Asst. Prof. Dr. Hanife Bensen and Asst. Prof. Dr. Çise Çavuşoğlu have successfully presented a paper at the 8th World Conference on Educational Sciences (WCES), which took place last week in Madrid, Spain. In their presentation titled "Challenges of Teaching an Academic Writing Course to Pre-service Teachers: Reflections on Employing Innovative Approaches," Dr. Bensen and Dr. Çavuşoğlu argued that learner's prior learning experiences have a tremendous impact on their attitudes towards innovative approaches as well as their learning trajectories. Since many teachers tend to teach the way they have been taught in the past, the researchers have highlighted that implementing innovative approaches in teaching writing in particular, and in teacher training in general, has a key role in helping pre-service language teachers to experience these methodologies and approaches as learners, and apply them in their classrooms in the future.

The WCES conference is organised in a different country each year and offers a platform for academics all over the world to share their research. This year’s conference was organised by the Global Special Education and Psychological Services Association, the Association for Human, Science, Natura, Education and Technology, and the Academic World Education and Research Center, in collaboration with the University of Alcala (Spain), Near East University (Cyprus), Ankara University (Turkey), the University of Kyrenia (Cyprus), John Hopkins University (USA), Cyprus Educational Sciences Association, and the European Educational Research Association.