Melike's ELT Blog⭐️

(use web version for exact blog theme, mobile version is default) Welcome! I'm Melike, a student of English Language Teaching at Marmara University. My blog is for practical tips and resources for educators while exploring the creative side of teaching. Join me as we enter the joyful world of English language teaching together.

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Reflections on the Course

This course was really engaging, especially with the use of AI tools. It made learning more efficient and interactive. However, group work was too much and I wish some tasks were individual. Not getting feedback on any tasks was a bit meaningless, peer feedback wasn't enough in my opinion. My favorite task was the AR/VR task because it required some creativity. It helped me improve my writing in real-time, which was super satisfying.

Suggestions: I think group work should be minimized, we will prepare these materials individually while teaching, so practicing and getting feedback individually would be great.

Advice for Next Year’s Students: STAY STRONG

This course has definitely helped me learn a lot. Even though it was though, I know for sure that I learned A LOT and I will use everything in the future.

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AI-Integrated EFL Teaching Material

For this task, we created a lesson that integrates AI tools to enhance EFL prep students' writing skills.

Pre-task: Students brainstormed ideas for writing about their favorite place, focusing on sensory details.

Target Task: They wrote a paragraph and used ChatGPT to get feedback. After receiving suggestions on grammar and vocabulary, students revised their work.

Post-task: Students reflected on the AI feedback, answering questions like “What did you like about the feedback?” and “How did it improve your writing?”

This task showcased how AI tools can enhance learning by providing instant, personalized feedback.

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A Virtual Trip to Copenhagen

AR and VR are game-changers for language learning. AR adds digital elements to the real world, while VR takes you to a whole new reality. They’re super exciting because they make lessons interactive and fun, but they’re not without their challenges (hello, tech issues and device struggles!).

For our project, İlayda, Gökçe Azra and I created a worksheet, a virtual trip to Copenhagen! Using a QR code, students can dive into a 360-degree experience. We included two stunning landscapes, a museum visit, and even a chance to explore traditional Danish food. We asked students to create their own “Copenhagen Bucket List” at the end of the activity.

We had some issues, especially when embedding the 360-degree videos. We added QR codes.

We used Youtube for the 360 videos and Canva to design the worksheet Looking ahead, I can totally see AR and VR becoming a regular part of language lessons. They make learning way more immersive. Who wouldn’t want to virtually travel the world from their classroom?

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Making Vocabulary Fun with the Flipped Classroom

Hey there again! ✮ ⋆｡°✩

The flipped classroom is a teaching method where students explore content by watching videos before class. This way, class time is used for practice and discussions. I think it is super flexible for both students and teachers. Students can learn at their own speed, and teacher can save time. But some learners might have trouble with staying motivated or managing their time, especially if they are not very good at individual learning.

For our project, Gökçe Azra, İlayda and I created a vocabulary video about illnesses on Canva. We thought storytelling would make it engaging and easy to remember, also very fun for a 5th grade learner. First, we picked our vocabulary and wrote a script. Then, we designed an animated video and included our voices. We tried syncing visuals with audio and after that we added subtitles. To make it clear and learner-friendly, we followed Mayer’s Principles.

The process was fun but a little bit challenging. Recording flawless audio took multiple attempts, and syncing it with the visuals was a bit tricky. We solved this by splitting tasks. I did the video, Gökçe Azra wrote the script and İlayda handled Wordwall material but each part of our project was a teamwork for sure, we brainstormed and helped each other.

For an interactive twist, we created a Wordwall activity based on our vocabulary and added a QR code linking to it at the end of the video. Canva was amazing for creating visuals (check it out here), and Wordwall made designing activities easy (visit here).

After all, this project showed how creative, effective and enjoyable the flipped classroom approach can be for vocabulary teaching. I hope our video inspires others to give it a try! See you on my next post 💗

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Corpus-based Teaching

Hi there!! 

And welcome again 🎀

For my Current Issues class, we were assigned to design a corpus-based teaching material along with a lesson plan based on the ASSURE model. We were a group of three. First things first, we decided to which subject we wanted to design with my friends Gökçe Azra and İlayda. We chose the “Subject or object pronoun” subject from MEBs book for prep students. After that, we created a cooperative Canva work for our material and started with a task which questions student’s pre knowledge about subject. Then we explained the use of COCA for the given subject, we created a COCA task which requires students to write their corpus findings.

We designed discovery tasks to help them find the rule, and after that one practice and one multiple choice task for them to use and reinforce the rules they find. Then we wrote a lesson plan based on ASSURE model.

I definitely think our material is ready for in-class use, it is visually appealing and fun to practice. But not all students may have access to devices or internet connection in the classroom, which may make it hard to do corpus-based tasks. Discovery-based tasks and cooperative activities may take longer than expected. And I think some students may find corpus tools uninteresting, refuse to participate.

Personally, this assignment was a little bit challenging for me because it took a long time and there were so many details to consider. Hope you like it!! 🩷

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Introduction Post

Hellooo and welcome again ⭐️

I thought that previous post was the last one but luckly i could use this blog again for Current Issues course. Here I am again with a new introduction post!!! 

I’m taking this course where we learn how technology has become essential in English teaching. And guess what? I get to share my thoughts and observations with you right here. 

In this course, we’ll be diving into how we can use tech in language teaching, creating lesson plans, and exploring fun tools like AI and virtual reality. Don’t you worry, I won’t post boring study notes, ofc there’ll be fun stuff.

So stick around, let’s get through this journey together! See you soon on my new post.

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🥹 The Final Post 🥹

Hey… Sadly, this is my last post on this blog.

As the term ends,i noticed how my thoughts on technology in ELT have changed. Before this course, i thought technology was just a tool, like Excel and Word. Now, i see it as an important part of teaching that can really entegrate with education, rather than just an extra tool it improves and works well with the learning process. This course showed me technology can make learning more interactive and fun. For example, using infographics as a learning tool is not just fun but very effective for students with high visual memory. And i think i will use a lot of infographics for my future students. It is not only effective but also appealing and captivating, you can aesthetically create many different kinds of content, and be creative as much as you like.  As you can tell my favorite task was creating an infographic. It was fun to be creative and think about how to present information visually. The task I liked the least was digital storytelling. It felt more like a tech tutorial than an engaging learning experience, but it was still useful. And i like to work independently rather than working with a pair. And for making the course better, i think we should have more projects where we design lessons with technology together. This would help us learn and see different ways to use technology in teaching.

Overall, this course changed how I see technology in ELT. It’s not just an add-on; it’s a powerful tool that can make learning more dynamic and entegrated. I’m excited to use what i have learned to create better and creative lessons for my students. 

Hope you enjoyed reading my post and blog overall. :) 💖 

PS: If you are using the mobile version, I suggest you to switch to web version because Tumblr has a default theme for mobile viewing, you will see my theme on web version.

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Chat with Aphrodite

Heyy!!

For my class, i had task of using an AI tool called Magicschool to interview a fictional character. I chose Aphrodite, the goddess of love, for a fun twist. The AI made our conversation feel real. After the interview, I got a transcript and used Google Docs to organize it. Reading it back was fascinating! You can click here for the transcript of the interview.

I then wrote a report about my interview and sent it back to Magicschool for feedback. The AI’s suggestions helped me improve my writing, making it feel like I had a personal tutor. You can click here for my first draft, report, feedback and revised report.

Using AI in education is a game changer. It makes learning interactive and fun, like my chat with Aphrodite. AI provides instant feedback, helping students learn and improve quickly. It’s great for practicing language, offering real time corrections and conversations. AI in language learning has many good sides. Immediate feedback helps learners correct mistakes and improve faster. But, AI can sometimes make errors or miss context, so it’s important to use it alongside traditional teaching methods. Real teachers are still soooo important! My experience with AI was fantastic. It showed how technology can make learning more engaging and personalized. While there are challenges, the benefits of using AI in education are clear. I’m excited to see how AI continues to transform learning!

Next post is going to be the last. See you 💖

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Collaborative Writing with Google Docs

Hey there!! Today, I want to tell you about collaborative writing project i did with my classmates Elif and Aslı. You can check out their blogs here: Aslı's journey, It's Eliff

Our assignment was to write a film review with Google Docs first, then comment another groups review. We had to work together on every part, from coming up with ideas to fixing mistakes.

Working with my friends was easy, useful and fun. Even though we live away from each other, we all were able to write on the same document at the same time using Google Docs.

What i liked most about Google Docs was how easy it made it to work together. We could leave comments for each other to give feedback or ask questions. And if someone made a mistake, we could fix it right away without any problems.

Overall, Google Docs was super helpful for our project. It made working together so enjoyable and effortless, and it really made us feel like a team. I'm really glad we used it.

Now, let me show you screenshots of our review with comments from my friends:

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My Digital Storytelling Experience

Hey there!! I want to share my digital story making adventure. It was a great experience and I really had fun making it. The assignment required at 2-3 people and we were a group of 2. First things first my pair Bahar and I decided the project we were going to make. We chose “How to” one at first but it was a little bit lack of creativity, and we ended up with a fictional story.

We shared our thoughts and ideas. Space related stories seemed interesting for both of us so we brainstormed some fictions about space and scifi stuff. Bahar said she watched a cartoon about Pluto and she thought that it was catchy. Deciding the subject and outline of fiction, we started to write the script. Writing part wasn’t that hard because we already talked about the outlines. After we finish writing, we chose which scenes we want to create panel, and how many panels we want to create. And after that we created our story panels on pixton. Pixton was easy and useful, it gave us no hard time. In terms of facial expression , actions and backgrounds, Pixton is very numerous options. We were having doubts about scifi fiction, we weren’t so sure if we could find appropriate background and stuff but Pixton didn’t disappointed us. We created our story visually, the last part was to record our voices. We recorded it 3-4 times, it wasn’t that bad. After recording I integrated our visual story and voice record on iMovie. My pair Bahar uploaded our digital story on Youtube. Here’s Great Danger Coming to the World: Pluto!!!

I hope you enjoy. See you in my next post 💖✨

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My Journey on Completing a Podcast

Hey there!!! It was a journey with ups and downs. First, figuring out what to talk about was hard, i wanted to be creative. I spent a while thinking, trying to come up with a good idea. I wanted to talk about something related to ELT. I decided on talking about AI teaching helpers. Then I started to write the script. It took some thinking and researching to get the script the way I wanted. But I enjoyed looking into the topic and organizing my thoughts. Recording the podcast had its compulsive moments. I recorded it around 3-4 times. But overall, it was fun to share my ideas.

Throughout the whole process, I had a mix of feelings. There were times when I felt pumped up, especially when things were going just the way I wanted. But there were also moments of stress, especially when I had to record 3-4 times.

I'd definitely consider giving a similar task to my students. It's a great way for us to get creative, think critically, and learn about something we are interested in. Plus, it helps us to get comfortable with technology and sharing our ideas. Sure there were challenges and it took some time but it was totally worth it.

Hope you enjoy it, see you in my next post.

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Let's create an infograph together! ✨

Hey there!! For my ICT and Material Design class, I was assigned to create an infograph about ethical and legal issues in technology use.

Plagiarism, copyright and fair use, security and privacy, netiquette and cyberbullying were my options, and I chose netiquette because it seemed more interesting and important. Especially in Turkey, I observed that the 15-20 age range is not aware of the ethical rules on the internet and violates them a lot. Infographics are ideal for giving information in a short and easy way, so I thought an infographic on this subject would work well.

Since my will and motivation was to inform people, I chose to create an informative infographic. I am familiar with Canva so I preferred it. First thing I did was to write down things I want to mention. I explained what netiquette means basically, and listed 5 key points. Those were the things I consider the most. Blue tones gives me wise and informing vibes, so I went for shades of blue. I wanted to use basic symbols and chose a simple but appealing font, nothing too fancy.

I did not encounter anything disturbing, I think Canva is pretty helpful for infographics. And I will definitely use infographic when I start to teach, it enables to sum things up and with visual stuff, helps us to remember anything.

REFERENCE

Duran, M. (2022) Legal and Ethical Issues in Educational Technology, from Learning Technologies, Research, Trends, and Issues in the US Education System

This is my infographic about netiquette. I hope you like it.

Thank you for reading. See you in my next post! ✨💖

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Modern Learning

Hi there!

We can easily say that education is changing fast these days. My topic for this post is, as you can see from the title, 21st Century Learning. One of the outstanding things about 21 Century Learning is technology. It really does have a huge impact. Actually we can say that technology and 21st century learning kinda evaluates at the same level. Thanks to technology our resources for learning and materials have become more accessible and advanced. Through advanced technology in 21st century , our opportunities for teaching and learning has improved. Even though the improvement of teachnology is useful for learning, it requires some skills. One of this requirements is that digital immigrants, who were not born in the age of technology, should try to keep up with digital natives. That is why teachers and students should work together and adapt to changes easily. And for language learning, I think 21st century is the best time. We can easily access to people from other countries. It is easy to learn and practice a language by speaking with a native speaker. It is also possible to access news, shows and other cultural resources from different countries with the help of internet. These are the most effective years for language learners in my opinion. All of these opportunities enable 21st century learners and teachers to learn and teach far too much easily.

That was all i wanted to say. Thank you for reading , see you on my next post 💖

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Welcome to my ELT blog!

Whether you're a experienced English learner or just starting your journey, I'm glad to have you here. Get ready to enjoy the English language together. In this blog, I will share a lot about learning English through technology and how to make it fun, easy plus enjoyable. Hope you have fun and learn at the same time!

PS: If you are using the mobile version, I suggest you to switch to web version because Tumblr has a default theme for mobile viewing, you will see my theme on web version.