1. Building Teaching Skills Report Template 1
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©2013 E-Teacher Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web Project Report Template
American English Institute, University of Oregon April 12, 2013 R. Elliott and D. Shaw
Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web
Project Report Template
Name: Hacer ŞİVİL Country: Turkey
Overall project goal: Plan and implement a change related to technology use in your
classroom.
I. Background
The Learners:
Faculty Education Program (ÖYP) is government-funded, and students are all chosen
among many candidates. After they have proved that their English is proficient enough,
they will be able to go abroad to take some of their departmental courses and/or do
research. When they have completed their education, they will start working at one of the
universities in Turkey as a faculty member, so they are self-motivated.
The level of my students is Intermediate, which means they are able to express
themselves clearly despite the limited lexical knowledge and minor grammar mistakes.
They are all adult (24+) and eager to start and complete their academic career. We have 3
male students and the rest (11) are all females, in total there are 14 students.
The Setting:
My students chose Istanbul Technical University (ITU), where we provide a one-year
intensive English program for our students before they start their faculty, to learn English. It
is such a respectful school in Turkey since its foundation dates back 240 years, and many
famous engineers and architects are ITU graduates.
Under the umbrella of ITU are 40+ departments, and the School of Foreign Languages (SFL),
where I work at, offers two different preparatory programs; one for the ones who will study at
ITU, and the other for the ones who will study both at ITU and a sister school in the
USA.Apart from preparatory programs, we also have English lessons for Continuous
Education Program called SEM shortly.
Our classrooms are equipped with a projector and sound system. We do have wireless
internet in the whole building. Students are allowed to use our computer lab, writing center,
dining hall, medical center, parking lot, service buses, and library whenever they need. As
part of school facilities, students may also use the health club on the main campus.
The school provides all the materials including books and handouts to OYP students. What
they need to do is to follow lessons and complete assignments. The SFL is located in the
heart of Istanbul. The location is amazing, they can go everywhere easily using public
transportation or enjoy the historic building
The Course Goals:

2. Building Teaching Skills Report Template 2
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©2013 E-Teacher Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web Project Report Template
American English Institute, University of Oregon April 12, 2013 R. Elliott and D. Shaw
My ÖYP students are required to prove that their English level is eligible enough. Thus, we
offer them an intensive program till September. That is, in total this group has 6 months. At
the end, they will take either our national exam, YGS, or an international exam like TOEFL
or IELTS. My course is Grammar. My course goals are
- to improve their grammar knowledge
- to provide them some integrated activities to practice grammar
- to motivate them to be independent and autonomous learners
- to help them make use of the knowledge they have gained in their future professional
life.
Why English?
English is compulsory for them to keep their scholarship. In addition to that, they will use
English in their own classes while presenting a subject.
II. Issue or problem to be addressed that technology can help with
After the Placement Exam, students were divided into different levels. They are given weekly
quizzes and monthly cumulative exams, so that they get feedback on their progress. They
know English grammar very well, but they cannot put their knowledge into practice. Besides,
due to my workload, I have to share my class with colleague, and I see my students every
other week, which makes it difficult for me to give them prompt feedback or keep up with
their study.
In short, I wanted to keep in touch with my students all the time to be able to keep them
active and give them timely feedback, so I opened a class blog.
III. Specific technology solution
● What technology tool(s) did you consider using?
- I considered using a class blog.
● What technology tool did you use to address the problem (can be one or two tools only)?
If you are using websites, include the URLs.
- Our class blog is http://sivilh.blogspot.com. First, I got students’ mail addresses and
after opening the blog I sent them e-mails. After each post, I automatically send them
e-mails to remind them what to do. In my class blog, I post various activities to focus
on grammar. I use podcasts, online tests, and the like.
● What is your goal for this technology tool?
- I want everyone to be active users and see each other’s post so that they can compare
themselves with the others and get instant feedback.
● What do you want your students or this technology to do?
- I want my students to practice English whenever they need or they have time.
● Was this technology new to you? How did you learn about it?

3. Building Teaching Skills Report Template 3
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©2013 E-Teacher Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web Project Report Template
American English Institute, University of Oregon April 12, 2013 R. Elliott and D. Shaw
- It is not new to me. I got an online lesson from the British Council 4 years ago. I had
the chance to learn many things.
● What did you think might happen when you tried/used the technology with your students?
- My students are adult and will be a faculty member in a short while. They may apply
similar tools into their classes, besides all the activities are stored so they may see
they progress themselves.
● How was this different from what you’ve done before?
- Using books, videos, music and PowerPoint slides are monotonous after a while.
Students easily get bored. Some OYP students are too shy and do not prefer to post
anything into our blog, but gradually the number has increased. Some have already
started to ask me to provide more online activities. So are worried when they are not
able to post anything, so they e-mail me.
IV. Response and reflection
● Where did you use the technology?
- After creating class blog, I wanted my students to read the blog or do assigned
homework after class hours.
● When did you use the technology?
- I used the technology after class hours.
● How did you use the technology?
- Depending on the grammatical items we covered up to now, I provided them some
online activities. This time I wanted them to be more active so, I asked to do prepare a
presentation.
● What happened? How did it go? What were your students’ reactions/responses?
- I wanted to make them get used to the blog first. That is why, after creating blog on
22 April 2013, I started posting some activities for them to practice listening,
speaking, grammar, and the like. Some of them were more interested than the others.
They were still shy or not confident enough to post anything. Some students find it
hard to write on the blog and they send me e-mails instead. Gradually, they started to
explore what I posted. I gave them both oral and written feedback. Some of them
wanted me to post some speaking practice activities, which meant they were
interested in such sorts of online activities and practices.
After sorting out almost a month for them to get used to our blog, I wanted them to do
a class presentation in their field, which means they are supposed to choose their
topic. They looked excited about the presentation and asked me the details. I will see
my students on 6th
June, Thursday and at least 4 of them will do their presentations,
and they know that they are required to assess their classmates’ presentations based
on the rubric available on our blog.
● How was this different from what you thought would happen?

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©2013 E-Teacher Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web Project Report Template
American English Institute, University of Oregon April 12, 2013 R. Elliott and D. Shaw
- I haven’t seen their presentations yet, but I am sure they will do their best since they
are already motivated.
V. Changes made or changes to make
If you had a chance to revise what you did and try it again, what changes did you make?
What did you revise?
- Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to revise what I did.
If you did NOT have a chance to revise what you did and try it again, as a result of what
happened and your reflection, what might you try next? What might happen?
- I would not share the class with a colleague, and I would try to make our class blog
more interactive by posting our class pictures. I might spend more time with my
students outside the class hours and we could socialize.
VI. Conclusion and suggestions
How has your teaching changed or how will you change it based on the results of this
project?
- I believe that my students will not be passive listeners at all and will be more
involved.
What are the overall suggestions you would give others as a result of your project?
Providing both oral and written feedback helps students see their strengths and
weaknesses. We should not only focus on student mistakes but great work, so
constructive feedback improves their self-confidence.
VII. Resources
Name of the resource Why I have chosen it
www.blogger.com I created a class blog so that they could easily follow
the activities and assignments. I thought it would
also be nice for the class communication.
www.imagechef.com To reflect the class integrity I designed it, but it can
be used for vocabulary revision as well.
http://elllo.org/ A very helpful self-study resource for listening,
note-taking, and vocab.
http://ed.ted.com/ It includes a number of challenging listening
activities. It is also an alternative to give a
presentation.
http://voki.com/ It is helpful for pronunciation and speaking practice,
as well as writing practice.
www.padlet.com It is a kind of ice-breaker, which hopefully will help
them share their feelings.
www.rubistar.com They know what to give priority while preparing
their presentation and assessing each other.
www.prezi.com It is one of the options for presentation.
http://a4esl.org/ It includes various exercises so that they can

5. Building Teaching Skills Report Template 5
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©2013 E-Teacher Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web Project Report Template
American English Institute, University of Oregon April 12, 2013 R. Elliott and D. Shaw
practice.
http://phobos.xtec.cat/apere247/2batx/Corre
ctioncode.pdf
I use correction codes and ask my students to correct
their mistakes. Here they can remember what each
sign/code represents.
http://www.englishteststore.net/ They have the opportunity to do lots of exercises
from grammar to listening.
http://bogglesworldesl.com/RelativeClause
Crosswords.htm
Here are approximately 30 crosswords and various
object and job description activities.
http://clear.msu.edu/quizbreak/play.php?bo
ard=55125-1369500631
Quizbreak is a nice competition or self-study
activity. You can add animations, pictures, videos,
and the like.
Resources I am Planning to use
I am planning to use www.surveymonkey.com or our in-house online survey called VETİ.
Depending on my students’ reflection, I may provide more online materials; some of which
can be hot potato exercises, podcasts like www.youtube.com videos, and a class wiki.
VIII. Day-to-day notes of what happened and reflections – 5 points
Keep a journal and record the implementation of technology in your course and your
thoughts about it.
Day What Happened My Thoughts
Week 1 I started thinking about what tool would be more
useful in my class and introduced class blog;
http://sivilh.blogger.com
I asked them to follow the blog and write their
reflections, practice on the suggested links and
post their assignments
At the beginning it was
quite simple. Just a few
students were interested.
Week 2 Students started to explore new things apart from
grammar, and they asked me to provide more
exercises.
I was happy to hear their
reflections.
Week 3 I kept on posting more integrated activities.
Those activities were not
marked nor compulsory, so
I did not know whether
some practiced on them or
not.
Week 4 I wanted them to do a class presentation and
assess their peers based on the rubric I provided. They looked quite interested
and started asking
questions. I wanted them to

6. Building Teaching Skills Report Template 6
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©2013 E-Teacher Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web Project Report Template
American English Institute, University of Oregon April 12, 2013 R. Elliott and D. Shaw
use their knowledge in front
of the rest of the class and
become more active.
Week 5
Some students are reluctant to follow the blog, so
I gave a presentation referring to our blog. I
showed them how easy it is to follow the blog.
The same students are still
reluctant while the rest
seem more motivated. The
ones who do not want to do
any online activities just
want to focus on the examç
They don’t even want to
learn new things.