Dear HLT Readers,
welcome to the December issue of HLT which is hosted by the teachers from Bahcesehir University English Preparatory School in Istanbul, Turkey. Before I hand over to Fatos Ugur Eskicirak who is the main editor for this issue, let me say how much I am impressed by all the contributions to this issue and the expertise focused in one single university centre. Perhaps one day your school or university will decide to host an issue of HLT. Be my guest!
On the subject of new things you can do in 2012… Do not miss our reminder about Comenius grants in Dear Teachers: Message from the Pilgrims Team. Also meet the winner of HLT scholarship Jennifer Ayzen from Israel. Perhaps it could be you next year.
Enjoy this special issue of HLT,
Best
Hania Kryszewska
HLT Editor
E-mail: hania.kryszewska@pilgrims.co.uk
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HLT Scholarship
To Jennifer Ayzen
Dear Jennifer,
Congratulations on winning the Pilgrims HLT Scholarship. As founder of OISE, Pilgrims' parent company, I am delighted that you have been chosen by our scholarship awards panel, and I look forward to meeting you during the IATEFL Conference. (…)
Best wishes
Till Gins
Owner, OISE
Message from Jennifer:
Six years ago, when I began teaching in public high schools in Israel I was shocked by the level of discipline in my classroom. I mistakenly believed that my class should be like the type of class that I attended as a child (I went to a very strict Catholic School). I thought that if I could only be stricter then they would listen, but they didn't and the problems escalated. It was only when I realized that this was not working and that I had to try something very different(or quit and go back to being a lawyer)then I really started to get through to my pupils.
I learned that almost all pupils, however problematic, can be 'tamed' and can get to a place where they feel good and respected in the classroom and with their studies. The secret is to get them to admire and respect you as their teacher. Many pupils just need to be seen and heard, not taught as if just another pupil.
I have made it my mission that no pupil goes unnoticed and try to have a personal relationship with each and every pupil-even the most challenging. At first fellow teachers thought this to be impossible given the large class sizes. However, I have persisted and I am now at a point that I have almost no discipline problems in my classes and both pupils and their parents fight to get into my class.
I demonstrate my commitment to my pupils daily. I make it a point to go out of my way to do little things that will make them feel important and heard. While teaching (when the class is on task) I hold one to one conversations with individual pupils in English. I then build of this relationship throuout the year.
I constantly look for the 'loners' and I know that many of my pupils only stay in school because they like me and know that I will never give up on them. I try to make my classes as interesting and fun as possible given the fact that they are preparing for their final exams. I am known as 'the storyteller' because I frequently tell my class funny or unbelievable stories when they become bored. I am flexible with my pupils and have found that they never take advantage of this because they appreciate it so much.
I am lucky enough to say that I love my job. I enjoy working with children and the fact that I know that I am making a difference in so many people's lives. I would love the opportunity to share my teaching experiences with an audience.
Jennifer Ayzen, Israel
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Dear Readers,
Welcome to this guest issue of HLT where you will read pieces submitted by Bahcesehir University English Preparatory School teachers. I’d like to thank all the teachers and students of Bahcesehir University without whose contributions, we would not have this special issue. Having thanked the contributors, I’d also like to thank Jim Wright first for proposing that Bahcesehir University host one of the HLT issues as a guest editor and second for putting me in contact with Hania Kryszewska who kindly said she would be very pleased and ready to give any kind of support if this happened. I’d also like to thank her for agreeing to give us such an opportunity and her ongoing support and active involvement throughout the editing process. I have edited a magazine for the first time and I should admit that I have found it both enjoyable and challenging. I should say I’m satisfied with the result and hope you will like it, too.
In the Major Articles category you can read about five different topics: teacher stress, ESL students’ literacy problems in writing, an alternative function of learner assessment, learning styles, and online experiences of today’s youth. Ahmet Bikmen, in his article “That Class is Stressing me out!”: How Teachers Cope with Stress in a Turkish University English Preparatory School, focuses on the causes of teacher stress and coping strategies. You may find his article useful in that he lists several coping strategies to eliminate teacher stress. In her article Low Level Writing Skills of ESL Students Living in London, Ceren Okutan shares the results of the action research she conducted to help her students overcome their literacy problems in writing. Mujgan Buyuktas Kara, in her article Learning Through Tests: Does Testing Improve English Language Learning tries to find an answer to the question whether challenging the classical teaching-testing cycle leads to improvement in vocabulary acquisition in SLL. For those who want to learn more about to what extent assessment could be used as a teaching and learning tool, her article will be of great interest. Renan Saylag talks about learning styles in her article The awareness and Preferences of EFL Students on their Perceptual Learning Styles. Internet has already become an important part of our lives and the fifth major article Online Experiences of Young Adults: Bahcesehir University English Preparatory School Context, written by me is about this topic. In it, I attempt to find an answer to the question how today’s Internet-savy young people are using the internet by referring to their own interpretation of their online experiences.
For the entertainment of our readers we have also included a joke and two poems: the joke Fascinate was submitted by Serap Onsoy and one of the poems Hollow-tel is composed by Nazim Balci just for this issue of HLT. As Christmas is approaching, we thought you may also enjoy reading Christmas Poems submitted by Fiona James.
Under Short Articles, you will find a wide range of topics ranging from how to promote dictionary use in the classroom in the article titled Getting Students to Use a Dictionary More Effectively by Hande Ozer to how digital media could be used to help learners practise their English freely in Mary Daphne Kostakopoulos’s article On-cam and Confident: How to Increase Confidence Levels in ELT Students through Digital Media. Two of the short articles are about one of the recurring theme of this issue- “writing”. In their short article Academic Writing with “Non” Academic Learners, Pinar Calgan and Zeynep Cansever analyse most common problems ELT teachers confront while teaching academic writing to their learners and suggest strategies for more efficient instruction and Gulistan Akmugan explains what could be the possible reasons behind students’ failure in academic writing in her article: Hindrances to Student Writers. The remaining two articles discuss a controversial issue: probable results of treating English as a Lingua Franca. Arzu Nihan Kucuk in her article The Application of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in Turkish Primary and Secondary Schools questions to what extent CLT approach is appropriate in Turkey, where English is spoken as a Foreign Language while Ayse Tan questions the necessity of native speakers, their norms and cultures in English teaching and learning due to the globalization of English in her article: Let’s Think Back Again: Whose Culture to Teach? .
In Corpora Ideas, I talk about collocations which make up much of the written and spoken corpora in my article: Why and How to Teach Collocations? . There you can find what makes teaching collocations necessary as well as some practical teaching ideas.
Lesson Outlines offers several hands on ideas on the two recurring topics of the issue: writing and vocabulary. Pre-writing activities to help students generate ideas in Kader Demirci’s lesson plan Pre-writing Strategies for the Persuasive Essay, a competitive game to practise new words in 1 Coupon 1 Word, 1000 Coupons 1000 Words by Merve Oflaz and another vocabulary practice activity in Aysegul Ozdemir’s Collocations: make-do are what you can find in this issue’s Lesson Outlines. More practical ideas can be found in Web 2.0 Based Vocabulary Activities (Old Exercise section) where I talk about the common vocabulary practice ideas and activities but this time mainly about how they could be adapted by using the Web 2.0 tools.
In Student Voices from Bahcesehir University English Preparatory School you will hear four students from Bahcesehir University Prep. School telling about what they like and dislike about learning English. It may be interesting for you to learn what those students may list as good and less good about learning English.
In the Publications, Rahsan Kocoglu reviews How Languages are Learned, Hale Unverir Psychology for English Language Teachers, Beyza Yilmaz Task-Based Language Writing: Interacting with Text, Gulistan Akmugan Teaching Second Language Writing: Interacting with Text. All these reviews may give you some ideas about several books you may want to (re)read.
In Language Domesticated (1): Does Foreign Language Learning Have to Hurt? Grzegorz Spiewak and Marek Jannasz present their revolutionary approach to teaching English to children at home. This is the first article in a series of four articles to be republished from The Teacher magazine in the next issues of HLT.
In the Book Previews you will find previews of three different books: Using Humour in the English Classroom by Geoff Tranter, To and From the Land of the Dead by Michael Berman, and Anthroposophy A-Z: A Glossary of
Terms Relating to Rudolph Steiner’s Spiritual Philosophy by Henk van Oort.
I hope you will enjoy this special December issue,
Best,
Fatos Ugur Eskicirak
E-mail:ugurfatos@yahoo.com
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