Soon after I received a silver award, I created my own blog. It was just a month before my blog’s first birthday when “Blogathon 2012” started. Once again, I was running with other teachers not only from Turkey but also from five different countries. I was not a novice blogger anymore, but I felt the same spirit especially while wearing my Blogathon t-shirt. The Blogathon Team was really understanding to show respect to the ‘holy’ connection between me and my precious blogathon t-shirt, so they permitted me to wear my ex number, 120. Just like the first one, the marathon took a month long. I believe it was much more challenging with more people joining in. That meant more blogs to read and more comments to make. The word limit (250 words per post) was a big pressure on me in the first one, but it was not a big problem this time (I confess that I was glad about that, because there so many great posts to follow.)

The best thing was to meet teachers from different parts ofTurkey and other countries (including Blogathon 2011 runners). Blogathon has played the role of a magnet which gathered us together ‘automagically’ and blogging became more enjoyable with the motivating comments of the readers, their collaboration and the support of the Blogathon team that fired the runners with enthusiasm. I was honoured to get another silver award (and felt a bit like a silver award collector:). This was another ending which would open the doors of a beginning for each participant. That’s why I believe the Blogathon is an ongoing journey which will never end.I’d like to thank to the British Council Turkey and the Blogathon team for organizing these kind of events and giving the English teachers a chance to develop themselves (for free:) ). Another thank you goes to my fellow bloggers for making the journey so special.

Tips for beginning Blogathon runners

The world is changing. Learning and teaching are beyond the classroom walls now. The number of the blogging teachers seems to be increasing day by day and it may be your turn now. If you haven’t gone over to the world of blogging teachers yet, you should definitely give it a shot. Maybe you don’t like writing or you think you don’t have enough time for that. Don’t worry! You can still be a part of it by following the other teachers’ blogs. You can share your ideas and experiences, ask for advices and keep yourself updated.  Here are some tips for you if you decide to run at a blogathon:

• Decide what you want to post about. Keep a list of the possible topics. Using your (smart) phone might be good for that. You never know when a new idea will pop up in your mind:)
• Comments are as valuable as the posts. Never miss them when you visit a blog post.
• Reply each and every comment of your posts and do not hesitate to leave a comment when you visit a blog. That creates the real connection between you and your readers. Besides, the bloggers you are interacting with can turn into lifelong friends and colleagues.
• Use a positive language and soften it while criticizing something.
• Do not worry about the word limit. You can continue in another post and that may even be more advantageous by drawing the readers to your blog again.
• Make your posts “reader friendly”. Expressing yourself clearly and adding some humour can help a lot.
• You may have international readers as well as the local ones, so try not to cause any offence by targeting a group of people. Respect all the political views and religious beliefs.
• Be ready to say ‘No’ to all invitations and social activities during the marathon, because you will be sooo busy :S
• Stick to the guidelines and criteria.
• Getting an award is of course motivating, but finishing the marathon is also important in terms of its spirit.
• Enjoy the Blogathon and enjoy the moment:)

An acrostic poem I wrote and dedicated to the Blogathon:

Bringing ideas all together

Leading the discussion and helping other

Organizing new posts every day

Getting replies and comment, ready to share and care

A door to be entered into another world waiting over there

The taste of each post makes me feel great about all that jazz

Hearty welcomes and warm good byes

On air all the time, running to the end ready to rise

Negotiating and interacting, broadening our minds

Other links you might like:

Does Everything Happen for A Reason? by Merve Oflaz

A Post on an IATEFL Interview with Adam Simpson (The Gold Award Winner of Blogathon 2012) and Sirin Soyoz by Merve Oflaz

My Blogathon Experience by Adam Simpson (The Gold Award Winner of Blogathon 2012)

Blogathon Journey by Özge Öztürk (The Runner-up of Blogathon 2012)

My Blogging Journey by Hale Yurttabir(Silver Award Winner)

Blogathon 2012 by Leman Ulas (Silver Award Winner)

An IATEFL Interview with Karin Tirasin (The Gold Award Winner of Blogathon 2011) and Eva Buyuksimkesyan (The Runner-up of Blogathon 2011)

Ready, get set and GO! ELT Blogathon 2011 by Sirin Soyoz

This post was first published here

The Blogathon has been a lot to me so far. As one of the silver award winners of last year I opened the doors of a new world after the race. Being inspired by the race, I started my own teaching blog and I believe this has been the biggest award I have ever received.

Teachers of English from different countries have been running at this year’s Blogathon started by the British Council Turkey. The race takes place on TeachingEnglish site of the British Council. The blogging teachers are supported by the motivating comments of Karin Tirasin, last year’s gold award winner, and the 1^st runner up, Eva Buyuksimkesyan.

Teachers send great posts about their experiences, share their ideas, discuss issues and comment on each other’s posts. The race started on 16 January and it will end on 12 February. The gold award, a ticket to IATEFL Conference 2012, has been really motivating for most of the blogging teachers. More teachers are about to enter the magic world of blogging planning to start their own blogs. The British Council Blogathon team is doing a great big job by giving an opportunity to the teachers of English by helping them update themselves, opening a free space to blog and of course motivating them with awards.

If you want leave a comment and support blogging teachers, you should become a member of TeachingEnglish site and it will only take a minute. It is free and fun guaranteed:)

If you want to read my posts at the Blogathon, just click on the titles below.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life

My precious blogathon t-shirt

My Blogathon resolution: Losing weight by writing

The personality you carry with you

Using movies in class

Sorting sticks of a teacher

One minute

Teachers of Crystal Teacher

Are you in danger of …?

Have you been to Barcelona?

A poem dedicated to Blogathon

Today’s Menu

The biggest snowball ever

Other post about the Blogathon:

The race is on in the ELT Blogathon by Adam Simpson

Marks, set,  go! ELT blgoathon 2011 by Dave Dodgson

I’ve entered a competition by Naomi Epstein

Taking part in the TeachingEnglish Blogathon 2012 by Sanja

Endings and beginnings are like matryoshka dolls. One closes the other and one opens the other. Then each beginning is an ending and each ending is a beginning.

Blogathon has been a marathon start for me. I learnt many things from all of you, shared my ideas, asked and gave advices. I felt the joy in my heart and the spirit of shared knowledge surrounded my mind.

Now, it is about to end but that will start another thing in most of our lives. As we stated in some posts, we will open our own blogs and go on sharing.  We will go on sharing knowledge like the generous nature.

I thank you all for the delightful journey we had together and wish you good luck.

“When learning a foreign language, feelings of uncertainty, and even fear often develop in the learner. It is clear that EFL learners need a relaxing atmosphere more than anything else, and icebreakers, warmers, games may create the situation for this to happen.”[1]

Our mission, as teachers, must be allowing the students to use their imagination and try to raise the awareness. There’s always space in students minds, but it’s locked. To unlock that,  we can make our own magic potion. Use any activities, methods or techniques your students need as ingredients of your magic potion. Bring life to your lessons and classroom. Do not hesitate to use real objects, photos, pictures, technology,  music, body language and your voice. All these will motivate them.  Leave some of the magic potion for yourself! Don’t forget you need some creativity and imagination, too.

Good Appetite!

[1] Moskowitz, G. (1972), Caring and Sharing in the Foreign Language Classroom,

Newbury House Publishers, Cambridge, Mass

1. Are you better at recognizing and remembering names or faces?

Choose one: Names                         Faces

2 .Are you an organized individual or a spontaneous individual?

Choose one: Organized                  Spontaneous

3. Do you like realistic stories or stories that deal in fantasy?

Choose one: Realistic                     Fantasy

4. Do you problem-solve using logic or intuition?

Choose one: Logic                           Intuition

5. Do you like well-structured assignments or open-ended assignments?

Choose one: Well-structured     Open-ended

6. Do you remember things easily through language or through pictures?

Choose one: Language                  Pictures

7. Do you consider yourself to be very creative or not creative?

Choose one: Creative                    Not creative

8. Do you often produce humorous thoughts and ideas or serious thoughts and ideas?

Choose one: Humorous               Serious

9. Do you read for details and facts or for main ideas and overviews?

Choose one: Details/facts           Main idea/overview

10. Do you learn through systematic plans or through exploration?

Choose one: Systematic plans   Exploration

Scoring Procedure

Question 1. Faces=right-brain behaviour; Names=left-brain behaviour

Question 2. Spontaneous=right-brain behaviour; Organized=left-brain behaviour

Question 3. Fantasy=right-brain behaviour; Realistic=left-brain behaviour

Question 4. Intuition=right-brain behaviour; Logic=left-brain behaviour

Question 5. Open-ended=right-brain behaviour; Well-structured=left-brain behaviour

Question 6. Pictures=right-brain behaviour; Language=left-brain behaviour

Question 7. Creative=right-brain behaviour; Not creative=left brain behaviour

Question 8. Humorous=right-brain behaviour; Serious=left-brain behaviour

Question 9. Main idea and overview=right-brain behaviour; Details and facts=left-brain behaviour

Question 10. Exploration=right-brain behaviour; Systematic plans=left-brain behaviour.

© 2000 by Education World ®. Permission is granted to teachers to reproduce this skill page for classroom use.

1. Find a picture story. There are many nice pictures in writing books.

2. Find some sounds that can refer to each picture. Try to find more than one for each picture. Your aim in here is to make the students guess what happens in the story by listening to the sounds without looking at the pictures.

3. To find sounds, you can use the office online or the internet.

4. To express something about the story you also add some songs like a romantic music for a love story. This way, students will guess the theme of the story.

5. Play the sounds for each picture and ask the students to note down the sounds for each picture.

6. Give the students some time to think about for each picture and arrange their ideas. What they should do here is to write a story using those sounds.

7. Finally show the real pictures.

How long does it take?

40 or 80 minutes. Depends on the pre-work and the time you will provide for the writing process.

Who is it for?

It’s better to do it with at least Pre-Intermediate students. Beginners will probably have difficulties.

Reference

I really do not know if there is a similar version or not. I tried to make story writing fun and exciting by playing sounds and music.

This activity of mine was awarded by the British Council at a competition called “My Favourite Lesson Activity” in 2009.

My Problem

The students who don’t do their homework.

What I always do

1. Keep a record of the students (in a file or a notebook with students’ lists) who do and don’t do their homework.
2. Check the homework signing it very quickly and giving the plus and minus next to the student.
3. Write notes on the homework such as ‘thanks, complete it please or don’t forget it again please’
4. Try to stay calm.
5. Can’t manage to stay calm:)

What I have done so far to solve the problem

1. Give a second chance for them to complete their assignment and convert their minus into plus.
2. Remind them in a threatening way:(
3. Talk to them many times.
4. (Sometimes) give extra homework.
5. Give double extra homework (if they don’t do the homework)
6. Call the parents (if it becomes a habit)
7. Ask those kids to bring something for each student in the class.(a little chocolate or cake maybe)
8. Promise them to give additional points for their oral performance. Invite the assistant principal to the class (if the number of those students is nearly the half.)
9. Try to stop the wild me in me:)

Do you have any suggestions? Help is needed.

After the Hat Fair, Winchester

It was a summer school programme providing some trips to many places.  Of course, my favourite part was the free time given during the trips. That was the shopping time for all of us.

The summer school was full of children from different countries so my students had the chance to practice their English and they did not get any help from me.

I also had hard and harsh time. One of the students got sick and I had to check him many times at night. I was like a 7×24 mum for them. After this trip, I nearly understood what a mother is like and how she feels.

No matter what the students ’age is, they can miss their families and act like the weirdest. You might see them crying and talking to themselves or to their suitcases. They might forget to take a shower or tidy up and it is you who must remind that! And comes the worst, it is you who should control them spending their money.  What I did was to collect all their money and give it to the case of the school and take some and give them every day.

Would you also want to go abroad with your students? If you haven’t done that, it’s time to try. If you think that would be hard, it’s time to change your idea. If your school does not provide a trip for students, it’s time to suggest the administrators.

Good Luck with that!

‘120’ is so close to me now like my telephone number (probably an extension one because it is too short!) or my door number or an ID number. One of my students thought that the number on the t-shirt was my weight but I still love my number. And luckily she was just kidding.

Sometimes I dream myself running in it with a great enthusiasm or I hear someone calling me ‘Hey! 120!’. And sometimes I want to sign papers as ‘120’ or scratch a tree in the park  ‘120’.

The weirdest fantasy I’ve had is a speaker at a match speaking very fast saying ‘Yes, now 120 has just sent a new post but what? A comment is coming! 120 replies the comment and starts reading the other posts to comment. Blah blah blah’

My t-shirt and I are so happy. We eat together. We sleep together. We wake up together. We teach together. We go everywhere together. My dear 120 t-shirt! I love you! I love sharing knowledge and blogging on Blogathon. And dear bloggers I love you, too.