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Small Grants Project Summaries

TEA 2006-2008 Round 2

Emma Nikolyan
Armenia
“”Establishing English Language Resource Center”
Ms. Emma Nikolyan, a teacher from Ashtarak Secondary School #1, will establish an English Language Resource Center at her school. The center will be equipped with contemporary electronic and print copies of learning resources in English as well as books, CDs, and DVDs on American geography, history, and culture. The center will be available to teachers and students of Ashtarak and the neighboring communities and aims to improve understanding of the United States and the students’ English language skills.

Rafik Pluzyan
Armenia
“Including More Teachers of English in Regular Training Activities”
Mr. Rafik Pluzyan’s project aims to provide teachers from remote parts of the region opportunities to actively engage and participate in seminars and trainings on modern English teaching methodologies. Mr. Pluzyan will implement a series of 13 five-hour Sunday workshops for English teachers from 16 different schools who would not otherwise have access to resources on methodology.

Aleksandr Shagafyan
Armenia
“Teachers’ Training at Jilliza Secondary School”
Mr. Aleksandr Shagafyan, a teacher at Jiliza Village Secondary School (Lori Region) and Specialist of English at the National Institute of Education branch in Lori, aims to use his small grant to develop the Jilliza Secondary School’s (JSS) teachers’ skills and enrich their pedagogical and professional knowledge through training workshops. He will collaborate with Rudik Vardanyan and Gnel Tigranyan to implement the trainings. These workshops will cover all disciplines of the school curriculum including languages, social sciences, natural sciences, as well as school administration. The trainings will provide JSS teachers with relevant methods of collaborative teaching with the ultimate goal of encouraging the transition from teacher- to student-centered learning.

Dilara Bunyatova
Azerbaijan
“Regional Conference of English Teachers”
Ms. Dilara Bunyatova will collaborate with TEA alumnus Khalida Rustamova and Ragsana Mammadova, the president of the Azerbaijan English Teachers’ Association, to organize a regional conference for teachers in Ismayilli. The one-day regional conference will include 80 participants from regions across Azerbaijan. The conference will incorporate presentations by numerous TEA alumni and aims to facilitate networking among Azerbaijan’s English teachers, improve curriculum development skills, and improve understanding of American culture.

Md Anwar Hossain
Bangladesh
“Teacher Training Resource Center”
Mr. Md Anwar Hossain will train teachers from 15 of the surrounding schools in his region of Bangladesh. Mr. Hossain will first hold a workshop for the headmasters of the schools to share information regarding his teacher training workshops and to work with them to secure permission for the teachers to leave the schools. He will then bring 50 English teachers, who together instruct about 9,000 students, for a three-day intensive workshop covering topics such as the method of Project-Based Learning and Techniques of Writing Composition.   

Tanzina Chowdhury
Bangladesh
“Teachers’ Training Workshop for Promoting Project Based Learning (PBL)”
The workshops implemented by Ms. Tanzina Chowdhury will involve 20 teachers and about 1,000 students. The teachers will first gather for a three-day workshop focused on project-based learning which will involve topics from Instructional Technology and the internet to the importance of academic portfolios. Upon return to their schools, the teachers will implement projects with their students based on the skills they learned in the workshop. Two months after the first workshop, the forum of teachers will re-convene for another workshop to follow up on the successes and challenges of the projects. Ms. Chowdhury aims to develop project-based curricula that integrate national education standards.

Nino Dondoladze
Georgia
“BELT: Better Education-Learning and Teaching in our community”
Ms. Nino Dondoladze will collaborate with Pirimze Rurua and Nino Kvantaliani to organize seminars in the Achara region to introduce the teachers to new teaching methodologies and techniques. The first seminar will be a four-day training on modern methodologies, the second seminar lasts three days and focuses on teacher interaction, and the third is a two-day workshop focusing on curriculum development. The trainings will include such topics as the theory of multiple intelligences, objective evaluation techniques, and Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Nata Kevkhishvili
Georgia
“Touch of History: Experience Treasured Collections Making History Educational (A Portable Museum)”
Ms. Nata Kevkhishvili will collaborate with Lorraine Dumerer, a Texas Social Studies teacher and TEA U.S. participant, and Anano Baghdavadze, a Tbilisi ESL teacher, to create a portable history museum to stimulate student learning. She will create three permanent “historical discovery trunks” equipped with historical and cultural artifacts and instructions for their use in the classroom, and the trunks will be sent to classes across the country. The trunks will encourage creative and student-centered lessons in the history and culture of Georgia and the US and the lessons will be presented in English to energize ESL learning.

Sukanya Chakraborty
India
“Setting Up a Cluster Resource Room for Surat Schools”
Ms. Sukanya Chakraborty will work with TEA alumnus Rashmi Diwan and with TEA U.S. teacher Janet Hall to establish a “cluster resource room” for students with learning disabilities in order to accelerate their learning process and better integrate them into classrooms with the other students. The resource room will be available to some 50 schools near the city of Surat and will also serve as a resource for teachers with little awareness of the special needs of learning disabled students. Ms. Chakraborty’s project will include two workshops for Indian teachers on the special needs of students, two video conferences with Ms. Hall’s school in the U.S., and monthly round-table meetings of the participating teachers. 

Ulugbek Abdurazakov
Kazakhstan
“Jumpstart English Teachers: Building an English Language Resource Center with Professional Development Workshops”
Mr. Ulugbek Abdurazakov’s project will establish a region-wide resource center for English teachers and provide workshops in techniques of teaching English and the use of the center. Mr. Abdurazakov will work with Peace Corps volunteer Elizabeth Pena and other local English experts in setting up the center and conducting the workshops. The resources of the center will include modern dictionaries, books and English learning DVDs.

Umut Kakeeva
Kyrgyzstan
“Save the Teeth”
Ms. Umut Kakeeva’s project will involve students in a campaign to improve dental hygiene among their peers in the Bazarkorgon region of Kyrgyzstan. Ms. Kakeeva will first conduct a two-day workshop with the help of dentists and Peace Corps volunteers that will cover both dental hygiene and leadership training. Those student volunteers, accompanied by teachers, will then train their peers in other regional schools using their newly-acquired presentation techniques in order to spread knowledge of dental healthcare to a wide audience and facilitate student networks. 

Ratbu Satarova
Kyrgyzstan
“Bringing Innovative Teaching Methods to Geographically and Economically Isolated English Teachers”
Ms. Ratbu Satarova will collaborate with Ms. Lauren Elizabeth Brauer, a teacher and Peace Corps volunteer, to organize a two-day teacher training seminar in Toktogul Rayon, a remote region of Kyrgyzstan. The seminar will provide 45 English teachers with training on techniques of student-centered learning and the opportunity to learn from a native English speaker. Ms. Satarova will focus on the special needs of the teachers by addressing how to use very limited classroom resources effectively and the participant teachers will share the information with their colleagues upon return to their schools, thus affecting an even greater number of teachers.

Ainura Turdalieva
Kyrgyzstan
“Creating an English Resource Library”
Ms. Ainura Turdalieva will establish an English resource center equipped with children’s books, dictionaries, and modern text books in English for the students and teachers of the school. The new library will also be the venue for student English club meetings and for weekly regional teacher training seminars. The seminars will provide English teachers with training in innovative new methodologies and aim to shift their teaching practices toward student-centered learning. 

Tadzhiddin Khaitov
Tajikistan
“Internet-Connecting Countries”
Mr. Tadzhiddin Khaitov will collaborate with Ms. Mukhabbat Abdukarimova and Mr. Bahrom Alimov to provide internet access to the English Language Resource Center that he established with an earlier TEA small grant. They will organize a six-day training on the use of the internet in education for 41 secondary-level English teachers from Qurghonteppa and Jilikul. The project aims to connect teachers and students with peers in the USA and other countries around the world and provide the teachers with greater access to online teaching resources.

Nazira Valieva
Tajikistan
“Introducing the US Education System and demonstrating its teaching methods to the selected secondary school teachers of the GBAO region of Tajikistan”
Ms. Valieva Nazira will collaborate with Ms. Shoista Khayolbekova and Ms. Gulnora Kamolova to provide a six-day series of presentations and trainings on modern teaching methodologies in the remote GBAO region of Tajikistan where there has been little development in teaching strategies in the past decades. The trainings will focus on topics such as curriculum development, portfolio and lesson planning, the theory of Multiple Intelligences, and student-teacher interaction. The project aims to expose teachers from remote areas to cutting-edge teaching methods in order to revitalize the schools and fully engage the students.  

Svitlana Rakhmanska
Ukraine
“Strengthening Pedagogical Innovations in Schools: Development of instruments for improving teaching quality and mechanisms for motivating students”
Ms. Svitlana Rakhmanska will implement an innovative one-day workshop for EFL teachers in her oblast incorporating lessons from an EFL methodologist, Peace Corps volunteers, and teachers. Teachers from across the 17 districts of Ternopil oblast will participate in the workshop in order to further their professional development. Topics include cooperative learning, project-based learning, and effective strategies for assessment.

Valentyna Tumasova
Ukraine
“Teachers’ Conference for Professional Development”
Ms. Valentyna Tumasova will offer an interactive conference for English language teachers of the Cherkaska Oblast. In order to reach out to the greatest number of teachers, she will implement the conference three times for a total of 160 attendees. The conference will focus on community projects and encourage teachers to facilitate social change in their towns. Other topics covered will be cross-cultural awareness, teaching methodologies, an introduction to the American Education system, and opportunities for professional development.

Svetlana Repetiy
Uzbekistan
“Teaching Cultural Literacy”
Ms. Svetlana Repetiy’s project aims to integrate cultural learning into the teaching of English in Uzbekistan. Ms. Repetiy will involve one hundred students and their teachers in the project which will use popular songs and poems, biographies of famous people, and historical narratives to make English learning more interesting and interactive for students. The school teachers and administration will then use their students’ own papers and presentations to develop a handbook entitled “Teaching Cultural Literacy” for distribution to schools across Uzbekistan. 

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