28. Here's to a happy 2010

'Mulled wine for the party' by fieldtripp, licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0.

Well, everyone, we've made it to the end of 2009. I'm going to make some lovely mulled wine in a little while, and kick off the evening with some gentle drinking. :) I've had a wonderful day so far. It's amazing to know there are some people out there who show true commitment, who prioritise things in a way that others don't, who are thoughtful and kind in more ways than they can imagine. It's something that must not be underestimated, and it is far, far beyond average. (You know who you are, so thank you.)

My message to you all today is never to squander your potential. You will have to trust me on this point: you will never be able to recover the sensations and possibilities of these early university years. Every moment is precious. Don't let a bad attitude or a lack of faith in what can be pull you down.

We have just one more week together - at least for now. This time will be missed, but not forgotten. Next semester is already on the horizon. I am already wondering who will elect to take the journey with me again...

Have a happy (and safe) New Year.
Sonja

27. Marked woman

On Christmas Day I walked up to Taksim. I had some time before meeting my dinner/drinking companion, so I wandered up and down Istiklal Street for awhile, then I went to sit on the railing in the little park in Taksim Square. It was dark and there was much activity, as you would expect on a Saturday night in central Istanbul, so I felt as I normally like to feel when I'm out in the city: anonymous, merging with the lights. I only sat on the railing for three minutes or so as it was greatly hurting my backside. I got up and started to walk towards the meeting place - the tram stop. As I got up, a young guy - he couldn't have been any more than university age - passed close to me, and half-breathed, half-crooned in honeyed tones into my ear (in English) "Who are you waiiiiiiting for?"

(The first thought that stormed through my head was, "How would you like me to rip off your **** and shove it down your throat?" If only I could have overcome my shock and rage in time, I really think I could have made him run. :)

Well, you wouldn't have thought I could be so conspicuous in the busiest part of a city of 15 million people, but there I was, a yabancı woman alone in a park, and this is marked in Turkey. I really love walking, but I don't do it much anymore. I have slowly become somewhat of a recluse and a hermit. I have periodic anxiety attacks. I don't understand why in my life I have to feel like a bug under a microscope.

This incident in itself is minor, but it comes on top of years of memories of old men throwing themselves half out of trucks and thrusting their tongues out, the gropes and 'rubbing ups' on the tram, the humiliation of trying to walk in a skirt past a group of watchful men in a windy city, the incessant interest in my tights, the men passing close enough to brush my body, the men trying to pin me against the wall at the bus stop in the morning, trying to force me to take up less space, the men stopping in their tracks, turning and staring - and walking on, stopping, turning and staring, the men staring out the bus windows, raising their eyebrows expectantly before they understand the meaning of my middle finger, the young men circling me in the shopping centres, the workers on campus looking and laughing and looking again with their mates in the cafeteria, that unblinking lizard look, all the sleaze and intrusion of this endless, endless staring, I am Truman in the fishbowl, I am marked.

26. A Christmas message for you all

Dear Sıla, Begüm, Emin, Metin, Ali, Tuğçe, Simge, Hazal, Ece, Denise, Selen, Serra, Mali, Mehmet, Fatih, Onur A., Duygu, Nil, Arda, Can K., Emir K., Ezgi O., Cem, Janbek, Beri, Hasan, Alican, İzzet, Atalay, Bahar, Burak B., Erman E., Erman K., Emir G., Burç, Elif K., Can M., Onur O., Meltem, Baran, Ayşe, Yavuzalp, Ezgi Y., Albert, Erdem, Yalçın, Elif D., Egemen, Koray, Cemre, Burak Y. and Gamze:

(Watch me dance for you here)

Thank you for this semester: for all the hard work, for the laughs, and yes, for the (minor) frustrations. Obstacles are what push us forward and help us grow.

Lots of love, Sonja x

25. Lots of little Sonjas

This week I've asked you all to brainstorm possible questions for the final essay, and you've come up with an impressive list. I do hope you will license your work under Creative Commons 3.0 so that I can use these questions with future students. ;-)

I also said that you have the opportunity to choose one of these questions and do a practice essay - on your blog. Please also mention how much time you spent planning, writing and proofreading. I will give you a 'grade' and some feedback so that you are fully aware of what to expect in the final exam. You can also visit my office and look at some of the in-class essays from last year.

Here are your marvellous questions:

Section A3:

• Explain voyeurism by using "The enormous radio" and "A woman on a roof."
• Discuss the idea of women's place in society by using "TV: the plug-in drug" and "Marked women".
  
• Compare and contrast how men and women are marked in "Marked women".
  
• In the story "The man who was almost a man", the protagonist Dave associates manhood with a gun because of cultural and social values. State and explain what values these could be.
  
• Criticise the effects of media and ads about marking women by considering "Killing us softly 3".
• Enumerate the facts why Dave in "The man who was almost a man" applied to power that came from a gun.
  

Section B3:

• What is a 'man'? Define and explain with specific references to "Tough guise" and "The man who was almost a man" by comparing and contrasting the two.
  
• Explain the relationship between "TV: the plug-in drug" and "Reality TV: a dearth of talent and the death of morality".
  
• Analyse the symbols in "The man who was almost a man" and "A woman on a roof".
  
• Examine the notion of voyeurism in "The enormous radio" with reference to Peters' text "When reality TV gets too real".
  

Section C3:

• Compare and contrast Cheevers' story and Winn's article by considering the effects of the technological instruments.
  
• Define masculinity and enumerate its qualities according to Katz and Wright.
  
• Apply the concepts in the texts by Kilbourne, Lessing and Tannen to your culture and analyse which motives could be behind these concepts with reference to your own experience.
  
• Define how women are marked in Tannen's article and Kilbourne's film and apply these concepts to Turkish culture.
  
• Discuss whether Dave from "The man who was almost a man" fits the figure that Katz was talking about.
  
• Define voyeurism and evaluate whether it is ethical or not by giving examples from the Cheevers story.
  

Section D3:

• Analyse the woman on the roof in Lessing's story according to Tannen's text "Marked women".
• What are the reasons that encourage people to be voyeuristic? Support your answer with "The enormous radio" and "The woman on a roof".
  
• Argue how the media encourages male violence with reference to "Tough guise" and "Killing us softly 3".
• Discuss your views on whether reality TV is good or bad by referring to the ideas of Winn and Poniewozik.
  

24. Virtual blogging awards

Looking down my blogroll, I see that many of you are doing an impressive amount of work on your blogs, far beyond the 'call of duty'. I enjoy reading your blogs so much. You really are a creative and insightful bunch!

At the end of the semester, I will be giving some virtual blogging awards here. These will include the top blogger as well as those who deserve honourable mention for the number and quality of their posts and comments.

What's in the box, do you think? ;-)

'Gift' by mrjoro, made available under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

23. Feedback on my first presentation

I blogged previously about a joint presentation I gave for teachers on the trainer education course in the School of Languages. I told you that I was strangely nervous (probably as a result of not having prepared enough!), but I also think it could be because my boss (tutor) was also in the room. She was writing notes during all the presentations, and at the end she offered to give us some feedback. Well, I hadn't known in advance that she would do that, but who's going to refuse feedback, right?

I have just received her feedback. First of all, interestingly, she recorded her feedback as a sound file. That was a first for me. She has a very pleasant voice. I would like to share her feedback with you, as it may help you with your own final presentations.

Strong points:

• It was good right at the beginning to give a rationale as to why I chose my particular article. Similarly, it was important to mention the article's relevance to our teaching situation.
• I outlined the goals and methods of the research study reported in the article.
  
• The two interactive tasks generated good discussion.
• It was good to weave in stories from my own teaching experience.
  
• My use of Powerpoint was effective - the diagrams in particular were mentioned.
  
• I seem to have an "effective presentation style".
  

Suggestion:

• Since this was a joint presentation, it would be good to refer forward to what my partner is going to present.

I was surprised by all the positive points she mentioned; all I could think of was why I was so nervous and how I couldn't get my voice to work! It just shows how different the experience of presenting and being presented to really is. Always remember that the audience has no idea of what you're going to say... ;-))

22. Testing MyStudiyo

(There is just one question for the moment, as I'm just playing with this to see how it works). :)

21. Presentations yaaaaaa

Dear students,

In the last 2 weeks or so, in addition to your 15 practice presentations, I have watched 11 other presentations by teachers! Tomorrow I will watch 7 more teacher presentations! And in Week 14 I will watch your 15 final presentations! I have presentations coming out of my ears! :)

And on top of all that, I am spending this Friday night finishing up my own presentation (the second one in a week!) Tomorrow is the final session of my Teaching English with Technology course. 40 hours of this course have taken place online, and 10 are face-to-face. We have each been asked to present two Web 2.0 applications to the other teachers in the group. We need to cover the main features, how we might use them with students, and any limitations. It's a great idea, as it means that by the end of the session, we will have learned 16 new applications!

But wow...it takes a lot of time to prepare this sort of presentation, and I have been stupidly busy these past two weeks with the courses I teach and the three other courses I study. First you have to learn the application yourself, to the point that you feel quite confident with it. Then you have to condense the main features down into a mere 10-minute presentation. I had difficulty deciding whether to use my Macbook or my SU laptop, since one of my applications works differently in both (Much as I adore my Macbook, in the end I decided on the PC). We also have to create handouts, and I insist on mine looking professional, which also takes time. My tutor advised me "not to be too perfectionist", but come on, this is Sonja we're talking about...!

I don't know how it came to the point that I'm still working on this, literally at the last minute. Perhaps students' habits are rubbing off on me? ;-)

If you're interested, I will present on Evernote and MyStudiyo. Evernote could be endlessly useful to students; MyStudiyo allows you to create interactive quizzes and embed them in your blogs!

I will report back on how the presentation went. In the meantime, wish me luck!

Oops, The Simpsons is starting and my water is boiling...more later!

20. Pub quiz

I've been inspired by the fact that some of you are blogging about the pub quiz (and I'm under pressure to stay ahead of Beri's impressive blogging spree), so I thought I would share some of my reflections on the pub quiz.

First of all, you can check your team score in the 'league table' below. Out of 40 questions, the final scores were:

31.5 (79%)
30 (75%)
28.5 (71%)
28 (70%)
27 (68%)
26.5 (66%)
25 (63%)
25 (63%)
25 (63%)
21 (53%)

I was happy to see that many groups answered the practical questions correctly, such as those about due dates and blogging requirements. Of course I had a not-so-hidden agenda in including such questions: I'm always trying to promote time management and blogging.

I think short answers were what could be improved. When you answer this type of question, it's important to give an explicit answer without any ambiguity, and to ensure that your grammar and vocabulary are correct. (This is a useful exam tip for our class and for your other classes as well). You should not expect the quizmaster/marker to "figure out what you mean", or to wade through unclear language in search of the meaning. There's an old saying which goes "You don't really know something until you can teach it." Here we can interpret 'teaching' as giving a clear and concise explanation. The other thing to mention here is not to include two or more answers and 'hope' that one is correct. I can tell you that teachers are often trained to completely disregard such answers.

The competition was close in some sections, and this was exciting. However, it was also evident that many of you had done no review at all in preparation for the quiz. I do hope you realise that the main purpose of the quiz was to get you to review the semester, and not just for extra credit...

I must include a final point. I think it's no exaggeration to say that I was astounded that a number of groups who did not win the quiz asked me for an extra credit prize anyway! What exactly do you understand by the word 'competition'...? :)

Congratulations again to our winning teams and thanks to everyone who participated!

19. The gift that keeps on giving

'For the love of books' by Chocolate Geek, licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic


As you probably know, Christmas is coming up, and as part of that tradition we usually exchange gifts with friends and family. It is also a time of charity to those who are less fortunate than ourselves.

A colleague of mine has a friend working as a teacher in Afghanistan. Can you imagine, despite 30 years of war and destruction, students at Kabul University are still making a great effort to claim their education. The problem is this: they have no books, paper, pencils or even chalk. The library has 147 books.

We are requesting that you donate your stationery - pens, paper, folders and so on - as well as any books in English you will no longer use after this semester. If you have photocopies or printouts of reading texts, don't put them in the bin - these would be greatly appreciated by people who are struggling to improve their lives.

I will keep a box in my office for anything you can spare. We will collect materials until the end of the semester.

Thank you so much in advance for your generosity. All contributions make a real difference to real lives.

18. Reflections on my presentation

I am currently studying for a Certificate in Trainer Training - in other words, I am doing a qualification that will enable me to teach teachers. On Friday all 8 of the participants on the course - all of whom are teachers in the SU School of Languages - were asked to do 10-minute mini-presentations. We worked in pairs to choose two related articles on any aspect of teaching and learning, preferably ones that had some sort of research dimension. We could present individually or together within our pairs. The two presentations, along with questions at the end, were to last no longer than 25 minutes.

I was not at all satisfied with my performance. Firstly, although this project was assigned before the Bayram, because I went to Egypt for 5 days, I was unable to locate suitable articles until after I came back. It was much more difficult to find good articles than I had anticipated. My partner and I were not very enthusiastic about our initial choice of topic, andragogy, and I was unable to find any good research articles on it anyway. I finally came across two interesting articles on Freshmen students' conceptions of essay writing, and how student-teacher trust influences how students act on feedback comments. This was on Monday; the presentation was on Friday. Because my partner and I have very different teaching schedules, and because I also had two translations due during the week, we were forced to prepare separate presentations. I realised once again how poor my Powerpoint skills are, and how much better my students are at creating nice slides. We met up Friday morning just to briefly talk through our respective presentations.

I was strangely nervous during the presentation itself and I kept stuttering! I cannot understand why I felt this way; perhaps because I was presenting in front of my peers, rather than in front of my students. I realised that I should have perhaps made better notes; I had assumed I would just be able to talk off the top of my head. I have no idea about my timing, but I seemed to go for too long. No one asked questions at the end, which I found discouraging, although one teacher did say that my presentation had been very clear.

I know that I didn't put in as much effort as I would have done had it been assessed; I get motivated when the stakes are high, and I tend to get de-motivated when expectations are low.

I am writing this here because I felt a strong sense of empathy for all my brave students who did their presentations in a second or even third language; this is a psychological as well as an intellectual experience, and it made me appreciate your efforts even more. I was also reminded of how difficult it is to work with someone else.

It also made me realise that my April presentation at the biggest international conference for English teachers is going to be terrifying indeed, and I will need to do a lot of preparation if it's going to be successful!

17. Thinking ahead to the final essay...

'All your sensual ways' by Thomas Hawk, made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic Licence

We've seen a lot of interesting presentations these past two weeks, and heard a lot of fascinating interpretations and criticisms of the texts and stories. I would like to encourage you to think even further about these texts, bearing in mind that they could form part of the final in-class essay at the end of the semester. It would be great to see your blog posts. Here are some suggestions:

1. To what extent does the concept of women being 'marked' apply to Turkish culture? Are men 'marked' in any way? In what ways have gender roles changed since this text was published in 1993?
2. In what ways does the Turkish language 'mark' women?
   
3. In what ways can we apply the concept of 'markedness' to the woman on a roof? Tough guise? Killing us softly?
   
4. How persuasive is Winn's argument about TV as a 'plug-in drug'? Does she use good evidence? Does she limit her claims, or does she overgeneralise? Can you counter her argument in any way?
5. There are two articles on SU Course which challenge Winn's argument about TV; "Is TV really the plug-in drug?" and "Questioning the plug-in drug". To what extent do you accept these counterarguments?
   
6. What connections can you make between Katz's thesis in Tough guise and Dave in "The man who was almost a man"?
   
7. Did Dave actually become a man at any point in the story? If so, at what point? Justify your interpretation.

Happy blogging!
:-p

16. What I've learned so far in ENG 101

'Riverboat' by ebergcanada, made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic licence

We always talk about what students are learning in our classes, but did you know that we teachers learn from you, too? I constantly improve myself through interacting with you, from observing you, from trying to understand you. So I thought I would add my own reflections on what I have learned about teaching in this university so far this semester in ENG 101:

- APA citation format is a lot more difficult than it seems, and we need to practise it as often as possible. I think it requires more knowledge of the research process and the types of sources used in research.
- It was a very good idea to teach you how to find and cite Creative Commons images.
- It was a very good idea to talk about ways to avoid plagiarism and how to use source material properly.
- Blogging can be a daunting task, and we need to start more slowly. We should work on it more in class at the beginning. The notification emails need to be set up straight away. I have learned so much about how to implement future blogging projects, thank you!
- Blogs allow you to express your creativity and show off your analytical, reflective and citation skills. They also enable you to make links with your other classes (SPS, TLL).
-An element of competition can make blogging more lively.
-I feel absolutely delighted when someone comments on my blog, and even more so when one of my posts inspires one of yours.
- We need more writing practice and more exposure to various genres of academic writing.
- We need more practice in avoiding generalisations/limiting our claims in academic writing.
- We need more practice in effectively incorporating source material into academic writing.
- We need more class time to discuss the core essay texts.
- Reading worksheets need to be completed for the core essay texts.
- You are endlessly creative in preparing and delivering your presentations.
- Practice presentations are a good way to prepare for the final presentation, and you value the feedback comments you receive.
- You ask quite good questions at the end of presentations.
- Even when I start projects well in advance and encourage organisation, many students still wait until the last minute to do things.
- You do your practice presentations even though you are not receiving a grade. This shows that you can rise to a challenge, and that you can meet the high expectations I have of you.
- Most likely, classes at Sabancı University are never going to start on time and students are not going to stop arriving late.
- Students are more likely to bring a laptop (when reminded) than pen and paper.
- Some students never seem to check their email accounts, SU Course or my blog.
- Some students actually do take notes!
- Time management remains the biggest obstacle to student success at SU.

No doubt there are many more things I've learned, but I wanted to share my initial thoughts with you.

Please feel free to give me your feedback on any of the things mentioned here.

15. A sensible approach...or just reverse gender discrimination?

'Purgatory' by D2 Photography, licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic

I have just read a rather disturbing article on the BBC News site.

In it, British Justice Secretary Jack Straw (an idiot, in my humble opinion) argues that male offenders should be punished 'more harshly', whereas female ones should be rehabilitated and reintegrated into the community. This is based on the very 'scientific' statement that 'male prisoners are very different to female ones.'

Uhhh, how?!

The article mentions that many women offend because of issues of low self-esteem and a lack of self-respect. I would argue that the exact same things can lead men to offend. Isn't that what Jackson Katz was arguing in Tough Guise? Certainly people with healthy self-esteem would not become child abusers, would they, whether male or female? The article mentions that since women are usually the primary caregivers, it would be wrong to incarcerate mothers. But don't children need the love and support of both parents? We should not assume that children do not suffer when their fathers are sent away. In the summer when I was in America, I watched a news programme about a charity that works with African-American children whose fathers are imprisoned. It was difficult to see the suffering that entailed.

One of the reasons for the explosive growth of the prison industry in the UK and especially in the USA is a lack of commitment to true rehabilitation and an overemphasis on (often mediaeval) forms of 'punishment'. So advocating support for one sex over the other just seems to be blatantly discriminatory; all offenders should be given the requisite support.

* By the way, if you're interested in these issues, I HIGHLY recommend the book Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America's Poor. Shocking and mind-blowing don't even begin to describe it...