Stories from IATEFL

Last week I was in Oman presenting in the ELT conference at Sultan Qaboss University where I met a friend whom I met earlier at IATEFL Harrogate. After my presentation, I and my friend started chatting about the teaching of English language in Sudan in the past and how great we were. She went on and told me about a man whom she met by chance at IATEFL. She told me that the man visited ELSU at my university as it was renowned in the Middle East, and perhaps further afield, for the work the unit was doing in English for Specific Purposes (ESP). ELSU was established in the University of Khartoum with the help of the British Council at 1973. The man was called David Blackie. He told her that when he visited ELSU in the 70s he learned a lot about ESP as ELSU was the only centre in Africa and the middle-east specialization in ESP at the time. Due to the experience he learned in ELSU and seeing books produced in the department such "Scientific Writing" and "English for Science", and meeting John Swales who was head of ELSU at that time, he was able to write "English for Math". I was caught by the story as I was the head of the department that was built on the ashes of ELSU.
When I returned to Khartoum I was determined to use the story and memories of David Blackie in my presentation for the higher administration of the university to convince them to establish ELSU again but on a much bigger scale. I asked some of the teachers at the department to go book hunting and try to find all the books that were published by ELSU and especially David Blackie "English for Math". After searching in stores where all the old stuff of ELSU were stored, we succeeded in finding some books among which was "English for Math". I scanned the covers of the books and used these covers in my presentation. Yesterday I gave my presentation to top directors and the policy makers of the university. I used the memories of David Blackie and made them see how great ELSU was and how poor we are now. They were really moved and by the end of my meeting with them the decision was taken changeour department into a huge language centre. This is just the beginning, we have a long journey to go.
So this is why I like conferences.

Tessa Woodward's plenary speech

Today we had a great plenary speech in day 1 of IATEFL Harrogate by Tessa Woodward.Enjoy

Africa Networking at IATEFL Harrogate

"WOW a lot of Africans are in IATEFL this year" this is a sentence which I kept hearing yesterday and today in IATEFL. A lot of Africans are able to attend IATEFL this year because the British Council has done a great job of offering full sponsorships for so many teachers from Africa to attend the IATEFL conference this year. It was a great feeling to see teachers from different countries of Africa meeting , talking, sharing and networking. We even decided to start our own mailing list in Yahoo as a start, so it could be developed into a forum or a bigger association. I was given the job of starting the yahoo group which I started already and trying now to send invitations to my fellow teachers of mother Africa. It is a great feeling.

TKT

With the new director of the British Council, Richard Weyers more attention is being given to English language in Sudan. The British Council is running a three weeks course in the Teaching Knowledge Test offered by Cambridge University for tertiary level EL teachers.The course was orgainzed by Gray Ben, the English language advisor, at the British Council. The course will be located into two different venues at the same time to facilitate attendance of teachers. At the end of the course the teachers will take the TKT test. At the same time some local staff are being trained by David Watkins to become a future TKT trainers. As a member of the local staff being trained I feel really excited for an opportunity to learn something new. For two days we have been trained by David Watkins and we will continue to attend the course itself to observe professional trainers doing the training.
We are all hoping to see the TKT working well and we are hoping to have CELTA very soon in Sudan

The Time for Change conference

Time for Change: Developing English Language Teaching in Tertiary Level in Sudan' was the title of the conference held from the 1-3 of March by the British Council and the University of Khartoum. The conference was co-chaired by Mark Krzanowski from Westminster University and me from the University of Khartoum. The main themes of the conference were teacher training, assessment and use of technology in the classroom. In the first day of the conference I presented the plenary speech entitled 'Time for Change: Developing English Language Teaching in Tertiary Level in Sudan'. In the second day the plenary speech was presented by Mark Krzanowski entitled ' Current International Developments in English Language Teaching (ELT) and Implications for Tertiary Institutions in Sudan". We had presenters from different Sudanese universities and from Africa and UK. Also some publishers participated in the conference and we had presentations from Cambridge University Press, Macmillan and Garnet. On the third day of the conference the participants were divided into different groups as to open discussion so as to be able by the end of the day to draw the final recommendations of the conference to be presented to policy makers at universities and the Ministry oh Higher Educations. The conference was a success in the quality of the final recommendations. The conference was the first step in the road for change in the teaching of English Language at tertiary level in Sudan.

Doing wonders with students

Today while reading Hala Fawzi's blog I stumbled on an amazing post about two of her students participating in an international project entitled "what makes my country unique" The students produced the above amazing video about Sudan. I was so moved by their work and I remembered the famous saying of William Arthur Ward:

" The mediocre teacher tells.
The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires."

Professional Development

In our programme of in-service training we tried to meet the needs of the department and the teachers by designing training sessions that would fit for both needs. During the last few
days we were having one of these sessions. It is entitled "Innovative online tools for professional development." The session was designed to fit the following needs of the department:
1.To train English language teachers on online tools.
2.To raise the level of teachers performance by opening cultural contacts through their involvement in different ' communities of practice'.
3.To train teachers in introducing online tools and virtual environments as an alternative to the limited teaching hours.
And the following needs of the teachers;
1.To be able benefit from the advantages of web 2.0 tools in enhancing their teaching.
2.To develop professionally.
3.To be able to navigate the internet with more confidence and add their own content.
As the head of the department I was faced by two major issues. The first was to raise enough funding and find a location to hold the workshop in. After a lot of running around and writing letters, we were able to have the permission of the Faculty of Mathematical Sciences to use one off their computer labs free of charge and to raise enough funding for conducting the workshop.
We invited Hala Fawzi one of the very few online instructors in Sudan to carry on the training. With some extra spaces left we invited five teachers from other universities to attend with us the workshop. Hala Fawzi created a wiki as a platform for the workshop. The workshop continued for three days. The fourth and last day of the workshop we invited another instructor to talk about the University web classes and then I gave a short presentation on techniques of surfing the internet. A questionnaire was carried out to evaluate the workshop.
I feel very happy and satisfied now when I hear the teachers at the department talking about blogs and wikis, and some of them are now thinking of including some online tools in their teaching. So meeting their needs was the key for the success of the workshop. It is not just including technology that is important but training that is targeted to common goals.