Even though we will have many guests at our programs, we (Mete Akcaolu and Ramazan Güngör) will be hosting the webcasts on this site. We are international students from Turkey. We have known each other since high-school, a boarding school in rural Black Sea region of Turkey. We got our undergraduate degree at the same university studying applied linguistics, and taught at the same middle-school for a year in Istanbul Turkey. After a couple of years of living in different cities/countries, we both ended up in the US for graduate school.
Ramazan Güngör: I am a third-year PhD student enrolled in a dual title program in Adult education and Comparative and International Education at the Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA. I received my BA in foreign language education at Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey followed by an MA degree in adult education at the same university. For about 6 years, I taught English as a foreign language to adults as well as middle-school and college students at different educational settings in Istanbul. Since moving to the US for my doctoral degree, I have been working as a graduate assistant (both as an RA and a TA). Visit http://www.ramazangungor.net/ for more information.
Mete Akcaolu: I am a first-year, almost, student at Michigan State University in the department of Educational Psychology and Educational Technology, with a special interest in Educational Technology and gaming in education/language teaching. I received my BA from Bogazici University on foreign language education, and my MA from Middle East Technical University on the same subject. I also taught at various institutes (school, language school) at varying levels (primary to university) for 5 years. Currently, I am working for Confucius Institute at MSU as a Research Assistant in Zon Project (a web-based game to teach Chinese). For more information you can visit my personal webpage at https://www.msu.edu/~akcaoglu
