1. Welcome to a New ELO Thomas Santos!
Greetings Teachers of English in Russia,
I am very pleased to introduce myself as the new English language Officer at the American Embassy, Moscow. My background is in language teacher training and in the theatre. I hope that with my knowledge and skills, we can work together to forward effective classroom practice and informed pedagogy.
Russia presents a great opportunity and challenge for me as an educator and a representative of my country. I hope that through my work I will be able to make a contribution to English language education in Russia. I also look forward to learning about Russian culture in order to share this with my contacts all over the world. It is a big job. (Russia is a big country!) But, I am excited to see and experience as much as I can.
2. English Language Fellows are Back! Seven this year!
There will be 7 Senior EFL Fellows in Russia this year. You are welcome to invite Fellows to your city to participate in seminars and conferences. Please fill in an official request form (can be found at the Embassy website and at the http: //www. eltrussia.ru site) and e-mail it to Elena Lubnina ASAP lubninaen@state.gov
Most Fellows chose to re-new, but two are new.
Natasha Frank, a Senior EFL Fellow in Kazan, is responsible for the big Volga region. Natasha continues to work on the Picturing America Project
Robyn Shifrin, a Senior EFL Fellow in Vladivostok, is responsible for the Far East. Robyn continues her work on the second part of the Movie Project.
Toni Hull, a Senior EFL Fellow in Moscow, is responsible for the central part of Western Russia. Toni will work on “Shaping the Way we Teach English in Russia” Project
John Mark King, a Senior English Language Fellow in St.Petersburg, is responsible for the North-Western part of Russia. John Mark will conduct a 16-week online course titled, "Teaching EFL Writing: A Skills Course for Teachers in Russia" beginning in November of this year. The course will focus on various guiding principles and practices characteristic of the successful L2 writing classroom. Such topics as writing assessment, lesson planning, integrating reading and writing, using the Internet and giving feedback will be covered. The course is free of charge and all teachers of English in the Russian Federation are eligible to apply. To be notified when applications are being accepted, please write to elf@jorabek.com.
John Silver, a Senior EFL Fellow in Novosibirsk, is responsible for Siberia. John will continue his work on Access curriculum and encourage us all to use elt-russia.ning.com
Rafel Naseer, a Senior EFL Fellow in Tyumen, is responsible for the Urals and Ugra regions. Rafel will focus on EFL Methodology issues.
Erik Lundell, a Senior EFL Fellow in Belgorod, is responsible for the South of Russia. Erik will focus on EFL Methodology issues and will help Access sites
I am using this opportunity to again thank all Fellows for choosing Russia, for their eagerness to share their knowledge, time and part of their lives with us!
3. Picturing America project
I am happy to tell you that Picturing America project will continue. Please have a look at this wonderful visual portal to American culture http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/ We have received 50 sets of these beautiful laminated paintings and mailed them to American Corners and major Universities all over Russia. Please feel free to borrow these paintings and use them in your classroom. The major heroes of the Project are the following Russian teachers who under Natasha Frank’s guidance created 45 lesson plans that correspond to all paintings: Kobzina Tatiana, Moscow, mishmash63@mail.ru ; Grigorenko Tamara, Krasnodar tgrigorenko@mail.ru; Shamsutdinova Nellie, Kazan Nellie.Shamsutdinova@ksu.ru; Pastukhova Elena, Ivanovo pp98oo@mail.ru; Rozhkova Olga, Kaliningrad oerozhkova@mail.ru; Nesterets Nataliya, Syktyvkar nescafets@mail.ru; Makarova Svetlana, Samara sveta_firefly@mail.ru; Tsatsura Elena, Irkutsk lena_tsatsura@mail.ru; Sotskaya Evgeniya, Stavropol assoniationdrgl@yandex.ru; Tomilko Vera, Khanty-Mansiysk v_tomilko@ugrasu.ru; Mironova Olga, Nizhniy Novgorod, mironova@lunn.ru; Levina Ludmila, Nizhniy Novgorod levin@unn.ac.ru; Platonova Zhenya, Volgorad ekplat@mail.ru; Gulya, Salavat enzo_scaglietti@mail.ru and Tatiana Yefremova, Kazan.
If you would like to invite these authors to come to your seminar/conference with a presentation on the Picturing America project and on how to use the lesson plans, please write to them directly. There will be funding to help them travel.
4. Shaping the Way We Teach English in Russia DVD-Rom!
This new teacher training course on EFL Methodology is the result of the work of David Fay, former ELO, Professor Elena N. Solovova and Dr. Elena S. Markova.
Welcome to the Shaping the Way We Teach English in Russia Visual Guide for Teachers and Trainers. It is designed to guide teachers and trainers through a collection of 18 video clips of teachers in their classrooms. The video clips are available on DVD-ROM. The guide builds on the Shaping the Way We Teach English teacher training material developed by the University of Oregon and sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. The Shaping the Way We Teach material is not for sale and is available without any cost at oelp.uoregon.edu/shaping.html.
This Guide is based on“pedagogy of questions” rather than“pedagogy of answers.” In short, the Guide offers a series of questions that intend to guide teachers toward viewing classroom practices in a new light and, in turn, toward finding new approaches to their own teaching.
Please e-mail your full street address, your contact information and number of copies you would like to get to Nataliya Fomenko at fomenkonv@state.gov
5. Christine Coombe is Coming Back… On-Line
Christine Coombe, a renowned Specialist in testing and Assessment and TESOL President – Elect will conduct an on-line course on testing and assessment for 25 Russian teachers. ELO will accept nominations from EFL Teachers ‘Associations. All nominees should be experienced in assessment/testing (EGE), have consistent access to a computer with a good Internet connection, be able to dedicate one to two hours per weekday to cover tasks and commit to helping the teachers’ association to share the gained knowledge with the local teachers.
If you are interested in having a member of your association participate in the course, please nominate the member by providing:
1. Name, Institution, Title. Previous Experience/training
2. Contact information (mailing address, email, phone)
3. Brief explanation of why you think this person is right for the course (maximum 50 words)
4. Brief description of what the TA representative will do after completing the course (maximum 100 words)
The deadline for applying is November 1st. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to write to Natalia Fomenko at fomenkonv@state.gov.
6.Time to Plan - Info for Teachers’ Associations Leaders
ELO is ready to review requests from EFL Teachers’ Associations for the 2010/2011 academic year. Please e-mail your grant requests as well as information about forthcoming seminars, conferences, projects.
One more request – someone “helped” me in summer and deleted the main page of http://www.eltrussia.ru. I am trying to revive it and ask you to e-mail to me the following information about your Association:
Name, website address, President’s name, e-mail address, names of Board leaders with their e-mail addresses.
7. ”English” in Color
Our beloved “English” Newspaper (Editor-in-chief Alyona Gromushkina eng@1september.ru ) has changed its exterior completely! Now it comes out in color and looks more like a high-class glossy magazine. But it hasn’t changed the main attraction – carefully chosen, very useful materials collected by devoted, caring hands of a team of top-notch experts. Please check the site and enjoy issues # 18 that you can download for free. It is devoted to English Literature.
http://eng.1september.ru/ I think subscription to this newspaper is the best gift to an English language teacher!
8. Polish Your English Language Skills Online
A sampling of the wealth of ESL (English as a second language) resources available on the web:
• Office of English Language Programs, U.S. Department of State: ESL Resources for Teachers and Students and State Department Programs: exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/index.html
• Dynamic English:(August 2007) An Ejournal of the U.S. State Department and a publication of America.gov: www.america.gov/publications/ejournalusa/0807.html
• Grammar Guides and Writing Resources from the New York Public Library: tinyurl.com/355nsuo
• Online Writing Lab: owl.english.purdue.edu
• Online English Language Program from the University of Oregon: oelp.uoregon.edu/
• The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing: nutsandbolts.washcoll.edu/
• Online English 1010 Handbook: Introduction To Academic Writing: courtesy of Utah State University ocw.usu.edu/English/english-1010/english-1010/english-1010-handbook.pdf
• Amherst College: Online Resources for Writers www.amherst.edu/academiclife/support/writingcenter/resourcesforwriters
• University of Wisconsin, Madison Writing Center: www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/
Dartmouth College Writing Center: www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/about.shtml
9. Goodbye, cruel words: English. It's dead to me.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/13/AR2010091304476.html
It’s a wonderful article – great for discussion
