The English Speaking Nation: Secondary Teacher Training (ESN:STT) program, launched in November 2019, by the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent and the Uzbekistan Ministry of Public Education began the teacher to teacher professional development and training cascade phase of the program on Friday, March 4th.
English Speaking Nation: Secondary Teacher Training (ESN:STT) is a three-year, $5.0 million dollar program that sets out to train and provide professional development opportunities to over 15,000 English language public school teachers throughout the Republic of Uzbekistan. Implemented by American Councils for International Education, the ESN:STT program recently invited TESOL International to Uzbekistan from June through December to certify 386 Uzbekistan teachers in the TESOL Core Certificate Program (TCCP), an intensive internationally recognized 140 hour in-person and in-classroom practicum course. In October, 196 Uzbekistan teachers participated in the Training of Trainers (TOT) professional development workshop and successfully passed through the Teaching English through English Training (TETE) facilitated and led by George Mason University from Fairfax, Virginia in addition to the TESOL 6 Principals of Learning course.
On March 4th, 82 TESOL certified Uzbekistan Core Trainers (CT), who work and teach in public schools and universities across Uzbekistan, began cascading the knowledge and information they learned to fellow Uzbekistan English language teachers throughout all 14 regions of Uzbekistan. Each Uzbekistan Core Trainer (CT) will host cohorts of 10-12 peer teachers known as Regional Peer Mentors (RPMs). For the next 12 weeks, every Friday these 82 Core Trainers will conduct weekly training session with 837 Regional Peer Mentors (RPMs) nationwide on the TESOL 6 Principles of Learning and the George Mason Teaching English Through English (TETE) courses.
When asked about the ESN: STT teacher to teacher cascade, Dilnoza Boymirzayeva, a Core Trainer at Specialized School 61 in Andijan stated, “In my opinion, cascading will be a good chance for English teachers (RPMs) to broaden their knowledge by learning new methods and activities. After participation in the ESN project, their lessons will be more effective and interesting.”
Ultimately, the ESN:STT program hopes to strengthen local teacher training capacity among the Ministry of Public Educations’ best and brightest teachers while passing along modern teaching practices, standards, and norms to an ever growing cohort of English language public school teachers in all regions of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
