To what extent and in what ways do you think your previous EFL teachers in Turkey reflect the characteristics of the post-method era?
To what extent and in what ways do you find yourself as a prospective post-method era teacher?
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ReplyDeleteI think our teacher's generally did not reflect the characteristics of post-method era. As we know in post method, people think about more than one method and take some part of the methods. But in my opinion, our teachers generally stict to Grammar tranlation method because of the system in Turkey. But one of my teacher brought visual material to class, wanted us to talk and make other things in class. Now I can understand that he want to use more than one method for us to learn something.
ReplyDeleteWhen I will become a teacher, I want to use possible parts of methods if my conditions suitable for that.
I think that some of my teachers had no idea about methods.They did something without following a rota. They generally used grammar trasnlation method but I think they did not know what it was. They used the way their teachers used years ago; however I had successful teachers, too. They generally reflected the characteristics of post method era. They used different methods and changed the methods according to the condition in the class.
ReplyDeleteI hope I will be a flexible teacher in terms of method. According to the conditions I will apply possible parts of different methods.
My teachers generally didn't use any post method characteristics while they were teaching us English. They stick to Grammer Translation Method mostly. They only teach us about grammer not speaking or listening or writing. We had a course in which we watched videos or small actings, but teachers didn't know how to teach these kind of things although they had materials. So I can't learn anything because I didn't listen to videos carefully. And I'm not aware of that listening activities would be useful for my future.
ReplyDeleteWhen I become a teacher, I try to combine the methods. I will analysis and find my students needs, and then combine methods according to these needs.
I had such a teacher in high school, who doesn't love method concept and creates his own method according to student's needs and his aim. I think he was successful despite some restrictions such as curriculum and school management. It is really hard in Turkey to be a post-modernest teacher in post-method era due to some stereotypes, but I don't think it is impossible. I hope we - as prospective teachers- should not be stuck into a method, we should create our own alternative methods.
ReplyDeleteI hadnt have a teacher who tries to reflect post-method era characteristics into teaching until high school.She would promote cooperative learning.By giving important tasks and encouraging us to speak she would build self confidence. I think the most important thing she gave to me was her help to find my purpose on learning English. Before that I was saying that why I am learning this language, and she showed all the reasons of learning it, so I was motivated to learn it.
ReplyDeleteI believe that I am going to be a post-method era teacher.I saw too late that English is not just grammar and fill in the blanks examples. Learning culture, communication and all the other sides of language makes it enjoyable and useful.I wont let my students to learn these too late.
Due to the curriculum which is arranged by authorities,I think, teachers are restricted. And this curriculum has never met the needs or desires of teachers. And I think in Turkey's conditions it is not likely at all to follow the post-method era principles. I have never met a person who has a teacher,who is able to follow the post method era characteristics, including me.
ReplyDeleteAs future's english teacher I would like to apply post-method eras principles and I will try my best to do it if I happen to be a teacher but I dont think that I will be able to implement all those characteristics of P.M. era due to our education system.
My old English teachers were very strict about teaching us grammar and they used to think of any kind of listening or speaking activities as loss of time. They were using the Grammar Translation Method all the time and this used to make the course boring. However; when I become an English teacher, I would like to use a mixture of different methods according to the needs and interests of my students.
ReplyDeleteGenerally,as far as I see, teachers of us used Grammer Translation method as my friend said.But I don't think it is exactly this method.In my opinion we must use different methods'good sides according to our aim.We know that following only one method cannot help us exactly.We will be teachers.We will see that every student has different needs and learning styles.I will apply the one which is suitable for the situation and for the students.We can also find another helpful technics for them.I want to be creative about finding suitable methods for my students' needs without hanging up the old ones.
ReplyDeleteBecause of the education system in Turkey, our highschool FLE teachers didn't have the option to apply a postmodern method, and I think they still don't. In order to prepare students to the university exam, teachers are required to teach only vocabulary and grammar. Listening or writing is not emphasized at all. Even though I had many successful teachers, due to the curriculum, they also had to follow the path that our education system requires.
ReplyDeleteAs a prospective post-method era teacher, I'm thinking of creating my own method according to the education system's and students' needs. So far, I've seen that it doesn't help to stick to one old method. Applying a combination of the efective parts of several methods seems more logical. I will surely teach grammar, but I know that it's not enough to master a foreign language. I think all aspects of a language, such as listening writing and speaking, should be integrated while teaching. I believe it will help students in the long run.
I believe that a language is learned for coommunication, especially for speaking, But in Turkey, because of the exams that starts at early ages, Turkish learners learn english just like mathematics. I mean we learn rules and meanings of the words, we memorize them and do great at exams, but when it comes to speaking or in a way producing something, there comes the trouble. the method used by my teachers is mostly grammar translation method, it helped to use language correctly, but wasn't enough. I had one teacher who wants to improve our abilites in all aspects, we read, we spoke(made presentations), we listened a lot. I think it really helped me.
ReplyDeleteI am planning,as prospective teacher,to use everything that will help my students.In turkey we have a curriculum that teachers should follow, so the topics that will be teached are divided in years. I have an opposition to this, since when we first started to learn a language there is no topic division.I will not teach my students litle by little, because in this way they cannot have an improvement or the improvement comes too late. I hope I can manage it.
An ideal lesson can be achieved only by combining the skills of the teacher and various methods, because there isn’t only one type of student in a class. Each student has different learning styles and strategies. However; my previous teachers generally had some strict ways and rules they set for their lessons. I didn’t observe them changing according to different students’ needs. There was only one path to go for them and they followed it. They didn’t consider our skills, abilities, capacities and learning styles. Therefore they didn’t reflect the characteristics of post-method era.
ReplyDeleteIn order not to make the same mistakes with my previous teachers, I will take into consideration my students’ need. It isn’t necessary that every teacher has only one method. I will try to make a combination of different methods so that I will be an effective teacher and help my student to learn better.
In elementary school our teachers would give us a list of words with their translations. As homework we would write them for ten times with their meanings. Our teachers didn't even think about different ways of teaching vocabulary. I can't understand why they used this tecnique while there were lots of more enjoyable ways to do this.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing that I can't understand is that they wouldn't use any extra materials except our books.
When I become a teacher, I will try to use all the techniques I've learned here and I'll do my best to make English an enjoyable course. I'll create intrinsic motivation in my students.
I think the post-method era principles aren't taken into consideration in Turkey because of the education sytem. That is, since teachers feel themselves obliged to prepare their students for the university entrance exam, they follow the stereotype methods in class. As a prospective fle teacher, I think a teacher must create his/her own theory by mixing various theories s/he finds suitable and, as an innovative teacher, s/he must be ready to make any changes if needed. Also, s/he must pay attention to his/her students' characteristics and try to use the advantages of technology as much as possible in class, which increases the efficiancy of teaching.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to say that, but I have to agree with my friends. My previous English teachers were ignorant about post-method era. They didn't try to combine all the methods. Instead, they stuck to just one method and ignored others. As we all know, this is called "bandwagonism". For instance; we didn't do speaking or listening activites. We weren't encouraged to speak in English and teachers never thought that we could learn "in different ways". Everybody has a different learning style as my friend Aslı said. Unfortunately, these were just ignored and neglected. However, we shouldn't blame teachers for that because they were also told and taught that way. In addition, we have so-called "entrance exams". Students have to choose the right answer and pass the exam. What could our English teachers do anything but this kind of deductive teaching? We all passed the exam and came to METU. We all learned to choose the right answer, we all know so many words, so many grammar rules etc. but we -still- find hard to talk fluently or understand a native speaker.. This is the case and our education system should be revised according to post-method era.
ReplyDeleteMy first experience with Turkish English teacher was in Prep. School in METU. She almost used all methods and approaches related to teaching of foreign language. I was really enjoying the class because she was using musics, games, pair works, was in interaction with all students, and fairly was giving feedbacks related to our progresses in learning, and was friendly and without offending the relations between teacher and student could say what should be improved and what sould not be used anymore... I have learned many things from her class and had an opportunity to use them in the future...
ReplyDeleteI would want to be like her in giving feedbacks and being very creative in the class and guide students and be somehow friend of the students so that students were interesred in classroom activities, participate actively, and could use everything what I would learn them...
During my learning experience, I have never had a teacher who applies characteristics of the post-method era. Maybe they didn't have time for these applications maybe they didn't even know what these applications are.
ReplyDeleteOur educational system,our curriculum and our exams are so different from theories, expectations and realities that teacher is always the one who stucks between the students and lesson hours.
As a student, it is easy to say that teachers are unaware of all the theories and just stick to curriculum. However, deformed and distorted educational system causes all these problems about teacher which can be seen as unproductiveness and living with taboos.
I don't think my previous English teacher followed the characteristics of a specific method. Maybe they did not even an idea about the methods. They arranged the courses according to the requirements of curriculum and the standard exams. We generally studied on grammar structures and improving our vocabulary knowledge. There was hardly listening and speaking activities in high school as they are not necessary in the standard exams. However I do not think that only our teachers were guilty for this. I f they had not arranged the course in that that way, I could not have passed the yds. I think the problem is also the result of the exam style.
ReplyDeleteWhen I become a teacher, I would like to study with high school students who do not have to enter YDS. I think in this way I will be able to get out of curriculum limitations. I will try to follow the requirements of post method era. While teaching, I will try to improve my students in four skills of language. I will focus on receptive and productive skills equally.
Method,post-method era? Such words were completely away from my previous teachers.Maybe when they were at university, they heard such things,but when they started to teach, they forgot what they had learned. They always made us written on a notebook for hours until our fingers became numb and what they did is only to say "this is that. You have to learn these and those before the exam". According to them, Learning a language requires formulization of everyting in that language and memorizing them before the exam. Even if I don't appreciate their method, probably, if I were a teacher one day, I would be like one of my previous teachers.Because if you are given some directions and rules about how you have to teach by some authorities,you cannot use your way and you lose your wish for teaching and you will be a monotonous teacher. Because of these things, I don't think working on any government agency, there should be noone intefering with my work,I should use my own methods. When I want the students to watch a movie,sing a song or draw a picture, they should do it and Any authority shouldn't say to me that it is not suitable for the curriculum.I see that I am a bit pessimistic about our education system on public schools, but I believe that one day our perfect and brillant authorities will understand that their methods are useless, and due to their exams,methods and rules, Our country only becomes full of smart but useless robotic people...No exam, no curriculum! Create your own method and have fun while both teaching and learning!
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ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I didn't have a teacher who is a strict follower of post-method or any kind of method. However if I have to find some similarities between my teachers way and teaching methods, I can say that my teachers have used mostly Grammar Translation Method. They showed us the rules and took our points if we did any little mistake. Moreover if we asked anything that we cannot explain ourselves, they said that it is a rule and left our question marks in our head without answers. So I think there is no need to any methods or techniques or approaches etc. because it makes teachers nervous so just relax!
ReplyDeleteI think our teachers’ teaching style can be shaped according to presence of entrance exams. For example, when we are in prep class in high school, there is no important exam in near future. Thus, in this period, our teachers mostly approached the post- method concept. They integrated the macro and microstrategies as much as they can. We were also enjoying the lessons, because we had not the fear of examination. However, when we chose our foreign language section, we start to focus only reading, grammer rules, vocabularies which would be asked in the “University Entrance Exam”. Of course, this wasn’t helpful enough to learn a language completely, but we have to do like this to pass the exam. This is not our teachers’fault I think but the education system’s . However much we want to implement post- method characteristics, the curriculum won’t let us to do so. Even our students can see the other activities as a “waste of time”, if they learn it just to pass the exams. If we want to do some extraordinary and useful teaching, firstly this system has to be changed. However, if we can make our students love the language, it will be easier for us to implement post-method era characteristics. If they don’t see the language learning as a burden, they participate in the classroom activities more enthusiastically . Whatever class teacher I would be, the first thing I want to do is to explain the importance of learning foreign language. Then I want to integrate all the techniques according to their sense of plausibilty. I am aware that language learning isn’t just memorizing the rules, but to produce something from your learnings, and also having fun when learning. To sum up, I don’t want to focus on a single perspective, but to be a flexible teacher, who orients the learning activity according to his/her students’ needs. I don’t want to just “say” like that, but also “carry out” them in the real life.
ReplyDeleteEach teacher must have a style of teaching including really effective procedures. I don't think my previous teachers followed any method let alone the characteristic of post-method era. They never spoke in English in the class or they never encouraged us to speak in target language. Grammer was the most important thing for them in that if you know grammer rules then you are perfect in that language. Focusing on forms must be taken into consideration for my previous teachers. They never mentioned meaning sometimes can be rather important than forms.
ReplyDeleteLanguage is a communication tool, so it shouldn't be used as a law.
In fact charging our teachers is not a solution. It's obvious that we have started to study in this university not by speaking or listening but just reading and grammer rules we had to know in our YDS. ı think we are the people that will fix this system and rescue our future students from the teachers sticking to the just one strict rule.
i think only one of my teachers was following a method like thing:);but generally focus was on grammar,so when we come to university we drop the ball with skills like speaking and listening.Each skill in language teaching must be combined together from the very beginning i think, and also we can find out our own teaching method according to our students' needs, because thanks to our previous teachers in high school,we know a bit at least what to do and not to do from our experiences .
ReplyDeleteI don't think my previous English teacher followed the characteristics of a specific method. Maybe they did not even an idea about the methods. They arranged the courses according to the requirements of curriculum and the standard exams. We generally studied on grammar structures and improving our vocabulary knowledge. There was hardly listening and speaking activities in high school as they are not necessary in the standard exams. However I do not think that only our teachers were guilty for this. I f they had not arranged the course in that that way, I could not have passed the yds. I think the problem is also the result of the exam style.
ReplyDeleteWhen I become a teacher, I would like to study with high school students who do not have to enter YDS. I think in this way I will be able to get out of curriculum limitations. I will try to follow the requirements of post method era. While teaching, I will try to improve my students in four skills of language. I will focus on receptive and productive skills equally.
In Turkey, teachers are forced to follow the curriculum, they cannot follow a method or create their own styles. It's because of the education system, I cannot blame the teachers. Since the very beginning of learning English, we have faced to grammar rules. We cannot say grammar rules aren't important things, but there are other important things like listening, speaking, or writing.For example, when we first came to the university, we felt the deficiency of our speaking skills. In the university entrance exam, there is no questions related to listening and speaking skills, so teachers prefer to skip these steps while teaching the language. When the exam system changes, I hope that learners will be more integrated with the language.
ReplyDeleteI will not only focus one method, or one skill, I will try to teach the language with all aspects of it. However, learners will be significavite for me.
I think, in Turkey, teachers are not qualified enough to have a specific teaching style based on a clear method.They have their curriculum, they have their planbook. Then, look what to teach, and teach. At least, my teachers were generally that kind of teachers. one day, one of my teacher forgot to take his planbook(in which he wrote what to talk about), then he said" friends , no course today".So ,before thinking about whether my teacher showed characteristics of post method era, we shlould think whether our teacher was using any method.
ReplyDeleteAs to my self as a prospective teacher, of course, for my teaching to be a distinc , and effective one, ı will try to be a teacher of methods. While teaching something, I will try to remember what I learned about teaching.
I think, in Turkey most of the teachers don't know much about methods and post method era. They use mostly grammer translation method.Some of them know and try to apply different methods in class but education system doesn't allow this. Because university entrance exam is based on grammer rules, teachers only give importance to teach grammer and vocabulary. They don't do something to improve speaking and listening skills of students. So,when student come to university, It ıs hard for her or him to speak and understand what does theacher say. Each language skill is related to each other so,from at first step teacher should try to improve all of the skills together. I will try to use different methods to improve my students' all language skills.
ReplyDeleteNone of my previous teachers had those characteristics. I don't want to say that most of them doesn't even know about post-method era, but probably they didn't prefer using that strategy. Even though it is hard to apply post-method era in the current conditions of Turkey, it is not impossible. You can show yourself as if following the curriculum and standarts, but you can do whatever and however you want in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteProbabaly nothing will change until I become a teacher. However, I will give a shot to post-method, depending on the results I may stick to it.
ı think we turkish people need some time to suit ourself to post method era. because our all teachers try to create their own method actually they are methodless. ı think it is good to creat our own mwthod but we should do this under the light of information of all methods and we should be flexiable acording to the level of our students the extend of our classroom ant the course that we teach.
ReplyDelete