21st Century Skills Training Course 2nd Week UPDATE

Hello everyone. Welcome back to my blog!

    It's been very hectic since the 2020-2021 Academic year started. I've been working, studying, and now taking a course for my professional development. I've given some information in my last post please check here if you like.

    This week, we focused on collaboration skills. We did two well-developed activities to neatly understand this skill. Firstly, we wrote a story by choosing 15 words from a picture in groups. It has been a long time since I've actually done in-class group work. We've used Linoit to share our stories. Then we discussed the group-work we did. Questions like "What is collaboration?" "How it's done?" "What are the roles of the members?" were raised to understand collaboration. We also did a second activity which was both challenging and fun. Again, in groups, we tried to find the murderer. It was a great information gap activity that can be done after the A2 level with all students. I'll definitely use this activity in my classrooms. Overall, the first part was very beneficial to learn how to improve collaborative skills in our classrooms. 

    In the second and last part of the lessons, we further discussed English as a global language phenomenon. English Language Teaching article by Galloway & Rose (2015) was our focus. Again in groups, we discussed certain questions on native speakers, new proposals for Global Englishes teaching, NS Teacher vs NNS Teachers, etc. It was beneficial to reflect on issues that we might face in our professional life as a teacher later. I also enjoyed interacting with my friends on these topics. Overall, talking about the English language had tremendous effects on my vision. I think all English teachers should know the current state and encourage their students to learn this language and contribute to world culture.