TESL Basics with Kristina Scholz

By Mary Kazarian

 

AUA Communications and Social Media Intern

 

It is automatically assumed that native English speakers can teach the language comfortably in most settings, yet experience can tell that it is both an art and a science. As a skilled ESL teacher both overseas and in the U.S., Kristina Sholz led the recent webinar on best practices for TESL and success in the classroom. She is currently working at the Educational Testing Service and will also be joining AUA for a second webinar on ESL techniques during the month of May!

As a volunteer or teacher in a different country or even at home, you as a teacher are the center of your classroom, your class, other teachers, and administration. These four worlds will pull you in different directions and give you different responsibilities. Therefore, you have to be aware of what is going on and your short time as volunteers will mean that you need to be more cognisant than usual.

The first day in the classroom can be intimidating, but some important advice before even stepping foot into your workspace is to create a “Needs Analysis”. This will help you better asses where your students are and where they want to go as a learner of the English language which then sets you as a teacher up for success, gives your students a goal, and provides and overall plan.

Analyzing need first begins with basic questions: who, what, why, where, when, and how. The list below goes into the details of these seemingly simple questions:

What: Learning English!

Who: You will most likely know nothing about your class until you step into your classroom on the first day. But thinking ahead of time will help tremendously especially about what settings you will be teaching in. An informal setting includes friends, host family, passers-by, or school clubs. Formal settings are typically enrolled students, professors, business professionals; people who are expecting results.

Why: Informal settings includes understanding others, building a social network, traveling internationally, watching TV, movies, or even finding love! Formal settings can be understanding others, participating professionally, advancing a career, traveling internationally, or perfecting a skill/job.

Where/When: Informal settings are outside the institution, casual/spontaneous (whenever), or one-on-one. Formal settings are part of an institution, part of a larger program/planned (regular), or one-on-one as well.

How: Materials such as pencils and paper, Resources such as libraries, Goals, Expectations such as attitudes (take note of cultural stereotypes about Americans and be positive and engaging!), and Budget/Fees.

Packing for your volunteer experience will need some prior thought as well. Good items to bring that can spur conversation are pictures and other personal items. Media including movies and music are excellent and knowledge gaining through art and singing is proven to work extremely well! Leave-able items can be used during your time as a teacher and after you leave such as books, notebooks, and utensils. Fun items to bring are stickers, markers or crayons, and games which can include mad libs or a comic book and whiting out the word bubbles so students can fill the words in themselves!

On your first day entering the classroom, remember  to breathe! Have a plan and talk slowly, repeat information as necessary and ask questions! For the rest of your time teaching, remember that you can never talk slow enough and structure your class in a way that makes sense for you.

Overall, be relaxed and be open to engagement. Below are some more tips on teaching in a different country as well as some resources for TESL:

-Dress conservatively and similar to people around you. Teachers are seen as having a leadership role in some communities and Americans typically are more laid back in dress and attitude compared to other cultures

-Avoid comparing humans to animals, especially in Muslim societies

-Remember: No Sex, Politics, Religion. However talking about age, ethnicity, money, marital statues are OK!

-Share yourself: be honest, but not alienating

-Bring pictures, take pictures

-Keep your word and keep in touch

Resources:

English Teaching Forum

Voice of America

BBC Learning English

Earth Day Across the Globe

 

By Mary Kazarian

 

AUA Communications and Social Media Intern

 

              AUA volunteers will have the chance to become environmental educators, promote ecotourism, and all in all become one with nature at Ifrane National Park in Morocco this summer. While many may not be aware of much beyond Morocco’s main tourist spots and desert, Ifrane National Park is surprisingly home the largest forests of Morocco. There are numerous lakes and many species of trees including the Mediterranean Oak and the Cedar Tree which are refuge to different types of birds and the famous Barbary Macaque ape. Widespread sheep breeding is also an important feature of the park as well. In the spirit of Earth Day, we are proud to send Unofficial Ambassadors to broaden the promotion of Ifrane National Park and to also keep an eye out for an 800-year-old Cedar Tree located somewhere in the park’s forests! For more information on volunteering as an Unofficial Ambassador in Morocco, please click here!

Barbary Macaque

Kingdom of Morocco

 

By Mary Kazarian

 

AUA Communications and Social Media Intern

Besides Morocco being a destination spot for tourists and world travelers, it is a place full of culture, history, and great food. Yet these are only some of the reasons Unofficial Ambassadors have chosen to volunteer in the

 المملكة  المغربية

Kingdom of Morocco

AUA’s Summer Service Programs in Morocco will kick off at the end of June, a perfect time for Unofficial Ambassadors to bask in the Moroccan culture and desert heat. Located in Ifrane, Morocco, Al-Akhawayn University Summer Camp is offering a series of three day camps for underprivileged youth in the surrounding communities including the local shepherding village of Tarmilaat.  These camps will feature music and arts activities as well as sports, and Unofficial Ambassadors will work with children in the camp to coordinate games and exercise activities. Below are some pictures of children in Tarmilaat. To find out more about AUA’s Summer Service Programs, click here!

What’s in a Name?

The following post is from contributing blogger and social media intern Mary Kazarian. Mary is an undergraduate at George Mason University studying the Middle East and International Relations and hopes to one day move to her native land of Lebanon.

The election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires as Pope could be an important milestone in Catholic-Muslim world relations. In an article published by Daniel Tutt, the Interfaith Activist and Fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding at Huffington Post, St. Francis is described as universally compassionate and a bold peacemaker with the Muslim world. So it may not be happen chance that the new pope landed on the name Francis and Tutt sees improving relations with the Muslim world as an important goal for the Church.

He writes:

“The election of Pope Francis comes at a time when the Church faces a whole host of challenges as an institution, and when it comes to external relations, the future of relations with the Muslim world should be a top priority.”

The birth of a new initiative, the Common Word Between Us and You that took root in 2007 is just one example of a Catholic-Muslim initiative. It joins leaders in events and dialogues held around the world between Christians and Muslims. Tutt explains that the initiative’s efforts “should be expanded and Muslim leaders will hopefully be invited back to the Vatican for further engagement.” The new election of Pope Francis shows a path forward with mutual understanding and maybe what’s in a name after all.

Ambassador Akbar Ahmed Book Launch!

 

The following post is from contributing blogger and social media intern Mary Kazarian. Mary is an undergraduate at George Mason University studying the Middle East and International Relations and hopes to one day move to her native land of Lebanon.

            AUA Advisory Board Member Ambassador Akbar Ahmed recently published a new book with Brookings Press titled The Thistle and The Drone: How America’s War on Terror  Became a Global War on Tribal Islam which discusses America’s drone campaign by analyzing the tribal societies on the borders between nations which are the drone’s primary victims. This is the third volume in his trilogy about relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world after 9/11 that includes Journey into Islam (2007) and Journey into America (2010). The book launch will take place on March 14, 2013  from 3:00-5:00 pm at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC and will be chaired by Ambassador Martin Indyk. AUA would like to congratulate Ambassador Ahmed on his work and invite everyone to purchase his new book!

For more information and bio about Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, please visit the AUA Team page.

Not A Cheesy Valentine’s Day

 

The following post is from contributing blogger and social media intern Mary Kazarian. Mary is an undergraduate at George Mason University studying the Middle East and International Relations and hopes to one day move to her native land of Lebanon.

 

       As much as we love holidays, most of us can agree that Valentine’s Day is the one that receives the most love. Over here at AUA, we felt the love! During the past fundraiser held on the notorious holiday, Creative Learning and America’s Unofficial Ambassadors raised approximately $2110 dollars to fund the plane tickets for our volunteers and Unofficial Ambassadors for the upcoming School-2-School program.

       School-2-School is a unique program that facilitates partnerships between schools in America and schools abroad. This summer, S2S  is bringing together schools in Indonesia and Bangladesh with schools in Texas and Pennsylvania. The excitement is building as AUA continues to spread messages of volunteering to create mutual understanding and overall peace between America and the Muslim world.

We Can Not Rewrite History…

 

The following post is from contributing blogger and social media intern Mary Kazarian. Mary is an undergraduate at George Mason University studying the Middle East and International Relations and hopes to one day move to her native land of Lebanon.

“There is more, much more to America than its imprudent foreign policy in the Muslim world.” In an recent article on Huffington Post by Dr. Muqtedar Khan, the Associate Professor at the University of Delaware and a Fellow of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, Islamophobia is brought into contemporary scholarly criticism.  Current discussions on the West’s relationship with Islam is described through what Khan calls “historical Islamophobia” in that our relations with “the other” is solely because of our perpetual bitterness towards Islam. However, Khan would say that this is not necessarily the case and argues that current politics add fuel to the fire of Islamophobia. For example, the recent Benghazi attack on the American Embassy was associated with violent crime under the name of Islamic terrorism. This term is used more widely than any other term to describe any other groups that have committed extreme actions.

Nevertheless, there are some major developments and connections being made between those advocates of Western-Muslim relations, groups such as AUA! Most groups fostering discourse among anti-Islamophobists are surprisingly in the West, where Muslim communities are growing and being influenced every day by Western traits and vice versa. Dialogue is more important now especially  in a post 9/11 world. Because as globalization and human rights infiltrate most parts of the globe, the West should realize that they hold the responsibility of influencing many communities, therefore the easy and superficial answer of generalizing Islam is as lethal as another world war.

As Marie Curie would advise, “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” AUA Director Benjamin Orbach will be visiting the University of Delaware today to foster this understanding between Americans and the Muslim World.

“We Are Citizens”

The following post is by Director Benjamin Orbach who was able to meet with former Pennsylvania Senator Wofford, a noted advocate of volunteering and national service.                   

            I met Senator Harris Wofford, the godfather of national service, a couple of years ago. I was hurrying into a breakout session of a conference and plopped down into an empty chair towards the front. I turned to  nod hello to the older gentleman sitting to my left and to introduce myself, and I realized that the older gentleman was Harris Wofford. For all of us who spend our time thinking about America’s role in the world and figuring out what it is that we can do to serve our country and our ideals of social justice towards our fellow man — regardless of gender, religion, ethnicity, or nationality – Harris Wofford is a hero. Shocked and a little star struck, I managed to tell Senator Wofford that I was a “child of his legacy.”

I had voted for him in Pennsylvania and served in AmeriCorps NCCC after graduating from college. I gave the Senator some material on America’s Unofficial Ambassadors, and we spent an hour after the session having coffee and talking about the Middle East. Since then, it has been my honor to count Senator Wofford as a supporter of America’s Unofficial Ambassadors and a privilege to call him a friend.

On Tuesday night, the television cameras captured Harris Wofford at the State of the Union. To me, the TV shot was fitting, as the President’s closing words embody Harris Wofford’s life work and the path that he and leaders like Martin Luther King and Sargent Shriver blazed for the rest of us.

The President concluded his speech by saying, “As Americans, we all share the same proud title — we are citizens. It’s a word that doesn’t just describe our nationality or legal status. It describes the way we’re made. It describes what we believe. It captures the enduring idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations, that our rights are wrapped up in the rights of others; and that well into our third century as a nation, it remains the task of us all, as citizens of these United States, to be the authors of the next great chapter of our American story.”

We are thrilled that Senator Wofford will receive the Presidential Citizens Medal today at 10:45AM at the White House. To read more about the award and ceremony, click here . On behalf of America’s Unofficial Ambassadors, we wish Senator Wofford warm congratulations, and we thank him for leadership and strength that have made us a better country and a better people.

Here is a video of Senator Wofford discussing AUA!

“Remember, these drones are necessary…”

The following is a post from Communications and Social Media Intern and Contributing Blogger Mary Kazarian. Mary is an undergraduate at George Mason University studying the Middle East and International Relations and hopes to one day move to her native land of Lebanon.

In a recent interview on the BBC network,  AUA Advisory Member Akbar Ahmed discussed the legitimacy of a UN investigation on civilian deaths during air strikes by unmanned drones which is available below. The U.S. program, which continues to become more expansive as the number of deaths increases, is posing a threat to international law. The truth of the matter is, the safety of U.S. soldiers may be spared, but does this 21st century weapon really take the accountability out of its use? This question is still being discussed as the humanitarian aspect of the debate is elevating due to the high casualties especially in the countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen.

As normal life is completely suspended, children cannot sleep at night for fear of being “blown up”. Ahmed speaks not only of violence by drones, but the unfortunate violence by tribal warfare and increasing suicide  bombers. These people who find themselves in moments of extreme desperation turn to bloodshed as a means to an end. Human rights activists may turn to the United Nations for help, however an investigation of this sort, says Ahmed, may only raise the awareness of the fact that drones are not worth it.

In his recent book, available on Feb. 27th, The Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam, Ahmed describes traditional Islamic groups as the “thistle” which represents a people willing to fight back against the deadliest weapon available, the drone. The stark contrast between culture and society poses the question, is humanity progressing forwards?

For more information and bio about Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, please visit the AUA Team page.

Indonesian Schools Welcome America’s Unofficial Ambassadors

AUA Director Ben Orbach is now in Indonesia visiting schools and NGOs that will take part in AUA’s 2013 Summer Service program. Ben and Dr. Tahir Shad of AUA’s Advisory Board got a warm welcome this week at the Sekolah Sukma Bangsa school, which was founded to help children affected by the 2004 tsunami and political conflicts in Aceh. Some of the summer placements are profiled below the gallery.     

After a morning assembly where three groups of students (of different ages) performed traditional Acehnese welcoming dances, the Sekolah Sukma Bangsa school held a town hall where students asked me and CL Board Member Tahir Shad questions in English about our lives in America, the Unofficial Ambassadors program, and our personal backgrounds and experience.

Students were particularly interested in our favorite foods and music, information about our respective hometowns, and the inspirational figures who influenced our lives. It was an ideal opportunity for me to talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers and Primanti brothers-French fry stuffed sandwiches. My penance for preaching Pittsburgh was that I had to sing the national anthem, which is really hard to do well by yourself; Tahir didn’t help and it was so bad that these ultra-polite students could barely clap.

The kids and faculty at the school were great — so enthusiastic, friendly, and welcoming. The Sekolah Sukma Bangsa school is one of three schools that was established for tsunami victims as well as the victims of Aceh’s conflict. This school in Pidie has more than 300 students from elementary school to high school and is located about 2 hours from Banda Aceh in a setting of idyllic rice fields that look something like a national geographic shoot. America’s Unofficial Ambassadors will be sending volunteers to the Pidie school to teach English for four months starting at the end of August, and the Pidie school will also be a partner in Creative Learning’s 2013 School 2 School program.

Here’s a list of just some of the education placements in AUA’s Summer Service program:

The Mualimin Boys School: This school in Yogyjakarta was founded in 1920 and has 1150 students and 89 full-time teachers. Students at the school learn English, Arabic, Indonesia’s national curriculum, and Koranic studies. All students at the Mualimin Schools live on campus in dormitories. The school has a “multilingual” program of six classes (30 students per class) where students learn in English and Indonesian, similar to a bilingual program in the United States. There are 180 junior high school and high school students in the program.

This summer, two Unofficial Ambassadors will volunteer as full-time conversational English teachers, supporting the school’s six English teachers. In a special session that the school will convene during the school’s regularly scheduled vacation and the start of Ramadan, these volunteers will be embedded in classrooms and assist the school’s teachers with formal classes as well as lead extracurricular activities and work individually with students who seek to improve their English proficiency. The school’s leadership is incredibly enthusiastic about offering their students this session and hosting Americans in their school for the first time.

Mualimat Girls School: A sister school of the Mualimin Boys School, this all girls school was also founded in 1920 and has 1068 students and 69 teachers. It is similar in structure to the boys school, with students at the school learn English, Arabic, Indonesia’s national curriculum, and Koranic studies. 95 percent of the students live on campus in dormitories. The Mualimat school also has a “multilingual” program of six classes, with 40 students per class. There are 240 junior high school and high school students in the program.

During the summer program, two female Unofficial Ambassadors will volunteer as full-time conversational English teachers, supporting the school’s multilingual program. Volunteers will be placed in classrooms and assist the school’s teachers with formal classes as well as lead extracurricular activities and work with students who seek to improve their English proficiency. The school’s leadership is incredibly enthusiastic about offering their students this session and hosting Americans in their school for the first time.

Krapyak Islamic school: This school in Yogyjakarta was founded in the 1970s and educates 539 students, all of whom live on campus. 300 of the students are girls and classes (and dormitories) are separated by gender. The school has 76 teachers and blends together a curriculum that draws from the national curricula, religious curricula, and its own integrated curricula. All students study English and “technology,” and the school has two computer labs with 30 laptops and 30 desktops that are practically new. Unfortunately, the school does not have faculty with capacity to teach basic computing and internet courses. The computers are mostly used to teach typing.

This summer two Unofficial Ambassadors (male or female) will volunteer with Krapyak in a special session during their summer and Ramadan break. They will teach English as well as basic computing skills to both students as well as faculty. The school is also looking for a volunteer who can train their leadership in better school management and administration, and like the other schools, is extremely enthusiastic about this partnership with America’s Unofficial Ambassadors.