Reflection+on+Yüce+College+Conference+by+Esra+İDİL

**BY ESRA İDİL ** I am going to write my reflection paper on the topic of differentiated learning-links with autonomy and learning strategies mentioned by Dr. Annamaria Pinter. In this session of the conference, the speaker, Dr. Annamaria Pinter aims to help foreign language teachers to implement differentiated tasks in their EFL or other language classrooms giving useful information about autonomy as well. To tell the summary of this session, I want to mention some key points of the topic in terms of my understanding. First of all, she gave the simple definition of differentiation as ‘interpreting slightly differently’ and she explained how differentiation helps in language classrooms. After that, she linked differentiation with autonomy telling how autonomy is useful in differentiated tasks and in students’ learning. She showed an autonomy cycle to the audiences in order to indicate its process in learning. Then she expressed the role of the teacher in language classes giving the key importance to it. Furthermore, during her presentation, she implemented different tasks with audiences to show how it works. And that’s the summary of the presentation. Now I want to express my opinions about the topic and the presentation. To start with the highlighted points in the presentation, I realized that the speaker highlighted the differentiation and the autonomy. She also mentioned that what she showed or implemented during her presentation is applicable for all language levels and I really agree this regarding tasks we saw in the presentation. Actually, I want to say that I found the tasks she used during her speech useful in terms of being applied in language classrooms. However, I wonder how we can apply these information and tasks about differentiation and autonomy in our classrooms in Turkey. I am sure that it would not be easy for language teachers to apply them in Turkish education system because our education system does not give opportunities for students’ choices as autonomy and differentiation require but we should try and do our best for our students as teachers. As a conclusion, I found this session of the conference beneficial as the others because it was an interesting one with applied tasks and information given via power point presentation and speech of Dr. Annamaria Pinter. Actually, I did not expect such a beautiful and useful speech and conference at all but I appreciated both the school and the speakers for organizing and participating in this conference. This conference, especially the speech of such a successful professor as Dr. Annamaria Pinter, encouraged me to go beyond my knowledge about ELT and make more researches about the topic that I had chance to learn in detail thanks to these speeches.
 * REFLECTION PAPER ON ELT CONFERENCE AT YÜCE SCHOOLS **

Comments:

Emrullah Yasin Çiftçi

First of all, I agree with you that this session was really useful to see what differention is. The key term for the session was "autonomy" as you also mentioned. I really liked that autonomy cycle which starts with choice, then, learners feel motivated and fell commitment to do the task. After that, the teacher gives feedback and evaluate the process. Lastly, learners enjoy the task and they have desire to improve and do it again. This cycle is based on the choices and needs of the students. Students are made responsible for their own learning in some parts. These are all good opinions towards differentiation, but in Turkey context, these are somehow dreams. In Turkey, especially in state schools, students are not enough committed towards for their own learning. If they are given a chance of choice, they won't commit themselves to their choices. Turkish community is a collective one and we generally have experienced and older people as models and we follow their choices. We generally don't have an experience for the freedom of making choices. This idea is also valid for the schools, so even if teachers ask for the choices of the students, teachers won't get meaningful choices or no choice at all. So, I agree with you for the Turkish context. However, these autonomy ideas are valuable for prospective teachers like us and we have to keep them in our minds for our future career. Maybe we can find a context to apply these ideas.

Comments:

Hülya ERGÜN

 Firstly i must say that i agree with you at the point that conference is a big success an all. This is the first session and the speaker was ,as you mentioned, well prepeared,clear and good at explaining her topic. Also, this session was really informative as the other sessions. The point that i really liked about you reflection is that you summarized well enough the session. It gives overall picture of the session. Furthermore, i agree that autnomy circle and sharing responsibilty with students is key points of the session and they are really important in terms of both teaching and classroom managment. Sharing some autonomy and responsibility with students is what trends in teaching. In order to gain students cooperation in terms of classroom managment we need to give them some sense of autnomy and responsibilty. Furthermore, As Mrs. Pinter pointed at her session, giving some responsibilty to students can foster and stimulate students' motivation towards lesson and topic. However,i don not share the same opinion with you in the adoptation point. As Mrs Pinter gave us a sketlon of the autonomy in the classroom, we can adopt this notion in the Turkish classroom. It can be both energy and time consuming for teachers, if it is well prepeared and established we can use it effectively for Turkish teachers. Maybe, we can start with using it in classroom managment then when the students get the idea we can adapt it to classroom activities.