Week 3

I guess one could call the first couple of weeks of a course, “the honeymoon period” and I think students are beginning to sense that that is now over. As always, things run smoothly and appear to be running fine until it’s time to give feedback on work done. For the first lesson this week I gave feedback on the diagnostic essays that students did in the first week of classes. For me there were no surprises. The performance was pretty much similar to that of previous courses and so I got exactly what I was expecting to get. The students however were consistently surprised at the “grade”’ they would have got if I were to grade their essays. Admittedly, I haven’t yet “taught” them very much but all I expect them to do is display what they have already learned – what they learned about writing essays in high school and in particular, in preparation for the TOEFL exam which they had to pass in order to be admitted to Koc University. By asking directly, I found that they had all heard of the concepts of an introduction, a body and a conclusion. They had all also learned of the need for a thesis. Sadly, these elements were missing from a large majority of the essays. Even the concept of paragraphing seemed to have been completely forgotten by many students. Perhaps one of the greatest difficulties students had was with answering the question that they were asked. I get the distinct impression (as I always do) that students are not used to answering questions but are rather more used to simply “writing about a topic”. In the past their writing in English has been for the purpose of displaying their command of vocabulary and grammar – how they said things was important and what they said wasn’t given as much attention. Now however they must realize that at university one of the main reasons you will write is to display knowledge. As a communication instructor – yes of course I am very interested in “how” they express themselves, but as I am preparing them for later life at university I will be paying very close attention to what they say. If what they say isn’t worth saying or is inaccurate, then they will be told that, regardless of how well they have expressed it. We are not writing for the sake of writing but in order to convey information.

By the end of class and after reading students blogs I got the sense that students could honestly see the shortcomings in their essays and why they were not deserving of a passing grade. Most of them seem confident that they will do much better in their next assignment and that they will remember to employ the devices and principles that they have already learned as well as incorporate any new guidelines/instructions that I will provide them with. (Here’s hoping).

I am pleased to see that students are being very proactive and that although I haven’t set a deadline for the choice of a topic for the podcasts most students have already chosen a topic. It is great to see that they are not leaving everything until the last minute but are rather planning ahead. There are of course the few – as there always are, who haven’t yet taken any action. They will end up having to choose a topic that they perhaps do not know very much about and will rush through their preparations at the last minute.

On the subject of homework assignments, from reading students’ blogs I get the impression that many don’t really have any sense of how to manage their time. I guess in high school or in ELC homework assignments were for the immediate future ie. Whatever homework you get today is for tomorrow or at the very latest, the day after. However, because last week, I gave students an overview of all the different assignments they will do in the coming month, many of them seem to be overwhelmed. They don’t seem to be used to “multi-tasking” and planning when to do things. Surely they must realize that if one were to calculate all the time that they will spend preparing their podcast, writing their blogs and writing their first formal essay it will all amount to less than 20 hours. This is on average 40 minutes per day. Yes, I know that some of them will leave everything until the last minute and I know that some students can only operate by “burning the midnight oil” but even if they do this it would still be possible to complete the assignments within a single day – admittedly it would be a hard day’s work but it would still be possible. In the past students probably have had others manage their time for them – they only had to worry about planning night by night. However, if they are going to survive at university, they will need to learn to plan their own work schedules more long term. They’ll begin to appreciate this as soon as the mid-terms start. They must learn that a mid-term in one subject should not completely absorb one’s time and energy. While preparing for a mid-term, work on other subjects must continue as normal.