THE LINGUA LAB

           Hey everyone! It’s been a while since my last post. I’m back again—this time with something different and complicated: I, together with my colleagues Derin and Alperen, created a short fictional story for our ICT course. This might look like an easy topic, but trust me, it wasn’t. In this task, we were expected to create a digital story, which served as an umbrella term for different formats such as PSA (Public Service Announcement), “How to?” projects, and a short fictional story. As soon as I saw the word story, I didn’t even hesitate to decide among three. As long as it is a “short” story no longer than two minutes, we were free to do anything or to choose any topic. Interestingly, all of us are interested in detective-crime theme—meaning that our topic is about a serial killer who not only just kills his victims but also creates “art”, leaving signature marks (a blue rose) everywhere. As for the audio/voice, all three of us dubbed different c...

Hey everyone, it is me again! Here comes another unusual task that I, together with my colleague Alperen, handled—creating a podcast for our ICT course, which is simple-looking at first, yet very challenging within the process. In this task, among all the types of podcasts, we were supposed to create one of them as a pair. We decided to create a podcast based on a dialogue chant/song because we wanted to try a new concept that we both are unfamiliar with. It may seem a little crazy, but we chose Karagöz and Hacivat from the well-known shadow play in Turkish culture—as the characters of the podcast, each one signaling very different characteristics. This song-like dialogue chant is actually a rap-style battle of words, including short, rhythmic lines (as much as possible) and of course, interaction between Karagöz and Hacivat. In the podcast, the characters begin to diss each other as soon as they introduce themselves, meaning that we aimed the podcast to be a heated argument in order t...

Hi folks, I am back with another post! Today, I’m here with something a bit different—my experience of  designing something unusual, just a simple task for my ICT course. In this task, we were supposed to create an informative infographic, choosing one of the topics taught during the previous lesson. All the topics were about “ethical and legal issues in technology use” and as soon as I saw the topics, one of them caught my eye: safety and privacy . I think this issue is really crucial as all our personal information is everywhere online. It is now very easy to find or even steal information from others, even if they don’t give any consent. That meant if I prepare the infographic effectively and accurately, it could really be useful when it comes to warning children who unconsciously surf on the net. As for the designing process, I can surely say that the task was not challenging for me. I regard myself as intermediate when it comes to designing, I mean using design tools & pro...

Recently, I have come across with the term "21st Century Learning" while surfing on the internet. After a short scanning, I have felt that I had to talk about this topic as it highly interests us, the digital natives of today. To basically explain it, It is an up-to-date approach or idea whose foremost focus is to adapt students/learners to fast-changing and technology-driven world, emphasizing skills such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and digital literacy. Instead of memorizing, repeating, and passively listening the teachers; students improve these 21st century skills (in other words, the modern necessities). 21st century learning especially matters for language learning in that students can benefit from it in almost any ways. They can create presentations, videos, or blogs (just as I do 😉); using tools like apps, AI, or online platforms. In this case, English (or the target language) becomes a tool for communication, not just the main focus to learn. We...

Hello everyone, welcome to my first ever blog!👋😊My name is Eray and I am currently an ELT student, studying at Marmara University. Here, in this blog, you can find some of my personal experiences as not only a student but a teacher at the same time. Aside from personal things, we will also be talking about some ideas/thoughts about language learning that interests me.👀💭But of course, I will focus more on ELT and language learning, meaning that this blog is actually created for educational purposes.💯 😃 Maybe thanks to this blog, I can advance in my academic career, improving myself in all aspects throughout this journey. Who knows?😉I am sure that we all together will have fun sharing and discovering ideas! 🙌😎