English Language
Institute
2005 Newsletter
From the director's desk .
  ELI wins record grant to expand teacher training in 2006  
  Faculty search fills full-time positions  
  Katharine Schneider retires  
  CAP students admitted to the University of Delaware  
  Third group of Algerian educators train at ELI, prepare for international conference  
  MA TESL graduates find job success  
  Conditional admissions for qualified PreMBA students  
  ALLEI continues to train lawyers and law students  
  Special Programs  
  Conference held for Chilean schoolteachers  
  Boy Scout project serves Chilean schoolchildren  
  Christina School District English Language Learners  
  Classroom notes  
  In memoriam: Ruth Jackson  
  Administrator Profile: Deb Detzel  
  Tutoring Center news  
  Evening classes offered to the community  
  ELI prepared for new internet-based TOEFL  
  ELI alum continues UD collaboration  
  Campus links  
  This old house  
  Evening of art  
  Personnel notes  
  Professional activities of faculty and staff  
  Homestay/host family programs: Bigger than ever  
  Cecily Sawyer-Harmon, homestay mom, instinctively  
  A sampler of 2005 graduates  
  Alumni news  
  Former ELI student thanks Newark community  
  Greetings to our alumni  

ELI wins record grant to expand teacher training in 2006

Teachers from Egypt and Syria will join their counterparts from Jordan and Morocco at the University of Delaware next summer under an expanded grant from the U.S. Department of State.

Jordanian English teachers explore ways of using new textbooks donated to them
through a U.S. State Department grant.

The English Language Institute won the $900,000 award—the largest single-year grant in its history—after two successful years of training English teachers and teacher-trainers from Jordan and Morocco under a program administered through the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Branch of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. A total of 52 teachers were trained in Newark plus about three times that number in country.

“This is a very high profile program for the Department of State and one of the first projects involving Syria,” said ELI director Dr. Scott Stevens.

“We are very proud that the University of Delaware is at the forefront of the U.S. effort to reach the Middle East with programs to foster professional development and cultivate cultural ties.”

The two six-week institutes in the summer of 2006 will combine a group of 24 teachers from Syria and Jordan and a group of 24 teacher-trainers from Morocco and Egypt.

Moroccan teacher-trainers gather in Rabat prior to
their summer training program at ELI.

"A vital component of this project is its inherent multiplier effect,” said Stevens. “We are arming these teachers with the skills to return to their respective countries and train many hundreds more of their colleagues through formal conferences as well as schoolbased workshops.”

In November 2005, Stevens traveled to Egypt and Syria with Baerbel Schumacher, project coordinator. They met with representatives from the Ministry of Education and the U.S. Public Affairs office in both countries. The pair also visited schools and met with teachers and students to gather first-hand data to assist in planning a successful training program.

“The American taxpayers are getting tremendous value from their investment in the future of American relations with these vital Middle Eastern countries,” said Stevens.

In the summer of 2005, the second year of the State Department program, 28 teachers from Jordan and Morocco were trained in the use of interactive methods and supplemental materials at ELI. Each institute concluded with a conference in which participants showcased ideas for implementing new approaches and techniques in the classroom.

“Many scholars are convinced that education and economic development are the antidotes to civil unrest,” said Stevens, “and this project promises to have an impact in both areas, since research has established a strong correlation between the English language capacity of a nation and economic growth.”

A secondary goal of the programs was to dispel negative cultural stereotypes. In addition to traveling to Lancaster and Philadelphia, PA, New York City and Washington, DC, participants visited the Newark Senior Center and the New Castle Courthouse and met with members of the Delaware Chapter of People to People. Participants also spent two weeks living with an American family.

“Our picture of Americans is very different now,” said Taghleb Mohammed Abu-Husan, an English teacher in a school for Bedouin boys in Amman, Jordan. He spoke of the violent TV images of the war in Iraq that the average Jordanian associates with Americans.

“My host family is so kind, so gentle,” he said. “They wouldn’t even kill an insect.”

For many of the visiting teachers, the experience represented their first trip to the United States.

“Everything is new for me here: the culture, the technology,” said Ghada Karazoun, who teaches Palestinian girls in a U.N. school for refugees in Zarqa, Jordan. Karazoun was delighted at her own personal progress after six weeks.

“This trip gave me a lot as a teacher, but I also learned a lot as a person,” she added. “I am more independent and more open-minded. And I am more tolerant.”