Dear FLE 324 Section 01 members,
You need to choose two task-based presentations and comment on your classmates' performance taking into consideration the following points: the successful aspects of these presentations of your peers that you have observed as well as the aspects that they need to improve in their presentations.
Also evaluate the presentations in terms of the following aspects: the aim of the lesson, the level of active student participation in the lesson, the clarity of the stages, the use of audio/visual aids, the interest level of students, the pacing of the material, the variety of pair/group/individual activities, the clarity of instructions, and the presenters' use of English, the presenters' oral performance in English and their presentation skills.
You need to specify the strong points and points to improve in the presentations as well.
You also need to comment on how properly and thoroughly the group presenters dealt with the three main cycles of the task-based learning process: the pre-task, task-cycle, and the language focus.
Firstly, I want to mention Begüm’s group. Their topic was “was/were” and the students’ level was pre-intermediate. Their grade was 6th and 7th. I think the aim and the stages of the lesson were clear. Teacher used the visuals in an appropriate way. Both teacher and the students were interested in the lesson. Students were supposed to work in a pair activity and it was good for students to interact with each other. In addition, it contributed to increase students’ participation to the lesson. Teacher used board efficiently by writing formulas on the board. Her hand writing was legible enough for students to read. Teacher had several activities; this created an enjoyable atmosphere in the class. However, the activities weren’t clear enough for students to understand well. She should have explained in a more detail way by giving instructions. Besides, I think the PowerPoint presentation and the first activity that they did weren’t appropriate to teach “was/were”, because they should be in Present Tense. In my opinion, while we describe something, we should use Present tense. However, as a general it was good lesson and I enjoyed while doing the activities.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I would like to comment on micro-teaching of Sümeyye. She conducted a lesson on tattoos. The level of the students was upper intermediate and they were in metu prep school. This topic was a good choice for students in that ages.. At the pre-task stage, she asked some questions about tattoos and tried to get attention of the students. Then, she distributed some pictures of different tattoos. Pictures were so interesting that it was impossible for students not to get into the lesson. They showed the pictures to each other and they made interesting comments on these pictures. However, in this point there was a problem of giving instructions. She told what they were going to do with the pictures, but students started to talk to each other after taking the pictures. Then, Sümeyye explained the instructions again, and then she explained the instructions to some students individually. This shows that she is a very patient teacher, but this problem of giving instructions created a loss of time. During the task-cycle stage, she had the same problem again. She distributed the reading text before giving the instructions. I think apart from problem about giving instruction she was a succesful teacher. Her use of english was good; her pronunciation was vey clear. She used a powerpoint presentation and a reading passage. I couldnt clearly understand what she was going to do in the language focus part since she had to skip that part because of time limitation; however, the pre-task and task-cycle stages were clearly different from each other. I think she will be a succesful teacher if she pay attention to her problem about giving instruction.
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ReplyDeleteSecondly, I would like to comment on the micro-teaching of Özge. Her students were in private school and they were between 17-18 years old. Her lesson was on news and newspapers. This theme could have been boring, but she achieved to make it interesting for students by her activities. At the beginning, she asked some questions about their interests on news generally. After that little discussion, she had students make a brainstorming on the sub-branches of the news. She wrote ideas on the board. This was a succesful choice for the pre-task activity. She really succeed to draw their attention to the topic. When she passed to task stage, she started to give some instructions, but then she realized that she had another activity before giving instructions and she stopped :) Then she showed a sample news about the death of Lady Diana to prepare stdents for the task-cycle. Then she gave the instructions on the activity in which students were going to prepare a first page for their own newspapers. That was an enjoyable activity even for us. All of the students in the class seemed to be engaged in the activty. She put a song to background while the students were doing the activity. I liked this idea, because the song was effective on students’ pace of doing the activity. Then all the groups read their newspapers to their classmates. Özge was a very succesful teacher in terms of teacher-student relationship. She always smiled druing the lesson. Her use of English was also succesfull. I couldnt see any negative aspects about her teaching and her lesson. Her stages were clear and her activities in those stages were succesful. I think she did one of the best micro-teachings on task-based lessons.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I would like to mention Özge’s group micro-teaching. The teacher of the lesson was Özge. Students’ age was between 17 and 18 and they were in private school. Topic of the lesson was about news. This topic was appropriate for students’ level. Teacher started lesson by asking the students about their favourite news, then she wrote down some kind of news that students told. Her use of board and her hand writing was nice. She wrote in a very neat way. Then, she showed students some news via ppt presentation and it was successful to take the students’ attention to the lesson. By showing the news, she explained them shortly. After that, she wanted students to prepare news for a newspaper. It would be first page of the newspaper. She distributed the templates and before that she gave instructions how students would do it. She distributed different news to each group. This contributed to increase interaction among the students. It was also useful for students because it would help them to use their creativity while preparing the newspaper. After finishing the activity, all of the students read their news to the class. Both the students and the teacher seemed to be enjoying while doing this activity. Teacher was friendly and managed to provide both informative and enjoyable lesson. The aim of the lesson and the stages were clear. As a general, I liked the lesson and found it beneficial for the students.
ReplyDeleteThe first presentation I would like share my opinions is İmren, Mürüvvet and Nesrin’s presentation. Fisrt of all, the topic was very interesting (Agony Aunt) and it appealed the students; therefore, the student participation was high. Beginning of the lesson was not a classic beginning; İmren made a nice warm up and a smooth transition to the task. I think instructions were very clear; however, there was a lack of activities. They had only a group work (reading the problems and giving advices to them). Maybe, it was enough to convey the aim of the lesson, but not enough to comprehend the subject in my opinion. She could have given some sample structure sentences besides writing only ‘should, had better, would…’ on the board. Namely, there could be some activities for the language focus part because this part was not emphasized enough separately as a stage. Additionally, the lesson was a bit fast, and also there could be more visual materials. Nevertheless, İmren’s interaction with the students was very good; she was a good listener, and so students participated in the lesson actively. Despite some weak points, it was a good presentation as general.
ReplyDeleteThe second presentation I want to comment on is Halenur, Harika, Deniz and Melek’s one. At the beginning of the lesson, Harika showed a box and wanted students to guess what there was in that box, volunteer students went, look at the object in the box and described it by using an adjectives. I think it was a great pre-task activity; it was appropriate for the students’ level (pre-intermediate). However, the aim of the lesson was not enough clear. I thought that the topic was ‘adjectives’ while we were doing activities, but it was ‘how to write a descriptive paragraph’. On the other hand, instructions were also ambiguous. For instance, most of the students wrote the sentences in line, not in a paragraph when Deniz wanted students to describe an object special for them. Students understood they were expected to write a paragraph when Deniz said ‘let’s examine and give feedback to paragraphs’, yet it was good to write the steps of a paragraph on the board and to explain them by giving examples. There were only individual work; I think some group or pair work activities could be added. Nonetheless, the materials were paced appropriately and students participated in the activities actively. As general, it was a nice presentation.
ReplyDeleteFatma ÖZKAYA:
ReplyDeleteI would like to comment on İmren's micro teaching. I think the topic choice "agony aunt" was appropriate for the level of these students. Firstly,the introduction part was different adn attracted the attentions of the students. The transition from the pre-task to the task was very smooth. During the task she made the students read the passages and that was a strong point to get the attentions of the students. During the task she was caring all the time. Monitoring the students and encouraging them during the task were another strong points of her teaching. As far as I remember the only thing that needed to be improved was the reading passages. They were too long for that level of students. Apart from that she had only one task and I think this showed us that we can manage the lesson even with one activity. Maybe in the language focus part she could has given some more activities to focus on language much more. Lastly she did not use any visual or audio but she herself overcame these shortcomings very well.
Fatma ÖZKAYA:
ReplyDeleteThe other presentation I would like to talk about is Sümeyye's micro teaching. The topic of the lesson was tattoos. The level of the students was upper intermediate and they were in metu prep school. So I think the topic is very appropriate for these students. She used visuals effectively throughout the lesson very effectively. The group and pair works were also used a lot during the lesson and this was a strong point according to me. As İbrahim mentioned above the instruction part could have made before distributing the activities. Because if you do not make it so you can not prevent students talk to each other even in our class. :) Apart from that she was a good teacher; smiling, caring all the time.
Firstly, I want to comment on Özge and her group's presentation. The students were in private school and their age was 17-18. The lesson was about news, newspapers and writing a newspaper. At the beginning, she asked the students what kind of news there are on the newspapers and what kind of news the students like reading. Then she wrote some of them on the board. This was a good pre-task activity because she made students familiar with the topic. It attracted the students' attention to the topic because the teacher linked the topic to students' interests. The aim of the lesson was writing and it was clear. After this brainstorming, she showed a sample newspaper to the students. She divided the class into groups. Then she distributed a schema of a newspaper's first page and wanted students to create their own newspaper and their own news. It was a good activity that it developed the creativity of the students. However, writing a newspaper could be a boring topic. Some students might not want to write or some students couldn't write because they had no idea what they would write. But the teacher encouraged the students and they participated the lesson willingly. She put a song on the background while students wiritng their news. It was a good idea because students arranged their pace according to the song. At the end of the lesson, all groups read their news and it was enjoyable. The teacher's English was good and clear. The instructions were clear. Özge was smiling and she was sincere. I liked the lesson.
ReplyDeleteThe first presentation that I want to talk about is Helin, Sümeyye and Hande’s group presentation. Sümeyye was the presenter and their language focus was descriptive paragraph. Firstly, I want to comment on the organization of the lesson. It was good, as she first showed us some pictures, then we dealt with a reading passage and lastly we had a discussion. The pictures were a little bit disgusting, but they were interesting and realistic that they grabbed the students’ attention. The topic was also attractive for the age level-upper-intermediate, 17-18 years old. In addition to these, she used the visuals appropriately. Students were participating in the lesson which showed that they were interested in the lesson. Sümeyye was interested in the lesson, too. The group work was organized carefully. There were enough activities for a lesson; however, there wasn’t an activity for the language focus part. So, this part might be improved, I think. Other than that everything was fine. The stages of the lesson were also clear as far as I remember. It was a nice and lively lesson for me:)
ReplyDeleteThe second presentation that I’m going to talk about is Özge’s presentation-group members were Özge, Ayaz, Aycan and Nurten. The first thing I want to say about their presentation is that they used authentic material during the lesson. Özge showed some news around the world and the visuals that she used were really catchy. Moreover, she used the board very good. She wrote the words related to news during the brainstorming activity. After that, there was a reading passage. After reading it, we produced our own news. We wrote interesting news and we had fun while reading them to the class. However, I want to mention one point which might need some improvement. The language focus wasn’t emphasized in this presentation, too. It was writing about an event and we did the writing part, but one more activity about it might be better. Other things were fine as I mentioned. The stages of the lesson were clear; there was a smooth transition between the activities. The group work was employed appropriately. Students actively participated in the lesson. Both the students and the teacher seemed interested in the lesson. I think it was a good and interactive lesson:)
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I want to comment on Sümeyye and her group's presentation. The students were in METU Prep. School and their level was upper intermediate. The topic was about tattoos. At the beginning of the lesson, she asked questions about tattoos and then she distributed soem pictures of interesting tattoos. Students were so involved with the lesson that they began to speak each other about the pictures. This situation caused noise in the classroom and students didn't listen to the teacher and her instructions. She wanted students to comment on the pictures in their hand. It was an ejoyable activity and it was appropriate for the pre-task activity. It made students familiar with the tattoos. While students describing and commenting on the pictures, she showed them on the slyde as well. Thus, all of the students could see the pictures. After that she distiributed a reading passage about tattoos. She couldn't conduct the rest of the lesson because of the time limitation. Her use of English was good. She used pictures and Ppt. presentation to attarct the students' attention. The aim of the lesson wasn't so clear. At fisrt I couldn't understand what there would be next. The students participated actively to the lesson. They enjoyed a lot.
ReplyDeleteMy first comment will be on Özge and her group’s task-based teaching presentation. The group designed their learner profile as teenagers studying in a private school and their theme was based on “news” and “the newspapers”. In the beginning of the presentation, Özge asked students some questions about news and newspapers such as “Do you remember which words and structures are used in the newspapers?” in order to prepare students for the lesson theme. She also asked questions about subtitles and headlines in the newspapers. Students answered her questions and she wrote the things that students said on the board. This brainstorming process was very interactive and useful as a pre-task activity because students were able to comment and participate in the lesson actively. Plus, they became ready for the rest of the lesson. Later, she showed some sample news on the newspapers with the help of Ppt. presentation. As far as I can see, the news was chosen carefully in order to attract students’ attention. She commented on the news while presenting them and asked some questions to the students. Again, she didn’t lose contact with the students and triggered them for participating in the lesson. Sometimes she seemed very excited, but then she was able to control it. After showing the sample news, she asked the students to form groups and prepare a cover page of a newspaper. Before the task, she showed a cover page template for students. However, she first forgot to distribute the templates, and then she remembered and gave them to the students. I think, giving a template is a brilliant idea because it helped and guided students a lot in task-cycle process. In the task process, she also provided a background music in order to motivate the students and increase their dynamism. Later, Özge asked the groups to show their cover page and read their writings upon it. It was very enjoyable and informative lesson. While we were doing the task, we learnt how to write a cover page for a newspaper and even if we are not real students we engaged in the lesson and wanted to participate in. The teacher’s attitude was also pleasant and friendly. She created such a nice atmosphere that students felt free to comment on. The aim of the lesson and the stages of the task-based teaching were all clear. Moreover; she managed to integrate different materials into her lesson. Congrats!
ReplyDeleteMy second comment will be related to Sümeyye and her group presentation. Sümeyye was the presenter of the group. Before she began her lesson, she informed us that their students were attention METU Prep. School and they were Upper-Intermediate students. Their lesson theme was “Tattoos” and their language focus was writing and their lesson aim was to teach how to write a descriptive paragraph. I think the theme and the lesson aim were appropriate for this student profile because this topic definitely takes attention of teenagers and Upper-Intermediate students could be able write descriptive paragraphs. In the pre-task stage, Sümeyye asked students some questions related to tattoos and tried to make students ready for the lesson. I think, asking questions related to the topic always works and it also increase the interaction. Later, she distributed some tattoo pictures. The pics were colorful and visually attractive; however, some of them are not that nice. Actually, they were quite irritating. The same activity could be arranged with more pleasant pictures. After she distributed the pictures, students looked at them and started talk accordingly. This created a noise in the classroom because one could not help but talking about the pictures. Then, she asked students to talk about the pictures they had in their hands. However, it would have been better if she had given the instructions before she distributed the tattoo pictures. This way, students were confused about what to do and started to talk among themselves. Later, she distributed a reading text about Tattoos, but she forgot to tell what students would do. Then, she gave the instructions. Then the presentation finished, but we couldn’t see the rest of the lesson and language focus clearly. Teacher should provide more input in order to teach how to write descriptive paragraphs because there are certain verbs which are used frequently in that kind of writing; it also has a different style. For instance, teacher could provide sample descriptive paragraph to students before students write. Another suggestion is that instructions and the aim could be clearer. However; the presentation was successfull in the other ways. We enjoyed the lesson and wanted to participate in. Teacher’s attitude was friendly and her English was good and clear. The lesson theme was also successful and she used a lot of visual aids which took students attention a lot. Well done, good job.
ReplyDeleteI want to comment on Fatma’s task-based language learning presentation. She made use of the facebook idea in order t carry out the lesson. It was a very creative idea because today almost everybody has a facebook account. Especially the young people spend most of their time on facebook. Thus, it was very easy to attract their attention by using this idea. In the beginning, she used a video from the cartoon Southpark. The video was about facebook and it was so lovely so everybody was willing to watch. The other part of the lesson was the group activity by using creating a facebook account. The group members asked each other some wh- questions and answered them. It was an effective idea because the grammar focus of the lesson was wh-questions. The productions of the students were so creative and they were all willing to read their new characteristics. In the micro-teaching every step was connected to each other and there were smooth transition between the steps and activities. The teacher had also a friendly manner so I really liked the lesson and I was willing to involve in the activities and contribute to the lesson.
ReplyDeleteThe other task based language learning presentation I want to comment on is Ayşenur and Ceren’s presentation. They chose used to as their grammar focus. Thus, they started the lesson with a memory presentation part in which the ‘used to’ structure widely used. Ayşenur started the lesson with a power point presentation. She made use of some visuals from our past. That is why we are as students were quite interested in these photos and the memories of the teacher. They also brought real materials to the classroom; she indicated us a photo of her when she was a little child =) and a lovely dress. This was a brilliant idea to attract students’ attention because they are always interested in the teachers’ private life and also interested in hearing some memories of their teacher. Through the presentation she told her memories as we used to play taso and hide and seek, we used to go amusement park and so on. She emphasized the used to structure for many times through the presentation so that she made the student familiar with the structure. After that Ceren took the part and carried out the activity part. She asked students to write about their memories. This was an enjoyable task to complete because students love to tell about their interesting memories. Thus, they all participated in the activities willingly and wrote their memories. This strategy, choosing an interesting and attractive topic contributed to their learning process in a positive way. The aim of the lesson was quite clear because they found the best idea to teach the ‘used to’ structure. The transitions were smooth and teacher- student interaction was quite well. Both teacher were friendly and had a smiling face so they had a natural way of teaching. I really liked to involve in such a lesson. It was pretty well prepared. Thank you ..
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I would like to comment on the task-based language learning presentation which belongs to İmren. I think it was quite appropriate and well-designed according to the requirements of the target method; therefore, it was successful in my opinion. First of all, her target language skill was writing; however, as for the grammatical point, the main emphasis was on “should/had better” structures. The theme of her lesson was “Agony Aunt”. She made a good beginning with the help of smooth transitions between the instructions and activities. This means that the students did not hesitate about anything. She wanted a volunteer to read a sample agony aunt advise to guide indirectly the students for their own writings. I think this was a great idea because due to the nature of the target method, we should not define borders of the task. But still we need to guide or show a pathway for the students, I think. Therefore, this strategy was so useful. Then, she gave the students different problems written to agony aunt and wanted them to write an advise for each as a group. The group activity idea was also excellent because it increased the cooperation and interaction between the students. However, I think she should have distributed different topics for each group. As far as I remember, some of our topics were the same, therefore, listening to the same issues could be boring for a real classroom atmosphere. So as to maintain their motivation and curiosity, different topics should be given to each group, I think. After the task was over, the students read their own writings and she gave them feedback. She was quite successful, confident and responsive to the students’ needs during the lesson so there was no problem with her teaching style. I think this was an enjoyable and informative lesson for all.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I would like to comment on Ayşenur and Ceren’s task-based language learning presentation. Their grammar focus was “used to” and they presented a successful lesson with its clear steps and target-oriented activities. To begin with, Ayşenur was the first teacher and she started the lesson with a power point presentation including some clues about her past memories, photos etc. It was quite a beneficial strategy to attract the students’ attention at the very beginning of the lesson. Moreover, she brought a real photo and a cute dress from her own childhood and this was an excellent idea because the students always desire the materials which are more concrete, which they can touch and feel. They are also very curious about their teacher’s private life. Therefore, this technique put them on the task in advance. In the course of her lecturing, she used “used to” many times and indirectly gave the meaning of the target structure in this way. This also helped the students to be familiar with “used to” as the new pattern. Then, Ceren dealt with the activity part. She wanted the students to write sentences about their childhood by utilizing “used to”. This point was a bit problematic because giving the pattern in the beginning of the task was against the nature of the task-based language learning method in which the students free language productions and completion of the task were important. Therefore, less guidance should have been more appropriate for the target method, I think. Apart from that, all the activities were quite well-prepared and all the transitions between them were quite smooth. The aim of the lesson was also clear from the beginning and there was no problem with it. Ayşenur and Ceren had smiling faces all the time and this also facilitated teacher-student interaction. Furthermore, their teaching styles and target language use were also quite successful.
ReplyDeleteI would like to start my evaluations of the task based presentations with the one that was presented by Fatma and Begüm. Their choice of activities was appropriate for the level of students. Also, the guessing activity was like a game, thus most of the students were involved in the learning process and participated quite actively. They also wanted the students to write a dialogue. Since the topic they chose was appealing for the students, their participation in the dialogue task seemed to be satisfactory. Apart from the flow of the activities, the way they conducted the lesson was professional, because there was not any slight confusion neither in the presenters nor in the students during the presentation. In other words, they could easily follow the steps of their lesson plan and using clear instructions, they made every task clear to the students, which again showed that their lesson plan was prepared carefully.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I would like to comment on micro-teaching of Sümeyye. She conducted a lesson on tattoos. The level of the students was upper intermediate and they were in metu prep school. This topic was a good choice for students in that ages.. At the pre-task stage, she asked some questions about tattoos and tried to get attention of the students. Then, she distributed some pictures of different tattoos. Pictures were so interesting that it was impossible for students not to get into the lesson. They showed the pictures to each other and they made interesting comments on these pictures.I think apart from problem about giving instruction she was a succesful teacher. Her use of english was good; her pronunciation was vey clear.
ReplyDeletesecondly,I want to comment on Fatma’s task-based language learning presentation. She made use of the facebook idea in order to carry out the lesson. It was a very creative idea because today almost everybody has a facebook account. Especially the young people spend most of their time on facebook. Thus, it was very easy to attract their attention by using this idea. In the beginning, she used a video from the cartoon Southpark. The video was about facebook and it was so lovely so everybody was willing to watch.
consequently, both of the lessons are very successfull in my opinion.
First of all, I would like to comment on micro-teaching of Sümeyye. She conducted a lesson on tattoos. The level of the students was upper intermediate and they were in metu prep school. This topic was a good choice for students in that ages.. At the pre-task stage, she asked some questions about tattoos and tried to get attention of the students. Then, she distributed some pictures of different tattoos. Pictures were so interesting that it was impossible for students not to get into the lesson. They showed the pictures to each other and they made interesting comments on these pictures.I think apart from problem about giving instruction she was a succesful teacher. Her use of english was good; her pronunciation was vey clear.
ReplyDeletesecondly,I want to comment on Fatma’s task-based language learning presentation. She made use of the facebook idea in order to carry out the lesson. It was a very creative idea because today almost everybody has a facebook account. Especially the young people spend most of their time on facebook. Thus, it was very easy to attract their attention by using this idea. In the beginning, she used a video from the cartoon Southpark. The video was about facebook and it was so lovely so everybody was willing to watch.
consequently, both of the lessons are very successfull in my opinion.
Firstly, I want to comment on Ayşenur and Ceren’s task based demonstration which was related to teach “used to” structure. Initially, Ayşenur started the lesson with an authentic material, namely her picture from her childhood which seemed very attractive and it managed to attract students attention. It was a very wise way to start with past memories of the teacher and the students while used to and past tenses were being taught because when the realia was used in the classroom environment, the students could comprehend the subject more easily and they could relate what they were learning with their own life by internalizing the subject. I liked this effective technique they used. While both Ayşenur and Ceren were teaching in the class and conducting their demonstration, they behaved very calmly and professionally and the class participation was also good. At the very beginning of the lesson, by showing Ayşenur’s picture and relating it with the subject, they could indicate the aim of the lesson very well. While Ceren was giving feedback of the activity, she wrote the answers on the board and with the help of those writings the students could take the feedback appropriately and they had the chance to see the correct answer and correct themselves if they had had any problem. This was also a good technique in an effective teaching environment. Moreover, there was variety of activities and they served appropriate work load for the students. They moved on one activity to another with very smooth transitions and I enjoyed their way of presenting the activities. While presenting any topic and asking about the students’ opinions, we generally make the students imagine their past events, for example, but in the teaching situation, visuals are very important for long term and effective learning and Ayşenur and Ceren served to the students related pictures about the past events and they succeed to visualize some cases on the students’ minds, so they could deduce the usage and meaning of the structure. At the end of the lesson, they showed two picture of the TV series, Çocuklar Duymasın; one of them reflecting the past version of it and the other one reflecting the new version of it and they wanted students to compare those two pictures by using used to structure. This activity was the most interesting one for the students, in my opinion because the students liked making comments about the issues they already knew and this movie was one of the issue they would want to comment. All in all, their lesson was a successful one and they managed to reflect their aim while they were conducting the activities they had prepared and they used the materials they had perfectly.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I want to comment about Fatma and Derya’s demonstration which was very interesting and related to teaching question sentences by using “facebook” as a focus activity. They started the lesson by asking “do you have facebook accounts?” and as they also guessed there was just one person who did not have the account=) Afterwards, they distributed a paper for each of the students and wanted them to fill in the blanks with names, surnames, gender etc. which was for creating a facebook account. The students were enjoying creating different identities for their imaginary facebook accounts and it was very funny to do it =) Then, they collected the papers from all of the students and distributed them back to the students, but nobody had their own paper and then by forming pairs they wanted the students to ask question about who they were and where they were living etc. In here forming pairs was an effective way to create interaction between the students while they were learning from each other and this was totally suitable for task based learning environment. Moreover, before the activity their showing the video of South Park related to having a facebook account was really a good idea and it worked to attract the students’ attention and they involved the lesson more after they watched the video because they were interested in what would happen next in the flow of the lesson. In their demonstration, there was variety in their activities and each of the activities was really enjoyable. While they were presenting their activities, they were confident enough to give the main idea of the lesson and the activities. All in all, they were successful to reflect their aim with their smooth transitions from activity to activity, with their effective visuals and materials appropriately paced and arranged.
ReplyDeleteEmel-Burcu-Ceren
ReplyDeleteThey have chosen nice, interesting and unusual topic to attract students' attention. The idea of pink journal is the best thing for the warm up part. The presentation that burcu presented was also interesting. She has used prezi.com and this is something new and interesting for the students. Their pronunciation was pretty well only the thing they have to think is task they have given. It was a little bit above the level and the time was limited.
Alp Tekgul and Elif Cevik
In this presentation I liked role playing, scrambling the story after the role play, cutting bears and then again playing the story with cut bears. I liked how they put them by order and how they used everything well. However, only one thing that got my attention that scrambling the story was very complicated; therefore, I think it would be better to remove it into the end of the lesson so that the students did get lost. It was very enjoyable lesson and I had much fun in the lesson. In teaching the student teacher was good enough and had little problems however I believe that in the future he will improve himself.
The second presentation I will evaluate is the one presented by İmren. She chose a topic tht would be intresting, especially for high school students and it was a good choice for a writing activity. She made a good introduction by telling about her story in the hair dresser's and referring to the agony aunt in one of the magazines there. So, she managed a smooth transition into the topic. The examples she provided were interesting and everyone in the class was involved in the task while reading the examples and writing suggestions for the problems. Moreover, her comments on students' solutions were quite detailed, which showed her interest in the lesson. This also reflected her attitude towards classroom management at which she was successful. In short, this was one of the best presentations on task based language teaching in terms of both the appropriate planning of the lesson and the teacher's way of conducting it.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I would like to comment on Seda, Begüm, Fatma and Ruba’s group. The topic of the lesson was “there was/ were” and the students’ level was pre intermediate. The activities in the lesson was very good, especially the picture part. The students working in pairs tried to predict the picture that their partner kept in mind. I think it was the most interesting and successful part of the lesson. The students tried to figure out the pictures by asking questions which included “there was/ were”. After the activity was completed the teacher wrote on the board by asking the students which utterances they used in their sentences, so that she clarified the subject for the students. The teachers’ performances were very good, they were good at managing the class, writing clearly on board. As for the aim of the lesson it was also very clear. In each step there was a smooth transition. Since the activities were very interesting, the participation of the students is on the high levels. There was a variety of activities including pair and group work which increased the interaction between students. The use of materials and visual aids were suitable with the lesson. For example the use of pictures were appropriate in explaining the subject. There is no negative thing in the presentation. In general, it was a good presentation. Thanks a lot to our friends.
ReplyDeleteThe second one I would like to comment on Özge, Aycan, Nurten and Ayaz’s presentation. The students was attending at private school and their ages were between 17- 18. The topic of the lesson was news and newspapers. The lesson was very good in terms of participation of the students. In the beginning there was a nice excuse told by the teacher to the students. She said that she was late, because she had to take her newspaper. Starting from that excuse, Özge asked the students about their ideas and preferences on the types of newspapers. As a result, she made the students participated the lesson actively. One point that I liked in the presentation was the vocabulary map, she draw a map and asked students which words came their mind when the subject was news. The students told the vocabulary items related to the news. By doing brainstorming, the class defined a lot of words about news. This stage was a preparatory step for the PowerPoint activity. Since the students saw the related vocabulary, it was easy to follow the PowerPoint. In the PowerPoint, the teacher showed different types of news from a variety of newspapers, by which the students were made ready for the writing activity. While showing the presentations, the teacher asked questions to the students to involve them to the activity. The questions were really enjoyable for the students. The part was not like asking and answering the questions, it was like a chat among the students, so all students participated actively. During this conversation process, the teacher managed to control the class very well. She had a good interaction with the students and answered them whenever they needed. After showing the PowerPoint presentations, the teacher wanted the students to form groups and prepare a cover page of a newspaper. Besides, the instructions were very clear, the students were also provided with the related materials, the cover page was ready to fill and the students were given a card to write about it on the cover page. It was a perfect activity for the students because everything was ready and the students were expected to complete it using their imagination, which was the most enjoyable part. The background music given by the teacher while they were writing their cover page was an excellent idea. I admired the music, which was the soundtrack of Pirates of the Caribbean :) In each stage of the lesson everything was perfect and appropriate for the students. Thanks for such an enjoyable lesson. :)
ReplyDeleteFirstly I want to comment on Ayşenur, Ceren, Duygu and Hilal’s group presentation. The aim of the lesson was teaching “used to” and the level of students was elementary. In the warm up, the teacher talked about her own childhood and showed some pictures and a realia which was a dress to the students and it was very interesting for the students. Also asking the students to write their own childhood was a good ativity since it includes the students into the topic more. The aim and the stages of the lesson were clear. The students and the teacher wrote clearly on the board. They did a variety of activities. They had clear pronunciation and they use accurate English. They spoke naturally. The teacher used visuals appropriately and the students and the teacher were interested in the lesson. The lesson required real use of language. The materials were appropriately paced and individiual activities were appropriately paced. However, the teacher talked about her childhood sometimes by reading from a paper. Maybe it would be more effective if she talked about it by heart. Also there should be a language focus activity apart from writing the description of characters in Çocuklar Duymasın because the lesson was lack of language focus part.
ReplyDeleteSecondly I want to comment on Özge, Aycan, Ayaz and Nurten’s group presentation. Their topic was based on news and the aim of the lesson was to teach how to write about an event. The level of students was upper intermediate. At the beginning of the lesson it was very useful for students to brain storm about the news. It took their attention. Also showing the breaking news in the world was a good starting. Asking the students to write their own newspaper with a group is very creative. It improve their interaction with their friends, their creativity and their writing skills. The aim and the stages of the lesson were clear. The students and the teacher wrote clearly on the board. They did a variety of activities. They had clear pronunciation and they use accurate English. They spoke naturally. The teacher used visuals appropriately and the students and the teacher were interested in the lesson. The lesson required real use of language. The materials were appropriately paced and group activities were appropriately paced. However, The teacher should have written an outline of writing a paragraph or an essay about news or events. So the students can see the format concretely. Also there should be a specific activity on the language focus part.
I want to comment on İmren’s task-based presentation. Her topic was “agony aunt” and she was trying to make students use “had better” and “should” grammar points by making them write advices to letters. She started with a very smooth transition. She talked about magazines and then mentioned agony aunt writers. Her way of teaching was very effective and I can say that only in her presentation I didn’t get bored because it was so interesting. Her way of controlling students was very good. The group activity was well designed and was suitable for students’ proficiency level. I can say that the lesson could be strengthened by adding some grammar points. she can use some sample sentences to give some ideas to students. but as an overall evaluation she was very effective and the lesson was very good to teach that grammar point.
ReplyDeleteThe second presentation that I am going to talk about is Harika, Halenur, Deniz and Melek’s presentation. harika started the lesson by showing a box and something in it and wanted students guess about the thing in the box and some students looked at it and wrote sentences about it. The lesson’s focus point was writing a descriptive paragraph and the beginning was very smooth. their way of teaching was good but there was a problem with the lesson. firstly I thought lesson’s focus point was adjectives but it was appeared to be descriptive paragraph writing. when they wrote instructions about paragraph writing, I thought lesson became like a writing lesson but then they clarified the topic. overall, the lesson was good enough to attract students’ attention and was effective to teach writing a descriptive paragraph.
ReplyDeleteThe first presentation I would like to comment on is Ayşenur's and Ceren's presentation. The topic was interesting one and appropriate for the level. It is not easy to ask the students to write sentences about anything, but it is easy when the things they should write is related to their own life. I really can not thing of any other better way to teach 'used to'. Using real-ea was great idea. The lead-in part was effective and reliable. Both teachers have good classroom management skills and well monitoring. The participation was fair and they encouraged the students to participate. The outfit and attitude of the teachers were friendly and the lesson was attractive and successful.
ReplyDeleteThe second presentation I would like to comment on is İmren's presentation. I think that İmren did really a great job that I have nothing negative to write about it. The start was too creative and transitions between the lead-in and pre part was quiet smooth. The topic was interesting and fun. İmren got a good and effective usage of the language, though she was a bit exited at the very beginning but the lesson went well. She kept smiling all the time and that was important in terms of motivating the students and keeping them on-task. The students were willing to participate and the teacher praised on them. The usage of the authentic materials was the most important and creative part of the lesson plan.
ReplyDeleteAyşenur, Ceren, Duygu and Hilal’s presentation is the first one I would like to comment on. The topic was “used to” and the level of the students was elementary. The introduction part was a good one including authentic materials. The teacher talked about her own childhood and asked students to write their own. The variety of activities they did was appropriate for the level of students and they made good use of whiteboard. The visual aids and realia were also used appropriately.
ReplyDeleteSecond presentation I want to comment on is Fatma and Derya’s presentation. Facebook was a very good realia to begin the lesson with. They also made use of a video of South Park realted to facebook and this was a very interesting activity to gain students’ attention. They asked students to create imaginary facebook accounts and it was a very funny activity, I think. They created a funny game and made students work in pairs. The aim and stages of the lesson were quite clear, they appropriately used their materials. All in all, it was a very good task-based teaching presentation with a variety of activities.
Duygu Can
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ReplyDeleteOne of the task-based presentations that I liked most was İmren’s presentation. I really liked the topic of her lesson. The theme was “Agony Aunt”. The target language skill was writing and the grammar point was “should, had better”.
ReplyDeleteShe was very confident and sympathetic during the presentation, which helped her to draw the students’ attention. Firstly, she asked one of the students to read a sample text from an internet site written to agony aunt. This was a good idea because; students could see what they are going to do in the following minutes.
Then she distributed some papers including some problems written to agony aunt and asked the students to write their advices as a group. I think the group work activity was helpful as it enabled the students work cooperatively and improve their collaborative skills. However, some papers had the same problems and this situation may make the students bored due to repetition of the same things. I think there should be more problems different from each other.
Her use of language and attitudes were good. She tried to give as many feedbacks as she could. To summarize, it was a good presentation prepared for a Task-Based learning lesson.
The other presentation that I want to mention was Harika, Halenur, Melek and Deniz’s presentation. They started their presentation by showing a box saying that there is something in it, which helped them to draw the students’ attention easily. The target language skill was writing and the grammar focus was writing a descriptive paragraph. They wanted the students to guess what could be in the box. By this introduction, they managed to keep the students connected to the lesson, which was one of the strong points of their presentation. Then one of the members selected some students and asked them to describe it for the other students by writing some sentences on the board.
ReplyDeleteAfter students finished the activity, they wanted them to talk about one of their valuable things. I think, by this activity students will have a chance to improve their speaking and listening skills as well. The transitions were smooth and activities were relevant.
I think they did a good job in terms of preparing a presentation related to Task-Based learning lesson, choosing activities and drawing the students’ attention.
The first task based presentation that I want to comment is Harika, Deniz, Halenur and Melek's presentation. The pre-task activity was describing an unknown object which Harika brought in a box. Bringing class an unknown object was one of the strong points of the presentation and it attracted the students' attention a lot. Also Harika's giving examples from her own life was very effective because students always want to hear something about the private life of their teachers.However, the focus of the lesson was not that clear because we thought that the topic was adjectives. Later it became clear that the focus of the lesson was writing a descriptive paragraph. However, there was no problem with the participation as the students enjoyed the presentation mainly the guessing activity. The students were expected to write a paragraph about an object special to them. There was something missing with the giving some directions or prompts for writing because some students got confused and wrote lines instead of a paragraph.Deniz wrote on the board the parts of the writing like thesis statement, body part etc. which was another strong point of the presentation. Only may be a group work or a pair activity could be added to make the lesson more interactive between students. Overall, it was a nice and enjoyable presentation.
ReplyDeleteCongrats
I would like to comment on imren's micro teaching. Her topic was Agony aunt. I really likje this topic, because it is possible to find authentic materials with this topic. As for her teaching abilities they were great. She was always monitoring the students and showed the students that she is there to help them. As for the activities, as far as I can remember, there was only one activity. However it's being only only did not hinder the language. On the contrary she did it really well. All in all it was a succesfull micro teaching. She is a successfull prospective teacher.
ReplyDeleteI would like to comment on Sümeyye's micro teaching. First of all the topic was really interetsing and attractive, tattoos. Altough some of them may not be really suitable for young learners, they are really affective visuals. Other than this the teacher's speaking was really fluent. This is another important factor for being an affective teacher. Otherwise the stuydents may not be eager to listen to the teacher. For the language focus part the pictures were really appropriate for describing. All in all it was a successful micro-teaching.
ReplyDeleteI would like to comment on micro-teaching of Sümeyye Ata. The topic was about tatoos. The level of the students was upper intermediate. This is an interesting topic especially for young learners. Firstly, she tried to take students attention and asked some questions about the topic. She colourized the lesson via some materials.Students had commented about these pictures. Sümeyye managed the lesson but sometimes there were some problems.However she managed the problems patiently.During the task, she distributed a hand-out. She seemed as a professional teacher but her materials could be better.
ReplyDeleteMy second comment on the task based presentation will be on Ayşenur and Ceren's micro-teaching.First of all, their target structure was 'used to-past habits'. Ayşenur started the lesson by telling a memory of her own childhood using the target structure heavily. This introduced and made the students familiar with the focus structure indirectly.She made a power point presentation which was also rich in terms of visuals. So, the aim of the lesson was clear.I think, the strongest part of the presentation was Ayşenur's bringing class authentic materials namely a photo of her childhood and a lovely dress of her childhood. This technique raised the students' curiosity on the topic and they actively participated in the lesson. Also relating the topic to the personal lifes of students was a brilliant idea. Asking students about their past habits and childhood memories made the topic both meaningful and enjoyable for the students. So, they eagerly completed the tasks. However, they could add a pair activity or a group work to increase collaboration between students. one point that can be improved about the presentation was that they could avoid guiding the students to use 'used to' while doing the activity part. Since it is a task based presentation, we should avoid too much guidance as it is more important for the students to complete the task. Overall, it was a rich, successful and colorful presentation. Congrats.
ReplyDeleteFirstly I want to comment on the presentation of Sümeyye and her group’s. The students’ level was intermediate and they were in METU Prep. School. Their topic was about tattoos. It was an interesting topic for that age group. At the beginning of the lesson Sümeyye talked about the tattoos and then distributed some pictures about tattoos. Those pictures were enjoyable and attractive because they attracted the attention of the students immediately. Students began to look into the pictures. It was a good pre-task activity because students involved with the lesson. After students looked into the pictures, the teacher asked them to describe the pictures. Each group described the pictures and while they were describing, the teacher showed the picture of that tattoo on the ppt presentation. It was good because the other students also could see the pictures. After describing the pictures, she distributed a reading text about tattoos, but she couldn’t conduct the rest of the lesson because of the time limitations. The students participated actively to the lesson. It was an enjoyable lesson.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I want to comment on the presentation on Özge and her group’s. The students’ age was between 17 and 18 and they were in the private school. The lesson was about news and writing newspapers. At the beginning of the lesson, Özge asked questions about the news and newspapers to the students. She asked them what kind of news they liked reading and what kind of news they like most. It was a good pre-task activity because it made students be familiar with the topic and it also took the attention of the students. After that the teacher showed a sample newspaper and news with the help of the ppt presentation. After showing the sample, teacher divided the class into groups and distributed each group a first page of a newspaper. Then she wanted students to write news about anything. It was a good activity because those newspapers belonged to the students. This activity was a creative activity because it helped students develop their creativity. Students wrote news according to their interests and they gave a name to their newspaper. The teacher put a song at the background while students were writing their own newspapers. It was effective because it affected the pace of the students. When all groups finished writing their news, they read those news in the class.
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