NeseDemir_Reflections+on+Yuce+College+ELT+Conference

**Differentiated Learning – Links with Autonomy and Learning Strategies ** **Dr. Anna Maria Pinter **  “7th Foreign Language Teachers’ Conference” that was organized by Yüce College and took place on 17th March, 2012, was a good chance for foreign language teachers to take part in the event. As a future teacher of English, I participated in that conference too, and experienced a lot of things in the sessions given by Dr. Anna Maria Pinter, Deborah Blaz, Meghan Beler, and Patrick Shortt. Now, I would like to share my experiences and reflect my thoughts on the session given by Dr. Anna Maria Pinter, who is an Associate Professor of ELT/ Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, UK.  The session aim was to inform the participants about differentiated learning, learner strategies and learner autonomy. The session included some practical activities that can be applied in EFL or other language classrooms. During the session, the participants could experience those activities, giving them the chance to reflect on their benefits in terms of promoting differentiated learning.  According to Pinter, differentiation refers to the different levels of competence, interests, needs, personalities, and learning styles. In differentiated learning, grouping the students is important to be able to become more aware about the learning because students take responsibility in addition to experiencing independence and interdependence in group works, and they are trained gradually. Moreover, Pinter argues that differentiation includes the strategies for learning to take some control; alone with the others, and leads to autonomy, which is taking some responsibility for one’s own learning. She also states that autonomy is achieved by understanding what learning is (why/how/what/etc. we learn.), understanding about resources (how to ask for help, or where to look for information, etc.), about evaluating outcomes (such as planning and monitoring.), and about the self.  As indicated in //Figure 1//, autonomy starts with choice, and gives learners different or the same tasks, focuses on the learning needs and individual levels of students, and arouses the desire to it again to get better. Thus, it works for all language and age levels. As Pinter stated in the conference, teaching and learning are social processes. We learn from others by participating, when we are motivated, and only if we choose to commit ourselves to the task. Furthermore, when we try again, we monitor our progress and make adjustments to maximize outcomes and be successful.
 * REFLECTIONS ON YÜCE COLLEGE ELT CONFERENCE **

Figure 1: Autonomy Cycle

 In the session, I must confess that I heard about autonomy cycle for the first time, and I learned a lot about it. The idea was highlighted through the whole session, and I think it was one of the most important aspects of the session because a teacher needs to make planning, organization and provide choices for students to teach better. If teacher succeeds doing so, learning can be done and students become more successful. That is why I find the idea of autonomy cycle very useful.  When it comes to the application of the activities that were suggested by Pinter in Turkish schools, I think all the activities are applicable in Turkish institutions as long as the classrooms are supplied with the essential technological equipments such as computers, projectors, etc. However, teachers should be very careful when grouping students and selecting the activities or topics that are going to be offered to students to choose and work on them. As for me, I can integrate autonomy cycle in my class, use the clues about how to group students, and provide students with the opportunity to choose. I can use my previous knowledge about multiple intelligences and add what I learned from that conference on top of my previous knowledge so that I can better cope with the multiple intelligences and be competent to teach students in the best way.  To sum up, it can be thought that the session topic is something that everybody has some ideas about, but Pinter clarified it very well by supporting and exemplifying the subject matter with clear and applicable ELT activities, making the session full of strength. In addition, that was the first session of the conference, and I was expecting a boring conference, probably because of the fact that it was the first ELT conference that I participated in. However, the speakers proved that I was totally wrong with their wide knowledge about language teaching. They were really good at their jobs, and they could involve all the participants in every single second of the sessions. Neşe Demir