You need to reflect and comment on your experiences at ANAÇEV in the form of progress reports. You are expected to write a progress report for each session that you participated in the voluntary work. In each progress report, you are expected to cover the following:
1. the duties /tasks you did on that particular day (in detail)
2. the incidents that you experienced and affected you in some way (in detail)
3. the activities that you were involved in on your day of participation that raised your level of awareness in terms of social and environmental issues. (You need to describe in what ways and how your level of awareness towards various issues have been raised)
Format: 2-3 pages (single-spaced, font no bigger than 11 puntos)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
As I mentioned in previous progress report, we wanted to prepare students for the structure “there is/are.” Also as an included material we taught students prepositions “on, in, under, and next to” as well.
ReplyDeleteBefore teaching them “there is/are” structure we recalled previous lesson’s topics; professions, what her/his/its name?, and asked them to introduce themselves in English, also asking others name using all the structures we taught them, also using the professions imagining other students desiring professions like vet and astronaut; this was very enjoyable because they were saying profession they wanted and it got their attention.
For example:
- Hello! My name is Cansu. I am a student.
Or
- Good afternoon! I am Aylin. What is your name?
- Good afternoon! My name is Mehmet. How old are you?
- I am 12 years old. How old are you?
- I am 11 years old.
And etc…
That helped us to improve their communicative skills and not only their cognitive knowledge about the language. Also this helped us encourage them to participate in class activities, and this will be useful for them in the future in terms of breaking the barrier of anxiety.
After remembering all the topics we went on with new topic “there is/are” and prepositions. Firstly, we explained what “there is/are” means in Turkish. Then we carried on with demonstrating with objects which are in the class; for example, there is a board, and there are chairs. Then, we drew the pictures of tables and explained the meanings of the prepositions and usage of those prepositions. For instance, there is a vase under the table, or there is a pencil in the box, or there two board markers on the table, and there are teachers next to the table. When we drew all those examples on the board they couldn’t totally learn it so we decided to show them under the real conditions. We took the chair and put two pencils under the chair; then, asked them where the pencils are in Turkish. Then we asked them to tell it in English with usage of “there is/are.” They could not answer the question at first times and had difficulties in remembering prepositions but then after repeating many times they got used to them and then acquired the structures. Most of the time, we had to use only demonstrations because the students could not learn from explanations which we were using on the board.
Next we taught them how to formulate the negative statements with “there is/are.” That was really difficult for them to learn it and we spent much time to teach that structure but our task in teaching came true and they more or less learned how to formulate negative statements. It was first time for them learning the negative statements, and they were really anxious about it. They seemed lost and looked at us with fear. When we said that their anxiety was okay and everybody would lose in that situation and gave them examples that we also got lost at first but then it was easy for us to learn, they calmed down and put aside their worries and began to learn the topic much more relaxed.
After that we taught them how to formulate question sentences. That was comparatively easy to teach because they have already been familiar with how to formulate question sentences; just changing auxiliary verb before the subject. When they saw familiar structure they got comfortable and went to the desk much willingly compared with situation when they did not know the subject of formulating the negative statements.
ReplyDeleteThis topic was a little bit hard to learn for students so we divided into two groups with my colleague and decided to work separated. She was explaining the topic on the board with new comer students to whom this topic was almost new and because they were not in previous lessons; and I worked with students who understand the topic but could not formulate sentences. It was good experience working apart and also just help all students together. So we were glad to see that all students passing the lesson in the same pace.
Then, at the end of the lesson we decided to do a little competition between students giving them examples in Turkish so that they could translate it in English; in that case we were using Grammar Translation Method which was very useful for these students. The student who first translated the sentence was given applauses and was going to the board and writing the correct answers. They really enjoyed it and asked us to play this game again after each lesson. We gave chances of winning to all students so that there were not any offences, which were useful for them to remember the structure more easily. That also helped students promptly answer the questions, and helped for us to distinguish the student who required the teaching that topic again.
Then, we gave them the homework related to the topic, making up sentences 5 positive sentences, 5 question sentences, and 5 negative sentences. Also to bring 5 words they are interested in; it will help them to remember those words more easily because those words they want to learn. So those words can help us enlarge their vocabulary.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhen I went there for the third time, there was on order, in my class. Everyone knew time schedule and program so I was more relaxed. They also got used to class environment and did not talk that much. They still had a comment for everything, but they kept it for themselves this time and we did an efficient lesson. I had them read a fable which tells the story of the crow and fox. Then, I asked them reading comprehension questions. They wanted me to teach them numbers so that they could take their friends’ numbers and give their numbers. Thus, I taught numbers and how to read the combination of numbers. We did lots of exercises. I said them some numbers and wanted them to write down. I wrote lots of numbers on the board and they tried to read them. While we were doing exercises, I used important dates in Turkish and World history and gave some information about those dates, for example, 1914- the starting of WWI and 1789-French Revolution. They were very surprised that how I could hold so many dates on my mind, even I realized at that time that I knew plenty of dates. During the break, we had tea, börek and we chatted They were curious about me so informed them about me and I learned about them. It was a really good lesson, they learned numbers well. Community service goes well for me; the only difficulty is the long way!
ReplyDeleteWhen I went there for the third time I saw that the number of my students increased.I was very happy to see that but at that they my friend was ill so she could not come and there were a lot of students. I thought that it would be a very tiring day for me. I started to teach by grouping my students according to their level. After that I firstly started to teach the first group that knew much more than the other group. While I was teaching the first group I wanted the second group to try to memorise the letters. In the first group we continued what we were doing in the previous lessons. I mean they firstly trİed to read some texts that I wanted them to read under my control. Then I wanted them to write some words in which they had some difficulty while reading. Since they were writing I went to second group and I wanted them to read the letter that I showed. They read some of them in a correct way but they had difficulty in some letters. Forexample; one of the woman could not read the letter "I" I said to her it is "I" but she continued to read it as "Ü". I tried for a long time to teach that letter and I achieved. It made me very happy to see her learning that letter. Then I wanted them to try to write the letters by themselves. And I went to control the other group's writings. At the end of the day I was very tired, because I worked without giving any break. Nevertheless; I was very happy and comfortable because I knew that my teaching reading and writing was very important and helpful for my students.
ReplyDeleteI get used to my students and I was so natural with them. first I controlled their short paragraph about their clothes and their colours and corrected their mistakes. answered their questions. then as I planned I started to teach them the simple present tense. I thought the best way to teach the present simple tense is to give examples from their daily life.
ReplyDeletefirst I introduced them the tenseand taugth them the trird person difference and gave some examles like:
I work
you work
she/he/it works
we work
you work
they work
then I asked some questions related to their daily life.
like:
what do you do in the morning?
I get up in the morning
I go to school in the morning
then we taught them the negative form of the simple present tense:
I do not work or don't work
you do not work or don't work
she/he/it does not work or doesn't work
we do not work or don't work
you do not work or don't work
they do not work or don't work
then we gave them some example sentences like
I don't drink milk
I don't drive
she does not like chocolate
then I asked them to make sentence related to themselves and they made sentences like
I do not cook
I do not sing
she do not play
then we taught them the question forms
do I work?
do you work?
does he/she/it work
....
....
....
and I asked them several questions by using simple present tense and they answered.
do you swim?
yes I do
ne I do not
do you cook?
yes I do
no I do not
do you go to school?
yes I do.
then asked them if they have any questions and answred them. as a homework I wantde them to write 5 sentences using present simple tense. and finished the lesson
In the first weeks of our visit to ‘Cunhuriyet Eğitim Evi’ in Altındağ, Büşra and I realized that the students have problems with such basic structures in Turkish such as nouns, adjectives, verbs, sentence formation and adverbs. Therefore, before passing to further topics in Turkish we decided to go over these structures so that the students will not have much difficulty in learning further topics. Actually we intended to teach all the grammatical points, but time was not enough. Still, we have managed to cover many of the structures.
ReplyDeleteIn this week which is on our third or fourth visit to Altındağ, we taught studenst ‘adverbs’ in Turkish, because in the previous weeks the students had stated that they had problems with ‘adverbs’. As we always did, we firstly went over the topic with the help of a coursebook. At the end of the course, we gave them tests. The students finished some of these tests in the classroom, while some others at home. In the coming lesson, we provided them with the answers and went over the questions. It was happy to see that many of them did well in the tests. They had only a few mistakes. As their teachers it was a good experience to see that our students were learning something and they were successful in answering the questions.
It was also nice to see that we could do some help to these children. As well as we could observe they live in poor conditions. I mean, they do not have much chance to have any private lessons. They say that they cannot understand anything from their teachers at school. However, they still have promising plans for the feature. I think, it was a good thing to realize that we could help these children in some way. They were usually very keen on learning. This is another thing which I have realized about teaching. Teaching eager students make teaching easier and more enjoyable. And being keen on teaching also affects the classroom atmosphere positively.
In the last five weeks my work didn’t change so much, but my ideas changed a lot. In the first two weeks, I was really critical about the teacher’s attitudes towards children. Especially they seemed so cruel to me at first. However, in the fourth week I realized that in order to make children obey them, the teachers have to get children feel their authority, otherwise they can’t make themselves obeyed. Of course they don’t have to scold children whenever possible as they do always, but they can sometimes make their authority, I think. I understand the importance of this making authority issues with a bitter experience. In the fourth week, when it was time to read books, the teachers asked me to read books to children. While I was reading book, the teachers were doing something else and this means the control of fourteen children was on me. At first I thought it would be so easy, but I was really mistaken. The children are really good at understanding who the teacher is and who someone else who doesn’t have authority is. They easily understood that I was not the authority and while I was trying to read books they violated all the classroom rules and the teachers had to interfere because I couldn’t make them do what I tell them. For instance, normally while listening to the book read by the teacher, the children sit silently and properly and listen to her. But the one who read the book was me, they suddenly forgot the rules and left their seats with the excuse of they couldn’t see the pictures from their seats (but normally they can see everything clearly!). Besides, they asked me to read their own books and started to fight with each other for this reason. I couldn’t find a solution other than continually saying that they should go back to their seats and if they don’t go I wouldn’t read the book. It didn’t work and they ignored my announcements until the teacher interfered and secured order in the class. Through this bitter experience, I understood the fact that a teacher should be able to make her authority felt by the students, otherwise classroom management fails :( Therefore, after that experience I started to seem a bit strict like the teachers there in order to control the children. This was the most significant thing that I learned there. Also it was the most difficult thing for me.
ReplyDeletecontinued....
ReplyDeleteIn the following weeks, I learned another important fact about being a good teacher: the teacher should not do herself everything that the students couldn’t do properly. I mean, when there is something wrong, the teacher should show the student his/her mistake and remind correct behavior, but she should let the student correct it himself/herself. I learned this lesson while the children were having their breakfast. When one of them can’t do something herself/himself, immediately I do it myself for him/her. However, it was not a correct thing for their development because if I do everything myself for them, they can’t improve on anything. Since the teachers know this fact, they let children do everything on themselves. For instance, after they finished breakfast the teacher realized that one of them didn’t take his plate to the place where dirty dishes are collected. Immediately I interfered in and take the plate myself. I thought that I did something good but the teacher told me that I shouldn’t do it myself; the child should do it herself/himself. With the help of this experience, I learned that self-correction of errors is better.
In the next weeks, I always read books to the children. In addition to these, I helped the teacher to conduct the classroom activities and prepare the children’s homework. I think that I was helpful to the teachers there especially when one or two of the children are behind their friends in completing something. For example, if a child cannot finish her meal when others already finish, the teachers tell me to stay with the child while they are dealing with the other children. When it comes to my interaction with the teachers there, it was really good because I was a good and obedient student who always did her best to help them:)
When I consider the last five weeks, I learned a few strategies to control a class full of children and some strategies about how to interact with them. These will be useful for me in my future teaching experiences. In addition, I learned some physiological and psychological characteristics of four-year-old children, which may help me if I work in a kindergarten in the future.
It has been a long time like six weeks since we met students in ANAÇEV. We get used to them as well as they did the same thing. Until now, we have taught them lots of simple english expressions. We thought that it was a high time that we taught them Present tense. Firstly, as we usual do, we controlled their homeworks and answered their questions. Then, we started to Present simple. Initially, it was hard for me to explain it because I chose wrong book. Then, we decided to explain in simple way. We first I introduced them the tenseand taugth them the trird person difference and gave some examles such as “I work”, “You work”, “She/He/It works”, “We work”, “You work”, “They work”.
ReplyDeleteI explained it comparing with “Geniş zaman” in Turkish. It made them understand better. Then, we gave several examples from daily life. Some of these examples were such as:
What do you eat in the morning?
I get up at 7 o’clock.
I go to school at 8 o’clock.
I drink milk every morning.
Then, we taught them the negative form of the simple present tense by giving examples like “I do not”, “He/ She/ It does not”, “We do not”, “You do not”, “They do not”. We wanted them to give an example and they gave examples such as “I do not drink milk”, “She does not go to school”, and “We do not study Spanish”.
After that, we taught them the question forms. We asked them simple questions and they answered. The questions and anwers were like:
Do I work? Yes, I do.
Do you work? No, I don’t.
Does he/she/it work? Yes, he/she/it does.
In the following week, we taught them Present continues. We used the same way as we did when we taught Present simple in order to teach them it. We taught them “verb+ing”. As we all know it is a basic function of Present continous so we started wit “-ing”. Then, we explained as we did in Present simple. We wanted them to give exapmles and answered their questions in an appropraite way. We always gave them positive feedbacks in order to encourage them.
In the last week, we did a lot of revision of the previous topics. We asked them questions and they answered whatever we asked. Then, we saw that it was benefiacial for them and we was very happy to see that we did a nice job. After everything were clear to both sudents and us, we finished the lesson and the semester.
It has been five or six weeks since we went there for the first time. Now, we feel so comfortable there that we made tea in order to drink at the break time :) Sometimes, I feel as if I have been a teacher for ages. Yakup made me old. When he is bored, he doesn’t allow us to go on. Thus, I discovered a way in order to make him motivated again. When he starts to misbehave in the class, I tell him to speak and make jokes as much as possible till he gets bored:) At the same time, we are resting. Also, I try to solve his problems with lessons at the break times in private. We formed a different relationship with Yakup differently from other students. We even played football with Yakup in order to be more friendly towards him and that makes him more motivated for the lessons. Other students, Fatma and Zeynep, sometimes become stressful about the exam. I try to comfort them. Moreover, they have sometimes problems with their friends at the school and they tell me about their problems. In that situation, I give them advice even in their love issues :) We hold that kind of conversation before lesson starts mostly. By that way, I make them ready for the lesson. Also, before starting to lesson, I solve some of their questions and give them answer key for their homework which I gave the week before. If I have enough time, I solve their English questions. Moreover, I try to teach some new words based on their past word knowledge. I always suggest them to read a book. Since our classroom is a kind of library, I give them some books from that library. They have started to read books more often and that makes me happy.
ReplyDeleteSo far, we have seen and practised these topics in 8th grade social sciences lesson: “Bir Kahraman Doğuyor, Milli Uyanış, Ya İstiklal Ya Ölüm, Çağdaş Türkiye Yolunda Adımlar and Atatürkçülük”. They learned the topics and by the help of practices, they are capable of solving questions related to these topics and I believe they will be successful in social sciences part at the exam. Since, we are getting close to the exam, we started to solve past questions which were placed at the previous exams. Next week, which is our last week, we are going to do a simulation of the exam. After that, they will wait for the exam. I think I am more excited than students about the exam :) Good luck to them:)
PROGRESS REPORT 3
ReplyDeleteAfter we passed seven weeks with a big success, we reached the 8th week. Our new subject was : “MERHABA DOYDUĞUM TOPRAK”. My students knew our learning methods anymore and so it was easier for them to learn the subjects. At the 8th week, I covered the topic very well; I explained every detail; I made clear every Question Mark in their minds, I draw pictures, diagrams and maps. I used their Course Book, I gave examples from our lifes. I related the topic to the real life. I asked them what they knew about the topic and tried to make them deal with the course. I explained the subject by using the knowledge they had before. After that week, we solved the questions from the Test Magazine of Final for SBS again. I gave some time to them to solve all the questions. After they solve the questions, we expressed the solutions together. We went over the questions that they weren’t able to find out the answers. We discussed about the answers of them and the reasons why the aswers were those. My students could get the questioning thinking and started to use it while solving questions. So, I thought that it would be helpful for SBS.
The next two weeks were like those previous two weeks. We covered the topic “TOPRAK ANA VE MESLEK SEÇİMİ”. I followed the same way as I do previous courses. After we covered the subject and do everything about the subject, I asked them which profession they would choose. They told two different occupations; but they were not so sure about their decisions. So, I told them they should search about the professions that they wanted to choose from all aspects; they should ask the people who had those professions and after all those they should decide what to do. They promised to do so. I expressed the importance of knowing all the aspects of an occupation before choosing a convenient one for them.
As for progress of our relations with our students and the manager, Mr. Bilal; I want to add those: We had really good relations with our students, we were like friends to some degree. For example, Emrullah and I played football with Yakup. He enjoyed that so much that he started to get interested in the course and what Emrullah said. Another aspect is that; we tried to make our students relieved and relaxed before starting our lesson. That would be helpfull for them to understand the topic better. We asked about their daily life, other courses in their school, their homeworks, exams etc. We tried to help them do their homeworks. We also gave imformation about SBS as far as we knew. We wanted them to know about the system of SBS. We reminded them about the importance of reading all the time; so we advised some books from the library of organization. For example; Emrullah gave the book “YÜZÜKLERİN EFENDİSİ” to Fatma. Moreover, our relation with Mr. Bilal was very good. He talked about his past educational experiences in different organizations. He gave some information about the system of Anaçev also.
Yes, everything was going perfect, we had not problems except transportation. But it was the salt of that delicious meal. We were having a great experience in our short lifes.
Now that, as we know each other and what to do in the lessons we didn’t have difficulty in the lessons. In previous lesson we studied first alphabet, syllables, words and then we started to read the sentences. I started with classical Turkish sentences such as ‘Ali bak, Ali ata bak’ etc. Then I wrote different sentences and they wrote the sentences to their notebooks. One of my students were Turkmen, she came from Iraq years ago but she cannot speak Turkish very well so sometimes she had difficulty in pronunciations of some words. For example I wrote on the board ‘Sabah erken kalktım.’ She couldn’t pronounce the word ‘kalk’ she said ‘kah’, I said ‘kalktım’ but she said ‘kahtım’. She was not able to pronounce it, I tried to make her read correctly but unfortunately she couldn’t. My other student was able to read easily so we read reading passages with her. She read and I helped her when she had difficulty.
ReplyDeleteThat week we also worked on numbers. I wrote numbers on the wall and they tried to read and write them. They could easily do that task, it was not so hard for them.
As homework they wrote the sentences and numbers again and I told them to read the things we studied during the course at home.
Ahmet ÖZKAN
It has been six weeks and this is seventh week. I went to Anaçev early and had the chance to talk to my students about their week, exams, courses and school stuff. Then we started our lesson. I asked which topic they were studying and learned that they had been studying animals. I thought it would be good if I teach them animals so that they can repeat and revise what they had learned and their knowledge would be permanent.
ReplyDeleteI wrote some basic animals’ name and their Turkish translations next to them. I even tried to draw their pictures but I must admit that I wasn’t that successful Some of the students laughed when they saw my drawings. It was nice to see them laughing. Then I read out the words and my students repeated after me. We did this for three times. After that I wanted them to write the things on the board. Then I cleared the board and wrote some of the animals’ name in Turkish. Then I told my students to close their note books. I asked “Who wants to write the first word in English?” Some of them raised their hands and I chose the one who raised her hand first. Then other students came to the board to write the words respectively.
Then I thought that students would have fun and enjoy the lesson if we play a game. I wrote animals’ name on little papers and wanted them to come to the board one by one. I explained what to do. The first student came and chose a paper. It was horse. She tried to act out a horse and the other students tried to guess its name. The first student to guess it and tell its name in English would come to the board to act out another animal. It was really funny. They enjoyed the game so much that they wanted to play a game every hour
Next week I taught them how to tell the time.By teaching this they could revise numbers if they forgot. I began with hours like “8:00, 15:00, 21:00 etc.” Then I taught them “pm”, “am”, how and when to use them and the difference between them. After that I taught hours like “10:30, 17:30, 23:30 etc.” Then I taught “to”, “past”, how and when to use them and the difference between them. Then I taught the word “quarter.” Later on I taught how to say and write hours like “6:48, 12:21, 22:53 etc.”
It is all about these weeks. I hope I can be useful for my students for the next weeks.
As time passed, community service started to give us feeling of responsibility and being useful for the community and all of the society. Every time we went there, our joy and willingness were increasing. Also, the number of our students was increasing. As usual, after grouping them, we started our lesson. As weeks passed, we could easily observe that they made progress. The women I was dealing with most improved her reading very much. She could read faster and more accurate than before. Also, they made progress in numbers and numerals.
ReplyDeleteThis week, one of the women asked me to teach her phone numbers. While we were studying, she made a mistake and said I had taught in that way. I was really surprised, because, we were working on numbers which had three steps. So, it was nearly impossible for me to teach wrong. Nevertheless, I checeked what I taught and saw that I had taught right. Then, I said to the woman that I had taught right but I thought you remembered wrong. However, she didn’t believe me and said anyway, let’s go on. I didn’t insist on it and continued our lesson. After the lesson, my partner said to me that that woman was somehow jealous of others and last week, she did the same thing to her. This time, my surprise got bigger because I can’t still understand that how an elder woman can be jealous of other elder women.
Seeing that your students are making progress is a really wonderful feeling. After visiting the vakıf, I get more proud of my choice on teaching career.
In the second week I gave them a worksheet including spelling, writing and punctuation rules of Turkish and wanted them just try to do them, and so that I would know what they know about them and try to teach them more. I taught them the punctuation marks and I realized that the hardest one for them to understand was the comma (,) they could not distinguish the usage of it at the and of a clause although they could use it between the same kinds of words. what I mean is:
ReplyDeleteThey can use it in this sentence:
Manavdan elma(,) armut(,) limon ve erik aldım(.)
However they get confused when they see a sentence like:
Senden bunu hiç beklemezdim(,) çok kalbim kırıldı(.)
they use fullstops for both of the brackets in the second sentence.
In that week the important thing for me was that my students told me they they were both having fun and believed that they were learning important things which would help them to understand a text better. they admitted that they had problems of misunderstanding especially when they were trying to read a newspaper because of not knowing the usage of punctuation markers in Turkish.
Moreover in this week, my students started to talk about their lives, which was important because of two things, first of all, it meant that now they trust me, I think this is crutial for a teacher- student relationship. actually, here I try to depict not a real teacher- student relationship because we are far more related than this kind of relationship, but what I meant was if you try to teach somebody, they have to trust you, your knowledge, etc. to make the teaching more effective.