English Language Programs
English Access Summer Institute and Day Camp Program - June 2007
Ataturk High School, Ankara
The English Access Summer Institute and Day Camp Program for 2007 was held at Ataturk Lisesi in Ankara. Like the program in June 2006, the Summer Institute and Day Camp 2007 brought public school teachers and students together with those from various ECA-sponsored programs to support mutual understanding through English teaching and training. Twenty Turkish secondary school English teachers and 240 secondary school students joined together with English Language Specialists David Malatesta (from Chicago) and Dr. Myrtis Mixon (from San Francisco), four English Language Fellows based throughout Turkey (Mora Hockstein, Sakeena Ali, Kevin Mullen, and Laraine Altun), and various English native speaker volunteers during the period of June 18 – 29, 2007.
The Ministry of Education in Turkey and The Turkish-American Association played big roles in the program by identifying the teachers and students to participate in the program. In addition, the Ministry of Education provided the school at which the program took place at no cost. The principal of the school welcomed the program and visited the classrooms throughout the two weeks. He also attended the performance held on the last day and was taking photos.
As was the case last year, the goals of the program were multifold: to demonstrate interactive and engaging activities to the secondary school teachers for use in their English language classroom, to give the teachers an opportunity to teach their newly acquired techniques to the secondary school student participants, to expose students to extended fluency practice in English, to convey a wide range of American culture to all participants and provide contact and interaction with various Americans.
One special feature of 2007’s Summer program was the Learning English through Turkish and American Folktales book that was published just for the Access Summer Institute and Day Camp. The 20 stories (ten Turkish and ten American) were compiled by ELSpecialist Dr. Mixon prior to her visit to Turkey. Language exercises follow each story. In addition, there is an accompanying audio cd with each of the stories read aloud for further language practice. Dr. Mixon based her teacher training sessions on the book and the teachers were introduced to storytelling, drama, and role play using the folktales featured. Each participant of the camp received a copy of the book and it will likely be used as supplemental material at various Turkish-American Associations throughout Turkey.
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