students are like fish in a bowl, but the teacher can deal with them easily using the right strategies. this was the big issue for me at the beginning of the term but ı feel much better for the time being.

now, ı feel that most of us was worried about the same issue and again ı'm sure that you came up with different strategies used in the class. ı want to start a discussion on "tips for a good classroom environment" if you like to join. my tip is "keeping a distance between the students and the teacher for all the time". ı mean, for example, sometimes students are really funny in the classroom and ı can't help laughing at what they do (silently of course:) in some situaations. but ı realized that our mentor teacher shows no encouraging sign for the same situation. at first ı thought that she doesn't smile at the students enough, but later ı realized that if she smiles at them all the time, the students tend to make everything fun and joy, which spoils all the concentration and the fluency of the lesson. if you have anything on the issue, ı'll be glad to read and comment on them. ıt can be anything related (a word, a drawing, a sound etc.) to be used as a tip. ı am looking forward to hearing you. thanks:)

do you know that..

I learned reading and writing thanks to the Sessame Street before starting school, and I still watch it on youtube?

there is no movie of Turkan Soray I didn't watch up to now?

I always hated dolls when I was a little girl (strange huh?)

I hate the people who says "gaining weight is more difficult than losing weight" (grrrr!)?

I was bald until I was 3 years old! (that's why I never have my hair cut now:D)?

first meeting, first excitement!

First of all, I'd like to say that I am very much happy to be doing my practice teaching in such a great school! For a prospective teacher who is planning a future career at colleges,like me, this is a great chance. I was too excited while I was taking my steps to the METU College for our first meeting, but the smiling faces and their wellcoming us replaced my excitement with great pleasure. We had written our expectations from the first meeting for our supervisor just before the meeting, and I can say that they met all of them without an exception. They helped us with our schedules and questions as much as they can and informed well about the college. I should confess that I used to say that I would never make my children study at a college in the future, but now, I strongly believe in the quality of teaching they offer for the students. I hope I will benefit from this experience more than I guess, and so will it be for all of us:)

High! everyone:)

From now on, we can share everything and anything about what we experience about being a teacher. let's do something on teaching and be a teacher who gives other things to think to the children besides homeworks.It sounds nice huh?;)