The Ministry of Preschool and school education is launching the ESN project, aiming at developing the English language skills of secondary school teachers in Uzbekistan.

Innovation, technology and strategy center has been appointed as the project implementing organization, which will work together with stakeholders such as American Councils, RTI and USAID.

The Project focuses on:

1) helping secondary school English teachers identify their level of English

2) supporting teachers in upgrading their language

3) assisting teachers in improving their student-centred pedagogical skills

4) facilitating capacity building of trainers and mentors

5) encouraging Continuous Professional Development

6) revising English language teaching standards and curriculum

7) training materials designers 

8) developing assessment capacity system

As a result of the four-year project 33 thousand English teachers will benefit from the direct and indirect involvement into training and professional development activities, which subsequently will lead to improving the English language competencies of 6 million school children. This will also strengthen the positive perception of Uzbekistan secondary school English teachers and a supportive ecosystem of teaching and training will be cultivated.

English Speaking Nation: Secondary Teacher Training (ESN:STT) is a joint program of the Ministry of Preschool and school education and  Public Affairs Section (PAS) of the U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan and implemented by American Councils for International Education that offers an integrated professional development opportunity for English language teacher trainers and secondary school English language teachers in Uzbekistan. ESN:STT improves student skills and knowledge of English by preparing more than 15,000 secondary school English teachers and over 1,000 teacher trainers to use teaching and in-service training practices that improve student language learning.

The goal of the three-year program is to strengthen the English language secondary education in Uzbekistan by:

• Improving Uzbekistan secondary school teachers’ English language skills with the goal of increased fluency and better use of English in the classroom;
• Improving Uzbekistan secondary school teachers’ student-centered pedagogical skills;
• Strengthening the positive perception of Uzbekistan secondary school teachers inside and outside their communities;
• Cultivating a supportive ecosystem of teaching and training in order to attain excellence in English language teaching.

The program includes a cascading model that involves training of trainers, professional development activities for secondary school English teachers, and a mentoring program to build peer support among educators.

The three-year program will build English teachers’ teaching capacity in Uzbekistan through a phased implementation outlined below:

Phase I: Two cohorts of 40-45 English teacher trainers per cohort will be selected to participate in a rigorous training program delivered by TESOL International Association (TESOL) and George Mason University (GMU). Each cohort of teacher trainers will participate in:

• TESOL 140-hour Core Certificate Program, including a 20-hour mandatory practicum to be conducted in a secondary school in Uzbekistan; 
• Two-week Training of Trainers delivered by TESOL/GMU that includes guided action-planning workshops and site visits to teacher trainers’ educational institutions by GMU consultants for observation and feedback purposes.

Phase II: Each Core Teacher Trainer will train and mentor 10 to 12 Regional Peer Mentor-Teachers, based on content learned at the Training of Trainers.

Phase III: RPMs will train and mentor 10 in-service teachers a year through the duration of the program with the goal of training 15,000 teachers by the end of the third year of the program.

Throughout these three phases, the best 300 Regional Peer Mentor-Teachers will be invited to be trained by ESN:STT Master Trainers, and will have the opportunity to earn the TESOL Core Certificate. As a culminating event, the Core Trainers and Regional Peer Mentor-Teachers will have the opportunity to participate in the regional TESOL conference to be held in Uzbekistan in 2022.

For more information and online application please visit https://www.esn-teachers.org/

You can also download the application from the links below:

1. Core teacher trainers application - deadline: January 15, 2020

2. Regional Peer Mentor-Teachers application - deadline: January 31, 2020

and send completed applications to esn@americancouncils.org