Reflection+on+Yuce+College+Conference+by+Esra+CATE

In YUCE College Conference, the most illuminating and effective session which was about “differentiated learning – links with autonomy and learning strategies” was held by Dr. Annamaria PINTER. The main aim of this talk was to give the audience an informative introduction to differentiated learning and presenting some practical activities which English Language teachers could use in language classrooms related to differentiated learning and its connection to autonomy and learning strategies. This talk was briefly about how EL teachers can implement differentiation in their language lessons taking into consideration of students’ different needs, backgrounds, interests, learning capacities and strategies.
 * REFLECTION ON DIFFERENTIATED LEARNING**

The first thing which drew my attention and interest during the conference was the “autonomy cycle” which is about giving students the choice to do what they wish, motivating them, reflection which will lead to better understanding of both the self and the learning process, thus will help desire to improve to arise in the students. In my opinion this technique reveals the core policy which should be internalized by teachers so that students would feel more liberated, committed, motivated for the activity that they have chosen. It is crucial to give students a little (not too much) choice for what to do as an activity which makes the lesson student-centered. In order to meet students’ needs and desires teacher should provide various choice of activities which students can have the chance to do the activity freely. Since what they choose will be the activity they like, need, or are interested in learning process would progress smoothly and effectively which helps students to have fun while learning the foreign language and improving themselves. Although I believe most of the activities that are shown in the presentation were very creative, constructive and effective activities for especially young learners, I think they are adoptable for different levels and classes.

I do not think there were any ideas or points that I disagree with or that I find contradictory to what I know and believe about English language teaching, but the point that focuses on giving learners the same tasks or different tasks in order to implement differentiation to the learning should have been improved more, so that teacher have a clear idea how to give learners the same or different tasks that would work for all levels and that would start with a choice, since unity in the classroom is also necessary. The only thing which I think was unclear is this giving different or the same tasks to learners to have a differentiated learning environment. I also would like to address the presenter these two questions: Since every student differs in personality and background, how can teachers provide enough choice that would make at least most of the class to be engaged in that particular task with commitment? How can we, as teachers, close the gap between the policy and practice?

Even though I thought this conference would be too academic and boring, fortunately it was very informative and constructive in terms of having some clear images and ideas about differentiated learning which I think is a ground-breaking development in the field of English language teaching. Since I find this session very useful, I would like to integrate those ideas that I learned in the presentation to promote differentiated learning. For example, writing a poem (cinquain)is a very amusing way of using meta-language or grammar and vocabulary knowledge for both young and adult learners. Above all the other activities, I found this one as the most surprising, entertaining and adoptable to different levels and different students, and I would like to use these kind of tasks and activities in my own teaching.


 * COMMENTS:**

thank you Esra..I liked your reflection because you have said the main idea of this conference and you have given your own ideas while telling about the conference....Fadime Yermez


 * BY BÜŞRA ELMAS**

The first thing which drew your attention and interest during the conference was the “autonomy cycle” and also the thing which I have heard for the first time during the session was to autonomy cycle. Mrs. Pinter explained this term firstly introducing what the autonomy was. To her conception, understanding what learning was, understanding about the self, resources, and evaluating the outcomes were constituting the autonomy. When it came to autonomy cycle it was kind of implementation based on choices. It began with choices because in many schools students were not allowed to make choices about the topic they would cover. She underlined that letting the students free for making choices gave them autonomy and that kept their motivation high. Implying helps desire to improve to arise in the students, you simply summarize the aim of this technique according to me.Moreover, now that every student show diversity in their personalities they could suggest many separate offer for the subject choice, and this could be a challenge for the teacher due to the fact that s/he should pick up just one topic offer for one lesson in that point I agree with you but Mrs Pinter enlightes this unclear point stating three main constituent which teachers should be aware of. One of them was, in every class environment there are always different level of competence, interests, needs, personalities, and learning styles. Another one, in differentiated class, grouping the students provided more awareness about learning. The other one, the teachers should know the strategies for learning to take some control alone and with others because this lead to autonomy. As a result, I agree nearly all of your ideas especially the one about the usage of the technique in the Turkish education system.

**Cengiz Dikme (Comments)**
I definitely agree with Esra upon the questions she directed to the presenter (i.e. Ms Pinter). “ Since every student differs in personality and background, how can teachers provide enough choice that would make at least most of the class to be engaged in that particular task with commitment? How can we, as teachers, close the gap between the policy and practice?”.All conferences, books, essays..etc would have less of a meaning as long as they kept telling us “what to do” rather than “how to do” it.We can find zillions of activities for students on the internet; what really a matter is how we can apply them best. The sessions would have been more helpful if presenters had talked about the ways of implementation of various activities and strategies.