reflection+on+yuce+collage+conference+by+cengiz+dikme

CengizDikme 1734771

This reflection will be pertaining to the session entitled “Differentiated learning- links with autonomy and learning strategies” which was conducted by Dr. Annamaria Pinter, Associate Professor of ELT / Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, UK, also the author of Teaching Young Learners (2006) by Oxford University Press, Children Learning Second Languages (2011) by Palgrave Macmillian. The session was, so to speak, torhapsodize and exemplify how different skills, interests, and needs thereof could be met by providing learners with an environment where the learner autonomy is not disregarded. The underlying, sub-thematic idea of the session was “Choice is important”, which I believe it is. Though it was the first session of the conference, it was motivating in terms of the enthusiasm it created. The activity/game in which we were asked to write poems of four lines was enjoyable even for us as adults. When it comes to critique of the session, I will have three main points ofcriticism.Firstly, all the statements advising us to differentiate our teaching strategies will not sound more profound than clichés unless we are told **how** to do it, which will bring me to my second point of criticism: How would it be possible for us to create environments for learner autonomy in Turkish school context where each and every element (from classroom design, textbooks, curriculum, to administrative structure) of which is designed for centralized education? Though all the problems pointed above are assumed to be solved; I still find it problematic how she conceived of an autonomous learning group. As far as I inferred from the session, her autonomous learning groups are of at least two people, which explicitly ignores individual learners. Designing groups of two and more will force individual learners to stay unwillingly in a group. Students should be given the chance to work individually even when group activities are held in the classroom.