Cambridge English YLE Tests; Glorious Performance of PakTurk Young Learners.

After getting teh status of Cambridge English Assessment Approved Centre, PakTurk International Schools and Colleges, offered a chance to its students to take world-famous Cambridge English YLE Exams.The results showed 100 percent success of the students with an average score of around 90 percent. More than 25 percent students got full bands.

Pakistan's First and "Only" Oxford Quality Schools

PakTurk International Schools and Colleges are awarded the status of Oxford Quality School.

PakTurk Won Gold Medal in Teaching Knowledge Competitions

Congratulations to Head Department of English, Mr. Suhail Aziz for winning Gold Medal in 1st International Teaching Knowledge Competition.

English Department Professional Development Workshop

A week full of learning, sharing and fun is going to start on March 17 2013. It is time for English Department intensive refresher workshops which will be held at Karachi and Islamabad on March 17-23, 2013 "

PAKTURK KARACHI CLIFTON BOYS CAMPUS CELEBRATED ENGLISH WEEK

English week was celebrated at PakTurk Boys Campus Clifton Karachi from Aug 26, 2013 to Sep 02, 2013. All the students participated with spirit and enthusiasm.

PakTurk Teachers' Success in International Teaching Contest

This year, teachers from PakTurk showed their expertise and got one gold, two silvers, one bronze, one honourable mention and one special prize.

English Week at PakTurk Quetta

A week full of learning, sharing and fun was celebrated at PakTurk Quetta Boys Branch. Many fun filled activities made this week memorable for the students

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Teacher Development Workshop at PakTurk Islamabad


As a part of Oxford quality program, a teacher development workshop was organized at PakTurk International Schools & Colleges Girls Campus Islamabad. The workshop leader was Elna Coetzer, who is a seasoned teacher trainer and CELTA tutor. The two-day workshop was attended by the English teachers from Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar and Multan branches of PakTurk International Schools & Colleges. 

Different aspects of English Language Teaching came under discussion during the sessions. The teachers were given useful tips which may prove to be helpful to help the young learners of the 21st century. 

Second phase of this development program is scheduled at PakTurk Karachi on 30th and 31st March 2015.  





Saturday, December 6, 2014

PakTurk Student Shines in Essay Writing Contest

PakTurk International schools not only encourage their students to participate in national and international competitions but also provide them opportunities and them guide them to show their best.  

Recently our students participated in an essay writing contest organized by University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, where more than one thousand entries were received.   The topic of the contest was  If there was no fuel then.

Sehar Tariq , a student from  PakTurk Lahore Asifa-Irfan Girls Branch  participated in the competition and  brought pride to PakTurk by securing 2nd position among 1000 + participants.

The institute awarded her with plaque and certificate along with special gifts while the Principal PakTurk Asifa Irfan Girls Campus awarded the student with certificate and cash prize which undoubtedly motivated the student for further efforts in future.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

CAMBRIDGE YLE and KET EXAMS STARTING IN FEBRUARY

At PakTurk International Schools & Colleges, we try our level best to introduce globally accepted curriculum and assessment tools. You will be glad to know that PakTurk International Schools & Colleges has been awarded the status of “Authorized Centre” for Cambridge University, Department of English Assessment Examinations. After getting that status, we organized our first Cambridge English Exams in May 2014. The results remained 100% with many distinctions and full bands.
It is a great opportunity for our students to get international certification for their English competence. The exams for each class are as under:
Tests
Cambridge YLE Starters For Class 1 & 2
Cambridge YLE Movers For Class 3
Cambridge YLE Flyers For Class 4
Cambridge KET For class 5 & 6
It is worth mentioning here that the prescribed fee by PakTurk is around 60% less than the fee prescribed by some other institutions offering these exams. These testsare valued around the world and, with a Cambridge English qualification; children can access the best study, work and life opportunities. These exams are designed and developed to motivate students at primary and secondary school. They cover all four language skills – reading, writing, listening and speaking. They bring learning to life, covering topics that your child is familiar with and developing the skills needed to:
• improve in English
• understand books, television, films, songs, the internet and other media in English
• make friends around the world
• travel the world
• study at university or college, either at home or in another country
Taking and passing exams at the right level – from beginner to advanced – helps build your child’s confidence. Your child will become more proficient and more fluent with each step.All the students will receive certificates issued by University of Cambridge Department of English Assessment.
These exams will be conducted in February and March 2015. Exact dates will be conveyed later.
You may visit our English Department website for preparation material and previous exam results: www.english.pakturk.edu.pk

Thursday, August 28, 2014

PakTurk Students Showed Excellent Performance in Cambridge KET

 PakTurk offered its students an opportunity to appear in world-famous Cambridge KET exams in their schools.Exam was conducted on 24 May 2014 at PakTurk branches in Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar simultaneously.
Cambridge English: Key for Schools, also known as Key English Test (KET) for Schools, shows that a student can use simple, everyday written and spoken English.

Cambridge English: Key for Schools is a basic level qualification.Around 2,800 centres worldwide offer Cambridge English exams. Find a centre near you and register to take your exam. Every year, thousands of students take Cambridge English: Key for Schools to show they can use everyday written and spoken English. 

 Results remained 100 % where 33 % of the students passed the exam with merit. Zafeer Ahmed remained first with 95% marks, Armish Chaudhry remained 2nd with 93% and Amna Saquib remained 3rd with 92% marks. 
 

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Cambridge YLE Results; Glorious Performance of PakTurk Young Learners


 After getting teh status of Cambridge English Assessment Approved Centre, PakTurk International Schools & Colleges, offered a chance to its students to take world-famous Cambridge English YLE Exams. The tests were conducted at Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar. More than 170 students from grade 1 to 5 took the tests in the first stage. 

The results showed 100 percent success of the students with an average score of around 90%. More than 25 percent students got full bands.

For this brilliant success, Director Education PakTurk Mr. Kamil Ture, Dy Director Education (Junior Section) Mr. Ahmet Kester and Head of English Department Mr. Suhail Aziz congratulated the students, their parents and teachers for this wonderful performance. Mr. Kamil said that the success showed the quality of English Language Teaching at our schools.  

PakTurk Shines at 2nd International Teaching Contest

 
2nd International Teaching Competition was organized by Zambak Educational Consultancy Turkey. From Pakistan the teachers from different subjects participated in the contest. This was second season of this competition. In the first competition, last year, Pakistan got one gold medal. This year, teachers from PakTurk showed their expertise and got one gold, two silvers, one bronze, one honourable mention and one special prize.

 
  1.  In Turkish language teaching category, Mr. Erdogan Hozan of PakTurk Peshawar got worldwide 1st place. He received a Gold Medal and cash prize of USD 2000.

  2. In Class teacher category, Ms. Sadia Naseem of PakTurk Lahore Islampura got worldwide 2nd place. She received a Silver Medal and cash prize of USD 1500.

  3. In Pre-School teacher category, Ms. Farahhoon Qureshi of PakTurk Jamshoro got worldwide 2nd place. She received a Silver Medal and cash prize of USD 1500.

  4. In Chemistry teaching category, Mr. Mustafa Yilmaz, got worldwide 3rd place. He received a Bronze Medal and cash prize of USD 1000.

  5. In English Language teaching category, last year’s Gold Medalist, Mr. Suhail Aziz got worldwide 4th Place. He received honourable mention and cash prize of USD 500.

  6. Mr. Israr Ali, was given special prize as the most senior teacher among all the participants across the world. 

The Chairman Mr. Unal Tosur, Director Education Mr. Kamil TURE and directors of PakTurk International Educational Foundation congratulated our successful teachers, for their worldwide success, and other participants for their performance and expressed hope that the teachers will continue working with same devotion and dedication.
We hope that this success will encourage other teachers to work even harder for the next year's competition.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Spelling Bee Contest at PakTurk Khairpur



PakTurk English Department, Khairpur Branch organized Spelling Bee competition at school. Students from middle and high sections participated in this contest. The competition consisted of three rounds. In the first phase eighty students took part in it, in the second phase twenty six students made their place, in the final phase only eight students selected. Mr. Amjad Markhand was the pronouncer while Mr. Hakim Sheena & Mr. Yasin Karaca were in the jury.
After a nail biting encounter, Mubashar Mari (8th A) got the title of champion speller, while Rohma Zafar (10th B) and Rutaba Saleem (9th B) remained first and second runners-up respectively.
That Spelling Bee fever continued for two weeks. In this competition, the students made their best efforts to show their spelling skills. English Department made hard efforts to uplift and encourage the students. At the end of the competition the champions received the cash awards.



Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Effective Lesson Planning


Every lesson needs a plan. The level of detail it contains, and whether it is mainly in your head or mainly on paper, will vary depending on your training and experience, the type of class (one-to-one classes often have a much more fluid plan, for example) and the time that you have available to plan.
The main reason to have a plan is to know, firstly, the aim of your lesson and, secondly, what you’re going to do during the lesson in order to achieve that aim. If you don’t know what you want your students to be able to do by the end of the lesson, you risk them going away feeling that they haven’t achieved anything.
What should a lesson plan include?
Everything that you might want to include in your plan derives from the main aim and how you’re going to achieve it. What materials do you need for the activities that you’ve planned in order to achieve your aim? How long will each of these activities take? What problems might your students have in dealing with a particular activity or language point? And so on.
As we said, for most teachers it is impractical to plan every lesson with this amount of detail. But these kinds of detail should at the very least be in your head, even if the paper version is just a few scribbled lines – and writing a few plans in this way is the best way to get yourself into the habit of thinking about these kinds of detail when you’re planning, even if you don’t have the time to actually write them.
Although there are other possibilities, here’s a list of the main things to include in a detailed plan:
Main aim
Subsidiary aims
Personal aims
Materials
Anticipated problems and solutions
And for each stage of the lesson itself:
Timing
Stage aims
Activities
Focus

Main aim
What should the main aim be? Ideally it should come from a course plan which outlines a logical progression of aims for every lesson in a course. How does this lesson that you’re teaching today fit into the bigger picture of what your students want or need to achieve on the course? The aim might be based on a language point (grammatical, lexical or phonological), or it might be based on a skill (reading, writing, listening or speaking).
The key is to think not in terms of what you want to teach, but in terms of what you want your students to be able to do. By thinking from your students’ perspective you are more likely to choose activities which will help them achieve this aim, rather than activities which are easy for you to teach. if your aim is grammar or vocabulary based, you also avoid the risk of “teaching” the form and then thinking “okay, they’ve got it, job done”.
So, instead of “to teach will and going to” or “to practice listing for gist” try “to enable students to discuss future plans using will and going to” or “to develop students’ ability to identify the main ideas in a reading text”. Think along the lines of “to help / to enable / to develop/ to improve…” rather than “to teach / to practice”.
It’s also a good idea to make a note of how you will recognise when your students have achieved the main aim. This can help you afterwards to critically analyse your lesson, think about ways to improve it if they didn’t achieve the aim, and decide what further work is needed on a particular language point or skill.
Subsidiary aims
You may also have some secondary aims that you would like to work on. In the “Used to” lesson below the main aim is based on a language point, but we do some listening work to provide the context for presenting this language, so we take the opportunity to develop the students’ listening skills. We also introduce some vocabulary, not just because we need it to understand the text, but because we would like our students to be able to use this vocabulary outside the lesson.
Personal aims
You might also have something that you want to achieve on a more personal level. Maybe in your last lesson you weren’t happy with your board work and you want to improve on this. If there are several aspects of your teaching that you want to improve or develop, try focusing on one at a time here – work on it for a few lessons until you’re happy with it, then move on to the next one.
Materials
What materials will you need for each of your activities? Make sure you won’t need to run back to the photocopier during the class by going through all the stages of your lesson one by one – have you forgotten anything?
Anticipated problems and solutions
Take a little time to go through the stages of your lesson and anticipate the problems your students may have and what you will do if these problems crop up. Anticipating the unexpected allows you to, as far as is possible, avoid the danger of being left stranded without an answer. This can help you feel more confident and deliver a more effective lesson.
Think in terms of vocabulary in a text that you may have to pre-teach in some way, potential issues with pronunciation and how you’re going to deal with them, possible lack of student imagination in creative tasks, possible confusion of tenses and how you’re going to resolve this, and so on. It’s important to be precise here. If you say “students may be unfamiliar with some words in the text” it doesn’t really help you to prepare a solution. If you say “students may be unfamiliar with the words “to give up, to quit…”, you can think about the best way to present or elicit the meaning of each.
Stages of the lesson
Now we come to the lesson itself. There are four things to consider here:

Timing
Your lesson has a fixed length and so you’ll need to think about the timing of each activity. This helps you to know that you have planned a long enough lesson, and during the lesson itself will serve as a self-check to make sure you achieve what you want to achieve. If you find that you haven’t planned enough material, make sure any new activities you add contribute to your lesson aim – avoid the temptation to crow-bar in activities that don’t really fit. You could also go back and think about the activities you already have – could you expand on them or change them in any way?

Stage aims
These are the aims of the individual stages of your lesson, as opposed to the main aim of the lesson as a whole. There should be a logical progressions here towards achieving the main aim. Stage aims should answer the question “Why am I doing this?” rather than “What am I doing?” – the answer to this second question comes in the next column.
The stages that you include in your lesson will depend, of course, on the type of lesson. The “Used to” lesson follows a traditional PPP (presentation, practice, production) model. We therefore expect to see a stage where the language is presented in some way. This could be a situational presentation, a presentation from a text, or one of a number of different techniques to present new language. We also expect to see some practice stages, probably some restricted followed by some freer practice. These stages could be either oral or written. Finally, we expect to see a production stage or, as we have called it in this lesson, authentic practice.

Activity
This is what you actually do at each stage of the lesson. Be specific here. Instead of “Look at and discuss pictures”, break it down and say exactly how you’re going to do this: “Students look at photos of children doing things; Students discuss in pairs whether or not they did these things in the past and whether or not they do them now”. Being this specific will help keep you on track and ensure that you don’t forget a crucial part of an activity.

Focus
This tells you whether the activity is pair-work (S-S), group work (S-S-S), a teacher-led activity (during the presentation stage, for example – T-Ss) and so on. This can show you whether or not you have a range of different activity types – is your lesson too teacher-centered? Is every activity pair work? Have you mixed up the groups for different activities?
Here’s the “Used to” lesson plan, with an extra activity at the end.

Main aim
·         To develop students’ ability to talk about past habits using “used to” in the context of childhood and addictions.
How will I know if this aim has been achieved?
·         Students will, during the less restricted practice stage, use the target language with sufficient accuracy for their partner to understand their past habits.
Subsidiary aims
·         To develop students’ ability to listen for the main ideas in a text.
·         To improve students’ ability to talk about the topic of addictions by introducing an “addiction” lexical set.
Personal aims
·         Give students more time to discuss in pairs after a listening activity before feedback.
Materials
·         Realia – chocolate, cigarettes, coffee, a PC
·         Pictures or short video clips of children playing on swings, dressing up for Halloween, studying at school.
·         Listening CD and photocopies of tapescript from Language To Go Intermediate (Longman, 2002) lesson 11.
·         Photocopies of handout for each student.
Anticipated problems and solutions
·         Problem: Students may be unable to think of three things they did as a child but don’t do now on the spur of the moment.
·         Solution: Provide prompts and examples if necessary.
·         Problem: Students will not be familiar with “to give up”, to quit”, “to cut down on” in the listening text.
·         Solution: Elicit these items in the context of addictions.
·         Problem: Students will be unfamiliar with the pronunciation of “used to” – /juːstə/
·         Solutuon: Drill in affirmative, negative and question forms
Timing
Aims
Activity
Focus
8 mins
Lead in
to set the context for the lesson and generate interest
·         Ss look at photos of children doing things
·         Ss discuss whether or not they did these things in the past and whether or not they do them now
·         Ss write three things they did as a child but don’t do now and give them to T
S-S-S
7 mins
Lexis
to introduce vocabulary for listening stage
·         Ss look at coffee, cigarettes, chocolate and a PC
·         Ss discuss whether or not they use these things, how often, and whether they can stop
·         T elicits addict, addicted, addiction, to quit, to give up, to cut down on, willpower
S-S
S-S
T-Ss
10 mins
Listening
to practise listening for gist
·         Ss listen to four people describing their addictions: Does the person have the same addiction as you? If not, what are they addicted to; Have they given up?
·         Feedback on board
S
Ss-T
12 mins
Presentation
·         to introduce target language
·         to manipulate form
·         to provide restricted practice in using target language and standardise pronunciation
·         T elicits target language:
- Did he smoke in the past? Yes
- Once or many times? Many times
- Does he smoke now? No
“He used to smoke”
·         T repeats with other examples and elicits negative and question
·         T drills target language
Ss-T
10 mins
Less restricted practice
to give students restricted practise in using target language
·         T writes on board one thing that each student used to do as a child
·         Ss circulate, asking each other questions to find out who used to do what
·         Feedback
T-Ss
S-S-S
Ss-T
3 mins
Less resticted written practice
to provide a written record of the target language
Sts write 2 sentences about themselves and two about other sts using target language
S
10 mins
Authentic practice
to give students authentic practice in using target language
·         T gives handout with prompts – last house, last job, appearance 10 years ago
·         Ss circulate and ask and answer questions based on prompts
S-S-S

This lesson follows a typical PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production) model. With this model we first present or elicit the language in some way. The students then practise it in more or less controlled situations and finally produce it in a more authentic situation. Have a look below for more about these practice and production stages.
PPP is just one of several possible lesson models – as such we have not covered all of the possible lesson stage types and have only touched on some of the terminology that you might include in these stages. But we’ll expand on some of the terminology and stages that we have mentioned in more detail here:

Lead in
A lead in activity is designed to “warm the students up” – to generate interest and get them thinking about the topic. When you introduce a topic, for example with pictures, a video or some questions, you activate in your students minds a mental image or expectation based on their existing knowledge of the topic. This mental image is often called a schema, and so we can say that the aim of a lead-in stage is to “activate your students’ schemata”. Your students’ existing knowledge and experience can then be used to personalise the lesson.

Target language
The aim of the presentation stage is to present or elicit the target language – the language that we want the students to be able to use correctly in order to achieve the aim of our lesson. There are different ways to do this – in this case the teacher elicits the meaning of the target language with a series of 
concept questions before giving the target sentence itself.
Manipulating form
By this we mean that the teacher presents (or elicits) the question and negative forms of the target language, as well as, perhaps, other examples in the first, second or third person.

Restricted / controlled practice
The first practice stage, where the teacher drills the pronunciation of the target language, is very restricted, in the sense that students focus entirely on the sentence containing the target language. There is no opportunity at this stage to incorporate other language. The practice stage of PPP lessons tends to start with restricted practice in this way, and then gradually move on to less restricted and eventually much more authentic practice.

In the less restricted practice stage of this lesson, students are given the chance to circulate and ask each other questions (using the material that was gathered during the lead in). The focus is still very much on the target language, but much less restricted or controlled than the previous exercise.

Authentic / Free / Fluency practice
Finally, the students are given the opportunity to produce the target language in a much freer context. The activity in this lesson encourages them to talk about the past, and they may naturally use the target language during their conversations, but they are also free to use other language. There shouldn’t be any pressure on the students at this stage to use the target language, and you may find that they don’t use it very much at all. This is why we can call this stage authentic practice – in an authentic situation we wouldn’t use “used to” in every sentence when communicating with someone – we would maybe use it once or twice in addition to other forms.


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