Author Archives: Olcay Sert

How much time do we have? On Countdown timers in Japanese schools and the first week of my “minigration” to Japan

Naoko Sensei puts a digital countdown timer on the board. Sets it to 40 seconds. All pupils stand up: it is time to practice, in pairs, the months in English. One of the students says 2月, the other one responds in English: February. A boy says 4月, and after some hesitation, a girl says April.Continue reading “How much time do we have? On Countdown timers in Japanese schools and the first week of my “minigration” to Japan”

Getting out of the comfort zone, again? On our AI-Write project, Limerick, and the future of higher education (in Europe)

We are living in the times when at least half of the LinkedIn users1, AI-influencers, or people you barely know are telling you to get out of your comfort zone, before you have had enough time to spend in and enjoy your “comfort zone” (i.e. doing what you know best – apparently it is “notContinue reading “Getting out of the comfort zone, again? On our AI-Write project, Limerick, and the future of higher education (in Europe)”

Sihirli Ağaç – Amatör bir yazarın macerası

Çocuklarıma yıllardır hikayeler anlatıyorum. Amatörce, seve seve, içimden gelerek, ama üzerine çok düşünmeden anlatıyorum. Yatağın baş ucuna oturduğumda dilimin beynimden daha hızlı olabildiği anlarda ardı ardına serüvenler karalıyorum hayalimde. Amatörce, basitçe, ama seve seve…Çocuklarım bazı hikayelerde maceraların içerisinde olmayı çok seviyorlar. İşte böyle başladı “Sihirli Ağaç” bir gece, hiç planlamadan, önceden kurgulamadan, dilimin kemiksiz olduğuContinue reading “Sihirli Ağaç – Amatör bir yazarın macerası”

Taş ve Şarap: Bir mübadil torunu anısı

Bir Eylül sabahı Kavala’dan (Καβάλα) çıktım yola Petros’un arabasında. Kavalalı Petros dedemin doğduğu köy olan Komnina’ya (Κομνηνά) ilk ziyaretimde yoldaşım oldu. Komnina İskeçe’de (Xanthi – Ξάνθη) bir köy, eski adıyla Kurular. Komnina yolunda dedemi ve Bursa’nın Gündoğdu (Palladari – Παλλαδάρι, ya da Filedar) köyündeki çocukluğumu düşündüm. Rodop dağlarını yavaşça tırmanırken zeytin ve incir ağaçlarının kokusuContinue reading “Taş ve Şarap: Bir mübadil torunu anısı”

Internationalisation starts at home – but only at the mercy of the landlords and tenants

Internationalisation is both a goal and a process at many universities located in countries where English is not one of the official languages. Swedish universities are no exception. Internationalisation extends to research collaborations, education, and staff and student mobility. It is not just a process of reaching out to and collaborating with universities, researchers, teachingContinue reading “Internationalisation starts at home – but only at the mercy of the landlords and tenants”

Numa Markee’s “technoblurbs” and my technical and workflow choices

Numa Markee created a webpage that has very useful information for Conversation Analysis researchers who want to have an overview of software and hardware for recording, transcriptions, and other tasks: https://numamarkee.com/resources/ The page has a section (please scroll down) that presents real world examples of technical and workflow choices from CA researchers (see, for example,Continue reading “Numa Markee’s “technoblurbs” and my technical and workflow choices”

“You need to be reminded about those small things that make differences”: Classroom interaction and language teaching

I was invited to write a guest blog for Karlstad University, Centre for Language and Literature Education. I wrote about the importance of classroom interaction in language teaching, arguing for a focus on classroom interaction in initial teacher education and continuous professional development. The full text is available at https://sola.kau.se/cslblog/2023/05/31/you-need-to-be-reminded-about-those-small-things-that-make-differences-classroom-interaction-and-language-teaching/ I would like to thankContinue reading ““You need to be reminded about those small things that make differences”: Classroom interaction and language teaching”

Call for chapters: Conversation Analysis as a Change Agent in Language Teacher Education

We are soliciting manuscripts for an edited volume on conversation analysis as a change agent in language teacher education. Over the last decade, conversation analytic (CA) findings from classroom discourse studies have started feeding into language teacher education contexts, yielding a number of CA-based teacher training frameworks such as SETT (Walsh 2013), IMDAT (Sert, 2019)Continue reading “Call for chapters: Conversation Analysis as a Change Agent in Language Teacher Education”

How do teachers handle errors in mathematics classrooms?

Originally posted on Mälardalen INteraction & Didactics (MIND) Research Group:
How teachers handle errors of students in classrooms has been a topic of interest for researchers across disciplines. Mathematics is no exception to this. In this guest blog post, researchers Odd Tore Kaufmann (Østfold University College, Norway), Maria Larsson (MIND & M-TERM Research groups,…