Today I was looking for some interesting discussion topics for high school students. I came across with a web site which belongs to one of the greatest educators in my PLN, Sean Banville. I was amazed to see that there were 650 discussion topics and 13.000 conversation questions on his web site! I already knew his Breaking News English and Listen a Minute.com and just found out that he had four other web sites!

I got great ideas from Sean’s ESL discussions.com and wanted thank him and let more people know about this generous friend.

You can follow him on Twitter if you aren’t already. (http://twitter.com/seanbanville)

Thank you Sean! Please keep inspiring us with your energy and enthusiasm!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I feel like September is the first month of the year. Schools are opening! It will be great to see happy faces and teach fresh minds.

(By the way did you know that in Ethiopia, the first month of the year is September? They have their own calendar which is based on the Coptic calendar, and is eight years behind the calendar we use (Gregorian).)

This is going to be another great but incredibly busy year for me. For the approaching academic year, I don’t have any resolutions like learning Spanish (I’ll have those in December:-) but I have well made plans.

First of all, I’m extremely happy about aPLaNet, our European Union funded project. The full name is Autonomous ‘Personal Learning Networks’ for Language Teachers. APLaNet will help language educators use the wealth of ICT resources and Internet social networks that are aimed specifically at language educators. You can join our Facebook group to get news about the project. Next two years will be full of rewarding experiences for me since I haven’t been involved in an EU project before. I’d like to thank Joel Josephson for bringing great people together and giving me the courage.

My other challenge will be the DELTA course which I’m planning to start this month and finish by the end of the year (I mean the academic year of course:-) I feel like celebrating my 10th year in teaching… It was 2000 when I graduated from university and I feel that I need to refresh my knowledge to become a better teacher and a trainer. There will be so many tasks and assignments that will keep my mind active. (I can hear my friends saying “Don’t you already have enough???”:-)

My last but not least challenge will be the 2nd ISTEK ELT Conference that will take place on 2-3, April. We have great speakers (again) and a different format this year. I’m planning to announce all the details in November. Stay tuned!:-)

“Never say you don’t have enough time… You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein:-)”

Related posts:

1. European Union Request and Invitation for Associate Partners Autonomous ‘Personal Learning Networks’ for Language Teachers (APLaNet) For Language...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

It’s been almost two years since I started blogging. It was the same time I started tweeting. I didn’t know that both blogging and tweeting would be addictive. I’m so happy to share great ideas and meet wonderful people via Twitter and blogging.

This academic year was a big challenge for me. I started a new job where I have wonderful colleagues and the most supportive management. I have found the chance to realize one of my dreams: organising a big conference. I’m grateful to all the speakers, participants and the ISTEK team for making it happen. Before getting ready for the next school year and the conference, I need to charge myself up in order to make a fresh start.

I’ll be back blogging in September.

Have a great summer!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

6. Handbell

When you need to get the attention of your students, you don’t need to raise your voice. Instead, use a handbell. Tell your students that it means ‘Stop what you’re doing and look at the teacher.’ Don’t expect them to respond to it properly as soon as you say what to do when they hear the bell. Practice a couple of times and make it fun. Tell them pretend as if they are in the middle of a noisy activity and when the bell rings, stop what they are doing and look at you. You may need to repeat this exercise from time to time until they get used to this non-verbal cue.

7. Blogging in the classroom

If you have a class blog and a projector in the classroom, you can publish some content that you can share with your students during the lesson. The content you show can be a consequence of good behavior or for warming up at the beginning of the lesson. It can be a fun video, a song or a game or you can read some comments and encourage the students to write more by praising the ones who leave comments regularly.

8. Fun-o-meter

Before a stirring activity, like running dictation*, you need your class to be silent and listen to the instructions to do the activity properly. However when you tell them that you are going to do a fun activity, they might get too excited to listen to your instructions silently before getting started. At this point, you can draw a fun-o-meter on the board. The more they get ready for the activity, the closer the arrow gets to the ‘running dictation’(or whatever activity you are planning to do) side. You will see that they will get silent very quickly. Do it in a fun way and turn the arrow towards the negative part even if you hear a whisper. It is fun to watch them trying to control themselves not to giggle.:-)

*How to play running dictation: Divide class into teams. In each team students take turns and be a reader and there is a writer. Put up texts (usually short text) at the back of the class. Tell the readers that they will run to a text, read and memorize a part of it. As quickly as possible they will run back and dictate the text to the writer in their group. The writer writes while other students go back to read more text. The group that finishes writing their text first wins and reads out the text to the class.

9. Online timers

It is a good idea to use a timer in the classroom. You can use an egg timer or a sandglass. If you have a projector and Internet connection in your classroom, using online timers can be more engaging. (Click here to read an article about how to use eggtimers in a young learners classroom-by Carla Wilson.)

Countdown Timer: Select a soundtrack, type your time into the box and click countdown button.

Online Sand Timer: Set the time and start the sand timer. When the time is over, an alarm rings.

One-minute Countdown Circle: A big yellow countdown circle. When the time is up, it displays a message.

Three-minute Talking Timer: A serious timer:-)

The Super Timer by Fiery Ideas: A fun timer with music option.

The Writing Timer by Fiery Ideas: A customisable timer to use during extended writing.

10. Class mascot

Your young learners will love a class mascot that they can take home in turns. Just tell them about the criteria to be able to take it home. e.g. Active participation, willingness to speak English, behaving well, etc.

Class mascots can do a good job in international projects as well. Find a partner class in another country. Send your class mascots to each other. The mascots will represent the country it comes from. Every weekend, give the mascot to a student. Tell him to assume that the mascot is a guest from that country. At the end of two days he spends at the student’s house, he is going to write a letter to the class where he belongs to. A descriptive letter about the family of the student, where they live, what they eat, what they do at the weekends, etc. By the end of one month, two classes will have sent eight letters (e-mails) to each other. The letters (e-mails) might include photos. At the end of the project, you can display the letters and photos.

I did this project a few yours ago. If I did it again, I would definitely use a blog and write the blog together with the partner class. Diary of two teddy bears….:-)

Related posts:

1. 10 Classroom Management Ideas That Worked In My Classes- Part I “I normally put on make-up but I got an eye...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

“I normally put on make-up but I got an eye infection that day and went to school without make-up. One of my students came to me and asked: ‘Teacher, why aren’t you wearing your glasses today?’”

This is a little anecdote from a colleague who doesn’t wear glasses. Somehow her little student perceived her eye make-up as glasses:-)

I love teaching young learners…  They see the world differently. They come into the classroom with naive ideas about everything and they are a source of positive energy and creativity.

However, this positive energy might well be used physically and turn into a nightmare for a teacher:-)

I remember feeling extremely desperate after my first lesson with a group of 6-year-olds. There were only twenty of them and I would prefer to have hundreds of adult students instead.

It didn’t take me long to understand that 60% of teaching young learners is classroom management.

Once a psychologist on a TV program said “Everybody wants to have a big house but no one wants a house without walls.” It’s so true! If you set clear rules and expectations, they feel safer and then learning comes easily.

In order to gain and maintain positive classroom management, you need to use some techniques and establish routines in your classroom. I would like to share with you ten ideas that I used in my classes and that I believe work well. This year, I don’t have any classes so this post is a good chance for me to remember my little students.

None of the ideas are originally mine but unfortunately I might not be able to give credit to the owner of the idea because it’s been long time since I read them somewhere (probably on ETP, a resource book or a web site) and modified according to my classes.

*Some of these ideas are based on reward systems which has been a big debate for years and people feel very strongly one way or another. I think every classroom has its own chemistry and you should do what works for you.

1. Marbles In The Jar

When I searched the Internet, I found out that my “marbles in the jar” idea was already very famous. I guess I read it on ETP and adapted it for my 10-year-old students. It works very well for classroom behaviour and participation.

I had a bag full of marbles and there was a jar in every classroom. (Glass jars might be dangerous in the classroom, if you are not planning to assign a student to protect it from the other students during the breaks:-) The students were getting very excited even when they heard the sound of the marbles. Here is how it works:

Fill the jar with a couple of marbles when the whole class does something well or fully participate in the lesson. (At the beginning, you should inform them about the criteria for getting marbles.) When the jar is filled, you can do a fun activity or watch a film. You can count the marbles together for practising numbers. At the beginning, they can be obsessive about the marbles and do not think anything else but then it becomes a natural part of the lesson. This system might not work for a very long time. It worked well in my classes for one semester. The second term, I made a fresh start and introduced something different.

2.Max

Max is a fluffy puppet that I used for minimizing the use of Turkish in the classroom.

I believe that moderate use of mother tongue has advantages but it is also necessary to ensure that students make effort to use English in the classroom.

I wrote a blog post when Max started to visit my classes. You can click the title to read it. “Here comes Max!”
********************************************

*************************************************************

3. 5-minute Teacher Talk

I got this idea from a colleague. At the beginning of every lesson, she waits for her students to settle down (it is especially fun(!) to watch them settle down after a PE lesson.) and starts the lesson by telling or reading them something for 5 minutes. This can be a story, a joke, a memory or some interesting news. This part of the lesson is task-free and the students only listen to the teacher. Afterwards, there can be a class discussion depending on the topic. This ‘teacher talk’ period at the beginning of the lesson helps them calm down and get ready for the lesson. If you provide some interesting content, it is very good for further discussions and increases the motivation level.

4. Student Helpers

Make your students feel important. This will help you build a positive relationship with your students which leads to better teaching and learning. Know their strengths and let them help you. If a student is good at using computers, ask him to turn on/off the computer, check if the speakers are working, find the web site that you want to show the class, etc.

You can also ask your students to pass out and/or collect worksheets, homework assignments, etc. or help you design bulletin boards.

Make sure that these duties do not belong to only one student for a long time. Give them responsibilities on a rotating basis.

5. Jazz Chants

I love jazz chants! Starting the lesson with a jazz chant livens up the classroom as well as making language memorable. I recommend Carolyn Graham’s Jazz Chants book to get ideas. You can also create your own jazz chants. Listen to Carolyn Graham to find out more.

I’d like to share the rest of the ideas in another blog post, otherwise it will be a long long post. In the next part, you will find some Web 2.0 related ideas as well.

Related posts:

1. 10 Classroom Management Ideas That Worked In My Classes- Part II 6. Handbell When you need to get the attention of...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I was in Malaysia last week. I had a talk at MICELT 2010 which is organized every two years and known as one of the world’s best ELT conferences.

Before going to Malaysia, I was a bit nervous because I hadn’t travelled that far before. After nine hours of a very comfortable journey by Malaysian Airlines, I arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. From the moment I stepped in the country, I felt home because everyone I met was so nice and friendly.

It was 5 am when I arrived in KL and took a taxi to Malacca where the conference took place. I arrived in Malacca at around 7. Instead of waiting for the check-in time at the lobby, I decided to take a city tour. I joined a lovely group of people who came from Canada and who started school together 64 years ago after the World War II! We had the most wonderful tour guide, Kumar who told us everything about Malacca.

Before the conference started, I met the conference organizers, Dr Jaya and Dr Roselan, and Alan Maley who has been to all the MICELT conferences so far. Alan is the person who recommended me for the plenary about technology. I met him in Cardiff last year. He is a person to admire. I love to listen to him talking about his experiences and memories from the world of ELT. I wish he had a blog but he says “I’m still on e-mail.”:-) (He said this when we were talking about Twitter.) I found out that he wrote a guest blog on British Council’s web site last year. If you haven’t read Alan’s guest blog, here is the link: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/alan-maley

Alan Maley

The conference was full of great sessions.  There were two plenaries, eight split plenaries and almost one hundred parallel sessions. I don’t know the exact number of participants but I guess there were about six hundred teachers. To be honest, the first two days I couldn’t adjust the new time zone and missed some sessions. Alan Maley did the opening plenary and, with his unique style, gave us some tips to teach literature creatively. The closing plenary was by Brian Tomlinson. He talked about being an empathetic teacher and emphasized that one of the best ways of facilitating language learning is teaching learners what they actually need when they need it. It was a thought provoking session because we, as teachers, sometimes stick to the course books too much and cannot respond to our students’ communicative needs.

There were some good technology related talks. In one of the sessions I attended, the presenter, Ain Nadzimah, who works at UPM (Universiti Putra Malaysia) shared a research project implemented at UPM which will be taken to the national level next year. They are aiming to find out the attitude of Malaysian teachers towards the use of technology in the classroom. I don’t know when they can complete this national level research. I hope they publish the findings online.

My session was a split plenary. Hitomi Masuhara did a session about making ELT materials more engaging at the same time with me. Split plenaries is a good idea but I had difficulty in choosing which ones to go since there were very good speakers.

I would like to thank Dr Roselan Baki, Dr Jayakaran Mukundan and the conference team for their warmness and hospitality. MICELT 2010 was an excellent opportunity for me to share ideas with Malaysian teachers and learn about Asian hospitality.

I enjoyed every minute of the MICELT conference and my Malaysia trip!

Dr. Roselan, Phallin- a lovely friend from Cambodia, Dr. Jaya and me

Some other pictures from MICELT 2010 and Malaysia:

Related posts:

1. ISTEK FLT Conference: A Mixture of Inspiration, Excitement and Hard Work I work at ISTEK Foundation Schools in Istanbul. I am...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

It’s been a long time since I posted my last entry. While describing blogs as ‘frequently updated websites’ in my talks, there seems to be a contradiction between what I say and what I do:-)

I can say that I have experienced one of the busiest times of my life but I can’t complain because I had a great time as well.

First, the ISTEK conference… I really enjoyed organizing it and with a dedicated group of teachers who worked very hard, it has proved itself to be a successful event. It was wonderful to read blog posts and tweets about it. Thanks to all who blogged about ISTEK ELT and thanks a lot to my PLN who sent motivational tweets and DMs during and after the conference. I am glad you exist!

It is a great pleasure for me to share the links of the blog posts about ISTEK ELT:

Shelly, I copied this list from your blog:-)

From PLN to ISTEK 2010 by Sean Banville

Not virtual but virtually there: an intimate but by no means inferior Istek experience! by Mark Andrews

ISTEK Conference Review by Andy Chaplin, Olaf Elch

The ISTEK Conference, Istanbul by Ken Wilson

What makes a good conference Pt 2 – a kind of twitter update by Jeremy Harmer

Motivation and Inspiration by Eva Büyüksimkesyan

ISTEK Glogs March 27th and March 28th by Sibel Taskin via Nicky Hockly

and….

ISTEK and My One Year Twitter Birthday by Shelly Terrell

Some photos from the conference:

I must say that the IATEFL conference last year inspired me to organize the ISTEK ELT and this year’s conference in Harrogate was even more inspiring than the previous one.

It was wonderful to meet so many friends from Twitter. The IATEFL Harrogate online team did a fantastic job. All the plenary talks were streamed online and watched by thousands of people from all around the world. A lot of people were tweeting from the sessions using the “iatefl” hashtag and a lot of teachers joined Twitter during and after the conference. I’ve been to very successful and inspiring sessions by Russell Stannard, Ozge Karaoglu & Shelly Terrell, Petra Pointner, Marisa Constantinides, Sebnem Oral, Andy Hockley and Shaun Wilden. The Pecha Kucha evening was hosted by Lindsay Clandfield who always has a great calming effect on the Pecha Kuchaists:-) I cannot think of a Pecha Kucha without Lindsay. I think all the PKists did very well!…and it was streamed online too.You can find all the recordings and some fantastic interviews on the Harrogate Online Web Site.

A final note: I was planning to write a more detailed and probably more lively post about these two conferences one of which is my baby and the other, my source of inspiration. However, for the last two weeks, I was really very tired of following the destructive and immature posts about the ISTEK conference and myself, and unfortunately it threw cold water on my willingness to write… but it will not last for long, because I am starting to organize the next ISTEK Conference very soon:-) The 2nd International ISTEK ELT Conference. April 2011…

Related posts:

1. IATEFL Turkey in the Making It was last year when I felt the power of...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I would like to share one of my teaching experiences that I had with my grade 5 students. We started to use the book ‘Cornerstone’ from Longman this year. Our first unit was ‘Helping others’. The big question for our class was ‘How could they make a difference in their lives and in the lives of others at the age of 10?’

First we gathered information about the foundations which were founded by children. You would be amazed by the number! ‘Suitcases for Kids’, ‘Kids Helping Kids’, ‘Care Bags Foundation’ and many others. Each student picked an organization that I had written on a Hawaiian skirt. They did a research project on it then presented it to the class. This study enabled them to realize that they didn’t need to be grownups to make a difference.

Next, we continued by reading the information provided in the book about ‘Doctors without Borders’.

The students again studied the countries and tried to find the answers to questions like ‘why do they need DWB?’, ‘in what way can DWB help?’.

As we were discussing these topics, Dan’s tweet (@chickensaltash) about a school in the Ashaninka community attracted my attention. They were one of the major tribes in the rainforest in Peru and they needed help.

Would my students be interested?

Yes! They were as excited as I was and Bora Z. (one of my students) cried out ‘Let’s be: Students without Borders’.

The class was thrilled. So I got in contact with Dan. We watched his video about Ashaninka and decided to do a fundraising. We did the action plan together as follows:

1-Gather Information:

First of all, the students needed to gather information about the problem. We did brainstorming in class and they decided that they need the following information:

1- Why are the rainforests in danger?

2- What is the link between global warming and rainforests?

3- Rainforest and Medicine

4- Rainforests, humans and animals

5- Who is www.coolearth.org?

The students worked in groups and presented their work in class.

2-Fundraising:

The students wanted to display posters and play music during the fundraising. ‘Why don’t we play our own song?’ they said. Ipek came with the lyrics the next day.

I helped them with the tune and we went to a studio to record our song.

While we were busy with our work, we received an exciting invitation from Dan. Javier Drill Bustamente, a real life Amazon tribesman from the Ashaninka community was going to visit his school in Saltash- England and we could watch and be a part of his visit by connecting to Twitcam. Everything would be live! It was the great opportunity to show my students that their window was opening to the world. I still get excited when I think of their happy faces – the moment when they could say ‘Hello’ to Dan and Javier and when they said ‘Hello Istanbul- Kemer Schools!’

3-Contact the organization for the donation:

We prepared the following presentation to be a part of ‘Coolearth’. We wanted to show them that we care about Ashaninka and our world. After all the research they accomplished, they realized the value of the rainforest and its importance for the future of all humans and animals.

We signed onto www.coolearth.org together in class and decided how we would spend the money together.

4-Reflection:

The students wrote their reflection by answering questions like:

- How did it feel to help?

- How did it feel when you sold nothing?

- What do you think we should do with the money?

- What other things can Students without Borders do in the future?

- What could we do better next time?

At the end of the unit, the students not only enjoyed the feeling of ‘making a difference’ in the world but also practiced their reading, listening, writing and speaking skills and increased their vocabulary.

I hope you’ll enjoy the presentation as much as we did.

Click here to see the presentation.

Sebnem Oral was born in England, grew up in Germany. She graduated from TED Ankara College. She has her BA in Translation and Interpretation from Hacettepe University. She has her MBA from Istanbul University and received her Teaching Certificate from Bogaziçi University.

She teaches English in a primary school Istanbul.

Her two books were published as Musical Tales of the World I & II in 2009.

Follow her on Twitter.

Check out her web site: http://missebnem.com/

Related posts:

1. “SPREAD YOUR ENTHUSIASM” – A New Series I know many teachers who do incredible things in their...
2. Let’s Welcome the Kansas State University Students! Yesterday a very nice thing happened. A group of Kansas...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I know many teachers who do incredible things in their classrooms that I think needs to be shared with the other teachers both to celebrate their success and to serve as a source of inspiration and creativity.

That is the reason I am starting “SPREAD YOUR ENTHUSIASM” series. This will be an ongoing series and open to teachers from all around the world.

Please contact me if you want to contribute by recommending a teacher or by spreading your own enthusiasm!

Related posts:

1. A New Series: My PLN says… I am starting a new series called “My PLN says…”...
2. SPREAD YOUR ENTHUSIASM – “Students Without Borders” by Sebnem Oral I would like to share one of my teaching experiences...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

It was last year when I felt the power of a leading international association. I had the opportunity to go to the 43rd IATEFL Conference in Cardiff and present there. I can describe this experience as inspiring, enriching and connecting.

IATEFL, which stands for the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language has Associates in different countries to link, develop and support English Language Teaching professionals worldwide as its mission states.

Having this in mind, I think that setting up IATEFL Turkey is a great opportunity for English teachers in Turkey to feel this connective spirit and develop professionally.

In order to set up a teachers’ association in Turkey, there are some legal conditions:

If you want to take an active role in the founding process, you cannot be a teacher or an administrator who works at a state or private school. (I know that this doesn’t sound logical and hope that it changes in the near future especially if the association is set up for professional development purposes.)

So, this leaves us the option to build a team of freelance teachers/trainers and university instructors (who live in Turkey) to fulfill the legal requirements and apply for an approval.

Come join the team of volunteers to actively contribute and take part in this new adventure.

You can contact me by leaving a comment or filling out this form.

Related posts:

1. After ISTEK ELT and IATEFL 2010 It’s been a long time since I posted my last...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.