About Me

     Hello everyone! My name is Yunus Can Kapucu. I'm from Turkey. I'm studying Teaching English as a Foreign Language because, I think, I'm born to become an English Language teacher. I like English language and modern English literature. My hometown is Ankara but now I'm living in Turkish Republic of Norther Cyprus and studying in Middle East Technical University (Norther Cyprus Campus). I like to read books about spies, future of the world, human emotions, computer history. I found of technology especially retro computers. I love playing tennis, riding bike. Actually I'm planning to become a cyclist as a hobby. In the future I'm planning to become a teacher who is as beneficial as a teacher can be to his students. I want to teach English in other countries also. Because I love to see new places, that makes me very happy.Additionally I like learning about different cultures. My dream is to becomes a teacher like Ron Clark or Rafe Esquith. I'm preparing this blog for the students who wants to become a teacher in the future.

Society and Teachers

     Today I would like to mention one of the most popular and canonised question related to the teachers. It is "Do teachers actually make a difference to society?".

      My answer is yes but, I can't just say it like that and here is my argument. According to the various research we know that young people learn faster and more easily than adults or elderly humans. We also again know according to the scientific researches that people develop their identity at young ages, for example Jean Piaget's Cognitive theory and Erik Erikson's stages of psychosocial development theory are the best support for this idea. Supposedly the formal education starts at around the age of 7 to 8, I can say we are as teachers certainly shaping the children therefore the people. Because teachers not only helps or makes the learners learn something but also through the way they act or speak, interact with others, they forms certain behaviours, styles in their student's minds. As the learning continues synchronised with the psychological development of human, they obtain some of the properties of their teachers due to the reason that I mentioned above. I can give some examples from myself. When I was in the high school, I was very impressed by the style of my English teacher so when I started to teach, I am certainly not going to give grammar rules directly without saying nothing and then continue the lesson upon them. One more example is when I was in the elementary school was very bad at teaching vocabulary so I would definitely not follow his style, because I know that it will be pain for students, if I follow that way. I hope that, my expressions are clear and you can benefit from them.

   

My Ideas

       Hi everyone! My name is Yunus Can and I'm writing this from METU Norther Cyprus Campus.

I'm a student in Teaching English as a Foreign Language programme. I prepared this short   interview-ish  writing for to give some information about my teaching beliefs. I hope it would be helpful to all of you.

1-What is a teacher job?
 
    There are many debates about this subject but what I'm going to try is to express my understanding about this definition. According to my perspective teaching is not solely sending a comprehensible information to learners for them to create their own knowledge database. For me it is more efficient and more meaningful. As teachers we are touching our student's lives and shaping them just like a sculptor. I personally believe these principles and think them as definition of my job and here they are;

• Mainly creating a person who has moral values, appreciates virtue of hardworking, values the human life, helps the people in need.
• Then creating a student who is well educated, beneficial to humanity, knows how to relate the things that he or she saw in real life with his or her classes.
• Lastly creating an adult who is able to think critically, sure about his or her future career, easily distinguishes scientific truths from false beliefs.

      To wrap-up, our main job may be teaching but we are also creators of the future. We shouldn't forget that and not focus just one area of our job definition.

2-What is my attitude to computers, the Internet and other new technology?

     I love technology very much. Actually a bit too much cause I have a retro computer collection. I try my best to follow the new advances in technology specifically computers and web based teaching systems. For me internet is an indisputable part of today's world and education systems of different countries. Computers and naturally multimedia is very beneficial both for young and adult learners. How? I grow up in one of these called "MLO" schools in Turkey. When a new technology was planned to use in nation-wide, we are one of the first students who experiment with it. When technology injected learning becomes more fun, much more attractive and very motivating. Internet is a great source of information. It helps teachers in their process of teaching and provides them a broad repertoire of materials. Using it surely increases the capacity and broadens the perspective of learners. As a conclusion I'm saying big "YES", I will use them in my class whenever it is possible.

3-What classroom activities are most helpful to learners?
   
       I don't want to focus on any activity specifically, for this reason I'm going try to express my perspective to you. I think they are the activities which;

• Involves their creativity
• Motivates them to search more about the topic
• Gives them the freedom of expressing themselves freely
• Can be related with their daily lives
• Adresses more than one sense of the learners'
• Encourages them to come up with productive questions
• Includes not only direct questions but also indirect questions which are checking the related other topics to the main subject.
• Are totally unique and was not prepared based on an outline or schema, on the contrary prepared thinking the needs of learners'.