Assignment on the use of native culture in the teaching of EFL

1.What do you think of the idea of using student native culture as content in the EFL classroom as a means of fostering cross-cultural awareness? What might be the possible benefits and shortcomings (if any) of using student native culture?

2.Choose a or b :

a) By referring to the article by Post and Rathet (1996: 12-17) in English Language Teaching Forum, suggest a new language learning activity for Turkish learners of EFL where you use the Turkish culture. The activity that you will design could appeal to any levels of proficiency (i.e., beginners, elementary, intermediate or advanced) and it can involve any language skills. You need to specify the aim(s), your learner profile preparation, procedures of the activity.

b) By referring to the article by Tavares and Cavalcanti (1996: 18-23) and examining the suggested activities in the article, suggest one activity of your own design to develop cultural awareness in EFL classroom (if you like, you could choose a feature film in English and you might prefer to take up a certain cultural practice in the film and compare and contrast it with the Turkish culture.

Assignment on conversation analysis

Choose one or two scenes in a feature film/a TV serial that you like. Do two of the following tasks:

1.Try to identify the language functions used in the conversation.
2.Try to analyze the communicative competence of the interlocutors from the following perspectives (grammatical competence, discourse competence, strategic competence, sociolinguistic competence)
3.Try to analyse the conversations from the following aspects:
a) attention getting

b) topic nomination

c) topic development (clarification, shifting, avoidance and interpretation)

d) Topic termination

4. Try to analyze the conversation in terms of Gricean maxims (quantity, quality, relevance, manner )

Please do not forget to illustrate your comments by giving relevant examples.

Reflection assignment on your cognitive styles and learning strategies

Which cognitive styles do you think you have? Give some examples to illustrate your points. In what ways do you think possesssing these specific leaning styles has a positive impact on your academic and private life and in what ways do you think it prevents or challenges you in your academic and private life?

2. Using the list of learning startegies (see pages 125-126 in Chapter 5 of Brown (2000) and communicative strategies (see page 128) in Chapter 5 of Brown (2000), describe examples of two or three that you have already used or you are currently using. Pick one or two that you don’t use very much and provide your reasons for not doing so.

Assignment on learning styles

Choose a character in a feature film/a Turkish or English TV serial that you like and make comments on the learning styles and the learning strategies and communicative strategies that he or she displays in the film/ TV serial by giving examples. How effectively do you think he or she uses them in the film? In what ways does he/she benefit from them and in what ways do they have a negative impact on him/her?

In this video, I would like to talk about how Gagné's Instructions are demonstrated by the teacher.

In the beginning of the class, he asks a question: "Does everybody know charades?" By asking this question, he introduces the game which they're going to play and makes sure that students know the game. At this point, students will wait him to tell more about the game and this draws attention. This is GAINING ATTENTION.

Later on, he gives the instructions of the game and demonstrates it for the students. It makes everything clear. Students understand what they are going to do during the game. He also says that he wants students to form full sentences in present continuous tense. This is INFORMING THE LEARNER OF THE OBJECTIVE.

Students begin to play the game. They form 2 teams: Team A and Team B. One of the team member tries to tell the word with gestures and mimics, and the other one tries to guess the word. When the student find the word, s/he has to form full sentences such as "You are laughing" or "You are pulling something". This needs prior knowledge of present cont. tense and students recall this knowledge and use it during the game. This is RECALLING PRIOR LEARNING

During the game, he says " Good job!" and he also writes the points down on the board. By doing this, students can see their team's condition and their competitors'. This is the stimulus of the game and it's PRESENTING THE STIMULUS.

At the beginning of the game, he gives the instructions and demonstrates the game which gives students an idea about the game. In addition, he usually assures students and guides them by saying "Yes", "Alright". With those expressions, students understand that they are on the right track. This is PROVIDING LEARNER GUIDANCE.

At this point, students play the game by guessing the action words and forming full sentences including this vocab. item and they complete the game. This is ELICITING PERFORMANCE.

During the game, the teacher always gives them immediate feedbacks by saying "Yes" "Excellent" or "Good job!". Students understand whether they're wrong or not by these expressions. This is PROVIDING FEEDBACK".

At the end of the game, the teacher announces the winner team by looking the charts on the board and it is the assessment part of the game. This is ASSESSING PERFORMANCE.

In the end of the video, the teacher talks about other ways to use charade games while teaching vocabulary or grammar. He says that teacher can take it further and makes the lesson enjoyable, interactive and useful. This is ENHANCING RETENTION AND TRANSFER.

We've seen Gagné's nine events of instructions and their demonstrations in the esl lesson. I think the teacher clearly demonstrates these steps. His lesson is enjoyable as well as informative and this is the most important one: to be able to put these 2 items together.

1) Gain attention :We can't see the beginning of the lesson, but as I understand from the video teacher has written the course name,objectives to the board and in this way teacher draws student's attention.

2). Informing the learner of the objective: The objectives of the lesson are on the board and the teacher talks about them showing them on the board.She says that we are going to write a radio advertisement and guess what products are being advertised.

3)Stimulating recall of prior learning: Teacher ask what comes to their mind about the products that she has mentioned or related to topic and during the lesson, while preparing the subject and creating a product and advertisement, they use their previous knowledge, grammar structures and vocabulary knowledge.

4)Presenting the stimulus: Students give some answers related to the teacher's question such as luxury, modern, popular and they will answer the other question (how do we get information about that products?) as advertisement.

5)Providing learner guidance : The teacher gives the rules of the acticity. She want them to meke groups and create their products and later on present and introduce those products.

6). Eliciting performance Students present their products using charts.

7)Providing Feedback: While students are preparing their product's advertisement, teacher walks around the each group and give them feedback.

8)Assessing performance:While they are presenting and after presenting the the teacher gives them feedback, shows her pleasure saying that wonderful, welldone...etc.

9)Enhancing retention and transfer: The activity provides them to to use present and future tense while presenting their products and the use some adjectives which defines their products, so this provides retention and transfer.

In my opinion, she is an effective teacher, because she provides the student to like the lesson and this is the most important thing in teaching period and the activity provides students to make brain storming, creating a new idea and comminicating with group members and making presentation to class and in this way it increases the students' self confidence.