WEEK 7-8
We think that there must be balance  between activities  to develop and evaluate  the students' skills .
For example , in our  observation classroom , there are specific activities like listening activities , but there isn't any speaking activities.However , both of these activities should be balanced .The number of  four skills should be  delivered equally  during the term .We couldn't see  that. Tuğçe thinks that she will add  production stage   to these  activities since she wants them to produce new structures without the  specific structures  in the activity we observed  and also we can mention about availability of balance as there must be three stages. Ömer thinks that  the integration of skills shows us  the availability  of balance.To explain it , there  was just reading and writing activities  in the classroom. We did just one  listening activity during the whole term and  the teacher didn't  support them with other activities.Furthermore, teacher used  just  two types of activities like fill in blanks , multiple choice  , but the teacher should give place for other type of activity.
Both of us  think that  fluency has been taking  a  crucial role  in our new education system named as constructivism.Constructivism focuses on knowledge we can use  in our daily life.Moreover, we prefer to comprehension rather than using the correct form .Unfortunately , our education system  seems to support fluency.Although in our exams such as TEOG, the  students need to know and use just the structures to be successful at these exams .Because of this problem in our education system, teachers dont focus on fluency , intelligibility and don't use the speaking and listening activities.
Hence,  the students face with problems of speaking and understanding the teacher.Furthermore, the teacher correct mistakes  while they speak English  although their speech includes intelligibility and this shows us  that  the teacher wants them to learn the use  of structures in a correct way.Moreover , though the students  think that they can speak foreign  language  because they can comprehend each other , continual correcting  demotivates them.Instead of that , the students should be supported and given positive feedback by the teacher.
According to us, fluency activities consist of real life uses  since they resemble to a real communication.In that , when we set communication , we ignore the structures  and the important point is to be understood by a receiver .Furthermore , the fluency activities motivates the students  as they live language .
In short, the most important point is balance between activities.We should focuse on fluency rather than accuracy  to create  more authentic atmosphere in the classroom.
Ömer Faruk Dilaver
Tuğçe Önge