JEDDAH, 19 August — About 50 Saudi female teachers are attending a three-day English language program that started here yesterday. Bridget F. Gersten, the Tunis-based regional English language officer for North Africa and the Middle East-Gulf, told reporters at the US Consulate General here that the program included three plenary sessions and six workshops.
Gersten, who conducted the first program, said the plenary sessions aim to impart new ideas and discuss trends in English language teaching today.
The English language summer institute program began first in Morocco 20 years ago. “This is a good model; it can be beneficial to the Kingdom,” she added.
Following the plenary sessions, the participants will form small groups for the workshops. The aim is to develop fluency, accuracy and pronunciation. In this workshops teachers will engage in a number of speaking activities that use individual, pair and group work to promote English proficiency, according to Gersten.
Teachers would then discuss which principles of modern teaching methods were reflected in these activities, said Gersten, who has over 15 years of experience as a teacher trainer.
A similar summer institute program for male teachers will open at Dar Al-Fikr School on Monday morning. John Battonburg will conduct the program.
Gersten said the US Consulate General and the British Council had been jointly organizing English language summer institutes here with the cooperation of local education authorities.
She added that the Office of English Language Programs, which was part of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of US Department of State, created and implemented high quality programs in specific regions and countries of the world. All programs were administered through the local American mission.
The response from trainees was overwhelming because the office had an excellent track record — it had a staff of English language officers (ELOs), and program specialists based in Washington and overseas. All ELOs hold advanced academic degrees in English as a foreign language (EFL), applied linguistics, or a related field. They have many years of experience as EFL teachers, teacher trainers, university educators and administrators.
The Washington office provides academic expertise, advisory and consultative and material resources worldwide. It also organizes several exchange programs for American academics overseas at the request of US embassies or consulates for a wide variety of activities related to training, methodology, curriculum development, textbook development, program evaluation and English for specific purposes.
Gersten, who is visiting the Kingdom for the third time, emphasized that the English language was the most widely taught foreign language in the world.
While the position of English in international relations as well as in science and technology makes it a global language, there is a great need for improving the quality of training for English teachers worldwide, she added.
