Regional English Language Office
Visiting Regional English Language Officer (RELO) Spreads Global English Across Uzbekistan (02/28/2008)
Regional English Language Officer (RELO) for Central Asia Andrea Schindler visited Uzbekistan in February to become better acquainted with English language education in Uzbekistan. Although Ms. Schindler lives and works in the U.S. Embassy in Astana, Kazakhstan, she is responsible for consulting on English language activities in all five countries of Central Asia, including Uzbekistan. During her visit to Uzbekistan, she traveled to Tashkent, Bukhara and Samarkand, conducting workshops for English teachers at every stop. She also had the opportunity to meet with the administrations of several universities to discuss opportunities for future collaboration.
Ms. Schindler made all of her workshops exciting and interactive, urging teachers to assume the role of students for an hour and try many of the activities that they could later use in their classrooms. In Tashkent, Ms. Schindler conducted a workshop for approximately 25 teachers on “Developing Communicative Activities.” Instead of just lecturing to the teachers about how to teach communicative activities, Ms. Schindler had them do the activities so they could experience how much more fun and effective such activities are. In one activity, teachers worked in pairs to overcome an information gap. In each pair, one teacher had to describe a picture that the RELO provided, while the other team member tried to draw the picture correctly, based only on his or her partner’s verbal descriptions. In Bukhara, Ms. Schindler made a presentation on “Vocabulary Activities for Young Learners” to an audience of about 15 teachers. Her workshop had everyone in the room on their feet and laughing as English teachers in one activity competed against each other to answer questions correctly by hitting one of many pictures with a plastic rug beater. Although the workshop, which Ms. Schindler adapted from an article she published in Forum magazine in 2006, offered ideas for teaching children and young students, the teachers learned that such activities can be enjoyable for students of all ages and English abilities. In Samarkand, Ms. Schindler held a workshop on “Public Speaking Strategies and Skills” for current and future English teachers. She encouraged the assembled teachers to never just read a speech or paper verbatim, but adapt it into a dynamic presentation, stressing that such a presentation will be much more interesting and intelligible to the audience. At each workshop, the RELO and Cultural Affairs Officer Stephanie Fitzmaurice also distributed numerous publications, including several different issues of Forum magazine and the USA Map Facts in Brief, which the teachers received with excitement.
In all of her encounters with teachers and students, Ms. Schindler conveyed a positive message. She encouraged students to continue their study of English, as it will open many doors for them in life. She also emphasized that distinctions between British English or American English are no longer important, because English truly has become a global language. Ms. Schindler pointed out that there are more people in the world today who speak English as a second language than those that speak it as a native language. For this reason, she encouraged everyone to seize every available opportunity to practice speaking English with other non-native speakers. She emphasized that it is not necessary to study or practice speaking English with a native speaker in order to improve.