WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE BEST FRIENDS? : DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Hello everyone.

This is the second post in this week. I apologize for not posting last week. I am publishing this post this week to make up for it. 

As you know, I am writing this blog as a requirement of the Technology and Material Design course. One of our assignments this week was to create a digital storytelling. 

For this reason, my best friend Hasan and I decided to meet and make a story about friendship. What we really need to do is to simply introduce ourselves in the story, to tell us how we met and to say what friendship is for us. But it made us a little scared to try something we had never experienced before. Later on we figured out how simple it was. 

First of all we started by taking the necessary materials such as colorful papers, scissors, pens etc. from the stationery. Later we went to a place where we could work quietly and recorded our video. Actually, after this part, I can say that Hasan made the majority of the work. 

We edited the video first with the editing program called VEGAS Pro. With our voice recorder on my phone, we recorded our audio and inserted the video. After all the editing process we uploaded our video to Youtube. 

As I mentioned before, working with someone on such projects is really useful. We complement each other in matters we do not know, and this simplifies our work. 

Giving the students the task of creating digital stories in English classes can improve their English. Because in this process the student will think in English and record their voices while creating the story. Especially, as in our country, it may prevent English being learned only theoretically.,

You can watch our digital story below.

You can download the editing program by clicking here.

If you want, you can also follow  Hasan's blog here.

The picture above is taken from here.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.

ENGLISH IS IN MY POCKET: MOBILE LEARNING

Hello everyone.

This week I examined an application on mobile learning. This application is Duolingo. This app is an application that aims to teach language especially English with fun and it is free on mobile devices. 




The application simply works as follows; First of all, after you log in to the application, you are asked whether you are new in learning English or you want to pass the placement test. I solved the placement test. In this test, which lasted about 3 minutes, there were questions in listening, reading, writing and speaking parts. I got to level 9. After this step the application exempts you from the tests of the levels you jump.

The application categorized English as grammar and practice in general. You click on the topic you want to solve such as Foods, Simple Present Tense, etc., and then you see the number of lessons that need to be solved for that topic. At low levels, the number of courses starts at 4 and goes up to 8 at higher levels. If you do not want to complete the topic's lessons lesson by lesson, you have the option of taking the proficiency exam and jumping that one at a time.

The colors of the lessons you have not solved yet are gray. The color of the courses you complete turns into orange. According to the color of the courses you leave halfway, it turns into red or green.

Some of the questions in the lessons are supported by visuals and some of them are answered by recording your voice.

However, many questions in the application usually in the form of translate from Turkish to English or from English to Turkish.

The most favorite feature of this application is that when you give the right answer, it says 'Your answer is correct!' and when you give the wrong answer it says 'You answered wrong!' and warns you by saying the right answer.

The application also aims to have fun competing with friends to increase the amount of fun a bit. In addition, after passing the levels, the application gives you langots and you can visit the app's shop and buy power-ups.

The application aims to teach only two languages (English and German) for Turkish speakers, but for English speakers it offers many language learning options from Spanish to French, Japanese to Catalan.

If you download this application on your mobile device and start to use it, I recommend you to solve the placement test at the beginning of the application.

You can visit the website of this application just by clicking here.

You can download this application by clicking here.

The picture above is taken from here.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.

USE BUT BE AWARE: WEBSITE EVALUATION

Hello everyone.

I evaluated a website for you this week. I am very excited to tell you about this phenomenal experience for me. 

First of all I started by looking for a website to evaluate the work. You know I usually post about ELT and young learners on my blog. For this reason, I was supposed to evaluate a website related to learning and teaching English by our instructor from university. I chose ESLGold to evaluate. 

At first it seemes a bit boring in fact, but as I continued to evaluate, I realized that how useful it was. 

While evaluating the website, I also had the opportunity to explore the website. And I got little tips on how to use this website appropriately for its purpose. Also, proceeding according to the form given to us by our instructor made it a little easier to study on this issue.

I used the form which was provided by our instructor to evaluate the website. It made this evaluation easier and it included the questions listed below.

1.Who authored the website? Is there any information about their qualifications or credentials?

1.The website is administered by ESLGold Teachers. There are eight teachers in charge of preparing content for this website. Each one has their own profile and they have academic information about themselves. If you want, you can get detailed knowledge about teachers and their experiences in their lives. 

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Additionally, this website is a website that appeals to people of all ages, has appropriate content, is constantly updated and frequently visited.

2.What is the content of the website?

2.The website generally provides content related to English teaching, such as tests, quizzes, courses, videos, study guides for students of all ages. Especially those activities are provided, such as reading, writing, speaking, listening, Business English, vocabulary and TOEFL. Students can also find an ideal tutor to help them learn English one-on-one in this website.

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3.Who is the target audience?

3.The target audience that this website wants to reach is anyone who wants to learn English and also the teachers who want to use the materials which are provided by this website.

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4.What is the purpose of the website?

4.The purpose of this website is to teach people English in an entertaining way through videos, daily lessons and activities. Also this websites aims to provide free resources for teachers and students, all categorized by skill and level.

5.Is there a date that shows when the site has last been updated?

5.At the bottom of the website is a date for the latest update in 2017.

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6.Accuracy of the information- Are there any errors?

6.Because this website was prepared by experts in the field, no errors were made when the information was given. We can see that there is no error when we check a sub-tab of each tab on the site.

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7.Are there any broken links?

7.Some videos linked to the site are unavailable because these videos have been deleted from their source and there are broken links because the parts of the site are not updated.

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8.Are the images of high quality and appealing to the target audience?

8.When you click on the website, the pictures on the home page and the main tabs are loaded with high quality, but when website is checked in detail, it is noticed that some photos are downloaded at low quality. But all the photos appeal to the target audience.

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9.How can it be applied to EFL teaching?

9.Many of the contents on the website are correlated with teaching English. For this reason, we can use this site effectively by telling the students to use the website as a resource when giving an assignment, by watching the videos at the school during the course and by applying the quizzes and tests at the school.

Lastly, I would like to present you two recommendations;

One of them is that while you are going to work on a project which is based on websites, it will be very useful for you to use the website by evaluating it.

The other one is that you can check out the website where I learned a lot of useful information when writing this post, and I think it will be very helpful if you are interested in learning and teaching English.

Picture 1, Picture 2, Picture 3, Picture 4, Picture 5, Picture 6, Picture 7 and Picture 8 are taken from the website which I evaluated.

You can visit the website just by clicking here.

The picture above is taken from here.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.

BEST FRIEND APPROACH

Hello everyone.

Today, I would like to talk about an approach of my own which is originated from colloborative group works. I have been experiencing this approach for 6 months with youngers.

Those who follows me from social media and those who read my previous post 'How To Deal With Young Learners In 5 Steps?' certainly know that while I am studying at university, I also work part-time as an English teacher in two kindergartens. In general, we follow a TPR-based approach in education, but I have developed a system that will enable children to focus more on the lesson and feel more secure.

While using The Best Friend Approach, I basically try to create a more relaxed environment by pairing students with their best friends in team works. I detect the best friends with the technique which I will explain in the next paragraph.

First I tell the kids to close their eyes and start imagining. In an amusement park, I tell them they were together with their favorite friends walked hand in hand all day and ate ice cream with details.  After a five minute-imagination, I tell the kids to open their eyes. And I ask them the critical question; 

'Who was there in the amusement park with you?'

According to the responses I received, in conversations, hand-held dance activities, group works, etc., I am matching the children with their best friends.

Pros;
-With this approach, children are more comfortable while participating in lessons.
-Children can express themselves more easily to their close friends.

Cons;
-Children's communication with other students is broken for that activity.
-This approach is difficult and time-consuming to apply to students who are not preschoolers.

I hope I can help you.

This gif above is taken from here.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.