English Language Specialists in Turkey

To kick off the second week of the program, a picnic in the garden of the Ambassador’s Residence was arranged. The over 350 guests (the secondary school teachers, students and the students’ parents) ate typical picnic fare, tossed Frisbees on the lawn, and watched a performance by the Houston-based break dance group HaviKoro, on tour with American Voices.  In the second week of the program, June 26 – 30, 2006, the fifty English language teachers took turns leading activities such as songs, classroom games, videos, and outdoor competitions aimed at improving English language fluency.

One of the highlights of the week was the mural the students painted at the school which was chosen by the Turkish Ministry of Education to host the camp. Jennifer Janak artist from “All Americans” Art Residency Program facilitated the mural painting. English Language Fellows Jeela Bentley, Mora Hockstein, Claire Nice, and Maria Iskenderoglu also participated in the summer program. At the closing certificate ceremony both teachers and students expressed their interest in having the program last longer with such comments as “We would like to take part at a similar course again. Next year, next month, next week. Anytime!” and “It was too short, only five days. It’s not enough I think. I met new friends and teachers and speaking English with Americans was enjoyable.”

Participants of the English Access Summer Institute and Day Camp putting the final touches on the mural.	EL Specialist David Malatesta seen here talking with some of the participants of the English Access Summer Institute and Day Camp Program June 2006.

Spencer Salas
May 30 – June 10, 2006
Cankaya University, Ankara
Istanbul Technical Univesrity, Ankara
Turkish-American Association, Ankara

May 30 – June 10, 2006Cankaya University, AnkaraIstanbul Technical Univesrity, AnkaraTurkish-American Association, Ankara English Language Specialist Spencer Salas worked with over 145 educators on performance-based model for English language curricula both at the preparatory and service English level programs at Istanbul Technical University and Cankaya University in Ankara. Mr. Salas also presented the performance-based design to the Executive Director, the Academic Adviser, and 16 English instructors of Ankara’s Turkish-American Association (TAA). The goal of which is for TAA to be able to offer a package of English language instruction complete with course books and a professional in-service training model across their facilities as they expand throughout Turkey.
Results: Three institutions in Turkey adopted performance-based curricula to help instructors and students in their goal of teaching and learning English more effectively.

Leslie Opp-Beckman
May 1 – May 13, 2006-07-07
Middle East Technical University in Ankara
Cukurova University in Adana
Ministry of Education, Ankara
Turkish-American Association, Ankara

During May 1st to May 13th, 2006, Ms. Leslie Opp-Beckman, faculty member at the University of Oregon, worked with four institutions in Turkey to introduce the latest ELT web resources available to nearly 600 educators. Ms. Opp-Beckman delivered a plenary at a 9th annual international ELT conference in Ankara entitled “The Fusion of Theory and Practice”, gave a mix of hands on and demonstration style workshops to English language teachers at the conference, to secondary school teachers at the Ministry of Education, to university teachers in Adana,  as well as to a mixed group of teachers at the Turkish American Association in Ankara. Ms. Opp-Beckman also introduced a course management system to Ministry of Education employees who are working on delivering distance education courses throughout Turkey. At two venues, Ms. Opp-Beckman introduced the newest teacher training video being produced by the Office of English Language Programs in Washington entitled “Shaping the Way We Teach English: Successful Practices Around the World” for which she is a co-author. This product triggered much excitement as a means for in-service, pre-service, and distance education models.

Leslie Opp-Beckman clarifies a web-based
related concept to a group of English language
teachers at the Ministry of Education workshop.

English Language Specialist William Smalzer
working with a few of the Ministry of Education
textbook team members in Izmir February 2006.

Leslie Eble
January 23– Feburary 3, 2006

Mugla University & Anadolu University For two weeks from January 23 to February 3, 2006, English Language Specialist Leslie Eble and English Language Officer Maria Snarski visited with Mugla University and Anadolu University in Eskisehir to assist in revamping their prep school and ELT department testing procedures.  At Mugla University, Ms. Eble facilitated workshops that focused on how to align the current level descriptors in the English Language department to the Common European Framework (CEF). In combination with this new leveling, more than 70 teachers learned the basic principles of designing test items to reflect the goals and objectives of each level. At Anadolu University, more than 140 teachers participated in the five-day workshops addressing testing techniques for each skill area of language and began collaborating on how to design a new exit exam for their prep program which includes approximately 2000 students.

EL Specialist Leslie Eble gives examples of
techniques and principles for testing reading
to Anadolu University English Language
instructors February 1006.

Results:  More than 240 teachers reviewed basic principles of testing. They also learned about test item design and applied what they learned in the workshops to evaluate some of their own faculty produced tests. Both universities are more confident that the results of their tests will be more accurate.

Ted Rodgers
October 8, 2005
Turkish American Association, Ankara

On October 8th, Dr. Ted Rodgers of the University of Hawaii kicked off a series of Saturday Teacher Training sessions at the Turkish - American Association in Ankara with a four-hour workshop entitled "Content-Ed Curriculum: Where Do We Find It?" Forty in-service and pre-service teachers from the Ankara area attended. In addition, four in-service and twenty-five pre-service teachers from Bolu traveled three hours by bus to attend this session. The money collected from the entrance fee will benefit the 100 students of the ACCESS program in Ankara.

Results: Sixty-nine teachers and students took home ready-to-use information on content-based curriculum. Thanks to the drawing power of Dr. Rodgers, the Saturday Teacher Training sessions now have an audience that reaches beyond Ankara and into the provinces. Enough money was raised to purchase one month's worth of bus tickets for the Ankara English ACCESS program students.

English Language Specialist Dr. Ted Rodgers
works with teachers from Turkey on October
8th to demonstrate how science experiments
as content can be incorporated into the
classroom to learn English.

Janet Orr
May 23-27, 2005

Ataturk, Karadeniz Technical and Selcuk Universities English Language Specialist Janet Orr visited Konya, Trabzon, Erzurum, and Ankara during the week of May 23 - 27 to evaluate Turkey's ACCESS Microscholarship Program. Ms. Orr talked to over 100 Turkish ACCESS students, took part in the closing celebrations of the ACCESS micro-scholarship program in Turkey, and discussed program details with the English Language Fellows who teach the classes. She also attended a musical theater production, which the Turkish-American Association staged to raise funds for the ACCESS program. Over 400 attended a musical production of  "She Loves Me," which featured a stellar cast from the American Embassy and wider international community.

Results: Ms. Orr's visit will help the U.S. Department of State develop models for the ACCESS program which can be applied in other countries. Post benefited from her suggestions for improving next year's ACCESS program. The proceeds from the fund raiser will help pay for student transportation to classes and for extra teachers to handle the overwhelming demand for classes for underprivileged students.

Alison Mackey
April 27, 2005

Istanbul and Bogazici University Visiting specialist Alison Mackey, on sabbatical from Georgetown University's Department of Linguistics, conducted a seminar on task-based language teaching for 105 second-, third-, and fourth-year Istanbul University ELT students and ten instructors from Istanbul and Bogazici Universities on April 27th. She discussed the role of task type in facilitating second-language learning and emphasized appropriate, creative, and realistic ways to incorporate insights from research into classroom pedagogy.

Results: Students learned how current research in language-acquisition applies to their future student's learning, as well as their own. Four research assistants working on their PhDs are using Mackey's new textbook "Second Language Research: Methodology and Design" in their current research projects.

Susan Johnston
March 11, 2005
Cukurova English Preparatory School
in Adana

On March 11, Fulbright Professor Susan Johnston conducted a session on curriculum development for 50 English teachers at Cukurova English Preparatory School in Adana. Presenting curriculum development as a model for professional development, Dr. Johnston described the importance of articulating a professional philosophy statement, assessing professional needs and opportunities, setting professional goals, determining plans for action, and encouraging self- and other-feedback. Participants were introduced to the concept of change agency. There was considerable discussion relating to how individuals can develop themselves professionally, with or without administrative support, within a changing environment.

Results: The school’s mission statement and goals and objectives, drawn up a year ago, were reviewed, with suggestions for revisions to fit the new curriculum team. Participants were provided with tools for continuing professional development in the face of external changes, including an understanding of the dynamics of forces opposing and supporting change.

One key issue is how these centers, and others in Turkey, will differentiate themselves from typical U.S. university writing centers that target native English speaker undergraduates. Scholarship from U.S. writing centers is likely of only limited value since the needs of non-native speakers significantly differ from those of native speakers. Further, U.S. writing centers rarely work with professionals who must publish in English. Therefore, Turkish universities that have established writing centers are moving in a new, as yet unexplored, area of language instruction.

Workshops At Anadolu University my workshop on materials development focused on finding good reading texts and exploiting source texts for a variety of teaching goals. We discussed text topic choice, whose interests should be considered (teachers or students), and the desired qualities of a text to be used for a materials development project. At Middle East Technical University, I gave a mini-workshop on using a genre approach to teaching writing with a focus on problem-solution texts. The goal was to help teachers develop new ways of using texts to teach writing.

Presentations I gave formal presentations at Marmara University, Bogaziçi University, and Çukurova University. At Marmara University I spoke on teaching lower level academic writing, specifically how a series of graduated texts (from journalism to scholarly publications) can be used to teach intermediate academic writing. This talk was attended by over 50 students and teachers. At Bogaziçi University my presentation focused on conference abstracts as a promotional genre and emphasized the importance of selling one’s work. Well over 100, including both faculty and students, attended. The main part of my visit to Çukurova University centered on four two-hour presentations on writing for publication, which were open to all university faculty and were very well attended (nearly 200 per session). Faculty came from a range of disciplines from English Literature, to Biostatistics, to Medicine. The four sessions, covered conference abstracts, article introductions, discussion sections, and responses to manuscript reviews. Clearly, workshops focusing on academic writing for faculty are desirable and should be offered again in the future. I was the plenary speaker at the “Best Practices in Writing” conference, a national conference at Anadolu University attended by English language teachers from across the country. My first talk focused on teaching academic writing at the intermediate level. My second presentation on positioning and critical stance in academic writing, demonstrated how different academic genres can help writers understand the goals and strategies underlying evaluative commentary.

Mary Ann Christison
Adrian Palmer
January 2 – 14, 2005
Hacettepe University
Gazi University
Selcuk University
Karadeniz Technical University
Marmara University
Middle East Technical University

During the first two weeks of the new year (January 2-14) 14 ELT Specialists Mary Ann Christison and Adrian Palmer of the University of Utah conducted eleven sessions in seven universities and four cities for a combined audience of approximately 1,000 from approximately 20 different universities. In addition to conducting sessions on testing and various aspects of ELT methodology in Baskent University, Gazi University, Middle East Technical University (METU), and Hacettepe University in Ankara, Christison and Palmer were the featured speakers in three regional conferences organized by post at Selcuk University in Konya, Istanbul Technical University (ITU) in Istanbul, and Karadeniz Technical University in Trabzon. It was the first time any of these departments had organized a conference. Participants included faculty and students in English and ELT departments as well as Turkey’s English Language Fellows. In the Trabzon conference participants came from cities in the eastern part of Turkey such as Giresun, Ordu, Rize, and Erzurum.

Results: As a result of the ITU conference, teacher trainers from more than 10 universities agreed to start a discussion group and web page to coordinate activities in Istanbul. The universities also volunteered to organize follow-up conferences in the spring. During the all-day session on testing at METU, the testing committee discussed changing the way they grade written examinations, using the format Palmer presented. The sessions at the Trabzon conference were filmed and will be shown to participants as a review and to new hires for training purposes. The conferences in Konya and Trabzon brought teachers together from different departments, institutions, and levels, and encouraged the universities to organize similar regional events in the future. The English Language Fellows got experience both organizing academic conferences and giving presentations.

Jan M Frodesen
July 12 – 23, 2004
Bogaziçi University , Istanbul

At the Summer Institute on Academic Writing, I presented three plenaries, two workshops and a mini-course on topics concerned with research writing and the development of academic language skills. In planning the institute, Tom Miller, our RELO, my colleagues Ann Johns and Bill Snyder and I identified several primary goals: To present recent research and pedagogy on academic writing, to offer strategies for effectively completing research writing tasks and to help participants revise manuscripts for publication. To achieve this last goal, we worked one-on-one in writing conferences with our Turkish colleagues, which turned out to be one of the most rewarding activities.

Two of my plenaries concerned stages of research writing: beginning the literature review and selecting appropriate methods to answer research questions. In these talks I focused on the complex rhetorical tasks and multiple purposes involved in literature reviews, strategies for critical reading, the important role of methodology in shaping research, and various theoretical, practical and ethical considerations that influence selecting methods and creating research designs. In the third plenary, I discussed the need to go beyond ESL textbook and website guidelines in teaching the academic writing tasks of summary and paraphrase. Workshops and the mini-course supported plenary topics, with a focus on structuring and evaluating literature reviews, practicing strategies and tasks for teaching paraphrasing skills and creating cohesion in written discourse.

As might be expected, the 45 participants had varying goals for attending the institute, with some more interested in revising work for publication and others in current approaches to teaching academic writing. Of the topics I presented, the literature review was of greatest concern and interest. This topic received much emphasis during the institute overall, especially regarding organization and creating links among studies reviewed to show relevance to research questions. All in all, we were pleased with the positive responses of participants toward all the topics. I think the areas we worked on will be helpful for revising academic writing courses/curricula in Turkish universities, for training new teachers, and for revising research reports for publication.

As a teacher of graduate writing for international students for many years, I have often worked with Turkish students; however, this was my first trip to Turkey. I was impressed with the English proficiency of many who participated in the Institute, and I enjoyed the presentations by our Turkish colleagues. I learned much about the teaching of writing in Turkish schools and about issues related to the roles of international English in Turkey.

For assistance before and during the institute, I am grateful to the Bogaziçi University Summer Institute Staff, to ELSP Officer Julia Walters and RELO Assistant Aycan Yaman. I also appreciate the wonderfully collaborative experience of working with RELO Tom Miller, and colleagues Ann Johns and Bill Snyder. The success of our program depended much on our ongoing assessment and revision of lectures, courses and workshops in response to feedback from participants.