2009 Programs And Events
U.S. Education Alumni Open English Teaching Center (04/29/2009)
Three alumni of U.S.-sponsored education programs have started an English training center in Tashkent, bringing their teaching skills to the next generation of students who want to study at English-language universities in Uzbekistan and abroad.
Komil Jalilov founded the English-language training center “Eureka” in Tashkent late last year, when he returned from a year as a Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) at Columbia University in New York. The FLTA program is administered by the U.S. State Department.
In recent months, teachers Gulchekhra Mahkambaeva and Gulnara Ergasheva have joined him at the center. Mahkambaeva has participated in the Teachers’ Excellence Award Program (TEA), the Fulbright American Studies Institute, and the Secondary Schools Excellence Award Program, all with the support of the State Department. Ergasheva also took part in the TEA Program, in which secondary school teachers spend two months studying language and teaching skills at a U.S. university. Ergasheva studied at the University of Alabama-Huntsville in 2007.
At the Eureka English-training center, the teachers lead a variety of courses geared toward professional development, preparation for university entrance exams, and preparation for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and International English Language Testing System (IELTS). TOEFL and IELTS scores are used in making admissions decisions by U.S. and other international colleges and universities, including the Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS) and Westminster International University in Tashkent.
“There’s always a demand for learning languages, especially English,” Jalilov said. As career English teachers who have studied teaching strategies and outcomes in Uzbekistan and in the U.S., Jalilov and his colleagues have the background and knowledge to really help their students reach their goals with the English language, he said.
“Our country is still very young. I want to study the skills of foreign teachers, to help with the development of my country. I want to broaden my point of view,” said Bobur Tolaganov, one of the students in the IELTS preparation course.
In one IELTS class, Mahkambaeva led eight students briskly through lessons in reading comprehension, vocabulary, writing and listening comprehension. The students worked in small groups to check and edit each others’ work and to discuss topics in history and culture. Mahkambaeva stressed several times the importance of not just learning English as a language, but to use it in critical thinking and problem-solving exercises.
One class wrote an essay on the topic “Should we develop alternatives to fossil fuels?” Another class debated whether there was truth to the Roman statesman Cicero’s quote that “To remain ignorant of what happened before we were born is to remain always a child.”
The classes push the students toward a high level of English competence, but that is what is required if the students hope to be successful in English-language university classes, Mahkambaeva said.
Most of the students seemed to enjoy the challenge. Several of them had moved to Tashkent from Karakalpakstan, the Ferghana Valley and other regions to study at top schools, and they plan to take on the difficult task of studying in an all-English university.
Having such motivated students is one of the things Ergasheva said she enjoyed about teaching at Eureka, she said.
“I really like working among such professional and mature people, with whom I share some of the same background and interests,” she said. She said she uses many of materials and teaching techniques that she studied on the TEA program, particularly aspects of “problem-based learning,” which teaches language skills as students work through specific questions or issues posed to them.
The U.S. Embassy in Tashkent is currently accepting applications for the TEA program (deadline May 18) and FLTA program (deadline July 1). These are just two of the U.S. State Department’s English Language Programs designed to help teachers in Uzbekistan improve their skills as educators. These include education seminars, materials, online forums and other programs administered by the Regional English Language Officer based in Kazakhstan.
Jalilov pointed out that many English-language materials are available, but that Eureka’s students benefit from their teachers’ careful selection and use of the best materials. He said he hoped to expand the language-training center as demand for high-quality English instruction grows.
“Teaching of English is improving in Uzbekistan, with new approaches to teaching. We’ve seen a major improvement in standardized testing,” he said. “Students need these modern teaching methods, and they feel they need the language skills we can help them acquire.”
If you would like to receive e-mails from the Embassy with information about educational opportunities for English language teachers, please send an email to Tashkent-program@state.gov.