by Merjen Yomudova, METU FLE 2013
Graduating from undergraduate program of English Language Teaching is not impossible or out of the question as far as you desire it so much. Namely, I mean you should insist on your destination and you need some people around you who support and believe in you. From my firstyear, I started taking additional courses to fit four-yearprogram into three years. And I did it, I graduated from METU English Language Teaching Department in three years. Thanks to my parents, fiancé, advisors and instructors who believing in my destination supported me spiritually and financially. Let me introduce you basic principles of graduation in three years from English Language Teaching Department at METU:
- Arrangement of Courses
First of all, it is better to draw a brief map of your schedule for the left years of program including the courses that you can manage and that are approved by instructors. For example, some courses may cause troubles for you, as there can be some fundamental courses you need to cover beforehand in order to handle some other courses. Hence, you can ask for advice from your advisor or a friend who has followed same pace before. I can also suggest you the schedule I have followed during three years of mine in English Language Teaching Department. You can consider elective courses first and then try to add must courses into your schedule. Manageable and handy courses like History of Turkish Revolution should be definitely attended in the second year if you are planning to graduate earlier. In addition, do not take IS100 Introduction to Information Technologies and Applicationscourse since I believe that it is not challenging to pass the exam without attending the course itself. Just get prepared for the power point presentations the course and try out sample examination. You have three chances to enter the exam and pass the course, so do not rush and make fast decisions to the side of attending the course itself. By the way, try not to leave more than seven courses for the last, third year for you may have other plans to consider. The schedule I have pursued in three years is below:
1st year – fall semester – regular courses I was supposed to attend
1st year – spring semester – as an addition to my regular courses I took FLE280 Oral Expression and Public Speaking
1st year summer school – non departmental elective
2nd year – fall semester – regular courses + FLE307 Language Acquisition, HIST2205 History of the Turkish Revolution I, FLE352 Community Service
2nd year – spring semester – regular courses + HIST2206 History of the Turkish Revolution II, EDS304 Classroom Management, FLE308 Teaching English to Young Learners, departmental elective
2nd year – summer school – FLE405 Materials Adaptation & Development, FLE413English Language Testing and Evaluation
3rd year – fall semester –regular courses + FLE425 School Experience, FLE423 Translation (departmental elective), departmental elective, non-departmental elective
3rd year – spring semester – regular courses + FLE404 Practice Teaching, FLE426 The English Lexicon, EDS424 Guidance, departmental elective
- Interaction…
Remember! Interaction is one of the key concepts to achieve your goals and accordingly complete your undergraduate program within three years. Try to keep intact relationship with your advisors, instructors and classmates. Inform your advisor and instructors about your plans and do not be shy to ask for an advice or for a help if you have difficulties with the course. Usually most of the instructors in our department are cheerful and helpful so your efforts will not be in waste. However, do not insist much on attending the courses, which are not permitted for junior students because you may struggle a lot to deal with the responsibilities of the course or you may get lower grade or even fail the course. From my own experience, I can say that some instructors may refuse to accept you into his or her class. In such situations do not give up, ask another instructor to attend his or her class. Coming to the interaction with your classmates, you may notice that some of them act as if they are jealous, while some others may pity you. Do not accept them seriously, just concentrate on your goal if you need any help ask the ones who pity youJ. Try to be in active groups, which contain hard working, creative and responsible members, unless you will work hard but get a lower grade for your assignments. Do not put aside your interaction with parents and the people who love you because they are the ones who can encourage and support you any moment to deal with your difficulties.
- Study, study, and study
Studying a lot and sparing most of your time for it is another requirement for early graduation. You may have many assignments to do on your own and with group members as you may have 9-10 courses to pass each semester. Hence, you need to do some extra search and encounter other sources in order to achieve better consequences and fruitful learning atmosphere with your group members. Another reason why you should study and search a lot is you may miss and do not know some information which senior students have gained from other courses, in short you need to be aware of them too. What I like most about the busy schedule of these three years is the fact that they provided me with comprehensible input, in scientific language “i+1” theory of Krashen. In other words, you should study and search a lot and you do it willingly trying to achieve your major goal. Additionally, try to spare time for your self-development, attend various clubs if you love joining them or you can read books, series of books, as did I. In these three years, I feel how fast I am developing myself in the field, thanks to extensive reading and comprehensible input I was receiving. If you want to simply graduate from undergraduate program of English Language Teaching Department studying will suffice but if you want to graduate with a degree then you need to study a lot a lot…
- Draw your future plan
Finally, do not forget to decide on your after graduation plan, as I did. During the entire three years of your studying you will be busy enough to forget about or to get prepared for the steps of your after graduation plan but in order to succeed in the rest of your life, be equipped for it too. As a desert to advantages of early graduation there are some limitations of it. For instance, if you are planning to graduate within three years most probably you will not have chance to experience exchange programs like Erasmus program due to your busy schedule. As a result better if you go abroad for education and training with programs such as Comenius, after graduation.
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