Teacher Training

Recently, on the 21st-22nd I hosted a teacher training for 32 teachers from Satpaev/Zhezkazgan. We had three rooms, three rotations and breaks in between. Everyone seemed to have a great time and found the information that Sam, Tom, Gambrill and John presented to be really helpful and awesome.One group of ours, 6 students, organized a really great small bakesale with the help and guidance of one of my teachers Aizhan.She did a really great job organizing them.We had really great baked goods and served chai and coffee. I made some homemade oatmeal raisin cookies which seemed to go over well.The basic schedule went something like this: 3 sessions X 45 minutes with two 15 minute breaks in between. We had three rooms, Sam/Tom, Gambrill/John and me.

We talked about topics

like: teaching reading, teaching speaking, experiential learning, teaching young learners, learning styles, error correction and positive reinforcement. I had a lot of fun teaching the teachers some of the songs I put onto a CD that i gave to each of them. They are a mix of all the camp songs i've grown up singing. I printed out lyrics and added them to the packet of materials. I do feel pretty proud of this seminar, I did most of the organizing myself. I did get a lot of help from my counterpart Assem.

She helped me go to the Akimat and find rooms, she also did a great job in talking to the Director for me.

These teachers ranged from long-time to just graduated. We gave all of the sessions in English and these teachers had to listen to us speak all day. I was really impressed with them.

Some sessions included role-plays and acting, which I'm sure the teachers were not used to and enjoyed. We all worked to engage the teachers in a way that simulated their actual classroom teaching. We also introduced many new games to be adapted for any lesson. Some of my teachers are already using these activities. They told me so today.

Something that was very interesting to me was the propensity for many of the teachers to remain quiet when prompted to enter into a group discussion. One reason could be shyness, not wanting to use their English. Another reason may be that they are used to simply sitting there and listening to lecture.

I had a bit of a time with some of the younger and quieter teachers in the beginning

. On the other hand, I had some young and older teachers who were very very

active and talked all the time. I can safely say that although most of this depends upon personality, some of these teachers have come from villages surrounding Zhez/Satpaev. Some pretty recently too.

This also factors into how they participated in the training. I prepared fancy printed certificates, complete with a peace corps logo and my signature.

At the end of the training we played a big game of Jeopardy. All of the teachers were so into it! Some of them got really competitive. I was really pleased with how it all turned out. Look for the link to the photo album under my photos or just click here.