LEARNING CENTER

Mission: Our mission is to assist our students to develop into autonomous learners who are willing to take more responsibility for their own learning by providing them various supplementary resources.

Vision: The Learning Center will be a unique tool in developing students language skills as well as their personal, intellectual and social growth both through its vibrant and stimulating environment and consultancy aspect with the purpose of guiding them to have sustained interest in learning and becoming individual learners with critical thinking skills.

LEARNING CENTER EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES

At Bahcesehir University Preparatory School we believe that at the end of one year English education our students will become equipped with language skills and learning strategies to further their interdisciplinary academic studies as well as the social, cultural and intellectual facets to develop their learning awareness and critical thinking skills. We strive to reach this target by empowering our students with a dynamic learning environment including study groups, one to one tutorials, debate groups and audio-visual group sessions. We appreciate that every student is an individual and has a unique and different learning style and we endeavour to raise students awareness of their own learning styles.

Self- Access Center (SAC)

The aim of The Self Access Center is to endow the students with various reading, writing, grammar, audio-visual and computer-based interactive resources for each level to be able to lead them in taking responsibility for their own learning. Subsequent to identifying their language weaknesses students are encouraged to find the materials that are suitable for them and do self-study to overcome their weaknesses outside the classroom hours. To develop their learning awareness we give our students an opportunity to evaluate their own work with a model answer or a key to identify the challenging areas and to take a further action such as getting an appointment from one of the Learning Center instructors to have a one to one study session or participate in the tutorials on a regular basis. With the teachers assistance students are able to cope with their weaknesses in a more efficient way as they grasp different learning strategies for different language skills.

Independent learning

• Assist the student to set manageable and attainable goals.
• Guide the student to set an objective before doing each activity.
• Provide alternatives for the student to design their learning plan and strategies.
• Offer the student an alternative of time and place.
• Have the students survey the materials in the suggested resources and involve them in learner training by introducing strategies.
• Train the students to write their reflections.
• Facilitate the students to develop language awareness.
• Have the students reflect on their process of learning by discussing activities, problems & solutions.
• Encourage the students to be reflective through self-assessment and work more on their language weaknesses.
• Link what the student is doing with language acquisition

A Speaking Center is being established to facilitate conversation for our students at Prep School. The center will be available to the students/at their disposal for about 40 class hour a week. The students will be able to communicate in English with native English speaking teachers in groups of 2 or 3, on general topics as well as topics they have been studying that week. In this way they will be able to express their ideas and feelings and improve their communication skills in a foreign language. Students who wish to participate in these activities are required to come to the Speaking Center at least two hours in advance in order to register for that class.

TUTORIALS

The aim of the tutorials is to facilitate students with the opportunity to catch up with and/or reinforce the items that are covered in their lessons. Tutorials are held for four hours per week for each level. The language focus of the tutorials is announced every Monday and students can easily participate in the tutorials voluntarily or with the guidance of their instructors. Registration in advance is not necessary. The time and place of the tutorials will be announced on the notice boards for the students who wish to participate. Learning strategies and the needs of the students are taken into account and the tutorial teachers emphasize the techniques used in answering questions.

Goals and Objectives:

• To enable students reinforce the items they cover in their classes,
• To provide slow learners a chance to catch up with the rest of the class,
• To encourage students to comprehend the areas of language weaknesses and seek help.