reflection+on+conference

c **GEORGE PICKERING SPEAKING AT DOGUS ELT CONFERENCE **

Speaker is George PICKERING and he is tutor in language teaching management also he is inspector of language school for counseling in UK. The main topic of the conference is to turn the challenges into opportunities into ELT class. He also mentioned about how we can tackle challenges by using our experiences, how we can realize which approaches work mostly psychological point of view. He made different introduction by talking about his own life and he shared some personal knowledge and showed his and his wife photos. I think that he did these because he wanted to create a warm atmosphere and draw the audience’s attention. He gave some information about how we can turn challenges into opportunities. He talked about frames of mind, memory, motivation, creating virtuous habits to create a different perspective. According to him, if we chance our frame we looked we can discover new things, and he gave a sample sentence from Kahlil Gibran and I liked it and deduced many things. It is: “Your living is determined not so much by what life brings you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you, as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” He asked the audience some questions like what will you learn today, why do you come this conference. Like these questions can prepare the brain to learn something. So we can ask such questions to our students before starting the lesson to prepare their brain to learn something. He applied a quick activity to audience. He showed a couple of images and asked what they saw. Later, he showed a video to be prepared for selective attention test. He wanted to count how many times the players wearing white pass the basketball, but in the video at the same time a gorilla pass and some of the audience didn’t notice it. It was very interesting method to give this message: if you are so busy with your task, maybe you cannot see other opportunities in your task, so to see hidden opportunities change your frame. The frame we look can change situations and we can create opportunities for us, so the frame we look is very important to be effective teacher when we are in the class, when we norm the classroom. In addition, he gave some information about how we can help people, our students to reframe their experiences positively. We can use quotes, jokes, cartoon, experiences, and questions. As example for quotes, ‘There is no bad weather, only wrong clothes.’, ‘There is no failure, only feedback’. Also his comment about //fail// attract my attention, FAIL for him is First Attempting In Learning. He applied another interesting activity. He made audience two group and firstly one group closed their eyes and he showed ‘eat’ and ‘so_p’ then the other group closed their eyes he showed ‘wash’ and ‘so_p’, then first group completed word and said ‘soup’, but the other group said ‘soap’. So l learned that how we see is important to give decisions. SAFİYE ÇELİKBAŞ Comment by Seda ATAŞOĞLU I also watched the same coneference by George Pickering at Doğuş University. As you said the begining part was a bit different, but as you said it was fun and sincere. As you mantioned framing is something we always do unconsciously. We usually do not have a control. In my opinion we should extend our frame in order to control it. We should be aware of the fact that we do not always see the facts as what they are. We are limited. The example of the cat's eye is really good example for that I guess, the cats do not have threee dimensional view ability which means they do not have dept perception. However, we can see them. Therefore, the fact that cats do not perceive depth does not meant that they do not have depth. The same thing may happen, indeed defintely happen to us. We see thre dimensional, but the things are not always three dimensioned. That is to say, we shouldn't always rely on what we see, what we think and what we believe etc, we should always think from the other sides. That fact is really important for any person. However, the thing we focused is an english language teacher. How can an ebglish teacher use this in his or her class. First, he can use this when establising rules and norms in the class. He should not rely on only his ideas for the rules. He should ask the students' opinions and families, principle, the environment of his school. So, he extend his frame and get much better outcome in turn. Eventually, in my view, the conference makes my view extended and I guess you experienced the same thing.

Comment by SALİHA ARSLAN

Also I sew this presentation and as general I feel same thing with Safiye for the introduction part. Showing special and personal photos are good for giving the sincere senses to the audience and it warms the atmosphere in the conference hall. I think he gave the message “hey I am a normal person as you are”. I like his presentation style during the conferences. He is not boring or ordinary. He did not just read the slides. Almost during all conference, he tried to interact with audiences by asking questions, doing activities. Another point that I want to mention is how framing help us to see the opportunities instead of being engaged in challenges. I agree with Safiye in this point; the frame we look can change situations and we can create opportunities for us, so the frame we look is very important to be effective teacher when we are in the class, when we norm the classroom. I really like his idea about what FAIL stands for. “First Attempting In Learning” it does make senses and encourage the students to try again when they fail. I am thankful to Safiye for this information because I missed that point. I will use this to motivate my students in the future.

Comment by Fatma ÇELİK When I saw the topic of the conference which is to turn the challenges into opportunities into ELT class, I wondered about it. It seems interesting and informative. His making a different introduction by talking about his own life and and sharing some personal knowledge and showing his and his wife photos is very effective. He must be a warm man. I agree with you interms of his desire to create a sympathic environment. I agree with the speaker, if we chance our frame we look we can discover new things. His applying a quick activity to audience showing a couple of images and asking what they see is very good in terms of attracting the audience's attention. Showed a video to be prepared for selective attention test is also very effective. And the message: if you are so busy with your task, maybe you cannot see other opportunities in your task, so to see hidden opportunities change your frame.It is very reasonable. I have not looked from that perspective before. Use quotes, jokes, cartoon, experiences, and questions are applicable in urkish classes and they are all attractive for students.. As example for quotes, ‘There is no bad weather, only wrong clothes.’ I like the quotation. I would like to see him. It seems it was a very nice opportunity for you to listen him.

Comment by Büşra Çalışıcı: I have not attented to such a conference or not watched, yet, after reading this reflection I wondered the conference. It seems very interesting and enjoyable session because of the presenter and the way he used to present the topic. I thought that was quite friendly environment and was like a conversation rather than a conference. I have seen thee video mentioned above before but not in such a context. The video summarizes many things, in fact. As I know the video, I can catch the main points in the conference. As far as I understand, it focuses on the things that we caught while doing something. We may not realized some things if our mind is busy with a task and we can turn these challenges into oppotunities with various ways. As I did not watch the conference, I cannot say clear deductions but I have learnt important things from this little reflection by Safiye. As she wrote a well developed reflecion and explained clearly what she laernt from that conference, I have learnt important things, also.