| Country Turkmenistan
City Ashgabat
Host Institution Professional Organization of English Teachers
Project Description
Turkmenistan's need for English language teacher training and curriculum development is difficult to overstate. President Saparmurat Niyazov has systematically scaled back education in all areas, including training for teachers, to the extent that the intellectual curiosity of students themselves has been dampened, threatening the country's prospects for stability and success in a post-Niyazov era. The presence of the current EL Fellow at the Professional Organization of English Teachers (POET), a civil society group for teachers and professors in Turkmenistan which is co-located with the U.S. Embassy's Public Affairs Section, proved to be an invaluable resource for post and the Regional English Language Officer, based in Tashkent, for assisting the only English teachers' NGO in Turkmenistan to develop and build their capacity as the premier teacher-training organization in Turkmenistan. The EL Fellow interacts daily with Turkmen teachers working in an increasingly difficult environment, and through regular workshops and outreach events works to counteract the pressures teachers face in trying to improve conditions for their students. The new EL Fellow will conduct pre-service and in-service teacher training and assist in curriculum development, particularly to help teachers to adapt and develop other materials for their lessons, which are required to be conducted according to the plan from the Ministry of Education. The EL Fellow will spend most of his/her time with POET. The EL Fellow will also travel throughout Turkmenistan to conduct workshops to local teachers of English. The current EL Fellow has been working at POET and the American Corners, and has been an invaluable teacher-trainer for Peace Corps volunteers throughout Turkmenistan. Due to the closed environment at Turkmen state universities, the current EL Fellow has been placed at POET, a decision that paid off with greater EL Fellow mobility and more creative room for programming. It proved that this way the EL Fellow more effectively reaches out to English language teachers, students of English and the general public by using POET as a center of operations. From this base, the EL Fellow will invite language resource center directors, faculty from Turkmen State University, Azadi World Languages Institute and secondary school English teachers for training sessions and continue to conduct workshops on English as a Foreign Language for local students at the PAS IRC and American Corner in Ashgabat (the current location of IREX and ACCELS). The EL Fellow will also help local counterparts prepare small publications on English teaching methodologies designed for English language teachers at various teaching levels. The EL Fellow will be involved with ACCESS Microscholarship program progress assessment and monitoring, as well as helping ACCESS teachers with their teaching as needed. At POET, the EL Fellow will work with English language instructors on professional development in teaching methodology by leading weekly workshops on methodology and regular discussion cafes and POETry evenings to foster public interest in the work of the organization. The EL Fellow will oversee the enrichment of existing American studies curricula through the highly motivated teachers who comprise the membership and audience of POET.
[Click here to view full description] |
