FINAL PROJECT REFLECTION

For the final project of CEIT319, we have chosen a unit called "My Town" for the 5th
grade students from the National Curriculum of English Teaching as a Second Language.
The reason why we have selected this unit is that the names of the important places,
prepositions and asking or giving directions in a target language are actually important
topics to be taught. Also, by choosing this unit, we gained a better chance to integrate and
utilize different teaching materials in our classroom.
While we were preparing the unit plan, we spent most time on analysing learners
and determining teaching strategies that would fit all of the students in our classroom. As
nearly all the students have different characteristics and they learn in different ways, we
think that for all the groups that are preparing a unit plan for this project, it was difficult to
find the appropriate classroom activities and teaching methods that each students would
benefit from equally.
As our unit is about places and address descriptions, we thought that it would be
good for our students to have a sense of direction of their own. For example, students who
know their left and right would more easily understand the descripted place or address. In
our plan, we did not set strict boundaries for students in terms of grammar knowledge but
if they have some information about the use of imperatives and present tenses, they will
more easily ask for or give address descriptions. While setting how many hours of lessons
were needed, we took into consideration how much time we needed for all the activities,
homework and evaluations. We also paid attention to the differences among students'
learning styles while allocating time for our lessons.
When it came to setting standards and objectives, as a group, we thought that it
would be a good idea to set realistic and useful standards and objectives for our
classroom. For example, instead of limiting students within the class, we tried to make our
students use what they learn in classroom during their daily life. Therefore, our students
are not expected to be successful only in classroom. Instead, they should easily describe
the address when people ask them or they should easily ask someone the address that
they are planning to go. Creating such objectives does not mean that we did not care
about in class activities or success of students. These activities, homework and
evaluations are still important part of our classroom. However, we see them as a way to
prepare our students to real life situations.

As the unit we have chosen requires mental representations to be fully understood,

we have used a lot of visuals while preparing materials and activities. For example, we
created flashcards by which students will understand the meanings of prepositions thanks
to the visuals on these flashcards. Also, concept maps and the presentation that we
created will help our students to animate the new vocabulary on their brains. Apart from
visuals, as our objective was to prepare our students for real-life situations, we created
concepts in which students will have chance to communicate with each other just as in a
daily life. For example, some students will ask each other the addresses they want to go
and the others will give directions for their friends who are asking. Also, quizzes that we
prepared will challenge their knowledge about newly learned vocabulary. Apart from these,
there are some videos in our lesson plan which will show some examples about how to
communicate with a stranger when needed.
To talk about an instructional theory, we can clearly say that we have used an
eclectic approach for our activities. We think that none of the instructional theories alone is
suitable for all learners. Thus, we can get the best results when we combine more than
one approach. In our lesson plan, for example, we have combined the Natural Approach,
TPR and Communicative Approach to get the best results for our students. Along with
these approaches, we have planned to utilize different media types and materials. We
have prepared plenty of activities for our students in and out of classroom. Apart from
these activities, students will have online surveys, paper-based quizzes and map drawing
projects to test their own understanding about the target topic.
Students' participation will play an important role in our classes because, as a
group, we believe that real learning happens when there is a connection and
communication between the teacher and student. Hence, we are planning to make our
students participate in classes thanks to the classroom activities. Funny activities that we
create will make them more interested in classes. Moreover, we are planning to create a
comfortable classroom environment in which there are all necessary devices and tools.
We believe that the more comfortable the classroom is, the more students will participate
in classroom activities.
Lastly, we will evaluate our students in two main ways. First of all, in all classes, we
will thoroughly observe our students. By this way, we will see whether or not they have
fully understand the topic. So when we see deficit in their learning and understanding, we
will be able to improve our activities or revise and repeat them over and over till we are
completely sure that they have a clear understanding. Another way to evaluate our

students will be the formal tests, final projects and homework that we will assign to them.
By this way, we are planning to make students aware of their own learning process. They
will correct their own mistakes, they will prepare their own projects and they will be half
responsible for their own learning. We are also planning to get feedback from our students
at the end of the unit to see how was the experience.

Group Name: Ejderya Terbiyecileri

Group Members: Salih Can Ate/2087179
Semih Can Aktepe/2087104
Hseyin Yasin Argana/2087153