Sevent Week (15.12.2014)

This week at my school, it was a very tiring day, I can say. 7th graders made exercises about what they “prefer”. Teacher wrote some sentences with blanks on the blackboard. Then the students wrote them down. She gave them some time to fill in the blanks. I helped them through the exercises. During the class, the students were very active but “active” here means sort of physically. Some of them kept themselves busy with other things and didn’t stop talking. The teacher told me it was almost the end of year and that was why the students were this naughty. Despite the warnings, they continued to act like that. Actually I felt desperate and I saw sometimes we need something special for the lesson to go on.


5th graders were relatively better. They made exercises about what they “like”. Teacher wrote some sentences with blanks on the blackboard. Then the students wrote them down. She gave them some time to fill in the blanks. Then the teacher continued with the exercises on the book.  With 7thgraders and again with 5th graders, the problem was some of them didn’t remember the grammar. If I were the teacher, I would put some reminders on the board, so they could have a little help. But in my case, I singled out the certain students and made them a small list with subject pronouns and verbs.


The most important thing this week was, I think, that I saw a student having difficulties in writing. He was not even able to recognise English letters like q or w. I described him the letters. It is really sad how he is in a class that is above his knowledge or learning and it is disappointing how he doesn’t get enough help. In this system, a good student stays good and a bad student stays bad and the difference between them keeps growing greatly.

Sixth Week (08.12.2014)

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Fifth Week (01.12.2014)

This week was examination week and the teacher had review with students to study the exams. Also, the schedule of the school changed. So this week I met a new class. Furthermore, the teacher had to leave on the last lesson. This was the first time I was totally alone with a class. The good thing was I didn’t have to use a lesson plan, which I didn’t have, because the teacher told me what to do. She gave me worksheets to do in the class.

In the class with these new 5^th graders, the students regarded me more as a teacher than a “brother” because I was alone with them on our first day. In the lesson, first I let them know what we were going to do while handing out the worksheets. I was afraid about the timing. I was not sure if I would do the activity very slowly or at a normal speed. I gave at least 3 minutes for each part of the worksheet. But some of them were really fast while a few of them were too slow. I gave them an extra 2 minutes. But of course the faster ones didn’t wait and skipped to the next parts. Still, we advanced step by step. Once they were done with that part, they answered. We didn’t move on until someone told the correct answer.

Most of the class was participating. It was a relief that they were interested in the lesson. Still, I needed to raise my voice because they were shouting like “Teacher! Choose me!”.  On the 5^th part of the worksheet, I checked some passive students’ papers. They were not raising their hands but writing down. Still, some had mistakes. I decided to write the correct answers on the board so they could see as well. Then I realized I wasn’t worrying about the time anymore. We continued with the last 2 activity on the sheet at a normal speed. After we were done, I asked if they had any questions. Some asked and I replied.

Unfortunately, we finished 15 minutes early. So they started to chitchat and ask me personal questions. After 5 minutes, they asked me to let them out because other classes were coming after the noon, so there wouldn’t be a chaos. And I let them out. After this lesson, I realized I could handle it but it was really difficult to have a class without planning. Planning lets you use the time effectively.

Fourth Week (24.11.2014)

On my 4^th week at Bakırköy Osmaniye Secondary School, we had a different kind of lesson. Both 5^th and 7^th graders were having group works. And, of course, most of the time there was a chaos in both classes.

In group work, it is important everyone have equal responsibility. While with the 7^th graders, some groups were quite successful while in other groups some students were dominant. In one group of 2 girls and 3 boys, I saw boys were barely doing something. I went to talk to them. First I thought the boys were being lazy and asked them to find something to do but then I understood that the girls were perfectionist and they didn’t like what the boys did and they didn’t find it good enough. That’s why boys were sitting idle or even if they were doing something they were doing it very slowly as they knew the girls wouldn’t like it. I’ve always thought group work has flaws. I also saw a student in another group who was doing nothing because everyone including himself thought that he was not able to do anything. While working with groups, teachers should have control over the groups.

During the break of 5^th grades, I stayed in the classroom trying to talk to the students in English. After the break, the teacher was a bit late. So it was my time to take over, even if it was for a short time. I asked them to sit, and they did. But they were still talking. So I thought the best way would be to talk. I asked them to ask me questions in English. And the classroom was silent. Few of them had the courage to ask questions. I was answering while the teacher came in. Actually she was happy to see the classroom in silence. I thought “I can do it!”

5^th grades had also some group work about countries and nationalities. But some students didn’t fulfil their responsibilities by not bringing the materials they were supposed to such as cardboards. So the teacher came with temporary solutions like using stapling A4s and using it like a cardboard while giving them ‘-‘ points. Giving minus points is okay but , if I were the teacher, I’d bring some materials which are a must for the lesson; because it is certain that some students forget something. In this way, I think, the lesson would be interrupted less.

Third Week (17.11.2014)

Hello. It was another sweet day with my students. After we entered, and greeted the classroom, every student wanted me to sit with them in both classes.


While with the 7th graders, I realized something. This boy named Berkay has been very eye-catching. I have witnessed he lie and swear in the classroom. And today again, I saw he didn’t care about the class. So this time I sat with him. He didn’t even open his notebook or book and was not taking notes. So I asked him to take notes and participate in the activity assuring that I would help him. The activity was to find seven animals under the categories such as mammals, herbivores etc. During the activity, I realized he had not a bad vocabulary. When it came to the part the teacher asked what they had found, he was a part of the class. He also looked happy and started to show off how he had done the activity by “himself”. So some children really need care and are not into class unless they get it.


The teacher’s grading system is such a system that students can get extra points if they do extra homework. So one of the 7th  graders made an extra performance work. The teacher and I had the oppurtunity to examine the student's work. It was full of mistakes and it was obvious that the student made it and not her parents. But still it was also apparent she had problems with the elements of sentence and putting them in order, which I think is a problem that others in the classroom may have, too. So when we were in the next class, it was enough for the teacher only to explain the student her mistakes. However, I'd approach differently. I think this kind of small details can be overcome with the peripheral learning used in the Desuggestopedia method by Lozanov. The sentence construction in English is pretty different from that of Turkish and children are having problems. That's why having small posters around the classroom could be very beneficial. And the posters would be showing sample sentences with some useful marks differentiating the elements. In that way the students could learn something from the environment even if their attention is not directed to it.

Second Week (10.11.2014)

On my second week, I had three hours, one with 7^th graders and two with 5^th graders because there was the commemoration of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the morning. This week, we saw the students had some difficulties adapting to the rules. Some of them didn’t do their homework.

This week, one event reminded me of one of the most important things: classroom management. So we were having an activity about “giving directions” in my 3^rd hour which is with the 5^th graders when it happened. The teacher chose a girl and then she chose a boy. The whole class started to laugh and make noise when the teacher chose the boy. Then the boy started to cry. I could guess the situation, but the teacher asked what was happening. The boy answered that his friends always mocked him as if he was in love with the girl. At that moment, the teacher wanted a complete silence and said that it was not the place and the time to talk about it. She continued the lesson and the boy stopped crying. In a minute or two, it was like nothing happened. I realized it was the best to keep calm in this sort of situations.

Before the activity, each student decided a building to write down on a paper and put them on their desks so that the classroom would be a map of a city. This was on the break so the teacher was away. Some needed help and I was there to help. Some asked translations of words, others asked pronunciations of words. I enjoyed having some time with them. As one of my previous teachers told, I guess I tasted teaching, now I can’t get enough of it.

There are still some who are having problems seeing the blackboard. As far as I saw, the teacher always uses the blackboard for only once and never cleans it. Besides, the blackboard may be too below. I would write bigger letters even if that meant cleaning and writing more than once. In other way, the students are not able to see clearly and they have to ask or go closer to blackboard.

First Week (03.11.2014)

On my first week at Bakırköy Osmaniye Secondary School, I was with7^th and 5^th graders for 4 class hours in total. The teacher had been away on sabbatical so she was also new to the two classes like me. When we introduced ourselves to the students found it strange that I was there. And, they couldn’t adapt to the idea that I was the helper of their teacher.


I took a seat from the back of the classroom and the teacher continued to introduce herself and of course her rules. It took a lesson for both 7th and 5th graders to learn the general classroom rules, to choose a student to check the homework, etc... The first important thing for me was to have a healthy relationship and communication with the children. They called me “brother” in Turkish, which I think actually would destroy the distance between me and them. Even if some of them insisted I was not a real teacher, I always asked them to call me their “teacher” because I thought if I removed the distance they would abuse it. I didn't want to be seen as a cold person, though. I used every opportunity to smile back at them. When I was helping them, I didn’t avoid kneeling down to their level, so the “distance” wouldn’t get longer. Once again I saw that everything would be okay when I maintained a reasonable distance.


During the second hours of both classes, I observed and realized that some of the students may miss the instructions or misunderstand what’s written on the board. I know and I saw she really didn’t have time to check every student even if she encouraged them to tell if they understand the instruction or are able to see the blackboard. I did go to check every student and tell them instructions or correct them when they wrote something wrong. I would try to do the same if I was a teacher because ensuring everybody is keeping up with the rest of the class is something satisfying. I don’t think I will be able to, though.