Zigen is looking for Chinese-English bi-lingual volunteers to join our to be decade-long Rural English Teacher’s Training Program (ETT). We prefer college students who are studying to be English teachers, or at least are in the field of education.
In the summer of mid July, Zigen will start the 2013 ETT program in the Southwest Province of Guizhou, China.
Following are the detailed description of the program.
The Zigen Fund’s Summer English Teachers’ Program
The Summer Rural English Teachers’ Program is an intensive program committed to providing the opportunity for professional development to in-service teachers. The program was started in 2004 and has served rural English teachers in Guizhou, Hebei, and Shanxi thus far.
Trainees
In order to make the greatest contribution to the effectiveness of English teaching in your county, we would like to give further training to those experienced teachers whom you have designated to train less proficient teachers. We feel in this way we can make the best use of our skills and resources. We can accomodate 25 primary teachers in one class and 25 middle and high school teachers combined in the other class. All of the teachers should have a high level of English proficiency. All of them should be considered potential teacher trainers. (If we are successful in recruiting another professor, an additional 25 teachers could join the program.)
The trainees must have pre-arranged for child care in order to commit to regular attendance during the entire program.
The Goals of the Program:
Participants will….
learn additional teaching techniques and strategies for language learning based on the text Teach English: A Training Course for Teachers
develop activities to supplement the textbooks used in school.
enjoy English language learning through communicative-based activities.
further develop their English language skills in speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
study second language acquisition research that supports language teaching and learning.
develop model lessons and present them to the other trainees as public lessons according to the initiative of the Foreign Language Department of the Ministry of Education
learn how to train other teachers in interactive methods to make the study of English appealing to students.
Accommodations: The trainees from the countryside need to be housed in the city according to the arrangements of the education office. Their meals are also the responsibility of the education office. The teaching staff requires housing in an air conditioned hotel with internet access in all of the rooms. Western-style toilets are requested. The Zigen Fund pays for the hotel and meals of the training staff.
Site: The program is usually held in an education training center or in a school which provides access to computers and a projector in the classrooms, the internet in the office or elsewhere, and a projector and screen in the auditorium. Fans are also provided in the classrooms and usually an air conditioner in the office. Office space is requested for our materials and laptops.
Daily schedule: The daily schedule is related to the intensity of the summer weather. Morning classes would be held 8:00 – 11:30 and afternoon classes 2:00 – 5:00. Occasionally an English-language film with Chinese subtitles might be shown in the evening, but in that case, families would be invited to attend. No classes would be held on weekends.
Course content: Teach English – A Training Course for Teachers forms the basis of our course. Each trainee would be provided with a workbook (which needs to be copied in advance) with homework assignments. Some of the topics covered in this text are: Presenting vocabulary, Asking questions, Presenting and practicing structures, Using the blackboard, Using a reading text and teaching basic reading, Using visual aids, Planning a lesson, Teaching pronunciation, Pairwork and groupwork, Writing activities, Correcting errors, Listening activities, Communicative activities, Using English in class, Role play and Planning a week’s teaching. In addition, focus would be on correcting the trainees’ pronunciation and grammar problems. In preparation for presenting model lessons to the entire group, the trainees would present practice lessons to their own class. Time and materials would also be provided for the primary teachers to make reusable, colorful posters to present grammar and vocabulary lessons to supplement their texts and to engage the attention of their students. From time to time, games and songs using English would be taught to all the trainees for their use with their classes.
Certificate of completion: At the end of the program, a certificate of completion will be awarded to all those who have attended daily and participated fully in the program. The certificate will be issued jointly by the Education Department and Zigen. In addition, certificates of honor will be issued to those teachers who presented the best model, public lessons.
Evaluation: At the end of the program, evaluation forms will be filled out by the trainees and will be shared with the Education Department.
Sponsorship of the local Education Department: The local Education Department works with Zigen to provide administrative and financial support for the teacher training program each summer. The Zigen Fund supports the housing and meals for the staff as well as the teaching and office supplies for the program. The local Education Department provides housing and meals for teachers brought in from the countryside and monitors the attendance of all trainees. Provision for transportation expenses would be determined by the Education Department.
Staff:
The staff includes at least two experienced American teachers/professors with extensive experience teaching in New York City and abroad and usually a bilingual Chinese speaker who is qualified to teach English.
Judy Manton taught English to adult immigrants in New York City for 32 years. She also taught English to professors at the South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 1980-82. She taught in various other parts of China prior to becoming the director of the Zigen program. She has been a professor of cross-cultural studies at a university in New Jersey for 22 years. Ms. Manton first visited China in 1972 and had the great honor of meeting Premier Zhou En-lai. Her late husband was active in helping China obtain a seat in the United Nations. As his American mother had been born in Fujian and later became a teacher there, he had grown up hearing about her love for China. He founded the China-America Relations Society and initiated some of the first exchanges between China and the United States. Judy Manton has visited China 21 times for a total of over 5 years living in China. She speaks some Chinese.
Dr. Cynthia S. Wiseman is tenured professor at City University of New York. She has been teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language for 35 years in various programs, including higher education, adult education, public and private elementary, middle, and high schools, and in Intensive English Programs both in the United States and abroad, including Senegal, Brazil, Mexico, and France. Dr. Wiseman is also a teacher trainer. Besides two summers training EFL teachers in Shanxi, China — first in Shiloh and then in LinXian, — she teaches in TESOL graduate programs in the US, including New York University MA TESOL program, with particular concentration on evaluation and assessment. She also teaches courses in Linguistics, and methods and priniciples of ESL/EFL. Dr. Wiseman earned an EdD in the Applied Linguistics program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focused on the assessment of second language writing.
The professors are assisted by Chinese-speaking college students and teachers from the U.S. and China who are either studying to become English teachers or who are actively teaching English.
Previous sites: This program has been held previously in Leishan (Guizhou) Lin Xian (Shanxi), Shilou (Shanxi) and Qinglong (Hebei).