Day 1
I started out my first day in Newcastle feeling very excited and nervous. I hadn't been on a trip on my own for a very, very long time - hence the nerves. But, the excitement of discovering a city, and a language center helped me put aside the jittery feeling and leave my hotel room.
Newcastle isn't a very big city, so walking from my hotel to the University took me about 15 minutes. There were quite a few cozy little shops and cafes and I made note of them to stop by at on my way back.
I made sure I wasn't late on my first day and even arrived quite early for my meeting with Andrew. Andrew Grenfell who is the Manager of Resources for Open Learning at the center had designed a program perfect for my short stay there. It was filled with plenty of opportunities for me to grasp a picture of how things worked at their center.
Andrew gave me a quick tour of the center, we had a little chat and then he introduced me to Helen Kenny, who is the Language Learning Support Officer.
Day 2
My second day at the Language Center was quite busy as Andrew had arranged two meetings for me. The first one was with Sherrell Kelly. Sherell is responsible for the Tandem Speaking Project and the Conversation club. First, she talked me through the tandem language program, and then shared with me how they administered the program with a Spanish institution. She was extremely helpful, and gave me great advice and “know how” about how I could adapt a similar project here at Metu.
That day was very fun as I got a chance to attend one of Sherells “Conversation Clubs”. The members of the club were students from various departments, ranging from ELT to engineering. Perhaps, this was the highlight of time there as I got to participate in the lesson just like one of the students.
Day 3
My third day at the center started out with a quick tour of the foundation department. I was given detailed information about the department and its students. I got to see all the high-tech equipment they are using at the center. The seminar rooms were especially impressive. I then had lunch and then joined Helen’s intro to how a group of students could use the language software in the center. The instructor of the group who had the session was coincidentally Turkish; Müge was kind enough to invite me out to lunch the following day.
Again I had a lot of fun as I was once again a student there. We got to see how students could benefit from the language center. We especially focused on the language programs on the computers at the center.
My third day at the center started out with a quick tour of the foundation department. I was given detailed information about the department and its students. I got to see all the high-tech equipment they are using at the center. The seminar rooms were especially impressive. I then had lunch and then joined Helen’s intro to how a group of students could use the language software in the center. The instructor of the group who had the session was coincidentally Turkish; Müge was kind enough to invite me out to lunch the following day.
Again I had a lot of fun as I was once again a student there. We got to see how students could benefit from the language center. We especially focused on the language programs on the computers at the center.
Day 4
Day 4 started out with a technological tour of the center. Elina Vasina, who is the head of the IT department, showed me how they incorporated the latest technological advances to their language center. I must say that I was pretty impressed when I found out that the whole IT department was basically a one-man-show. Elina got everything done and ran things so smoothly and efficiently. My afternoon that day ended with a nice cup of coffee and a friendly and informative chat with Ian McArdle, who is one of the language tutors there. So, I got guidance on how I could make use of the material at the center when learning German. Ian helped me out with which materials I could use to learn German.
Day 4 started out with a technological tour of the center. Elina Vasina, who is the head of the IT department, showed me how they incorporated the latest technological advances to their language center. I must say that I was pretty impressed when I found out that the whole IT department was basically a one-man-show. Elina got everything done and ran things so smoothly and efficiently. My afternoon that day ended with a nice cup of coffee and a friendly and informative chat with Ian McArdle, who is one of the language tutors there. So, I got guidance on how I could make use of the material at the center when learning German. Ian helped me out with which materials I could use to learn German.
Day 5
My fifth and final day at the center started with a detailed explanation about how they kept all the material (books, audio-visual material, etc) in a neat and organised way. Claire Walker, who is responsible for all the records of the center content showed me in detail what programs they used to keep things in order.
My final meeting at the center was again with Andrew, who told me in detail about their “excellence award”. I could clearly see why Newcastle University Language Center got the award of excellence.
Reflections
Reflections
On my trip back to Turkey, I reflected a lot on what I had experienced at the center. I was determined to try out a couple of ideas at Metu SAC, the first being the Tandem Speaking Project. As soon as I started work back at Metu SAC, Feyza and I started on our Tandem Speaking Project, which we have well on its way.
We launched the project via ongoing workshops, explaining an app used for 'Tandem Speaking'.
We launched the project via ongoing workshops, explaining an app used for 'Tandem Speaking'.
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