Meeting the parents, grandparents and school Open Day

March 5, 2011

A brunch was organised at Kuckyali Kindergarten for the parents to meet the "long awaited new English teacher". I was a bit nervous as I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I was asked to make a short speech to the parents and I never feel comfortable speaking to a crowd, contrary to what many of you may think, especially as I wasn't terribly sure what the audience's grasp of English was like!!

The headmistress, Lale, from the main school and David Coughlan, who recruits English teachers for the schools, were invited to attend also.

There was a typically Turkish feast set out for brunch. Plenty of olives, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, breads, pastries, nuts, fruit salad, and of course free-flowing coffee and cay (tea) and more cay....... and more cay!!!!

Most parents came which was lovely to see. They are of course quite young couples as the children are only 3 and 4 year olds. Many of them speak English to varying degrees which was a relief. Many learnt English at school or at university and some of them work for multi-national companies. 

I was able to mingle with them and introduce myself before I had to make my little speech, so was feeling a little more at ease.  Thought I'd add a copy of the speech it will give an idea of my approach.

Meeting the parents Speech

Merhaba, gunaydin

My name is Sue Houston, I am from Australia where English is our native language. I have been teaching young children for 30 years, so I have met and taught many little children during my teaching time.

I have 3 children of my own so I am familiar with the upbringing of children also.

This is my first visit to Turkey and already I am loving the city and the people of Istanbul. I am very happy and excited to come to Kucukyali. Naz, Figen , Sevgi, Meryem, Yeter, Ahmet and Turken have been very welcoming and helpful to me at this school.

I must also thank Mr David Coughlan. For 3 years I have been asking him to find me a job in Istanbul and waited until finally this job at this wonderful Kindergarten arrived for me!

Thank you also to Lale for welcoming me and allowing me to visit 2 other ISTEK Kindergarten’s to get a feel for the ISTEK family of schools and to have a glimpse of what their approach to teaching English is.

Your children are beautiful, cok (pronounced chock) guzel!!! Already they are starting to copy English words and short sentences.

Children learn their own native language by being talked to, sung to and told words to describe household items, toys and things around them, pointing to things and imitating sounds until they learn words. Then they begin to string words together to make sentences.

The learning experiences your children will be having in my class will reflect the early learning of natural language at home.

Children learn a language when they are immersed in it and I am aiming to do this in the school. The children will be playing games, singing songs and chants, playing music, performing drama, drawing, colouring pictures and making craft items and also participating in talking and listening activities.

I love children’s story and picture books and I will be reading many stories to the children and using many bright, colourful pictures to keep them excited and interested while learning.

I am with the children at meal times, which is a good time to talk about food and eating.

This semester we will be learning language connected to the themes of school, my body, my family, clothes, animals, and friends.

I am sure your children will have a happy time learning English.  I am sure they will learn English faster than me, who is trying to learn Turkish!!!! They say English is a difficult language.... I think Turkish is very hard.

If you have any questions or concerns please speak to Naz and then we will talk with you.

Tessekker ederim

I have been doing quite a lot of research on the Internet about teaching English to little children, have bought a number of down loadable resources (books and games) that I can print off and use which is great. have also bought some books on amazon.com and am getting Georgie to bring a few DVDs from England when she comes. English resources are very limited here.

The brunch went off well, main questions were about which is the better English- American or English? what would you answer? I said ASTRAYAN!!!!!

March 11



Grandparents having afternoon tea
with grandchildren



The following Thursday was Grandparents afternoon. I made a little card for each child on "good old" Publisher and they coloured a picture to give their grandparents. Sadly, I was about the same age as some of the grandparents!!! (maybe not quite, but close!!!) We performed some of the action songs and the older children introduced themselves "Hello, my name is ........... I am a boy/girl". Not much you might say, but, hey, I had only been with them for 3 weeks!!! quite an achievement, I thought!!!! They even knew what they were saying!!!!



Children performing for their grandparents.
They sang a Turkish song about grandmother
and grandfather



After the little performance, we had afternoon tea. Was quite amazing to watch some of the grannies feeding the little ones like mother birds!!! Some of the Grandparents also spoke some English so I was able to converse with them in a limited fashion, also.

March 26

Today was an Open day of sorts for ISTEK schools- yes Saturday, just like KWS, anyway certainly wasn't anything of the sort for our boutique Kindergarten! We had 3 sets of visitors and each of the children are enrolled to come, so that was a few hours I really could have spent sight-seeing!!



The brand new sign just in time for Open Day.
 It even lights up at night!





 

The girls on Open Day
Sue, Naz (principal), Sevgi (teacher 4yr olds)
Meryem (teacher 3 yr olds)
Figen (administrator)

After Open Day I went shopping at a HUGE shopping complex- CARREFORE is the main store its like Big W and Woolworth's together BUT it is so large, the store attendants wear ROLLER SKATES to go and check a price for a checkout operator!

I walked there ( I walk alot of places) took about 1/2 an hour or so. I had to cross a major road, supposedly a freeway of sorts, check out the traffic for a Saturday afternoon, 3.30 by the time I went back over at 5.30 one direction was completely at a standstill!!! They say there are 4 million card in Istanbul!



Traffic going towards the Bridge
over the Bosphorus



Traffic going away from city