DAY 1 Barca, Catalonia

Me & Barca :p

I’m happy to be in Barcelona (after a cancelled flight and another one delayed because of the heavy snow in Istanbul). I feel like an author or a journalist writing on a journey during that journey:) I have always wanted to do that and here I am:)One of my colleagues and I will present an article we wrote at the 4th World Conference on Educational Sciences. It wil take place in Barcelona University.  It’ll be interesting and of course challenging to continue running at the blog marathon here in Spain, but I’m so excited. Tomorrow is the first day of the conference. The opening will be huge as far as I guess. There will be hundreds of academicians from different countries. I will try to share things about the plenary speeches and workshop sessions I attended. I may not be so active in reading and commenting, but I will do my best

DAY 2 ‘Hola’ from Spain

Me, just before my presentation at Barcelona University

We all like to attend conferences and enjoy being a part of the audience while we are watching our favourite course book author or a world famous presenter and digesting the concurrent sessions. There are of course other sweet things like seeing ex colleagues, meeting new ones, stopping by the book stands, munching the cookies and biscuits and looking forward to raffle time to get a prize.What about being there as a “presenter”? If you have never attended a conference or a seminar as a presenter, it is time to take a step. I know that some people do not like to be on the stage, but if you have a little bird twitting in your heart and telling you to do so, it is not difficult to reach your aim.

Here are some suggestions from me:

-    Decide on the type of the conference you would like to attend. An ELT conference or any other one such as Educational Sciences, Social Sciences etc.

-    Start with baby steps and try a local one, then you can go on with the international ones.

-     Try to be unique in some part of your presentation, so people will not forget you. -     Follow and watch the presenters and trainers, but never try to act like one of them.

-    Never think that your ideas are not valuable.

-    You can enlighten the way of (a) colleague(s) with your experiences.

-    Believe in yourself. The door of the courage is already in your heart, waiting to be opened.

Buena Suerte (Good Luck in Spanish:)

DAY 3 Tapa Tapa

Happy and relieved after I ate up my 'tapas':)

After people heard that I was going to Spain, they suggested me to eat “tapas”. When I first heard about it, I thought it was a specific dish with some kind of sauce. I don’t know why, but the sauce was visualized in my mind as a green smoothie. (human mind is strange, esp. mine:))) I don’t like reading or searching about a place before I visit it (the same strange mind again:))), so tonight I tasted my first “tapas” and understood what it really is. (actually it was more than one )“tapas” is a dish of different kinds of snacks and appetizers. You have the chance to get a small or big dish, but I preferred the small ones to taste more of them at the same time. Yummy! They were delicious. Now, I’m back to my hotel room and reflecting about my day to decide on the post of the day. What I just realized is the similarities between “tapas” and English lessons. A good lesson should include bits of pieces (as different tapas dishes) to keep the attention. Imagine yourself in a lesson working on the same type of activity using the same skills or having different type of activities appealing to different skills. Which one would make you feel better? Would you prefer a cauldron of beans to be eaten without any pauses or little dishes of “tapa” (food) with a wide variety of food to be enjoyed:)

P.S: Thanks to Turgut Turunc, my colleague, for suggesting me (at the dinner) to write about “tapas” for today’s post though it was a bit challenging for me to connect it with English lessons:)

DAY 4 The Soul of the Flamenco Dance

A shot from the awesome Flamenco Dance Show

Tonight, we were at ”El de Tabloa Carmen”. It was a tremendous dance performance. Watching a live Flamenco dance show left me breathless though I was not one of the dancers:)) I admired the performers who were in such a great harmony. Their handclaps and steps were increasing the speed of the dancers’ movements in some parts and slowing down in other times.  A story seemed to be hidden behind each dancer’s own mimes and gestures. Imagining a Flamenco dance show as an English lesson, I would probably be the handclaps and steps and my students would be the dancers adjusting their movements according to my actions.What about you? What part of the dance show would you be as an English teacher?Hope you can catch the soul of the Flamenco dance in your English classrooms:))

DAY 5 ‘Woke up’ in Spain and ‘Slept’ in Turkey:)

Me and my dear colleague Turgut Turunc (Thanks to him for making this 'conference' journey so special) - We are posing with the 'dragon fruit' before tasting it:)

I woke up in Spain and slept in Turkey yesterday. The world conference is over and I’m back to my home sweet home.Luckily it was my half day today and I woke up late. Today was the beginning of the second module at the university I am working. I was so excited like a little child. Although I’ve been teaching for fourteen years, I always have this feeling before I start a new term at school.  Teaching at a university preparatory class is a bit different. You do not teach the same classes for the whole year. There are 3 modules and in each module your classes change. The first module takes 17 weeks and the others are 8 weeks at my university. This makes 3 different starts:) New beginnings are always nice and refreshing, but some teachers think that teaching the same classes during the academic year is much better than this. The teacher can develop a better rapport with the students in a longer time and can also be more beneficial. What about you? Do you think teaching the same group of students in a shorter term is better? Why? Why not?

P.S: Today was also the first day of the primary and high school students in Turkey. Wishing all the teachers a nice and successful term / module. Welcome back to school

This post was first published here