One Year as an Instructor at a Foundation University

by Saniye Demirtaş

Hi everyone, I’m Saniye from University of Turkish Aeronautical Association (Turk Hava Kurumu Universitesi) and I would like to share my experiences from the first day of my application for this university to the very last day of my one-year teaching experience, which has been really fast. As it is told, time flies!

I sent my application file to THK University towards the end of August, which included a CV, transcript, exam scores, etc.,  the standard documents identified by YOK for instructor admissions. At the end of August, I was called for a  three-hour written test with 3 or 4 questions for each of which I was required to write an essay. The questions were about ELT methods and approaches such as “What are the types of feedback? How do you give feedback to your students?” and “How do you define portfolio? Are there any advantages or disadvantages of a portfolio?”. After the exam, a shortlist was created from the names of the candidates who gained right to attend to the interview and the dates, hours and places of the interviews were announced on the website of the university. In the interview lasting about 10 minutes at most, two interviewers asked why I wanted to work at this university, what I could contribute to the success of the university, whether it was a problem for me to teach students who were almost my age and how I considered team work. The interview atmosphere was really friendly and more like a chat rather than a serious, tense and formal interview. I was called to have another interview with the head of the department and that was how I learned my interview went successfully, which was followed by an interview with rector himself. Both these interviews were  really short and arranged for them to meet us. Everything was completed in about a week and  that’s how I became an instructor of foreign languages department.

I voluntarily accepted to work at Ankara Aeronautical Vocational School of Higher Education (Ankara Havacılık Meslek Yüksek Okulu), which is far from the main campus at Etimesgut and my journey at AHMYO at Pursaklar began. Let me give you some information about AHMYO first, before moving to my classes and teaching experience. AHMYO offers trainings on 3 main aviation fields other than Piloting: Cabin Services Management, Air ground Services Management and Aircraft Technology Program, all of which last 2 years. The medium of instruction is Turkish; however, in English classes we mainly use English. The English level of the students is mostly beginner, there are few students who have had a proper English education at high school so, we have to start  from the beginning: with teaching the English alphabet.

At Fall semester, I was assigned to Cabin Services Management I and Aircraft Technology Program I (I: first grade). I found myself in two classrooms, full of students aged between 18 and 20, which means I had 2 years between the oldest student and me. I was really worried about my classroom management because they may feel more comfortable when they figured out that I was just two years older than most of them. However, this wasn’t the case. My young age became my advantage in my interaction with them: We shared a similar childhood, we had a similar taste of humor, etc. and the impression of a young teacher of them was quite positive. They regarded me a dynamic, innovative and understanding teacher, because I used different methods of teaching, I was making jokes, sharing memories and ideas with them and I understood their problems, troubles of learning a language from the very beginning. I was encouraging them to meet the challenge of learning English grammar, pronunciation and spelling with which they didn’t have pleasant learning memories at past. Some of them refused to try again because they had tried and failed so many times that they developed ‘learned helplessness’. With those students, I had to spend more time, more energy and show more resistance to their fear of failing again. My strategy was to observe my classes really closely and identify such students earlier. After that, I could work on them more both during and after the classes. During the classes, I gave them right to speak or answer the questions even if they weren’t willing to do so. After the classes, I talked to them privately, advising and encouraging them to try more because I believed that they could do it. At first, they didn’t take it seriously and some of them said to me to give up trying to encourage them because there was no way that they could succeed, showing their first quiz grade as a proof. However, with the result of the second quiz, it was proved that they were wrong. Their progress was worth mentioning and they got really excited when they figured out that they could succeed. I came to understand that success is vitally important for improving the language ego of the students who have failed so many times. After that, they became more hardworking; attending to the classes actively and doing their homework.

Let me explain another difficulty I faced during my classes, which I believe almost every English teacher in Turkey face. Our passion to talk only in English during our classes can be really problematic. Throughout my undergraduate years, I was always told to speak only in English in my lessons so that students could be exposed to more linguistic and sociolinguistic input, which is ideally a really good idea. However, this isn’t always the case. I have been teaching to adolescents for a year, who has started learning English  from the beginning and has to learn it on upper- intermediate level before they graduate; otherwise, they cannot find a job in aviation field. The program is really tight and I have had to catch up with the curriculum by covering a unit per week and each unit contains 2-4 grammar subjects. Besides, they became easily discouraged when they didn’t understand the topic I covered. In such situations, when I found my students unwilling to try to understand what I was explaining, I switched to Turkish. In time, my teacher talk consisted of code-switchings between Turkish and English. I think the nature, quantity and the language of teacher talk changes from lesson to lesson, class to class depending on their needs. For example, my Cabin Services class needed to improve their speaking skills more than the other skills because they would become flight attendants so, I used more English and I emphasized pronunciation. However, Aircraft Technology class needed to improve their reading skills because, when they become aircraft technicians, they need to read and understand the aircraft manuals in order to fix them. So I focused on vocabulary, grammar and comprehension of reading passages more than other skills. In second term, I was teaching to Cabin Services I and II, so I emphasized speaking more to the extend I was allowed by curriculum. Especially with Cabin Services II, I had to do speaking lessons in order to enable them to practice English more under my supervision and teach them some interview techniques because they would take the written and oral exams of airline companies. I worked hard throughout the year to catch up with the schedule, to make as much  speaking and listening lessons as I could; I should admit that my students were really hardworking and conscious. Before ending the term, 8 of them found jobs as cabin crew at Onur Air and one became a flight attendant of Turkish Airlines.

As for another difficulty, I can count the adaptation process. Life is really different out here far from METU: you can regard this either positively or negatively, I guess it depends on how much you love METU! J I am a true lover of METU so, the adaptation process was not easy. I was living in dorm at METU. After I got this job, I had to live in an apartment by myself, I had to grow up a little bit more as a part of job responsibilities. Being called as “Hocam”  on its own was something I felt that I should get accustomed to. Additionally, I am the youngest one in academic staff which can be problematic sometimes. However, being the youngest one doesn’t mean that you are the most unexperienced and the most needy one. As a METU graduate, as Fatih and Cengiz mentioned, I felt my difference. I knew what to do, when to do something, how to deal with  troublesome situations, how to develop curricula, how to teach a specific grammar point. I didn’t feel that I was incompetent to do this job. I have been asked for my opinions about ELT-related situations by my colleagues although I am younger and less experienced.  Students, administrative staff, academic staff; everybody have respected to me because of my subject knowledge and because I am a graduate of METU. For this, I should definitely thank to my professors and METU itself.