Week 3

As mentioned last week, from the instructor's perspective, things are still moving slowly as, although it is week 3, because of constantly changing class lists, I haven't yet got onto the really serious work. Then, this week began with two free days caused by snow. I sometimes think that students don't view their instructors as human and think that we don't like having days off. Of course we do, but we are used to thinking more long term and have to worry about how we will get through the course work. Furthermore, I don't know if students actually know but Yuk has strict regulations about how long a semester should be in order for it to be considered valid. If lots of days are canceled because of snow, the university would have to compensate in some way by for example taking days off our spring break or extending the length of the semester.

I am glad that I am not the president having to make decisions about whether or not to cancel lessons. Unlike in other institutions, our president seems quite decisive. A friend of mine who works in Sabanci university had to go to class on Monday - spent most of the morning getting there and was then told that she could head for home at 2pm. All in all, it was a frustrating day for her as she spent most of it traveling and got very little work done. I also added to her frustrations by informing her on Monday afternoon that our president had already made the decision to cancel lessons on Tuesday. Her comment was "what a wonderful university you work for...". How many of us would agree with her?

As I write this, the sun is shining and temperatures feel like they are well into their teens. In the course of a few days there has suddenly been a dramatic change in the weather. This helps one think of Summer and the end of the semester - although we are only 3 weeks in. Still, it give the impetus to keep going.

Having had two days "off" this week, I am now concerned about how I will manage in the coming weeks. I of course didn't take the days off but used them to catch up on some "administrative" tasks. Most of the time was spent reading and responding to students' blogs. When explaining how do do a blog I showed students some examples from last semester. As in most cases, students were worried about how much they should write. I showed them examples of both extremes and I was quite surprised to find that most of them have gone for erring on the side of caution and writing lots. In particular I remember one student who reflected on the difficulties he had in writing 500 words for the diagnostic essay. When I finished reading his blog I quickly pasted it into MS Word and did a word count - 1,303. I don't believe he realized how much he was writing in his blog. One of my main goals in asking students to do this blog, is to give them the experience of writing in a more relaxed setting and allowing them to write as much/little as they want and not have to worry about being graded. I will of course continue to read the blogs each week but I hope students can appreciate that I may not always have time to respond with individual comments each and every week - especially during the weeks in which I am grading essays and conducting tutorials.

During the one and only lesson of this week, I gave feedback on the diagnostic essays. I know that students don't particularly enjoy these types of lessons as they appear to be simply a list of what not to do (after you have actually done them all). However, as the course progresses and they stop doing what they are not supposed to do, these feedback sessions will get shorter and shorter as they start doing what they should do. I must remember however to make sure that I give some positive feedback and congratulate them on their achievements and reinforce what is being done correctly.

Week 2

Ideally, in the first lesson of this week I should have been giving feedback on the diagnostics and we should then be moving on to the main focus of the course. However, because of all the movement of students, only about half of the class had actually completed an essay. So, instead I spent the first lesson of the week having a closer look at the syllabus. I did this by giving students a quiz. Syllabi, of their nature are not particularly interesting documents to read. I guess they should only be considered a point of reference to be consulted as and when issues arise throughout the semester. However, it regularly occurs that students claim ignorance after they have been penalised in some way. Therefore, I posed a number of questions related to problems that students had last year in interpreting and applying the rules laid down in the syllabus. Students seem to think that instructors are capable of carrying out complex mathematical equations such as deducting 15% of a student's grade as a penalty for absences. They think I will work out eg. what 15% of 74 is and then deduct that which will still give a student a passing grade. However, the reality is that the maths is simply 74-15=59 which is an F. Life is that simple. This seemed to be a revelation to most. Also many were surprised to hear that I am not into "curves". Don't they realise that writing instructors avoid maths as much as possible - it simply isn't our forte. I hope the quiz has helped to clarify what is and is not expected.

However, I know there are still students around who misinterpret what is said/written. I had a strange phone call just as I was about to rush off to class on Thursday. It was a student who lives on the next hill calling to tell me that he had set off in his car to come to class but had returned home because of poor driving conditions caused by snow. I looked out my window and saw a few snow flakes but they weren't "sticking". Being polite I thanked him for calling and told him that he should do whatever he thought was best. Later, from reading his blog, I learn that he believes that by phoning me, he in some way excused himself and that I would mark him present in class. I hope no other students think this or else I can expect my phone to be ringing constantly before each lesson.

As I expect students to keep a weekly blog, I had to make sure that I explained how to set it up in the second lesson of the week. Already the end of week 2 and we haven't really got started. About one or two students in each class had heard of or were keeping a blog already and so I had to spend quite a while explaining what it is and how to set it up. Initially I asked how many students actually like writing. I can't say I was surprised but for a writing teacher, it is disappointing to learn that, if one is lucky, as many as 1 or 2 students in each class actually enjoys writing. So, we are already at a disadvantage. If someone were to ask me if I like writing, I guess I'd have to say no - not really. It's hard work but then it can also be very rewarding. Although students may not actually be converted and say that writing has become their favourite pastime, I hope that they will, at the end of the course, at least feel more confident and take pride in their work.

So, now that they have all been instructed on how to set up their blogs it will be interesting to see what they say at the end of this week. I can already anticipate what some of it will be...

Week 1

This will be the second time I am teaching this course. I usually teach a different course each semester but because I am not teaching 102 this semester, but rather 101 again, there hasn't really been enough time to design another course. Besides, the course worked rather well last semester and so it will be interesting to see whether it will run as smoothly this semester.

I have a number of concerns. Firstly, as I am teaching this course for the second consecutive semester, there is a danger that I myself may lose interest. However, by choosing different texts on which to base the main assignments, I will ensure that I get a completely different character of essay than I got last semester. This should help. Also, last semester, I myself had to do quite a lot o f learning as it was the first time I had ever made a podcast myself, hosted podcasts on my website, written a blog, converted sound recordings from mobile phones etc. Now that I have been through the process once, everything should run a lot more smoothly this semester. Also, from the students' perspective, I will be able to give them clearer instructions as I have learned a great deal from difficulties that students experienced last semester - I will be able to anticipate difficulties and warn students in advance.

Another concern I have is that the profile of the students this semester is completely different to those of last. As it is the second semester of the year, students are arriving from different sources. Many of them are repeat students or students who have had to do a remedial English course. Many of my students last semester were direct entry with practically native English fluency. This means of course that many of the students this semester are going to find the course rather tough and demanding. I hope that they are fully aware of their capabilities and that because of their weaker skills they may have to work a lot harder than others and despite their hard work they may still be disappointed with grades. However, I feel that as long as they remain confident that they can pass and continue to make the effort they will still be able to succeed .

It is now week two but I am still receiving new students into the class. It is very disruptive for all when students are being constantly moved from class to class. About half the students have written a diagnostic essay for me but by Thursday of this week I should have received the remainder. From those I have seen so far, there are no surprises. As some students are repeating there is a larger contingent - than last semester - of students who appear to know what to do with a text and how to incorporate it into their writing.

Later this week I will brief students on the writing of their blog and the production of their podcast. From a quick preliminary pole, there is only the odd student in each class who knows what a blog is. None apparently know what a podcast is. So, lots to learn and here's hoping it will be a successful semester for all concerned.