REFLECTION+PAPER+ON+ELT+CONFERENCE+HELD+IN+YUCE+COLLEGE++By+Birgül+DOĞAN

In my opinion, the most informative session in the conference which was held in Yuce College was the session offered by Annamaria Pinter. Maybe, the reason behind my tendency to listen her carefully comes from the books that are written by her and impressed me before going to that conference. In that session, Pinter tried to help foreign language teachers after emphasizing that she is a non-native speaker of English. Then, she started giving information about the topic “differentiated learning-links with autonomy and learning strategies”. She gave examples of differentiated learning in EFL classroom settings and she encouraged us to use them. She also mentioned the importance of grouping in the classrooms and the role of the teacher. She explained the term autonomy, independence and inter-dependence in the classrooms. She said that teachers should give freedom to their students during the teaching- learning process and highlighted that teachers should make students work on various aspects of language with different groups. She suggested using a variety of activities in teaching a language. Despite the fact that most of the teachers forget including humour in their lessons, she also indicated the positive affect of humour in classrooms. When it comes to the way she presented her topic, I definitely can say that she is an effective presenter. She tried to implement the techniques to her presentation and tried to make the audience actively participate to the presentation. I liked her style and her suggestions. She inspired me to learn more about ELT. There is no point that I disagree with her. There is just a detail that I wonder. It is the appliance of those methods to adults. The ideas and techniques are good for young learners but they may seem unnecessary for adult learners. Moreover there is a total problem in teaching English in Turkish classrooms. Unfortunately there is no equality between the public and private schools and it will show itself in those methods. Last but not least, what can we do to reach all the students in terms of both intelligence type and personality factors in such crowded classrooms? How many activities and task should we prepare? To sum up, I am really happy to participate in such a successful organization. Although it was a Saturday and I was sleepy, the workshops and presentations’ attractiveness helped me to stay awake.

__COMMENTS:__ By Gonca DENİZ Firstly; unlike Birgül, I had no idea about the speaker's books before attending this session. However; I agree with Birgül in terms of her presentation style. She managed to make the audience actively participate to the presentation and we were never bored. Moreover, I found her suggestions very useful as well. I think it is possible for us to implement the techniques she introduced in her presentation. Secondly; there are also some points that I have concerns about. These concerns are related to the methods; I agree with Birgül also from this perspective. While I was watching the presentation, I thought that the methods she introduced were really enjoyable but I was not sure if we could use them effectively with adult learners especially in the Turkish EFL concept. Turkish adult learners may find these methods unnecessary. The teachers who want to apply these methods with adults should be very careful to adapt these methods according to the age and learner level. In short, I agree with Birgül and her ideas about the presentation by Annamaria Pinter.

By Volkan ESEN Like Gonca, Unlike Birgül, i didn't have any idea about the books and the studies of the speaker, Annamaria Pinter. So, i was neutral about her before going to that conference. She was a nice old lady with full of enthusiasm to teach something, i realized it when she began speaking. She suggested lots of useful methods and tecqniques that i will definitelly make use of in the near future. Before coming to that ELT Conference, i didn't know such thing as 'Differentiated Instruction' but later i realized that i had already been using it in my private classes, as well. Since it is differenciated, it is obviously different from the traditional one, which i hate most and i never want to use. She suggested, as Birgül says, many useful methods very like giving freedom to students to learn themselves. This is a very good way to inspire students to use their imagination and they can improve themselves better. A teacher should be open to innovations and i believe i will be a such one.

By Fatih Gün Before we went to the conference, I had not had any idea about Annamaria Pinter and her books. From the first moment she started to talk till the end she managed to attract attention of audience by presenting different and interesting type of techniques and methods. They all seemed to be usefull.I agrree with Birgül that Pinter tried to make the audience actively participate to the presentation by implementing the techniques to her presentation. The biggest question I had after attending conference was about the usage of these techniques in my future carreer. I am not sure that we can use them in our classes in the future as they are a little bit complicated for me. It is also about the properties of our future school. I mean that Printer talked about the importance of variety of activities in the class but this may be a little problem for us if we do not have enough equipment in our class. to sum up, in generall as Birgül said it was a good and well prepared conference session.

By Zafer Gedikli

I totally agree with Birgül. I also liked most Annamaria. She was very enthusiastic in her speech. She mentioned about differentiated learning skills. Moreover, all of the teachers should be aware of the situation that students all have different capacity, because they have different backgrounds and come from different cultures. So, as a future teacher, we should provide these activities to our students. I hope we can achieve this. As a result, I agree with your opinions Birgül about presenter Annamaria Pinter