AY 2007-2008 Projects - Central Asia

Country                       Kazakhstan
City                              Astana
Host Institution           Eurasian Humanitarian Institute

Project Description
The EL Fellow will help address the needs of teachers and students in the new capital, a city that has yet to be exposed to a newer student-centered, interactive methodology or to support from native speakers. It will also allow post to continue building important inroads with the Ministry of Education. The EL Fellow will be hosted by the English Department and Pedagogical Department of Eurasian Humanitarian Institute, the only pre-service teacher training university in the northern region. The host institution expects the EL Fellow to work as a part-time staff member of the institute by teaching up to 10 contact classroom hours per week to pre-service English teachers, developing curriculums and materials for the courses taught, taking part in an important research project, Model Teacher of 21st century, and participating in weekly departmental meetings with English teachers in order to share cutting-edge teaching practices. The EL Fellow will run the institute’s weekly English Club organized by the students and be a jury member at the student contests initiated by the English department once a year. This will also give the students an opportunity to converse in English for the first time with a native English speaker. As a part of a free-of-charge in-service teacher training program run by this institute and funded by Regional Department of Secondary School Education, twice a year the EL Fellow will conduct a series of workshops for rural secondary schools teachers to upgrade their professional competence, help them master new methods and techniques, and use modern technology to increase the effectiveness of the learning process. Moreover, the EL Fellow will work in close cooperation with Astana English Teachers Organization and their English Language Resource Center. Their great informational support and active cooperation will allow for greater cooperation between the EL Fellow and teachers of secondary schools, both urban and rural.

Project Objectives
The placement of an EL Fellow in Astana has a multiplier effect potential: reaching English teaching faculty in five isolated regions of northern Kazakhstan; and enabling future teachers of English at the Eurasian Humanitarian Institute to better understand and convey to their future students the American culture and values. The EL Fellow will be given a unique professional development opportunity by being exposed to the academic environment of one of the biggest teacher training universities in the country, the Eurasian Humanitarian Institute. The goal of the EL Fellow at the institute is to develop students’ competence and confidence in the use of grammar and vocabulary so that they can comprehend authentic texts, help students understand native English speakers in academic and/or professional settings, and improve the students’ overall communication skills, including the more elusive skill of academic writing at a level commensurate with university standards in the U.S. Outside of the EL Fellow’s duties at the institute, s/he will support the spread of newer methodologies to more remote towns and cities in northern Kazakhstan by involving teachers in the seminars and workshops.  

About the Host Institution
The Eurasian Humanitarian Institute, founded in 1995, is the first private university in Astana. It has 14 majors, one of the most important of which is pre-service teacher training: 12 of the 14 majors are in Secondary School Education. The university’s English Department trains approximately 300 students, of whom about 100 major in secondary school teaching and 200 in translation. The English teaching faculty consists of very experienced lecturers and young instructors (total of 22). The subjects taught are Basic English, Practical Grammar, Practical Phonetics, Lexicology, History of the English Language, American Literature, American Studies, Intercultural Communication, etc. The sophomore and junior year students initiated an English Club and regularly host roundtable discussions, role play games, and English language movie nights. The English department hosts annual student conferences and Foreign Languages Week. The Pedagogic department has its own research center which tries to develop and implement innovative teacher training methods. It also organizes in-service teacher training events for city and regional secondary school teachers in cooperation with the Regional Department of Secondary School Education. This ensures the participation of all of the city and rural teachers. The department teachers are involved in the research project “Model Teacher of 21st century”.