peer evaluations

1) melike: http://nizso.blogspot.com.tr/2016/01/reflection-task-1a-hello-myname-is.html#comment-form

2)samed: http://samedcelik.blogspot.com/2016/01/reflection-task-1a.html?showComment=1454004055175#c7010860768188368037

3)hayriye: http://hayriyekanli.blogspot.com/2016/01/reflection-task-2a.html?showComment=1454006875808#c7040546029788645221

reflection task 3

If I would be a jury member of the committee choosing the person of the year, Ahmet Naç, a Turkish primary school teacher, would be my candidate. Maybe it’s an interesting choice, but once you hear my ideas about him, you will think I am right. Firstly, I want to talk about what he did. He is just an ordinary primary school teacher. He has an ordinary class and students. However, he is not satisfied with the physical situation of the class and someday he decides to change it. He creates a completely different class for a better education environment. After that day, the students start to enjoy the lessons more. It is an important news for me as I really don’t like the schools, classes, teachers and education system in Turkey. Students aren’t provided with a good education environment. I think it’s a big problem because boredom brings failure and bad grades. Students should enjoy the lessons to be successful. It is one of the main differences between Europe and Turkey. The combination of such things makes worse and worse the education in Turkey each day. The government doesn’t do much about it, so some sensible teachers handle this issue individually. In the future, I will be a teacher, too. I will have students who will form the future of the country. Now, I can see what is wrong with our education and I will make an effort to make it better. I will make my lessons more enjoyable. In other words, I will provide my students with suitable conditions for learning. In this manner, Ahmet Naç is a good example for the other teachers or the future’s teachers. I really appreciate him, and I think he deserves more. I hope other teachers takes their duties serious just like him. Here are some photographs of his class:

reflection task 1a

Hello METU Gastronomi Club! My name is Gamze Nur Çetin from Foreign Language Education department. I am a license program student at METU. Almost everyone loves eating, but cooking is a desire for me as well as eating. Cooking is one of the most relaxing and enjoyable things for me. Especially in summer, I spend most of my time cooking something in the kitchen. I always try to find new recipes and when I found a new one, I usually end up trying to making it in the kitchen. I think I am talented at bakery. Maybe one day I will do it professionally, so I want to improve my skills and be better at this. To do this, I need a professional aid which I can trust. For two years, I have followed your work.You are doing great things. Your events are really attractive, so and I want to be part of you. I believe if I accepted to your club, I will not only improve my skills but also I will have great times. I want to be in your beautiful club with my whole heart. I can conrtibute to this club with my skills and desire to do new things. Here are some photos of my amateur work from my kitchen. I hope you like them and accept me to the club. Even if I am not accepted, I will support you. Just keep doing great things. I will follow your work as much as possible. Good luck for all J

Free Reflection Task 3

Six Tips for Taking Control of Your Emotional Health by transitionyear.org

  Our emotinal health may be affected by some choices we make during the day and the article handles this and gives us some advices that we can use to be emotionally healthier.

  This article has many benefits that assist me over making myself be healthier mentally. The first advantage of the article is that it made me realize that our choices have bad effects on our emotional health. We, teenagers, live our lives in a wrong way. We enjoy the life eating fast food instead of vegetables, drink alcohol and soda instead of water, watch movies at night instead of getting sleep.These habits seems innocent, but they are absolutely not. They have realy bad effects on our daily life. Beacuse of them we can’t think or act properly, so avoiding from them is the right thing. Secondly, the article showed me that I can be healthier both physically and emotinally with some differences in my life. I’m a lazy person so I’m not active in daily life but thanks to the article, I realize that staying active feels me better.When I go to gym or just walk in the campus, I get discharged and can concantrate on things easily, so I completely agree with the author about the point that being active positively affects emotional health.The last advantage is that the article gives such useful advices that I can assist people around me with them. The article is very clear and easy to understand and the author’s tecnique is really good. Now, I feel well-informed about emotional health so I think I can share my knowledge with my friends and can give them advices when they need. To summarize, although our emotional health is affected by many things, it’s in our hands to make it better. After reading the article, we see that it’s not hard to do it and it takes just little differences in our daily lives so the article is really beneficial for us if we take the tips given by the author and practise them.

Free Reflection Task 2

Adjusting to college

The article ‘Adjusting to college’, written by the Counselling Centre of Illinois, handles some transitions, changes and that students encounter and how to overcome them while adjusting to college.

The article is really well-prepared in different ways. First of all, its language is very clear. Actually, I don’t like this type of articles as they make me get bored. However, I really enjoyed reading it. The author clearly explains what he wants to tell us. What I mean is that he explains himself briefly with an appropriate language. Moreover, he gives very useful suggestions for those who are new-comers. Being in a new environment can be very challenging especially if you are a shy person. Actually, I was lucky since I had friends when starting the college life since I had friends. I thought it would be harder for me without them. However, the author shows us that it is not such a big deal giving some tips like ‘get involved’ or ‘connect with the other students’ about how to overcome the hardships related to the period of adjusting to college life. Lastly, the author analyses and understands the psychology of the students. I, as a student, always complain that no one understand the thoughts and feelings of students. However, the author is like a friend who realizes our situation and gives suggestion. I think every student should read this article before starting a college and getting new friends. To sum up, it’s a very good article in terms of its language and contents.

Free reflection task 1

Why Instilling A Love Of School Should Be Your Highest Priority?

  In this article, the author tells us the importance of instilling a love of school to the student and explains why teachers should do it.

  There are three points that I agree with the author of the article. The first point is that teacher should make their students enjoy being in their classrooms. I think that students’ interest towards a lesson is so important in terms of success in the lesson and relationship between the teacher and the student. For example, when I enjoy a lesson, I can fallow better what is going on, I like the teacher more and I get good grades from the lesson. The second point is that instilling a love for school affects and changes students like nothing else can or ever will. Today, we can see that schools are like homes for the students since they spend most of time in the schools. I think that to love the school, in other words students’ homes, the most important thing for the children’s behaviours, habits and success. Only if you love the environment you live you can change in a good way and you can stay away from bad behaviours and habits, I believe. The third point is that when boredom and dissatisfaction take root in the classroom, the students will create their own enjoyment. In my opinion, teacher should amuse students during the class as much as possible because based on my observations I can say that when students get bored, their interest on the lesson reduces and they enjoy themselves in other ways. During my education years, I also have done the same thing with my friends and I am aware that when I am a teacher, I will avoid boredom in my class. To sum up, the author explains why teachers should make love the lesson and gives courage to teacher about it with a clear language and a good tecnique.

reflection task 2b

7 Ways to Develop Good Habits in Language Learning

 This article’s writer Sam writes a blog on language learning entitled lingholic. He is an active language learner and he has written dozens of articles on language learning. In this article, he gives us a few tips to develop good habits in language learning.

  The article has many benefits that assist me over learning a new language. The first advantage of the article is that it contains really beneficial and useful learning hacks. In my opinion, learning a new language is like a journey which sould be enjoyed. What I mean is that it makes us get familiar with the culture and the country of the target language. This journey develops us in many aspects, yet we need a compass when doing this and this article is a good helper and I will use it in my Deutch courses which is hard for me. Secondly, it made me realize that learning a new language is not a big challenge, however most of us do not know the method. When we start to learn a new language, we feel excited and nervous since we see it like a mountain hard to go over. Actually now, after reading it, I see that if we take the advice given in the article and practice them in our language learning process, it is even easy. Since the author’s language is very clear and the article is very useful, I say if only I read the article before I started to learn English. Finally, the article taught me such good things about how to make language learning easier that I can assist people around me, too. The author is also an active language learner  and the advices are his own experiences. Thanks to him, I see that what I’m doing wrong and what I should do to have a better learning process and I can convey my knowledge to my friends who are trying to learn a new language. To sum up, I have learned several things about language learning from the article and I think everyone who is learning a language should read this article.

reflection task 2a

Jenna McCarthy: ‘What you don’t know about marriage’ by TED.com

 There are three points that I agree with the speaker about marriage and couples’ relationship. The first point I agree with the speaker is that in the happiest marriages, the wife is thinner and better looking than the husband. People want partners who are well-dressed and well-cared for their appearences, but unfortunately this is not enough. I think that in a relationship or marriage, the man shouldn’t be thinner or shorter than his partner since a woman wants her partner to be a shelter and to give the feeling of safety and a man wants to make his partner feel comfortable, and it seems  that it’s possible with the difference on the appearance between the two. Secondly, she says the more willing a husband is to do house work, the more attractive his wife will find him and I completely agree with her. Today, women have more burdens on their shoulders than ever. In addition to house work and children care, being active in work fields have brougt them new responsibilities. Because of all these responsibilities, women cannot pay enough attention to their husbands and as a result of this, husbands attempt to find new excitements, I believe. However, when a husband helps his wife with the house work or just takes care of the children, the woman feels grateful to her husband, sees that he is thougtful and helpful, her attitude towards him changes and thanks to it, the bond between them strengtens. We can see it’s examples around us. Finally, the third point I agree with her is that drinking alcohol has a bad effect on the marriage. In my opinion, knowing your limits, especially in a relationship, is very important. Drinking in moderation does not cause any problems, of course. However, overdrinking brings the relations to the end. One of my relatives experienced it and all of the family members were badly affected, so I can say that overdrinking is one of the worst things that a marriage could experience. To sum up, she draws attention to a few points about marriage  that most of the couples have experienced, gives some useful information based on her observations and some research studies in a humorous way and I agree with her thoughts.