https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGEd8asu3WU
You sit before a beautiful sunset. It speaks a message of fallibility and beauty. But it doesn’t use any words.
You are walking in a green valley. A message of gratitude and purity is echoing through it. But it doesn’t need any words.
There is a clear river flowing. It is whispering a message of tranquility, purity, change. But not a single word needs to be said.
Yet here we are , always trying to use words. Trying to squeeze the mightiest truths into them. That is why we are not really communicating much at all. Thus, I choose the activity linked below to indicate the importance of body language in the classroom and in our daily life :
https://www.usip.org/public-education/educators/speaking-without-words
While people may say that someone “wears their heart on their sleeve,” in reality, they’re much more likely to be wearing it on their face. A number of studies have shown that people are able to recognize emotions with a high level of accuracy just based on a brief glimpse at a person’s face so words, sentences are having a close relationship with body language and facial expressions.
In a peacebuilding concept, we can freeheartedly point out the fact that ‘manners maketh man’ and bodily and facial expression constitutes a great part of manners in a society.So bringing this activity to the classroom will help us to raise awareness on effective and kind speaking in a community.
This activity may be enriched by bringing classroom some sentences that will be understood differently depending on the manner of pronuncing, expressing them and this make students to better understand how body languge affects the meaning of the expressions.
This is an interview with a gay university student so some personal information is reserved and accordingly his name will be given as Y. AKGÖL. All permission was given by him considering all website provision.
If you don’t mind can you tell me about yourself?
- My name is Y. AKGÖL. I am studying International Trades and Logistics at OMU. I am 23 years old. I am open-minded and very friendly guy. I really like getting know new people and travelling around. I like music I really like singing and playing violin. I live in Samsun, TURKEY
In Turkey, what do people do or say (or not do or say) if they want to be seen as gay [lesbian] [straight]?
- In Turkey, especially in eastern and conservative part of Turkey, they generally try to hide their identity because of high level of homophobia. If they are gay or lesbian, they generally don’t talk about getting married and stereotype relationship issues. If they are straight, especially men try to make it clear with taking about girls and their relationships with them, especially in a sexist language.
How is this different in another country? How is it similar?
- It’s generally easier to come out in European countries for gays. Community is also more open minded about LGBT community.
In Turkey/your university, which gender identities seem natural or acceptable? Which do not? How can you tell?
- In Turkey and in my university only male and female gender identities seem natural. You can feel and see this in any part of life. Especially there is a huge transphobia in Turkey
Is it easy to identify someone as gay [straight] [lesbian]? Why or why not?
- Generally, people think that it is about masculinity and femininity versions. If a woman is masculine they think that she is lesbian or ıf a guy is feminine they think that he is gay but it is not about that femininity and masculinity is just about behavior not about your orientation also you can be a masculine woman who is straight and also you can be a feminine guy who is straight but the general mentality of the public is that. One can ask the person ıf one thought that someone is gay or lesbian but I am not sure that is it really necessary or not. In Turkey, especially gays trying to hide their orientation with being and acting like masculine. Yeah, they are doing this way so you can never understand because there is a mentality like if a guy is a gay, he must be feminine so if a guy is not feminine, if he is masculine, they think that he is straight but it is totally wrong.
After people move from Turkey, do they change how they think about gender identities? If so, how? If not, why not?
- Yes, they might change their mind but I think it depends on the country they moved to. For example; If they move to one of the Western European Countries, Scandinavian Countries or the USA, yeah, their minds can change but even in those countries, there are conservatives and religious groups which doesn’t gender identities instead of female and male so yeah it depends on the country. I think going abroad really changes minds because you are going away from your culture and your stereotypical mentality so yes going abroad makes you more open- minded so you become an open person to different things and different gender identities as well.
Have you (or your friend) ever alienated by your friends or bullied by someone because of your (their) gender identity?
- I never alienated or bullied by my friends because my friend group is open-minded but in high-school times maybe I don’t know…
Do you (or your friend) feel free with your gender?
- I don’t think that ıf you have different gender identity other than stereotypes, you wouldn’t feel so comfortable in Turkey and I think that it is same for other countries.
Y.AKGÖL was really comfortable about interview, he was highy gladsome for talking and taking into considerations this kind of ignored issues as ELT students indeed he appreciated our project team and he doesn't hesitate striking a blow for our project.
Choosing a need-oriented course book sometimes turns into an uphill battle since markets offer us a large variety of them. Ministry of National Education (as of here: MEB) doesn’t offer you numerous options so it takes the deciding burden away from you but also this situation has bad sides because some parts of course books cannot be adapted into the classroom environment at all.
Silver Lining 11 assigned by MoNE was decided to be reviewed here. It will be an overall evaluation ,for extensive one you can easily tap into the book since the book is available as an e-book on EBA. Only the table of contents will be shared for better understanding over the book, the other parts will not be shared because of copy-wright issues.
Looking at the table of contents, we see really useful ten themes for learners to think about how the things going on the world. I tell you them in an order; Future Jobs, Hobbies and Skills, Hard Times, What a Life, Back to the Past, Open Your Heart, Facts about Turkey, Sports, My Friends and lastly Values and Norms.
To start with the Future Jobs theme generally male entrepreneurs take place on the unit and we see almost no male-female interaction in this unit so this makes the unit more open to talk about sexism, social justice and the place of women in current and future working life also it is an open door for talking about the cures for upcoming problems of the future .
Going on with the second unit namely Hobbies and Skills, skimming over the unit, it is seen that some certain hobbies are assigned to women like knitting, cooking and baking as well as some others such as car tattooing, motor racing etc. are assigned to men as it is seen in our society but not all parts of the unit support this idea for example we see female tennis player and archer so this unit can be supported by some drama activities and discussion activities about sexism well.
Hard Times is the third unit of the book. I have never noticed before that the book includes that much of male character in a unit. There are nearly no female figures except Maria Curie who had hard times but then accessed to success. This unit is the key for talking about gender equality ,equity-equality issues.
What a Life ! is one of the best units in terms of equality of figures. This unit involves memorable people as well as childhood dreams. The difference between the nature of the future and today’s world nature worth to talk and evaluate incorporated with the social justice.
Fifth unit of the book is Back to the Past, functions are expressing wishes and regrets for the past events, it can be easily adopted into the issues of draining away natural resources.
Open Your Heart , one of the functions of this sixth unit is expressing criticism and advice for the events in the past. There are some topics about love affairs, great loves etc. It is not pleased in our country but the teacher can come up with homophobia and LGBT issues in this unit maybe to make learners think different about these kind of topics.
Keeping seventh unit of the book, Facts About Turkey, is best part for applying social justice activities since the environment and nearly all issues are familiar to the teacher and the learners. There are some titles like tourism, natural beauties, historical sites and the functions of this unit is obviously appropriate to the theme. Functions of this unit are comparing and contrasting, asking for detailed information, describing cities and historic sites and these functions are enough to talk over global goals, sustainable development in Turkey and to discuss how our country and the world become the best version of itself.
In Sports Unit, extreme sports are generally included. As known extreme sports are generally in touch with the nature. Functions are talking about sports, making interview and reporting news. This unit can be supported by some interviewing activities such as interviewing with sportsmen and sportswomen and talking about gender equality in sports competitions and what are the cures for inequality in sports competitions can be discussed in social justice context.
My Friends is one of the units I like the most because it gives us a good opportunity to talk about sexism and racism, bullying all over the world. But there are some parts in the unit, I think it is unacceptable. In the unit, learners are instructed to clarify the qualities of a good friend, it causes sometimes exclusion and has a real bad effect on this (17) aged group learners, It is very dangerous to other students to each regarding some qualities. As well as bad topics, there are really beneficial topics in this unit like ‘Caring or Sharing?’ and ‘What are friends for?’(can be changed as What are human beings for?) to talk in a wide scope.
The last unit of the book is Values and Norms. The functions of the unit are expressing opinions, exchanging ideas and making comments and accepting people as the way they are also should be added on the functions part because this function is the thing which the whole humanity needs. Mutual understanding, justice, respect, tolerance, responsibility, love, trust, social etiquette are some of the most crucial topics in this unit. They are all for germinate a light of social justice in learners’ heart.
In conclusion, this book is very teacher-friendly and useful because criticizing the book also will create different perspectives in students’ minds. If we know the way, I think all units are open to adapt for social justice education.
My name is Rabia İrem Demirci. I was born in a cold autumn evening on October 11, 1996, in Samsun, a beautiful city on the Blacksea region in Turkey with charming ancient places and a scenic coastline, as the third child of my family. My parents moved to Samsun about 25 years ago, thus I have been living in Samsun since I was born. We are a family of six: my parents, my brother, two sisters, and me. I have grown up in a lovely extended family, thus I enjoyed a childhood of stability and peace.
I have always been a good student, but not frequently an A-student in my school life. While I was growing up, I always dreamed of becoming a teacher and the adventure began in Atakent Primary School and then went on with Köksal Ersayın Anatolian High School, which was one of the best high schools at that time. I am always a fan of language classes so I took English classes for three years and I graduated from this high school in 2014. Then, I attended English Language Teaching department of Gazi University, Ankara. After a year of preparation class, I continued my education at the Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun, in my hometown, as an undergraduate transfer student. As well as English Language Teaching, I am studying International Relations as open courses at Anadolu University. I chose to study at this department as a second department because I am passionate about examining relations and non-verbal channels among human beings and countries and fortunately, this passion helped me gain profound knowledge in some areas.
Studying in some fields and devoting my free time to reading scholarly reviews, watching interviews with recognized specialists in the field, travelling, meeting friends, doing Muay-Thai, playing violin and singing songs are some of my hobbies. I like being all-round person very much because it is the way I live and I know working hard to pursue our goals and keeping a positive attitude are the qualities that help us when we are required to maintain a level-headed in times of success and failure. These are the tools, which help us overcome the toughest phases in life.