Reflection+on+Yüce+College+Elt+Conference+by+Salim+AKKIN

SALİM AKKIN 1734466

** REFLECTION ON YÜCE COLLEGE ELT CONFERENCE **

In this session, Dr. Anna Maria Pinter, Deborah Blaz, Meghan Beler, and Patrick Shortt the four experts in ELT area presented useful information necessary for teaching English. Their presentation was very beneficial for me and for the students interested in languages. Each of them gave information about separate topics. I will explain and share this knowledge as far as I can.

The first presenter was Dr. Anna Maria Pinter. She informed us about differentiation in language, learner autonomy and effective learning strategies. She also showed some different and interesting activities. I really liked them and will use these activities in my lessons when I become a teacher. As far as I remember, differentiation means different levels of competences, personalities, interests and learning styles. As teachers, we also make the students sure that they learn better in groups. I mean, grouping the students is important and everybody in the groups should take responsibility. Teacher cannot always monitor students. She also mentioned about autonomy cycle. In this cycle, there are some concepts necessary for this kind of task. These are; choice, desire to impose, reflection, understanding yourself and task better and finally, commitment motivation. This cycle can be applied for all levels.

The second presenter is Deborah Blaz. She mentioned about some strategies necessary for differentiating the classroom. She also gave some information about how to choose activities according to the levels and interests of the students. The third speaker is Meghan Beler. She talked about mainly multiple intelligences like musical, spatial, verbal, interpersonal, intrapersonal, etc. A teacher should use these intelligences in the activities and choose activities that include more than one intelligence at a time. The fourth speaker is Patrick Shortt. He mentioned about using emotional intelligences in the activities.

Although choosing activities including multiple intelligences is a bit hard in Turkey, we can put into practice them in the classrooms. For example, nearly everybody has a computer at their home or in schools. As teachers, we can find lots of sources and different activity types on the Internet. So, it can be very useful and applicable in foreign language classrooms. We can benefit from them.

In my opinion, this conference is very beneficial for us, because we have learned many different activities and how to use them in a classroom environment. I have also learned that as future teachers, we should choose activities including many multiple intelligences. Because, students in terms of intelligences are different from each other, so they need see different types of activities.