Dear Students,
We wish you and your loved ones health and peace during these difficult times which has been presented to us due to the pandemic and quarantine. We hope you are all safe.
As you all know, various measures are being taken in our country, Turkey and all over the world to tackle the spread of Covid-19. In line with the course the pandemic takes, the measures taken are also changing. We are shocked by the current developments which we used to think could exist only in films and never to be experienced in real life. Although we have limited knowledge as to what awaits us, we still hope that the pandemic will die down in weeks and we can resume our ?normal? routine.
We are aware that all these uncertainties are making you feel worried. You have a lot of questions in mind regarding the calendar for the future courses, assessment and exams and get answers to your questions. We haven?t been able to give you any information about any of these so far because it is impossible for us to know what will happen in the following weeks. You may or may not know, the academic calendar of our campus is prepared jointly with the Ankara Campus. As it is not possible to guess how the pandemic will proceed, the revised academic calendar cannot be finalized. What we can tell you at this point is that online lessons will continue until June 5, 2020. How our school work will continue after that date is still not certain yet. We know that you have questions about how the grading will be, whether anything else will be done to make up for the quizzes and midterms you haven?t been able to take, whether the requirements for being eligible to take the EPE will change or not, and most importantly, when the June EPE will take place. You are quite right to feel that way. Our campus administration is working with the Ankara Campus to clarify these issues. However, with new developments regarding the pandemic and the changes in YOK (Higher Education Council) regulations that follow, these issues cannot be finalized. Please rest assured once the decisions on these issues are taken, you will be informed immediately.
The decisions taken by the government authorities are legally binding upon the decisions which will be taken by our university administration. And these decisions will determine ours. That?s why we have to wait for instructions from government authorities to clarify our academic calendar.
We are also aware that you have concerns about your EPE preparation. So what should you do?
· First of all, you should try to keep your spirits up and make every effort to concentrate on your studies. We are under troubling circumstances but none of us wanted things to turn out like this. As your teachers, we miss the times when we had face-to-face education with you but none of us knew this was going to happen. In order to continue our education online, we have all kept to an ethic of business as usual as we navigate through these times. Yet, we cannot achieve success on our own. It is important that you do the tasks assigned and ask for assistance when necessary.
· You can take control of this process by starting the day at a ?normal? hour and getting down to studying. Just as you used to spend most of the day at school studying, now you can do the same. Of course, you may not want to wake up at 08:00 in the morning but you can make a schedule that suits your body clock and spend at least five days a week and your most productive hours of the day concentrating on your lessons. It is up to you to make the most of this process.
· Use the online course materials that your teachers are sharing with you and follow the online sessions if possible. Join the online office hours too and please don?t hesitate to ask any questions. Please keep in contact with your teachers and us and check your emails regularly.
· You will notice that the course materials that are shared with you by your teachers will include more and more EPE practice. Make use of this advantage and get your teachers? help while preparing for the EPE.
· However, during this period that no one could foresee, you have a lot of work to do. Please do not say ?I will only cover the materials that were sent to me and that should be enough?. You have a huge resource a click away from you: SAC Moodle. You can do reading texts from previous midterms and pop quizzes (especially from Int, Upper, Advanced and Repeat group exams depending on your level). You can develop your note-taking skills, which will be of great use to you when doing Performance Tasks, by doing the second semester note-taking exams of the levels I mentioned above. Moreover, if you google ?free online TOEFL practice?, you will come across countless TOEFL reading and vocabulary practices. Your class teachers have surely recommended or will recommend such resources. Please do research, use the sources efficiently and if you have doubts as to whether the sources you have found are right for you or not, please ask your teachers.
· Another very useful resource is the ÖSYM?s (Turkey?s Measuring Selection and Placement Center?s) exam archives of the KPDS, YDS and ÜDS exams (https://www.osym.gov.tr/TR,15073/yds-cikmis-sorular.html - the website is in Turkish but it is easy to find the right link. Just make sure you click on the titles with the word ?İngilizce?). These exams, which have been prepared by experts, are geared towards testing your knowledge of English in all skills except Speaking. The answer keys are also available. You can practice your vocabulary, reading, paraphrasing and, in general, language skills with these exams.
· For Reading practice, we recommend that you subscribe to ReadTheory (https://readtheory.org/). Your teachers have opened classes on this website. By doing at least one reading practice a day, you will notice that your reading skills are improving. By using AI, this website will determine the reading skills you need more practice with and the skills you are good at, and will assign more reading practice to you accordingly. Your reading proficiency will improve in this way. If your class does not have a ReadTheory class, you can ask your teachers to open one for your class. As your teachers we are all ready to support your learning in every way. Please cooperate with us :).
· For Vocabulary practice you can use Quizlet (https://quizlet.com/tr), where you can find flashcards prepared by your teachers and some previous EPP students. You can download the app on your smartphone and study these free flashcards, or you can make your own flashcards. Please use these resources. Within the app, you can search words and phrases like METU proficiency, METUdbe, METU vocabulary, More to Read to access a variety of flashcards.
We are all together in this war against the pandemic. It is a difficult period but we are doing our best to make sure you do not suffer in any way and will continue to do so. We advise you to refrain from making wild guesses about issues no one can foresee and concentrate on what you CAN do instead.
Once we have answers to your questions about the academic calendar and the upcoming EPE, we will inform you as soon as we are instructed, so just concentrate on your EPE preparations and cooperate with us so that we can get over this in the best way we can.
Please Take Care of Yourselves and Stay Healthy, Zehra Gören Students Services and Administrative Affairs