It is believed that each number has a special meaning. Since it is the last three days of the Blogathon, I want to devote this post to the number “3”. Three is a sacred number in most of the religions because of being the number of divine. Three was also considered the number of harmony, wisdom and understanding. You can check the other details on mysticalnumbers.com.

As Blogathon runners we have been racing in great harmony by writing and reading regularly. We’ve been supporting each other with great comments, sharing our ideas in an unprejudiced manner and spreading the wisdom. We’ve been  asking each other without any hesitations to learn from our experiences and with a great understanding we’ve been replying. I think number three is also representing the “beginnings” and “endings”. Think about how a marathon starts: “Ready, Steady, Go” and the countdown “3-2-1” in the end. Here are my three wishes:

1. Hope this ending will be a new beginning for you all.**
2. Hope you will never lose the desire to learn
3. Hope you will keep blogging after the Blogathon

TWO

There is a common Turkish expression about working together. “There is a sound of two hands clapping, but what about one hand?” Number two reminded me this and here at the Blogathon we were never alone. The comments (though they were more than 2:) of the other bloggers, guests and the Blogathon team supported and motivated us. I was having a little doze before I started this post and guess what I was dreaming about. “Ying yang”. I was telling someone about the meaning of ying yang,  “the two faces that keep the universe in perfect balance”* and drawing the symbol to explain it. Having a dream about that on the day of writing about number 2! What a coincidence! Or just the impact of unconscious thoughts:)It is 11th February today. 1+1 makes 2 and February is the second month. The best day to write about number 2:) Helps me to find examples about it:)) I think I am so lucky. Only two days to the finish line. We, the Blogathoners are all tired, but excited and impatient to see the results. Whatever the results are, taking a part at the Blogathon the second time (ooooh number 2:) was much more fun (and challenging). I’m so glad to have met new colleagues and share lots. Some of you have been my constant readers and that made me so happy. I’d like to thank you for all the contributions. I think I will miss the spirit, but I’m sure most of you will show up with your own blogs in the blogging world soon and we will keep in touch. Ooooh number two Please make this true )*

ONE

The last day of the Blogathon. There are only hours to the end. As Blogathon runners, we are entering our last posts before the finish line.The last number in the countdown: “Number 1″. “The number of being the best”*. I assume that number one represents each Blogathoner at the race. Each of us is unique and each piece of post is special in its way. Number one also displays a truth: No matter who we are, no matter where we live and who we teach, we are all the same.  With this in our minds, we have shared our experiences, without any prejudices we read each other’s posts and contributed the comments. That makes us all champions. We are the best and we are the stars. Though it would be fantastic to win it, finishing will be the real spirit of the marathon.  Writing about number one reminds me a great album of Omar Faruk Tekbilek, a Turkish composer and musician. I’d like to share something from the album called “One Truth”.

The song is called “I love You”. I’m dedicating the song to all of you, because I love you. Thank you for caring to share your knowledge and experiences and making this race so special. It was totally number one:)

This post was first published here

My answer was of course ‘Yes’. As a person who has never experienced TweetChat, I was in such a silly panic that I asked Sharon the best (!) questions ever such as ‘Since I have a new account nobody is following me. Do you think that’s a problem?’ and ‘Will it be enough for me to be on Twitter?’. Dearest Sharon answered each question I asked with great patience.  Thanks to her and thanks to God I was ready on time. Actually before time:)

It was so nice to see the announcements on Twitter to remind the chat. When the chat started, all my panic left its place to a sweet joy. I could not understand how quick the time flew by. Nesrin and Solmaz, two other blogathoners, were there as well. Once again we shared and derived great pleasure from that. Here are some notes from the chat:

-          Blogathon was sometimes stressful. Especially the voting process.

-          The team of the British Council leading us was professional and successful.

-          It was a lifetime experience and it changed our lives.

-          The hardest was the word limit (250 words) in each post.

-          The space we were provided was only for the texts without any visuals or videos.

-          The gold award motivated all of us at first but later we focused on blogging itself.

-          Comments and supports from the other blogathoners kept us alive during 28 days of the competition.

-          Many of us have personal blogs now and that seems to be the real award.

Thanks to Sabancı University School of Languages for giving us an opportunity to share our experience. Starting a virtual conference platform is such a great idea that I want to congratulate the Conference Committee. I’m looking forward to the 2^nd International Conference on Language Education of Sabancı University in June.

Dear Student Teachers,

Dear Students,

Dear Friends and Dear Others:)

Welcome to my blog! It’s a privilege for me to host you in here. I hope you will like my posts and share your thoughts and feelings.

I’m so excited about my blog. I just can’t wait to be in touch with my readers. Because of this, I’ve been wandering around with a grinning face as if someone is about to take my photo here and there. You know when someone is ready to take your photo you are expected to say ‘cheese’ and when you do that your face mostly changes into a grinning MSN Smiley. That’s the expression on my face nowadays.

My blogging story has begun with the inspiring competition the British Council opened in February. I should admit that ‘ELT Blogathon 2011’ has encouraged many of the competitors to open their personal blogs. Many thanks to the British Council for the opportunity it offered. The gold award (being sent to the 45th IATEFL Conference in Brighton) attracted most of us, sharing with other fellow bloggers charged our energy and precious guest bloggers supported us with their posts and comments. That was a unique experience for me. I enjoyed reading the posts, writing and sharing.

When I learnt about the Silver Award I received, I felt so happy. I will have a free entrance for Sabancı University ELT conference. I’m looking forward to taking place at the conference.

I believe the inspiration I gained is another award of the competition. I hope I can manage to keep you stay tuned. I am sure we will colour up our lives and shine our lights by sharing.

Remember! The more you share to more you grow knowledge.

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.

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.

Next, I started to keep everything in floppy discs (why on earth I didn’t think of it at the beginning?) and the floppy discs in sweet boxes and the boxes in the drawers. Later, came the CDs. They were great because you could save hundreds of word files in each of them. Besides, very nice colourful boxes for these CDs were available. I remember myself painting a long long wooden cupboard (it’s in the attic now) for my precious CDs.

Then came the flash discs. They are very small and you can also wear them like a necklace. (There are even bracelet ones. I saw one last week:) ) You won’t believe but while everyone was preparing a food and first aid bag because of the earthquake tales, I was sleeping with my flash disc hung on my neck.

I wonder what will come next but I have to admit that I developed a new phobia and named it as ‘flashdiscmaniaphobia’. This phobia started after I dropped my laptop when my flash disc was plugged in and lost nearly thousands of my precious files. You know what, I sometimes miss my pinky files…