Culture in EFL/ESL

Hi all,

I've read many articles on culture, teaching culture and promoting cultural awareness, joined the class discussions on culture for more than a month. When I first started reading about this broad topic, I was really puzzled as there are many factors involved whenever culture is considered. It is still not clear in my mind but I can definitely say that at least I could frame the concept in my mind. That's not a great start but it's a start anyway.

We have read some articles on this broad topic and I think these articles at least provided us with different perspectives on culture and teaching culture. Some of the most significant aspects I realized in this process are:

1-It is very difficult to make a clear definition of culture.

2-There are different ideas about whether or not to teach culture. While some state that language can be seperated from culture, others claim that language can not be isolated from culture and therefore it is necessary to teach culture.

3-Teaching culture requires a great deal of teacher awareness.With this awareness EFL teachers can be selective about the class materials and create and adapt their own materials.

4-It is extremely necessary to create an intercultural awareness in the twenty first century as the world is getting more and more global thanks to the technological developments.

These are my highlights of the previous weeks. However, I still need innovative, extraordinary ideas to integrate culture to EFL/ESL settings.

What about you, my dear readers? How do you present and integrate culture to your own classroom settings?

Best,

a new semester in a different university

Time flies!

Classes have already started. I can't believe how time passed so fast. 3 months ago I was wondering whether it would be possible for me to have the chance to be a graduate student of Middle East Technical University(METU)and now I am a student of this lovely institution for almost three weeks.

This semester, I am only able to take one class called "Cultural Aspects of Language Teaching" because of my workload and the distance between Istanbul and Ankara. Having to travel really doesn't bother me as I am really happy with the quality of the lectures.

My adivisor Assistant Prof. Dr. Betil Eröz has been helpful. As I was a graduate student last year in a different institution, I took some courses which are also included in the Master's program of METU. Therefore, I asked her whether I could be exempted from some of these courses or not. She provided me with the names of the professors to consult immediately. When I contacted and sent my assignments to them they, sent me notifications to inform me that I was exempted from two courses. :)This means I have to take only five courses and write a thesis in order to graduate.

I will try to write weekly reflections about the course I am taking if I have the chance to multitask.

Changes

Hello,

I am so glad to announce that there have been some changes in my MA studies. From now on I am going to do my MA in Middle East Technical University in TEFL. I will share my reflections as soon as the classes start.

B.

New Term- New Responsibilities and Insights

Hi all,

Time has passed so quickly ! I remember when I first started the MA program and now I am nearly in the middle of the second term!

I am taking two classes this term because of my overloaded programme at work. I feel better as I have time to focus on other things rather than the programme. The classes I am taking this week are:
TEFL Theory Into Practice ( in which I will be observed, observe the others and reflect upon my practices , do some classroom research and keep them in a portfolio, probably online.)
Language Testing ( based on CFR principles)

I will be observed by the course tutor next week. I have already made my plan but I need to go over it a little bit.

I hope to be more productive in this semester

Wish me luck

My feelings after finishing my article on my wiki use and motivation

My dear readers,

I have just finished my article on my particular wiki use and learner motivation. As you can guess, I am extremely relieved after going over all processes of research starting from finding a topic and ending with discussing the result and writing implications for further research.

I am extremely grateful to these people below as they really helped me in the process of my research in many different ways.

1-My family (for their endless support)
2-Assistant Professor Kamile Hamiloglu (for her assistance throughout the research and giving me the opportunity to write my first article to be published)
3-Vance Stevens ( for helping me to narrow my research problem down)
4-Cristina Costa (for helping me to reconsider my research questions)
5--Sedat Akayoğlu (for providing me with feedback and ideas on my research)
6--Vanessa Vaile (for giving me alternative ideas on how to use wiki and taking part in the wiki activities of the class I conducted my study on)
7- My classmates in my MA classes (for their support and assistance)
8- My students (for accepting to take part in this research)

Thanks to this study I am now more aware of the fact that conducting a research is a really tough process and I now respect people who conducted such studies more .

I hope to replicate it and conduct another one soon again on CMC and language learning.

B.

my article-difficulties

Hi again,
I have been struggling to make a blog post for so long and finally I could find time to write one! It is almost the end of the first semester and I only had a final. The other two classes I take require me to prepare assignments taking a lot of time but helpful in terms of learning how to conduct a research and they are also urging me to read more.
Having a lot of responsibilities like teaching 2o hours, co-moderating an online workshop and teaching voluntarily, I usually find myself rushing from one task to another quite fast.I think I am improving my multitasking ability in that way! :))

I got my first feedback on the introduction, literature review of my article. Most of it was about my use of APA style in the paper. As my topic is motivation and my pbwiki use I really stuggled to summarize all the resources and studies I found and relate them to instructional design. I finished the second draft yesterday and submitted it. I hope I did it right this time. As it is my first article, I think Ilearn from my own mistakes .

I also received feedback on themethod part of my study. I need to make the tables more detailed .I also need to analyze them more in detail. (question by question). As thereare 13 questions in the survey I conducted, I think it will take longer than expected for me to report and analyse the data.

There are still some questions in my mind about how to use content analysis in order to discuss the results of the study. The lecturer advised me to use pattern coding and I guess it requires me to look at some particular phrases and words the interviewees used using pattern coding. I will learn by doing for sure! Sleepless night are waiting for me again.I am really in need of ideas in order to anlayze and interpret the interviews.

Hoping to learn more through interaction.

Beyza

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?