Storybird & Storify

I wrote stories in Turkish when I was at secondary school. But the experience of Storybird and Storify were my first attempts of writing stories in English. Also, they were the first experiences of writing stories online. I was very excited when I published them. Because the two stories would be seen by everyone and it was kind of proud.

There is a guideline which is about presenting our visuals to everyone. The guideline consists of arrangement, balance, color, legibility and appeal. It is important that visuals should be appropriate for students. And preparing a story like I did should be for students. How to make these stories according to students’ needs? We can follow this guideline. Arrangement should be consistent. For example, the storyline should be clear that students will not confuse while reading. Then, the correct color is really important while reading the stories. The background should not be darker than images and text. While I was constructing my story, I paid attention to it. Thirdly, legibility is also an important point so that students will not have trouble while reading the story. The font should be big enough. Then, the story should be appeal so that students want to read more. Every teacher should teach these to their students so that students can read more consciously.

Moreover, I want to compare these two story maker applications. To be honest, I loved Storybird more than Storify. Because I could not get the idea of Storify. I found more backgrounds and visuals in Storybird. I could construct my story with different pictures. However, in Storify I could not even add another page for my story. It occurred only one page. In Storybird I added pages and it was like a real story book.

Students can use encoding and decoding while generating stories like me. Encoding means writing and decoding means reading. Students can listen their teachers before forming a story or they read some guidelines about how to form a story. This can be decoding and students can be sure what they do. Also students encode while writing their stories. Practicing and producing teach best to students.

                                 

SwiftKey

SwiftKey is a keyboard that is applicable for Android, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. You can write with your personal predictions. It has smart autocorrect that you can write faster as well. In addition, it has an interesting feature that when you put an emoji, it senses your emoji and turns it to a sentence that you meant. For instance, when you put a kissing emoji, it perceives it as “love you”. The feature that I like most is typing with one-hand. You do not have to press keys one by one. You can flow your hand in every letter. And it writes easily. Furthermore, the second feature that I like most is being bilingual. You can write with two languages and it does not correct you unnecessarily.

I have experienced SwiftKey with my sister’s phone. It was really enjoyable while writing. I have used it in Turkish. Firstly, it shows you the most frequent words that you use. It is useful for writing fast and easily. I wrote “hello” first, then it recommended me to write “how are you?” in Turkish. Secondly, while writing, it predicts the word that you can use with the previous word. For instance, I wrote “I will come”, it predicted “you” and “tomorrow”. I think SwiftKey tries to make connections with words. Thirdly, you can write without pressing each words. In other words, you can flow your hand within the keyboard. It was a wonderful type of writing. I wrote many words with flowing my finger in each letter.

It was a different experience. In addition, I realized that we should be open to new innovations to give color to our life. Instead of using the same keyboard, you can use SwiftKey to make your life easy.  

Corpus-Based Tools

In the internet there are a lot of corpus-based tools in analyzing your own writing. I have tried some of them which are Readlang, Read-able and Word and Phrase. I have analyzed one of my essay’s one part with Readlang to find the CEFR level. I got C2 Master level. Actually I am very happy to see that result. Because the writing that I sent was my first essay, my first attempt to write an essay. I believe the style and my word choices indicate that result. Also I sent it to Read-able to see the rate of readability. The result was promising. The reader that I chose for that essay was around 21 or 22 years old. The result was the same. Also I looked at the Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease which is a part of Read-able. It was 30 out of 100. That means the text that I sent was complicated to understand. The grade level was about 16. According to education level of USA, 16 age was around high school. I was a bit confused with that result. If the text was complicated to understand, how could high school students understand it? Maybe the education level has an effect on it. The education system is much better and students develop faster. In Word and Phrase my vocabulary profile was ‘academic’ enough. These results show me that while I am choosing my words, I can use more academic words and I can use thesaurus for different word choices. As a strength I can say the structures that I use are enough academic. I try to use various structure types in my writings. I can develop my writings if I see different text types and read for more information. Also practicing all time will be helpful to improve my writing skill. And after every writing I can use corpus-based tools to examine my level and effectiveness of my words. When I am a teacher, I will train my students to analyze their own writing with some of these tools. Because these tools show your writing ability overall. And these tools give you an idea of how to improve your writing skill. I believe that these tools would be practical for my students. 

Grammar Intuition v. Corpus Data

This resource is about correction or finding the errors in the sentences. There are seven different categories which are prepositions, singular-plural, word order, gerund-infinitive, simple past- present perfect, conditionals and formulaics. There are errors in the sentences in each category. With click to CONC, you can see how native speakers achieve the meaning the writer is looking for. You can see different usage of the words and you can find the correct answer by looking at the answers of native speakers. Next, you correct the sentence in the “correction space” then you can check it. Also it gives you feedback (FB) whether your answer is correct or not.

( If you click on the photo, you can see much bigger.)

Test Your Vocabulary Level

I have tested my English proficiency with Duolingo Test Center. I also tested my English level with other tests which are “Test Your Word Knowledge”, “Test Your Vocab” and “Vocabulary Ugent” from Ghent University. Duolingo was the hardest one. It asks you different kind of questions such as multiple choice, writing the sentence that you hear and choosing the words that you know. I think this test is the best one that really shows your English level. Because you cannot determine your level based on only one question style. The different feature from others is that other tests were based on only one question style. Actually all four are similar in the basis. They evaluate your vocabulary level with asking whether you know that word or not. Duolingo reflected my actual level of English. The description that gave at the last was the level that I thought. I do not like “Test Your Vocab” because it gives you a lot of words and you choose the ones you know. Maybe you know other words that do not exist on that list. Also the result was not satisfying. In other words, I did not believe my score when I saw. “Test Your Word Knowledge” is more convincing. Because you learn other words inside the description while choosing the correct description of the words. It was a long test any way. Lastly, “Vocabulary Ugent” from Ghent University was really interesting. My score was good. I did not choose any nonword. When I saw result, I was both surprised and sad. The result showed me that I can differentiate word and nonword. But my level was not the one that I expected. Nevertheless, all testes were enjoyable. I did not know these kinds of tests. I am looking forward to being a teacher. I will definitely test my students with those tests. 

These are the links that you might want to try J

http://testyourvocab.com/

http://my.vocabularysize.com/

http://vocabulary.ugent.be/

https://testcenter.duolingo.com/

GOOGLE ALERTs

As a TEFL student I can choose topics about teaching and learning English with GOOGLE ALERTs. I can add alerts such as best way to learn vocabulary, improving listening skill or interesting facts about English history. GOOGLE ALERTs enables sending your alerts to your friends or teachers. I can share articles or news with my friends and teachers. Also, this is a useful device for finding different topics that belong to important people in the field of TEFL. Also GOOGLE ALERTs send you an e-mail about topic or topics that you are interested. Therefore, you do not have to search the topic again and again. I liked this feature. I have read a few articles about what GOOGLE ALERTs mean and how it works. I think it is a bit complicated. I had difficulty while figuring out. When I am a teacher, GOOGLE ALERTs can be useful for my students. It is an interactive online application. My students can enjoy it while working on it. I did not see any educational side of GOOGLE ALERTs but still it can be a good opportunity for students to see others ideas and comments on different topics.

Here a few sites that help you understand how GOOGLE ALERTs works J

http://www.careerealism.com/job-search-google-alerts/

http://lifehacker.com/five-creative-uses-for-google-alerts-475278626

http://www.specificfeeds.com/blog/how-to-use-google-alerts-effectively/

http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/5-ways-to-go-far-beyond-google-alerts.html

The Lumineers - Ho Hey

The Lumineers - Ho Hey

Gap-fill exercise

Fill in all the gaps, then press "Check" to check your answers. Use the "Hint" button to get a free letter if an answer is giving you trouble. You can also click on the "[?]" button to get a clue. Note that you will lose points if you ask for hints or clues!

(Ho!)
(Hey!)
(Ho!)
(Hey!)

(Ho!) I've been trying to do it right
(Hey!) I've been living a life
(Ho!) I've been sleeping here instead
(Hey!) I've been sleeping in my bed,
(Ho!) I've been sleeping in my bed
(Hey!)

(Ho!)

(Ho!) So show me
(Hey!) All the blood that I will bleed
(Ho!) I don't know where I belong
(Hey!) I don't know where I went wrong
(Ho!) But I can write a song
(Hey!)

1, 2, 3
I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweetheart
I belong with you, you with me, you're my sweet
(Ho!)

(Hey!)
(Ho!)
(Hey!)

(Ho!) I don't think you're right for him
(Hey!) Think of what it might have been if you
(Ho!) Took a bus to China Town
(Hey!) I'd be standing on Canal
(Ho!) And Bowery
(Hey!)
(Ho!) And she'd be standing next to me
(Hey!)

1, 2, 3
I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweetheart

Love we need it now
Let's for some
Cause oh, we're bleeding out

I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweet
(Ho!)

(Hey!)
(Ho!)
(The last one)
(Hey!)

Technology Integration

When I start teaching, I will probably try to use technology in my class. The level of technology integration might be not too high. Because I am not able to use the technology as much as it deserves. In other words, even though technology develops day by day, I cannot catch up with it. So, I will try my best while using technology in my class. I am aware that there will be some obstacles or hurdles when I attempt to integrate technology into my teaching. Some of them comes to my mind. For instance, some students may have trouble while using technology. It can be hard for me to show a way for them. Because I am not so much capable of using it, how can I show them the correct way? Also, teachers can do many things with technology. They find teaching materials with it or make different activities through technology. I will always search different kind of materials for my students. However, I am not sure how much I can be successful about it. Furthermore, the school where I will teach might not be equipped so much. This can be a problem for me and my students. I can talk with the school administration to solve the problems. As it is obvious, some problems come from me, some of them come from school administration. I can overcome the obstacles that come from me. I can take lessons about teaching with technology or I can request my peers to help me. Also, I will be more into the technology to discover different perspectives especially educational part. Consequently, if I want to integrate the technology into my class, - I want to use technology - I can find solutions to all the hurdles that I encounter.

The ASSURE Model of Learning

The only teacher that comes to my mind who follows ASSURE model is my 11th and 12th grades high school English teacher. She was a great teacher and she was very interested in her students. She certainly followed the first step in ASSURE model that is analyzing learners. Absolutely, she knew her students, she knew who the audience was. Not all teachers are concerned about their students’ mental, emotional, physical and social problems or socioeconomic level. However, she was really involved our problems. She paid attention our prior knowledge, skills and attitudes. She maintained the lessons according to our previous knowledge. She was aware that our future understanding of the topic are connected to our former knowledge. Also, she decided her learning styles after she analyzed us. She mostly chose verbal and visual styles to teach.

Second step is stating objectives. I know that she totally defined objectives before coming to lessons. But she did not tell us about it. She knew her audience, how to behave us or how to react our mistakes, what our reaction can be in a situation. By combining them, she constituted objectives. However, this stage is not clear for my English teacher.

She selected methods, media and materials after she was sure about her audience. Mostly, she chose useful sources for us for example, she did not use the MEB books in the lessons. She found special books from Oxford or Cambridge Press. These ones were more applicable for our goals. Of course our goal in high school was entering a university. She chose functional exercises from the books and applied them with us. Also, for the grammar exercises and topics she used “ELS English Grammar”.

She perfectly implemented the fourth step to our lessons. For example, when she taught anything, she started with warm-up activity. She talked about the topic and asked questions to us. This made us think about that topic and comment on it. Then, she started the lesson. This way of teaching the lessons help students understand better and enjoy.

In the high school and other educational steps, teachers prefer only teacher-student interaction. In other words, teachers ask question then student who raises her\his hand answer the question. The system of my teacher was the same. However, when I think whether it is the correct way of teaching or not, it is the only way. Because every student’ aim is to able to enter a university in high school. So, teacher-student integration is the only way of learning correct information. We participated the classroom activities that were teacher-student oriented.

The last step which evaluate and revise does not contain us. Teacher thinks about her\his lesson and evaluates both herself\himself and us. I guess my teacher did the same thing. So, I have no exact information about my teacher’ implementation of this step.