MOCA 2018 TED University
Reflections
Mine BAĞ
General Intro
Meeting of Change Agents (MOCA) held at TED University Ankara focused on Engaging the Language Learner within and beyond the classroom. Main areas of discussion included motivational factors, factors in distractions, how to choose and plan engaging and effective activities, student- teacher and student-student interaction, and assessment issues. This 2nd gathering of MOCA had 33 institutions participating represented by both teachers and students, which makes the gathering a special case.
The variety of practices in different institutions is striking. Whether newly established or entrenched, state or private, with a big population or small scale, defined as EAP, ESP, general or vocational, all institutions seem to have their struggles and solutions in their own way some teachers trying things in their atypical individual ways. The panel at the end of the event displayed a variety of answers to the topics at stake.
The panel discussion presentations and specific questions discussed in the sessions will be available at the link mocaturkey.wordpress.com
Dalince ÇONGARA
The second annual MOCA event was very inspiring for me. Especially in the way that it is very unique. Every teacher takes part with one of their students and they share experiences, practices and views on teaching and learning in Turkey today.
The day started with dividing students and teachers separately in to focus groups and giving them intricate questions on learner engagement. After lunch, there were some follow up questions and our group prepared a short presentation with a summary of our ideas. The final part of this event was a panel where all groups shared their ideas. MOCA is such a great way to gain insight on the diversity of teachers and students perspectives. As we prepared to leave my student, Hilal Yıldırım who attended the conference with me made me feel so proud on behalf of our school by saying “All the things said at the panel to get students to more engaged in class are already done at our school.”
Zeynep AKANT – student participant
It has been a great experience attending in MOCA Event held by TED University in Ankara where I had a chance to meet students & experts from all around Turkey and discuss the issues about learner engagement in class. Personally, this conference was very well organized and very successful. I fully enjoyed the one-day event with interesting discussions on various questions. We tried to find effective solutions to address the learner engagement problem in prep-class. At the end of the day, I was very glad to share my own experiences and I think I have benefited very much from this event. Also, I am very happy that Sabanci University is going to be hosting this organization next year and I am looking forward to being a part of it. I would like to thanks to people who have made this MOCA event possible and those who have shared their experiences during that one exciting day in Ankara.
Hilal YILDIRIM- student participant
This event gave an opportunity me to discuss my school learning system and method with other university students. Our discussion topic was challenges that we encounter when we learn English at class. We talked about lacking speaking classes and native speaker teacher in our schools. Some of them said we had too much lessons hour in a week. We also compared to our exam and evaluation system. Then, we tried to figure out solutions for fixing these difficulties to learn English better. What I realized while talking to my peers at the event is that most of the ideas they came up with were already being implemented at our school. I feel lucky to be a student of SL.
