Tuesday, December 23, 2008

baby article of a baby researcher

Hi again,
As I already written in my previous post, I need to conduct a study for one of my classes (TEFL and the learner) in the MA program. As I am a webhead, a technology enthusiast, I decided to choose a topic about CMC (Computer Mediated Communication) and relate it with a factor affecting foreign language learning, which is motivation and when I narrowed it down to a reseachable topic, I came up with an idea suitable to my own teaching context. I am using a wiki with my elementary learners for a month and I want to investigate its effects on their motivation. I intend to investigate this problem using an adapted questionnaire from Austin and Skinner and interviewing with some of my students. As the questionnaire is an adapted one, I guess will not have any problems. However, I am not sure what kind of questions to ask in the interview.Can you give this baby researcher a hand? What other instruments can I use to conduct this study?

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Assignments

Hi again after a long time!
I was busy again for the last three weeks so I had to ignore my blogs :( Actually I am still very busy reading, planning,designing and trying to be creative. Luckily,I have a long break which will last for 10 days so I think if I make an action plan beforehand, I will be able to manage the time effectively.Here are the assignments I need to complete in this long holiday:
1- writing the literature review of my article for TEFL and the learner class.(and read a lot in order to do that!)
2- Deciding on a topic for my Research Methods class and doing the take home quiz.
3- Preparing a powerpoint presentation about my research topic .
4- Writing an essay for the Approaches and Methods class.
5- Doing the take home homework of the same class.

I also need to find a good thesis to evaulate, write an essay on audiolingual method and add more activities to my class wiki but the first five are the most urgent ones to be carried out.
I hope I will be able to complete all of them on time. Wish me luck!
B.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

presentations

Hi again after a looong time!

I wanted to blog a lot about my MA reflections about last week but I couldn't as the acces to blogger was restricted . II did my first presentation about Audio Lingual Method with my friend Rahşan. It was fantastic! She taught Italian to the participants using ALM and this made ALM clearer in their mind and I led a discussion after her using our powerpoint presentation.

I was assigned another presentation by our Assistant Prof. instructor Kamile Hamiloğlu on Thursday .I need to describe what systematic forgetting theory is and how it is related to English Language Teaching.Moreover I am expected to present an article related to the theme.Preparing the first part was easy (I have just finished doing it) but I don't know the article I found is directly relevant to the topic.Maybe I will change it tomorrow.
I will update this post soon!

I love blogging with blogger. God bless blogger:))

Friday, October 17, 2008

Research Methods-research questions?

Hi again,
It's getting harder and harder to follow the classes ,read the required books and articles ,write reflections and working at the same time.I think I should also get a multitasking ceritificate when I complete this MA program:)

Today I noticed I have only blogged about research methods so far. Maybe it is because the class is on Friday evenings and I can find time to blog only on Friday evenings.I will also blog about the other classes as well (when I find enough time:)

As I noted in my previous post, I was really well after the lesson I attended last week. However, after attending "Research Methods " class today I feel confused actually. As we had specified the research problems yesterday down we focussed on research questions.I was able to develop some questions but I don't think they will be enough for the research.It may be a good idea to change the problem or brainstorm all possible questions for each problem I indicated in the previous post.

I will post the topics and possible questions here in this blog to share them with my followers to get some feedback.I think it will be very dynamic process to write a research paper in this lesson.
I hope I can come up with good questions :)

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Research Methods -I love this class!

I really think this class will be helpful to me in many ways.There aren't too many students in the class so it is very reflective and practical.I think I learned a great deal from the last lesson.We focussed on what our theses titles will be and got feedback both from Professor Ozcan Demirel and classmates . Everyone knowing me can anticipate the area I want to focus on in my thesis.I really want CALL or WEB 2.0 to be the focus in my thesis.However,I just couldn't make the title clear in my mind and came up with these topics:
1)Developing Productive Skills in EFL Through e-tools
2)Changing Roles of English Learners in the twentyfirst Century
3)Teacher Development Through e-tools

I really need your feedback about the topics. Which one do you think is more logical to do some research. I will make the topic clear in my mind thanks to your feedback.

Beyza

Friday, October 10, 2008

Welcome to my baby blog:)

Welcome to my reflective MA blog,

I'm very happy to have added another blog to blogosphere! The reason why I will keep this blog is to reflect upon the things I learn in the classes I am taking and brainstorm some ideas for further studies.I hope you find it useful,reflective and inspirational.
Beyza