AY 2007-2008 Projects - Near East and North Africa

Country                       Lebanon
City                              Beirut
Host Institution           Makassed Philanthropic Islamic Association 

Project Description
The EL Fellow will provide teacher training workshops and follow up observations to over 100 K-12 Makassed school teachers in current EFL methodology and reflective teaching in the Bekaa Valley and Beirut; initiate teacher training program in Makassed's schools in the South which will include a series of workshops on the fundamentals of teaching methodology, follow-up observations and feedback, and selecting and training local coordinators; provide follow-up support and guidance to the Makassed Director of Educational Affairs, Makassed educational experts and Central and Local Makassed English Language coordinators on the current English Language Curriculum revision project; having selected a new text book for Makassed's rural schools during the 2005-2006 academic year, the EL Fellow will facilitate the transition to the new text book by providing training and support for English teachers and newly selected rural local coordinators.  S/he will continue capacity building to integrate Technology and English Teaching through programs already initiated including: iEARN online courses and Makassed English teacher's online forum; will provide guidance, materials and techniques to teachers implementing extra-curricular activities as well as support for the English language Central and Local coordinators in constructive classroom supervision and current EFL methodology. The EL Fellow will offer guidance and follow-up support to the Community Technology, Literacy and Resource Centers project to be implemented in select rural Makassed schools.  The target audience will consist of teachers of K- 12 Grade levels in Beirut and Rural areas in Lebanon (over 100 teachers of English at the Makassed schools in Lebanon and all teachers who will use English as the language of instruction).  The EL Fellow is expected to provide training and follow-up sessions for the above-mentioned teachers to ensure a thorough understanding of the recent methodology in the field of teaching English language; address any difficulties that the teachers have with the implementation of the new methodology; provide assistance in the implementation of the National and/or current Curriculum; train rural teachers in best practices and techniques in the implementation newly selected text books; continue participating in the Makassed curriculum reform; and continue to provide follow-up training for teachers and local coordinators to ensure that they are implementing the latest evaluation tools and plans.

Proposed Professional Development Topics (based on needs assessment conducted by the EL Fellow in October of 2005) include:

for Bekaa Valley and Beirut Schools
- Reflective Teaching
- Differentiating Instruction
- Project-based learning
- CALL
- Performance-Based Instructions
- Extra-curricular Activities for Developing Fluency
- The Internet as a Teachers’ Resource
- Clinical supervision techniques and models for principals and coordinators
- Cultural awareness and Civic Education
- Integrating Authentic Materials into the Curriculum
- Effective Use of Textbooks and Supplementary Materials (including Books in the Box)

for Schools in Southern Lebanon
- fundamentals of English teaching methodology
- Lesson Planning
- Writing Effective Instructional Objectives
- Communicative Language Teaching Techniques (for each skill area)
- Acquisition of Vocabulary
- Process/product writing skills
- Critical thinking
- Cooperative learning, Task-based learning and Total Physical Response
- Assessment and Evaluation
- Positive Discipline and Classroom Management
- Effect Use of Textbooks and Supplementary Materials (including Books in the Box) 

Project Objectives
The EL Fellow will work with 75 K-12 teachers from 19 schools in Beirut and the Bekaa on a regular basis. By the end of the year's tenure s/he should have initiated training in the South. During the second year the EL Fellow will train teachers in the South, while continuing to coach local coordinators in the Bekaa and Beirut. By the end of the second year, the EL Fellows will have trained all the Makassed teachers and left their teacher training module and materials with the local coordinators to use with newly hired teachers. The local coordinators in Beirut run weekly professional development meetings. However, in the rural schools this position doesn't yet exist. The EL Fellow will select local coordinator candidates based on their performance during the his/her observation of their classes and during the workshops. By the end of the Program’s second year, these local coordinators should have had enough training to train other teachers on the topics introduced by the EL Fellow. In addition, in order for the transition to a new text book to augment student performance levels rather than plunge them into chaos, it is imperative for the EL Fellow to train teachers how to use the new text and to coach teachers through problems encountered. This has to happen because the current text book is severely outmoded and grammar-focused in the early grades. All of the EL Fellow's work in the Bekaa Valley may be for naught if s/he can't follow up on the text book because without more training these rural teachers won't be able to cope with the communicative methodology represented in a new text book. This change will affect at least twelve rural primary schools and promises to improve students' fluency, motivation and performance levels tremendously. The EL Fellow will also work on proposals which should allow all Makassed teachers to have access to technology. At present only 31% of rural teachers and 65% of Beirut teachers have access to email. The goal is that by the end of the second tenure, participation in programs such as the English teachers online forum and the iEARN project based learning courses will have tripled and that more teachers will implement CALL with their students.  

About the Host Institution