Reflection+on+YUCE+College+Conference+by+FERUZE+İLKATMIŞ

Reflections on YUCE College Conference In the conference the most effective session was the first one “Differentiated learning-links with autonomy and learning strategies” that given by Annamaria PINTER who is associated professor of ELT/Applied Linguistics at the centre for applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, UK. The aim of this session was to determine what differentiation is and how differentiation improves teaching English. She firstly stated that learners have different age and linguistic levels, different interest and learning styles. For this reason, according to her grouping classroom is one of the ways to provide interaction with learners easily. I have known the difference between learners' level, interest and learning styles but I have heard the term differentiation for the first time. I have learned that with differentiation teachers enable more social interaction and communication among students. Learning from others, focusing on learners’ needs, inter-dependence, autonomy cycle and choice motivations are other subjects that were mentioned in the session. With autonomy cycle students choose what activity and task they want in learning English and it enables them to work more creatively and enthusiastically. She emphasized that we should give them natural choice of language like watching videos. Students are more eager to study while there are enjoying tasks and these tasks give them motivation. She supported the idea of giving learners same activities that are concluded with different outputs. In session in order to show how differentiation can be applicable for class she wanted us to talk about any subject with the person near us for two minutes. This activity helped me understand differentiation is useful especially in crowded classes. Mrs. Pinter also mentioned teacher's role to implement differentiation in class. Teachers should give learners the idea of why they are learning language and what they are learning. With differentiation learners take responsibility in learning process. I think differentiation is applicable to all levels but sometime grouping may not work in some situations like in individual tasks. Differentiation could be directly applied in English classes in Turkey. I am planning to integrate the differentiation, choice motivation and autonomy cycle to my own teaching. Also using poetry, picture stories and videos is helpful for language teaching. The explanatory examples in this session were helpful to understand differentiation more easily and via these examples and activities I listened to her carefully. Although she gave a lot of information her style was not boring. To participate the activities provided me to understand the differentiation and other topics in the session clearly. Lastly, I am glad to participate to this conference and I believe that I learned a lot of beneficial techniques for teaching English.