Hayder Fulbright

       On Thursday, July, 25 I had a lecture with Gavin under the title of "student -centered learning". It was about the difference between student-centered learning and teacher-centered learning. for me, I like this way of delivering the lecture since the students-centered classroom offers more opportunities for the student to negotiate inside the class which create valuable academic environment. Another thing is that when students are engaged in negotiation they use language functions more and provide effective development to proceed their level of language. So the students, by applying this approach, (students-centered class) will share the focus and interact inside the class equally. Students will be also able to communicate and collaborate with each other through group work. They will also be able to ask questions and complete independent tasks. But some teachers do not like this approach to be applied inside the class because the class may be noisy or chaot...

        Last week, I attended a couple of lectures under the title of "teaching grammar" with Mr. Joe.    These lectures included a lot of topics and activities inside the class like: adjective clausses, and passive voice. These topics were taught almost inductively where Joe introduces the topic and gives examples before starting the rules of the topic. For me, I like this approach  because it is a meaningful as well as a memorable lesson and allows the students to engage and discover themselves via participating actively in the lesson without recognizing the rules. Another thing is that the students are motivated spontanuosly since the lesson is a student-centerd rather than a teache-centered class. So by following this approach, the teacher will make use of students' eliciting knowledge instead of explaining a given concept by being presented by the teacher to show how the concept is used by the stud...

     Today, I would like to talk about my experience concerning (2019 ELATE summer conference). I attended the session conference of Friday and Saturday. For Friday, I attended the session of " designing for discomfort: curriculum development as advocacy work". This session was really useful for me because it's related to project that I am working on. The topic dealt with many aspects of curriculum and discomfort and how these aspects can affect students' learning processes. Thus I find the session very interesting as well as engaging for that I tried to understand all components of the session to apply them in my project. Another thing is that the session includes many researchers from different states around US and that gave me the chance to get involved in discussions about teaching English as a foreign language and the most updated methods of teaching English. The other interesting session that I attended was under the title of " Talk, Texts, and Tweets: us...

  I would like to talk about my listening lesson plan presentation with my colleague Dhyaa. As it's known, lesson plan is conidered as something effective for the teacher since it's a creastive process that represents our understanding for teaching English as  foreign as well as a second language. For me, It was the cahnce to show my way concerning how to choose my objectives, the equence of the activities, and the materials, time management, and how students should be in groups, All these things were very useful for me as a teacher to them into consideration when I deal with my students to achieve my objectives. thus it gave me a good opportunity to listen to my colleague feedback and how I can improve my lesson plan. So, the advantages that could be achieved via presenting a lesson plan is in regard to the ability in which one can evaluate his/her own knowledge by listening to other's constructive crticism. Finally, I would like to say that it wa...

   On Wednesday, July, 10, I have a lecture under the title of " Teaching Reading" with Mrs. Christina. The lecture is all about how teach reading. It started by by having a picture displayed on the data show describing a man and a woman inside an elevator. Then, we are asked to write something on the board in regard to the picture. After that, Christina asked us to divide into three groups and gave us the story as pieces of papers to arrange them together to comprehend the story. Thus, the procedures of sequencing the lecture and delivering the information were very accurate, valuable and useful. So I found the lecture very effective as well as not traditional and this is the core point because as a university instructor I suffer from having the traditional way of teaching. In such a way, I am trying to do my best to be acquainted with these new techniques that will be advantageous to develop our Iraqi students in Iraq concerning reading. Another thing must be mentioned...

   I would like to talk about my lecture with Mr. Joe which is under the title " teaching listening". The lecture included many activities like: listening to an audio about homeless people in the U.S.,  team work discussion to discuss the main points of the passage, comprehension question, and fill-in the blanks the missing word. Actually all these activities were very critical for me as a university instructor to be acquainted with a new type of teaching activities that could be applied to my students in Iraq. Thus doing such activities with my colleagues look like something critical to develop my teaching plan in the future as well as find something not traditional to my students since they will be able to practice these activities inside the class. Another thing that I would like to add is that the way in which the lecture is dileverd was very easy and enjoyable so I really enjoyed the lecture and I hope I'll be able to apply it to my students in Iraq.

The first week at the university of Arkansas includes an activity that was really critical for me which is "true color". This activity is about analyzing the personality according to four colors that are orange, gold, blue, and green. Each color represents a specific person according to some points that are done via choosing specific points. This activity was influential because it will help me recognize my students' needs according to their colors. Thus, as an English language teacher, I'll try to apply this for my students to recognize their colors which will help me understand them better than before based on their personality temperament. So by  identifying my students' personality, true colors will aid me into different motivations and communication styles to comprehend those around me for more understanding. The activity was also new subject to be shred with others since it was the first time to deal with. 

The first day at the University of Arkansas was really wonderful since I met new teaching staff and colleagues from Brazil. It was very useful for me to have such things in order to cope with those new colleagues as well as to get experience from the teaching staff. The very useful thing for me was how to learn new ways of delivering some important information about the present perfect in a very effective way in that each couple is being together and choose an activity to be introduced to the other weather done or not. This kind of presenting a topic is very advantageous for the students to be memorized and practiced in form of communicating language. Thus I liked the idea of presenting the topic by Mrs. Gavin for it I could apply it with my students in the grammar lecture and follow the same game. Another thing that I liked is that we as Iraqi participants get involved with Brazilian and shared them our experience about teaching by talking with them about the teaching methods that...