Materials Design Training in Tashkent

Just after the B2 Ready launch, Fled.uz asked for a video-taped interview for a conference they’d be holding. They asked about our approach to ESP:

On 12 April 2016, B2 Ready was officially launched at the Uzbek State University of World Languages with twenty-two of the thirty designers in attendance. The designers spoke about their experience, shared some of what they have learned, and gifted copies of B2 Ready to those who attended.

With this launch, the ESP Materials Design training project comes to an end. The designers have worked very hard and learned a great deal. They have produced a book that will, both, serve as templates of effective design for future designers and also help to raise student language levels to B2 level while teaching the fundamentals of academic writing.

The book is available for free download and copyright allows unlimited use and printing.

After a year of work, B2 Ready is printed and ready to launch. The book will be officially launched 12 April 2016 on the new campus of Uzbekistan State World Languages University in Tashkent. Designers will be on hand to speak about their experience writing the book.

The year has been an exciting exploration of new ideas and new knowledge and the designers look forward to sharing the information they’ve learned with their colleagues and to producing new books that will effectively raise the language levels of learners while maintaining international standards for academic integrity.

A pre-launch, low resolution copy of B2 Ready is available for download. Sign up for our email list to receive your download link.

The ESP Materials Design Partnership Project training program culminated 26 March 2016 with 18 designers working together to prepare presentations on everything they’ve learned during the year. The 18 are ready to share their new ideas and experiences with colleagues throughout Uzbekistan.

The designers efforts were featured on the website for the U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan.

The ESP Materials Design Partnership Project is nearing completion. The project specialist will be leaving the country soon and it is time now for the project’s trained designers to take over. On 9-10 March 2016, designers gathered at the new campus of University of World Languages to plan how they would use the model book, B2 Ready, to create their own books in the coming year. During the two days, designers discussed how to keep the effective principle-based design of B2 Ready while adding new elements to their own books. By the end of the seminar, designers had submitted plans for 22 new books at serving students at various levels and in various fields of study.

Stage 2 of the ESP Materials Design Partnership Project ended on 22 January. Thirty-two designers received certificates for completing the 4-month intensive phase of training where they learned more advanced concepts for materials design and worked together to produce a group of model designs that became our project model textbook.

The model book produced during Stage 2 will be printed soon and will distributed to the designers to use in their own teaching and future designs. Meanwhile, Stage 3 launches 9 March with a 2-day Summit where designers come together once again to discuss how to use the model textbook to begin creating their own unique textbooks.

This summer, while working on the ESP Materials Design Partnership Project, the materials design specialist, Dee Broughton, took an opportunity to work with some designers from the National Research Center for Innovations in Teaching Foreign Languages to create a little booklet aimed at summer camps. For Dee, it was a great chance to quickly revise some of her Indian designs to an Uzbek context with some experienced Uzbek textbook writers.

The result is a fun little book that, not only takes into account Uzbek culture, but also creates a new, efficient low-budget design. The book adheres to the same principles of second language acquisition as Dee’s other StudyDo designs, but also meets the needs of short vacation programs.

Designed for easy printing:
The book is in black and white, sized for standard paper, and an efficient 24 pages. Book can be easily printed on regular household printers and stapled, clipped, or held in a folder.

Designed for multiple levels and teamwork:
The activities use fun, open-ended tasks that can be completed with teamwork by learners of multiple language levels and ages.

Designed to encourage environmental awareness:
The activities are designed around recycling and reusing topics, including ideas for recycling the book itself.

Designed to be fun:
The book is full of coloring, drawing, games, and interesting creative tasks that encourage generating and sharing new ideas.

Although originally meant for summer camps, the book can easily be used by groups of children in any setting, even without a teacher. In time for the winter holidays, we’re releasing the book here. The high-resolution, print-ready EFL Holiday is now available for immediate download. Warning: To ensure the best print quality, the file is large.

Enjoy!

Stage 2 continues with the first of six scheduled seminars. Designers returned to Tashkent on 23 October to increase their skills at recognizing salient forms in texts.

The most important condition for second language acquisition is that learners have language input they can understand. As learners understand the messages in the input, they also begin to notice the forms that carry the messages. Materials designers can aid learners in noticing these forms through careful design.

The first seminar of Stage 2 was designed to further increase the language awareness of our designers so that they can more effectively identify salient forms in texts. This skill will help designers more effectively edit texts for level and length and help them to create tasks based on those texts. In this full-day seminar, designers analyzed a number of texts for key forms and began to develop ideas for task creation. Designers will continue in the next few weeks before our second seminar to design tasks for the project’s new textbook.

Stage 2 designers will create a textbook together that will raise the proficiency level of English language learners in an EAP setting. The textbook is intended as a model to help future designers create task designs that adhere to second language acquisition principles. The textbook will be available for download on this site by the beginning of 2016. Designers stay in touch between seminars through the new forum devoted to the project.

The first cold weather of the season hit right before our seminar, resulting in closed roads from some areas to the city, so a “Snowday” was held, repeating the seminar on Sunday, the 25th, for those designers who couldn’t safely travel to Tashkent for the Friday meeting.

We are currently training new designers who wish to continue offering the Fundamentals of Materials Design training after this year-long project. More Stage 1-type sessions will become available as trainers become ready late in 2015 and in spring of 2016. If you missed Stage 1, watch this website for the next available opportunity to get this training. View training topics.

Stage 1 of the ESP Materials Design Partnership Project ended on 21 September. During the first five months of the project, we trained 134 new materials designers. Fifty percent of those designers have already registered to return for the upcoming 3-day Summit to kick off Stage 2 on 2-4 October.

Stage 2 participants have already begun to complete pre-summit tasks in SLA concepts, input testing and manipulation, and advanced template use and design. By the end of the summit, this group will have planned and begun to design a textbook together. This textbook will adhere to second language acquisition principles in order to raise the proficiency level of English language learners in an EAP setting. The textbook will be available for download on this site by the beginning of 2016.

We have also begun to train new designers who wish to continue offering the Fundamentals of Materials Design training after this year-long project. More Stage 1-type sessions will become available as trainers become ready late in 2015 and in spring of 2016. If you missed Stage 1, watch this website for the next available opportunity to get this training. View training topics.

The ESP Materials Design Partnership Project has been going well. To date, we’ve trained more than 120 new designers. The final Fundamentals of Materials Design course is scheduled for 7-11 September at UZRic. Teachers who attended part of a training, but did not receive the certificate, may be able to complete the certificate during this final training. Contact us for details.

If you are interested in Stage 2, it is crucial that you subscribe to the kitoblog email list through this site. We will be sending information and a pre-test to help you prepare for Stage 2. All Stage 2 participants must be connected to the project through email and other internet resources. Please share this information with colleagues and do what you can to help all interested educators get connected. Stage 2 starts with a required 3-day Summit on 2-4 October. A pre-test to confirm your eligibility will be emailed to you via the email list.

Final Stage 1 Certificate-Level 32-hour
Foundations of Materials Design training
Monday thru Friday, 7-11 September, UzRIC

To reserve a space in the Foundations training and to receive permission letters, contact

Svetlana Khan
Email: svetlanak18.khan@yandex.com
Phone: +99890 189 8411

There will be one special session Monday thru Saturday, 14-19 September, Westminster (by invitation only), on designing materials for teaching writing. Registration for this session is closed.

Participants who complete the program with at least 90% participation (no more than 3 hours absence) will receive a certificate of completion from the two officiants of the program: National Research Center for Innovations in Teaching Foreign Languages and U.S. English Language Programs.

Eligibility for Stages 2 and 3
Participants who earn a certificate will then be eligible to join Stage 2 of the project in which the teams develop a model textbook to be used as a template by individual designers in Stage 3.

All participants must sign up for our email list to receive important training information. Participants should download the textbook, Bridges, an example of work from our English Language Specialist, Dee Broughton. The book will be useful for discussing design techniques during training. Participants should bring laptops to work on. Internet access via USB modem or mobile phone will be very helpful.

View training topics.

EDIT: Please note an additional training has been added 7-11 September and dates for the Stage 2 Summit are changing to accommodate Eid Al-Adha “Kurban Hayit” and Teacher Day.

Please share this information with interested colleagues. All interested educators are welcome at the foundational trainings.

Stage 2 starts with a required 3-day Summit on 2-4 October.

Stage 1 Certificate-Level 32-hour
Foundations of Materials Design training sessions are scheduled

Monday thru Saturday, 13-18 July, Tashkent, UzRIC
Monday thru Friday, 3-7 August, Tashkent, UzTEA
Monday thru Friday, 10-14 August, Tashkent, UzRIC
Monday thru Friday, 24-28 August, Nukus
Monday thru Friday, 7-11 September, UzRIC
Monday thru Saturday, 14-19 September, Westminster (By invitation only)

TENTATIVE
Special 2-day
Introduction to Foundations of Materials Design
training sessions are scheduled

Wednesday and Thursday, 2-3 September, Bukhara
Saturday and Sunday, 5-6 September, Samarkand

EDIT: Please note the training in Samarkand and Bukhara has moved entirely to Tashkent, 7-11 September.

To reserve a space in a session and to receive permission letters, contact

Svetlana Khan
Email: svetlanak18.khan@yandex.com
Phone: +99890 189 8411

Instructors who wish to join the design project will participate in just one phase of foundational training.

Participants who complete the program with at least 90% participation (no more than 2 hours absence) will receive a certificate of completion from the two officiants of the program: National Research Center for Innovations in Teaching Foreign Languages and U.S. English Language Programs.

Eligibility for Stages 2 and 3
Participants who earn a certificate will then be eligible to join Stage 2 of the project in which the teams develop a model textbook to be used as a template by individual designers in Stage 3.

Preparing for Training
Trainees should download the textbook, Bridges, an example of work from our English Language Specialist, Dee Broughton. The book will be useful for discussing design techniques during training. Participants who are able should bring laptops to work on. Internet access via USB modem or mobile phone will be very helpful. All participants must sign up for our email list to receive important training information.

View training topics.

The ESP Materials Design Partnership Project for 2015-2016 is a joint effort of the National Research Center for Innovations in Teaching Foreign Languages under the Uzbek State University of World Languages and the U.S. English Language Programs. The project, based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, offers intensive training in materials design for English language learning with a focus on English for Special Purposes (ESP). All interested educators are welcome to participate.

There are a number of different approaches to ESP across the field of English language teaching. For this project, the approach to ESP is as an effort to raise the English language proficiency of students to a level that will allow them to access materials and lessons that are published or delivered in English in their chosen fields of study.

Uzbekistan’s educators will bring their experience and knowledge to the project to customize the training and developed materials to suit Uzbekistan’s teaching conditions and needs. English Language Specialist, Dee Broughton, will offer foundational training in materials design to all interested teachers, textbook writers, materials designers, as well as to pre-service English language teachers in BA and MA programs at the University of World Languages. After the initial training, the specialist will continue to support designers as they begin to write their own ESP textbooks using what they have learned and the tools they have developed during training.

This project is divided into three stages:

1. Foundational training in materials design with input regarding conditions and cultural constraints from Uzbekistan’s educators.

2. Intensive workshops with stage 1 trained designers to culminate in a working draft of an ESP textbook that will serve as a template for independent designers.

3. Support for independent designers in using the template to produce ESP textbooks in their own fields.

Trainings will include, at a minimum, the following topics:

Meeting Requirements for Second Language Acquisition with Comprehensible Input

• How to choose, modify, write texts to provide the comprehensible input required for SLA,
• How to use frequency-based vocabulary to advantage in materials design,
• How to relate materials designs to CEFR,
• How to avoid copyright violation and plagiarism to preserve standards of academic integrity in materials design.

Meeting Requirements for Second Language Acquisition with Meaningful Use

• How to identify linguistic features in texts to use in design,
• How to design effective language tasks to provide the meaningful use required for SLA,
• How to design tasks that stimulate critical thinking and language production.

Lesson and Curriculum Design

• How to plan effective learning objectives,
• How to design materials consistent with current teaching conditions, constraints, and culture,
• How to write clear instructions for students and teachers,
• How to design assessment tools consistent with both standards and effective SLA.

The goal of the project is for the trained designers to produce textbooks that work to effectively raise the English language proficiency of entering university students to a level that allows them to access books, lectures, and journal articles that are already offered in English in their chosen fields and to begin to engage in academic and professional discourse in these areas.

All interested educators are invited to participate. Educators are not required to commit to the entire project in order to attend training sessions. Anyone may attend any training. We also welcome input and ideas from anyone. However, educators who wish to work on the materials we will be developing do need to attend the training. If you would like to attend trainings, please sign up to receive information on scheduled trainings and workshops.

If you would like to contribute ideas for developing ESP materials for Uzbekistan, we welcome your input. Please email ideas, concerns, questions, and comments to input@kitoblog.com. All ideas and experiences are welcome and needed to ensure that the project meets the needs of Uzbekistan’s educators and students.

Please share this information with interested colleagues. All interested educators are welcome at the foundational trainings.

Phase 1 Foundational Trainings are scheduled from 10am-4pm on
Friday and Saturday, 22-23 May
Friday and Saturday, 29-30 May
Friday and Saturday, 5-6 June
Thursday and Friday, 11-12 June

A second phase of Foundational Training will be offered in one 8-day block from 15-22 June, 10am-4pm, each day.

Read on Preparing for Training

The ESP Materials Design Partnership Project Summit held on May 16 in Tashkent attracted 42 participants from across the country and several guests from Uzbek and American education programs.

Participants came ready to engage in high-level discussion of issues that will affect the upcoming project. The project touches on issues that are highly debated in the field of ELT, and this summit gave educators a chance to offer input and to come to a general consensus on these issues for the purposes of the project.

Twice during the day, participants got time to show their own experience and talent as designers by designing tasks for learners, both individually and in groups. These first experiences set the tone of the project as

Read on Report on May 16 Summit