Teacher training takes off

	The Fourth Delegation of Egyptian teachers with program coordinator Susan Coakley (back row, second from left) gathered on campus during a final conference in October.

"Give a man a fish, and he can eat for a day.
Teach him how to fish, and he can eat for a lifetime."

No, the English Language Institute does not offer fishing classes. But it may be going a long way toward satisfying world hunger--the hunger for learning English, that is--by expanding its teacher training programs.

This past year, 160 teachers in seven groups--triple the number of groups in 1999--came to ELI from Egypt, Chile and Turkey to learn the latest methods and technologies for teaching English.

"We are delighted to be taking such an active role in teacher development for these nations," said ELI director Scott Stevens. "Teacher training is an essential building block for economic development and, in today's global economy, represents perhaps the wisest investment a country can make in its people, for an educated, English-speaking workforce is a more productive and competititive one."

The four delegations of teachers sponsored by the Egyptian Ministry of Education were the first from their country to study at ELI.

"This program is part of a major initiative on the part of the Egyptian Ministry of Education to prepare its school children for the future through curriculum revision, integration of technology and the training of public and private school teachers," said Susan Coakley, one of the program coordinators.

Last year was the first time that the Chilean Ministry of Education sent elementary and secondary school teachers to ELI for training. Two more groups, totaling about 50 teachers, arrived this year in January and in October as part of Chile's overall National Educational Reform ("La Reforma"), explained academic coordinator Grant Wolf.

For the third straight year, Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara, Turkey--one of the largest English-speaking universities in the Middle East--sent a delegation of teachers during the summer. The seven teachers spent a significant portion of their time developing materials for immediate implementation in their classes in Turkey, said Wolf.

All of the teachers, who studied in Newark between four and eight weeks, participated in workshops and seminars offered by ELI and University of Delaware faculty and by other specialists.

"I expected to see more [language teaching] methods here, and that's what I found," said Mostafa Elmakhzangy, a teacher at an experimental language school in Cairo for grades K-12.

In addition to attending workshops, participants observed ESL classes, both at ELI and in public and private schools in Newark and Wilmington, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Fairfax County, Virginia, and were taken on cultural trips to Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, explained Walt Babich, the third program coordinator.

Teacher training participant Hamady Mahdy from Ismalia, Egypt (center) responds to a demonstration by a teacher colleague.

"Besides being a lot of fun," said Coakley, "these trips allow the teachers to see the places they teach their students about. This gives them more confidence and credibility as a teacher, since they can now speak from firsthand knowledge.

" At the end of each training session, explained Coakley, participants completed a final project which included a written lesson plan and a demonstration of a teaching technique at a conference attended by all program participants and guests.

The benefits of what we do here," said Coakley, "go beyond the teachers who visit ELI. They take back methods they learn to their students at home. This is very rewarding for all of us."

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