Reflection+on+the+Conference+at+Yuce+College+(Tuğçe+Nur+Bozkurt)

**Session Title: Differentiation in Language Teaching by Dr. Annamaria Pinter ** I will write a reflection on the first session which is presented by Annamaria Pinter. I chose this session because we are studying her book “Teaching English to Young Learners” for one of our courses and I really like her activities and style which I experience both in her book and in her presentation at Yuce College. She started her speech by stating that she is not a native speaker of English and I think it showed us that she is a modest and a nice person. She started to talk about the definition of “Differentiated Learning”, which means “learning which is peculiar to individual”. She also shared how she interpret differentiation by saying that it aims to teach each individual who has different intelligences and tendencies and who behaves and thinks differently from each other. It was the first time I heard about the term differentiation and her explanation helped me to have an idea about this concept. Then, she started to mention about the group working she stated that breaking the class into group makes students fell more responsible. Grouping brings great level of awareness to the students because teacher cannot be near them always but she added that this does not mean they are independent of the teacher; teacher still has a big role. She mentioned independence and interdependence learning as very social processes and learner autonomy in general. She explained autonomy as understanding which kind of learning is appropriate for the self and also deciding about the sources and evaluating outcomes. I really liked her ideas related to group working because I have always thought that teacher should always be near the students but I have learned that students can learn to take responsibility by working on their own. She also gave us an example about the Hungarian students. She told us that these students were not considered to be able to success. However, they managed the activities she explained this situation by saying that “If they enjoy in an activity they will be more eager to do it even again and again.” I really liked the idea that teaching students while they are enjoying. I think that it is directly opposite to the traditional methods only aim of which is to teach. She emphasized that it is better to give feedback during the activity because it helps students to understand better and improve it when doing it again. I think this can be really efficient in the activities which are repetitive. However, I think we can give feedback after the activities like speaking in front of the classroom no to embarrass the student. She asked us to speak 2 min. with the person next to us. The rationale behind this activity was different people will talk about different things. This didn’t work well on that day but this does not mean it is an ineffective one but I think it was because we did not know what to talk about. However, I think in a real classroom environment choosing students randomly and making them speak about a subject can be effective. In the continuing part she introduced us an interesting activity in which learners write short and simple poems which have a recipe for example; 3 verbs and 4 adjectives and the noun and the verb or adjective again. This activity was very enjoyable she wanted us to write one poem on our own and some people shared theirs with us, there were really creative ones. When she presented this poem activity to us she asked for our predictions for the noun in the poem she read, I tried to give an answer and shouted “pizza” she didn’t hear me after two times I gave up. I think this was the only weaknesses of her I think and she might not be able to hear me because of the noise.  I really like the poem activity and I am sure in a real classroom environment this will entertain students a lot and when they are trying to find the words to elaborate their poems thy will learn new vocabulary items also they heard the ones of their friends and this will also lead incidental learning. This activity can be implemented in young learner context because they are in their most creative and productive ages and also we saw in the conference that adult learners also enjoyed in that activity. She showed us a video which is about the story “Lion & Mouse” after that she explained us the activity. Teacher will show some pictures between the video and asks for 5 key words which can be related to this story. These words can be adjectives which are related to the topic or the ones which help to explain the story itself. It is an activity which addresses different intelligences also prompting students to think and brainstorm.I liked this picture story activity and I think this activity can also be applicable for all groups of learners with the arrangement of the text or story. In this activity learners are encouraged to think analytically and reach a conclusion state their own ideas from their own perspective. I think this is really good because one can say “brotherhood” in the story “lion and mouse” while one can “mercy”. As a last remark, I want to thank her for introducing s lots of innovative techniques which can be implemented in EFL contexts in Turkey ad which can work for both young and adult learners. She had a kind and smooth style of presenting what she aimed in a clear and fluent way. I think she was modest and by adding some humor in her presentation she both informed and enjoyed us.
 * REFLECTION ON THE CONFERENCE AT YUCE COLLEGE **

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