REPORT ON   CE ENGLISH TEACHERS’ WEB SKILLS COURSE

January 3-11, 2013

In this  Face-to-face sessions  engaged participants in discussion and reflection of current methodologies associated with teaching English language learners (ELLs) of different ages in two (Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) learning contexts. Participants were introduced to, discuss and practice a wide variety of strategies and techniques for teaching English to speakers of other languages. While CPs exploring best practices for teaching listening, speaking, reading and writing, including grammar and vocabulary, discussed possible ways of improving classroom management. During first joined session  course participants  examined what best practices means in the context of teaching English in the 21^st century, where English is an international language and the use of English incorporates modern technologies.

Course objectives for the first and second Face to face sessions:

Ø  and Introduce themselves to each other

Ø  Share expectations and objectives

Ø  Get acquaint with course  content, requirements and  schedule

Ø   Practice  opening  the e-mail,  and do assignment  through on-line

Ø  Get acquaint  with Reflection readings

Ø  Share  reflection on writing  skills and process

Ø  Give feedback to each others  reflection

Ø  describe what is meant by EIL;

Ø  develop understanding and appreciation of the significance of teaching English as an international language

Ø  explore the link between culture and an international language;

Ø  explain the different levels of culture that can be included in teaching materials;

Ø  develop activities and materials appropriate to their teaching situation;

Ø  discuss the implications and future role of the NNEST in the English classroom

Ø  join to  NICENET platform and https://ceenglishtraining.coursesites.com  for discussion  and  sending tasks, questions and be trained  how to use this cite for  own teaching process;

Ø  create reflective blog at blogger.com site and learn how to use it in  teaching practice;

Ø   understand both traditional and modern second language teaching methods;

Ø  Demonstrate  teaching through using culture topics

Ø  Discuss the differences between discourse community and speech community

Ø  Work on internet type their own work and  learn how to submit

Ø  Answer  to the Unit 1 questions

Ø  Identify  Starter and Wrapper  for further discussions

Who are the learners?

 The CE participants were  the teachers from AKL -11, from AKS- 5, from State schools- 6.  At the beginning of the course there were 11 teachers from State schools. Unfortunately 5 of them left due to family problems.  CE participant teachers have different computer skills:  AKS teachers and AKL teachers can open and work on computer, good skill of typing and working with internet search.  Government school teachers have poor skill of working with computer and have not access to internet at their schools.  These teachers have different age and teaching experience.  AKS teachers have from 2to 10 years and their age somehow younger than AKL teachers. AKL teachers have also different teaching experience and year age.     They have from 38 – 10 years teaching experience and age from 50- 30 years old.  I was happy to see them here because they are still open to learn and change their teaching methodology.   State school teachers have from 1- 10 years teaching experiences .They need a lot of time to practice to type and send messages. 

What is the setting?

We organized training in computer lab with 25 computers with access to Internet where  we sometimes faced  challenges to open it due to  internet connection .  Demonstration of the steps in practice work with computer I could organize by Projector with white screen board or through Net Open program by using my computer with demonstration on all computers for participants.  

 In the school cafeteria we  could provide  for our participants coffee-break and a lunch. We planned to work in computer lab  but in the next time we are going to plan  in LRC  for searching  needed reseources and materials.

 Procedure 

We started  our session with introduction - orientation session where teachers got aquaint  with each other through doing ORientation task. Warm up activity  of the first day  was  in an interactive way where  I have bought chocalates and provided chocolates with wishes .  CPs opened their chocolates and  found out one piece of paper with wishes  where they have to match second half with their partners. They found out their partners and got acquaint with each other. This kind of activities will  be helpful to teachers to  motivate their students, prepare them to further work.  CPs  also  shared  that this activity would be useful in speaking skills and they can use in different stages of lessons through giving different tasks.

 After that  CPs started to open their e-mails, entered  to the CE course site where they have started sending their orientation tasks.  Before  sending their reflection there was presentation  on CE  course requirements , stages. 

It was  challenging task to  CPs to open their cites and gmails.  First day they opened and in the next day they have forgotten because they did not take note of their  gmail adddresses , cecourse site  user name and passwords.   They were  like a students. I repeated them several times to take note and   write down their  addresses . But still  two or three CPs faced challenges . Therefore I have opened them  myself and wrote down their  addresses  in y notebook.

I understand that    I have different age  CPs  some of them young who could catch my instruction very quickly and  saved their  gmail addreses, reflections and other tasks very quickly. But    three - four teachers were older than other CPs , therefore it was  challenging to them to open , save their materials.  I can make here conclusion that  CPs need  to be very attentive while opening the sites,  wqrite down every each action ,   and of course  age level  also plays  a great role in learning new ideas. They can  catch  our intsruction slowly and work slowly. Therefore we eed also to be more tolerant in teaching adulkt learners. 

plays   a lot .

 What was so interactive  in this session  was   Culture presentation lessons. CPS were divided into groups : Beshik toy, marriage,  sunot toy,  tushoo kesmey.  CPs were so active and  prepared their presentations. They  watched each others presentations and compared two countries culture , discussed similarities and  differences.  I hope this type sessions will help teachers  not only to teach other countries culture but they can contextualize  topics and give different tasks.  Children also  will be more motivated to share  information from their context. 

Further  they got acquaint  wiuth Unit 1, 2 teaching materials, watched videos and discussed. Teachers read  articles and shared their reflections on their blogger.com. They  could managed also  to write reflection ,  and comment some of their colleagues  reflections.

 By the end of the course  we have shared the rules of  further our work and  requested CPs to enter always to their site and continue reading , watching their videos, doing their tasks.

Teachers opened : www.nicenet.org; www.blogger.com.  

Furthjer our plans will be project work. CPs have to choose one class and work with them, plan  Interactive ICT lessons.