reflection+on+yüce+college

Bahar ACER 1734417REFLECTION ON DR. ANNAMARIA PINTER SESSION The reflection is about the session of Dr. Annamaria Pinter who is Associate Professor of ELT/ Applied Linguistics at the Center for Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, UK. She is interested in teaching English to young learners.In the conference, she made a talk about “Differentiated learning link with autonomy and learning strategies”. She gave us information especially about differentiation in language teaching. She said that differentiation can be applied to the students from different levels. According to her, a teacher is the key point because the teacher is the one who deal with different groups, needs and level of proficiency. Another reason that identifies the importance of a teacher is that s/he is the one who choose the appropriate strategies for the students.According to what she said, there are some simple ways for applying differentiated learning in to lessons. For example, a teacher may give different tasks to the students. We may infer from the example that different topics need to be explained with different ways and then should be reinforced with different tasks. I think this is so useful for teaching English. Another way as an example for differentiated learning is that the teacher may give the students some tasks. The students can choose how to start the tasks or they can choose the context of the tasks.She also emphasizes the importance of grouping. She said that it may be useful if teachers use different groupings for the different tasks. According to her, grouping provides more awareness about learning, make them understand interdependence and learn gradually how to work effectively and the students become more responsible. She mentioned about autonomy cycle which is not a familiar term for me. The students can understand what learning is, about self and evaluating outcomes.The aim of the session is to give the participants some information about “differentiated learning” and explain some ways how to apply it and show some example activities about it. After the session I have learned the term “differentiated learning” and seen some example activities which are enjoyable and can be applied in teaching English. The thing that draws my attention in this session is that differences in tasks may arise the students' awareness about learning and we can do this easily. Besides, we can give some enjoyable activities such as picture stories and videos to draw the attention of the students.

Comment from Fatma ÇELİK :I have also attended the session delivered from Dr. Annamaria Pinter. She was quite knowledgable on what she was talking. She was confident and attracted the attention of the audience. I also, like you, noted down the points that differentiation can be applied to the students from different levels and a teacher is the key point because the teacher is the one who deal with different groups, needs and level of proficiency. I absolutely accept the idea that teacher's role carries vital importance. Bahar, you noticed that she touched upon different strategies would work better as long as they were used appropriately. I agree but I am not sure how to apply different strategies in class. Using different techniques in different classes idea seems reasonable and applicable especially in English classes.Grouping provides more awareness about learning, make them understand interdependenc.I totaly agree in the point of using grouping. She also talked about gender and friendship groups while grouping the students. That is what I can add to your comments. I think you must have had some ideas on 'differentiated learning' after the seminar. The conference has reached its aim in terms of informing guests on differentiation in English classes. I agree in the points drawings, pictures and stories can increase learners' awareness. There is no point I do not agree with you.

 Comment by Ural BOZOĞLU I have attended the conference in which Dr. Annamaria Pinter has talked about teaching English to young learners. It is certainly true that grouping students is beneficial for both students and teachers. For teachers, it helps dealing with all students at a time. It is also important to state that teacher has the bigest importance to transform all s/he knows to students. This conference was a chance for us to have an idea about how to implement these activities in a real classroom environments. Those were all applicable for English teaching classrooms. But if we want to apply different techniques and ideas, we should not give up when we encounter with an obstacle. We can apply them into English language classes. As to the way of you have mentioned about the topic of conference, you had better mentioned about them in a more detailed way. If you had done this, it would have been more effective. Also, you could have talked about differentiation in language learning and teaching in a more detailed way.

//**Comment by Elif AKIN:**// I have also attended this conference. Dr. Annamaria Pinter have presented an interesting and usefull topic for us. I believe it will be beneficiant for us in the future. As Bahar said she emphasized the importance of group working in the classes. In general we cannot give any importance on group working since students display misbehavior during group works. She made us gain a different perspective about this topic. Also, she was very confident and professional. As Bahar said to she mentioned about importance of teacher as a key fator. I believe Bahar summarized the conference perfectly.


 * Comment by Neşe Demir**

I agree that differences in tasks may arise the students' awareness about learning and we can do this easily. Even us, as FLE students, give importance on preparing our lesson plans as including different and enjoyable activities to be able to attract each student. I also agree with the idea that the teacher is the key point because students cannot know what to learn or how to learn in the classroom on their own. They need their teacher’s guidance. If the teacher can guide them effectively and if she can provide students with satisfactory activities that will meet students’ needs, then the students will learn better. That’s why teachers should know about multiple intelligences, how to deal with it and how different students need which type of supply or help. In addition, I think that the application of the activities that were suggested by Pinter in Turkish schools as long as the classrooms are supplied with the essential technological equipments such as computers, projectors, etc. However, as I mentioned before, teachers should be conscious about what and why they are doing. For instance, they 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.