Uzbekistan Teachers of English Association

Rima Sotlikova

Student of English Linguistic Department of

Yogyakarta State University,

Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Being one of participant in the “International Conference

on Character Education”

gave me special motivation and good understanding

about Character Education and its Value.

What is “character”? What is the relationship between character and virtue?  What is the meaning of “Character Education”?  The questions , mentioned above , were complicated at all for me until took part in the “Conference on Character Education” which was held in Yogyakarta city of Indonesia. Being one of participant and listening to the presentations of international speakers during the Conference made me more motivated about Character Education and good understanding about its role in our life. Having seen different topics on Character Education by  hand-out materials caught my interest, especially role of teachers in this field.

In generally, if we give a look for the meaning of the word “character” is:  1.  a distinctive trait, quality, or attribute; 2. essential quality, nature, kind and sort; 3.  an individual’s pattern of behavior or personality, moral constitution.

As noted by William Makepeace, “Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny”.

Virtue- a specific moral quality regarded as good for the person and community (justice, fortitude, compassion)

As we see, character and virtue are related to each other, however, virtue is a disposition of choice. Character Education is about universally agreed upon virtues.

There are eight strategies for implementing character education: attend to “Ethos”, create and honor traditions, involve all stakeholders, identify virtues, publicize virtues, appeal to the three parts of the soul, encourage practice in three domains, foster reflection. Character Education can not be described in one word, however it is about strengthening students from within, helping them to develop good judgment. It is that which lasts a lifetime, not about superficial easily forgotten slogans.

Competence is very important in the era of knowledge society, but we should not overlook the fact of life that good competence can only bring benefit for greater good if it is companied by good character. A person or group with good or excellent competence but with bad character can be a source of problems in a community, even a source of disaster to humanity. It is important to be noted here that school is only one among many places where character education take place. Students learn ‘good or bad things’ from many sources: such as; family, mass media, peer group, religious institution.

In order to develop the capability of schools, to carry out character education, in fast, efficient and effective way, we need approaches that unleash the potentials of all school community members (especially all teachers and school principals) and make them committed in developing and implementing creative ways in facilitating and leading learning process. There are four characteristics of co-creation applied in building commitment and empowering teachers and school principals for character education: teachers and school principal’s involvement, subject-subject relationship, learning together and process oriented. What is the co-creation process? In short definition, it is to achieve better and meaningful performance by mean of creating and developing together.

In order to build ‘sense of psychological ownership’ toward character education program in schools, teachers and schools principal should be invited to take central and active role in developing methods and approaches for character education in schools. This kind of involvement will create a feeling that they implement their own ideas. And the next process of co-creation is facilitated them by Facilitator Team. The facilitators are partners for teachers and school principals in generating ideas for character education. The team consists of individuals who are knowledgeable in character education in subject –subject relationship process. And during the learning together, learning as a team process teachers and principals share their ideas and knowledge on character education. In this process every idea is welcome. At last, facilitators design learning process that enable the participants (teaches and school principals) freely generates and exchange ideas on creative ways implementing character education. They are encouraged to find ideas about the process of learning, because in character education, to a large extend, how a teacher ‘teach’ is more important than ‘what’ he or she ‘teach’. Start from oneself. “One can not teach what one know; one can not teach what one wants; one can only teach who she or he is”. This quote is very relevant for character education. Character education needs example in good behavior or good habit. The example should be in real action or behavior, not only words, because action talks louder than words. Thus, character education in schools start with self-character-education of teachers and school principals.

In character education, whenever and whatever possible, students should be given active role in their self-education. And parents are the most important partners of teachers and school principals in character education. Parents always should be well informed about character education program at school, and when it is appropriate, parent can participate in school activities as volunteer.

The ideas on Character Education Implementation can be grouped into 5 categories: learning climate at school, learning climate in a class, learning process for a specific subject matter or course, learning program for teachers and school principals, and partnering with parents.

In initiating and implementing change schools, the school principal plays a central role. He or she can be the driver of change or obstacle of change. A school principal with new mindset and leadership cabability can influence most teachers to adopt new mindset and join the change process. In order to make the change process run faster and smoother, all teachers should be invited and join the co-creation process. If there are teachers who are excluded from the process, they will become burden for others, besides the excluded teachers will feel being left over and do not belong to the school community.

There are many theories about character education. But at the grass root, teachers who take action, even though it is small action for improvement, will bring more impact to the students than who knows many theories but without action. In character education, knowing what is good is not enough; teachers should do good. As British moral educator Peter McPhail states it well; “Students take pleasure in being treated with  care and warmth; their prime source of happiness is being treated in this way. When students are supported by such treatment, they; enjoy treating people, animals and even inanimate objects in the same way.”

To build Character Education is not an easy issue. In order to make it well-done each humanity of society should feel their responsibility and realize that it does not depend on one person only. I mean, Character Education is not only the work of the teacher, it is the job of every adult in the school. Yes, absolutely, it is. It demands to be active for all, in all sphere, whoever they are; teachers or school principals, parents or even students. Therefore, Character Education is effective when partnership are forged. One of implementation strategy of character education is continuous improvement. Character Education is not a project that has to terminate at certain time; rather, it is a never ending continuous improvement effort. The spirit is that today should be better than yesterday, and tomorrow should be better than today.

Raimjonov Giyosiddin, TRSPI, Student of English Department

A Learner Conference “Innovations and Information Technology Open New Horizons in Effective English Class” was organized by Angren UzTEA branch, English Department and supported by British Council on 30-31 March 2012 in Tashkent Regional State Pedagogical Institute. This kind of conference was held for the first time in the history of the Institute and the results were expected to be high and prospective.

Currently, the education system of Uzbekistan is undergoing important changes. In this regard, much attention is paid to foreign language teaching, and especially, English. This conference including the plenary sessions of promising and experienced teachers of English was dedicated to the problems of teaching English presenting innovations, new teaching aids and implementing more effective approaches in education process. It was an important event for the students of senior courses. The conference became livelier when Emine Sheykhametova presented the British Council website. Moreover, participants were registered for the official site of British Council and became members of it. The ETTE team teachers and teacher- trainers of English department lectured on diverse and innovational approaches of teaching English. Svetlana Khan, English language expert, Guzel Shagvalieva, TRSPI teacher-trainer, Ruzana Khasanova, English teacher, Zarina Rakhimova, English teacher, Farida Hodjimatova TRSPI teacher-trainer, Sultan Atabayev, English teacher, Guzal Hismatulina, English teacher, shared their experiences with conference participants. The aim of the conference was encouragement and penetration of modern innovations into the education-training process explaining the senior students who try themselves as practical teachers, the advantages and practical value of IT in teaching English.

Practically, all the senior students attended the sessions of teachers and were able to improve their first-hand knowledge of teaching. The leader of the ETTE team Svetlana Khan presented “Planning an Effective English Class”. She theoretically and practically explained the modern state of English classes and paid much attention to improving quality and effectiveness of English lessons creating a true-to-life atmosphere and to motivate learners inculcating innovations of science and IT.

“I enjoyed S.Khan’s session very much because it was very interesting and accessible for me. Personally, I faced various problems in motivating my pupils, but I have known how to make my English classes interesting and to create a friendly atmosphere” says Z.Kambarov, one of the senior course students.

In her presentation “Communicative Grammar Teaching” Guzel Shagvalieva displayed communicative approach as one of the productive and true-to-life activities among others. “Communicative teaching is valuable in the classroom where you have to create the atmosphere for the learners to feel easiness and access of newly-presented material and make them use it in their everyday activities. Even it was so interesting for me let alone English learners” stresses one of the attendees T.Lyan.

“These two days I have attended all the sessions and the most interesting for me         was S.Atabayev’s presentation “Helping Students Become Creative Writers”. I have    always felt difficulties in writing and his presentation was practical answer to most   of them and I shall probably try to help my pupils become successful in writing”          tells L.Abriev, attendee.

All the sessions were devoted to the most important points of teaching English           such as planning, grammar presentation techniques, writing, communicative               grammar teaching and comparison of traditional and innovational methods.                 Surprisingly, students were more active than they were expected to be. Most of           them changed their attitude towards innovations. In this regard, the stressful point   is the theoretical and practical value of these plenary sessions. The attendees not       only had a chance to get acquainted with effective ways of organizing lessons, but       also they themselves discovered the potentials of teaching English. After the sessions, certificates were given to all participants and the luckiest ones the presents of British Council. Closing up the conference Lyubov Alekseevna Tsoy hoped that the project would be prosperous in the future and become one of the leading activities in education process of our Institute.

Dear Colleagues,

As you may have heard there is a special English Language contest announced jointly by the British Council and West Camp STC. The competition is about creating and compiling a special 12 lessons English Language program by using British Council web sources and elements of Uzbek culture, history and traditions.

Winners and finalists will be rewarded with NetBook (a 10-11 inches wide portable laptop) and other valuable prizes, including free access to free British Council Professional Development courses and tickets to West Camp. Results will be announced by the special Review Board consisting of representatives of British Council, Ministry of Public Education and West Camp.

The deadline fore submissions is by 20th of May, 5 pm by the local time. The full details of the contest can be found in the attachment.

The language program aims to create a unique and interactive learning environment where participants of West Camp can get introduced to various elements of language, through promoting the knowledge of domestic and internationally shared values of friendship, history, respect to the culture and creativity.

I wish you all best of luck and please participate as all of you have clearly a great chance to win and score a valuable prize.

Sincerely,

Khasan Redjaboev

TeachingEnglish Blogathon 2012

What is TeachingEnglish Blogathon?

Just what it sounds like – a blogging marathon. The TeachingEnglish Blogathon is an online event that brings together teachers of English to share good practice in ELT and find out more about blogging. Starting on 20 April 2012, teachers of English in Uzbekistan will contribute to the TeachingEnglish ELT blog marathon (http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/elt-blogathon) until 20 May 2012.

What is a blog?

TeachingEnglish Blogathon aims to invite all teaching professionals, whether you are teaching at university or pre-school level, to find out more about trends in the English Language Teaching. We would like to recognise teachers who would like to use technology to connect with other teachers in the most engaging and inspiring ways. There are three award categories. Click to find out more about the Awards Scheme.

Bloggers wanted!
If you’ve got something to share with other teachers, why not join our TeachingEnglish Blogathon? This is also your chance to make connections with other teachers and share ideas.

Find out how it works

· Here you can find the application form. You need to submit an application form to be considered part of the TeachingEnglish Blogathon.

· Start blogging on TeachingEnglish on 20 April 2012. Here you can find an animated tutorial that shows you how to start a blog on TeachingEnglish.

· The winners will be announced on the virtual awards ceremony on 28 May 2012, Wednesday on our website at www.britishcouncil.org/uzbekistan

When will it start?

TeachingEnglish Blogathon will start on 20 April 2012. The last entries will be considered on 20 May 2012.

Where will it take place?

It will take place on TeachingEnglish site (http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/).

Why?
Why not? It is fun!

What would I blog about?
It is up to you. Have a look at the following topics that might inspire you to think of related topics. You don’t have to choose from this list. Please take a moment to read the ELT Blogathon guidelines before you start.

· Dealing effectively with disruptive students

· Keeping teacher talking time down, so students speak more than we do

· Networking with colleagues nationally and internationally

Guest bloggers
During the TeachingEnglish Blogathon, we’ll have ELT Professionals as our guest bloggers. Stay tuned to follow our guest bloggers.

To sign up for this year’s ELT Blogathon
If you’d like to join the ELT Blogathon, please fill out the application form here.

I want to be the ‘energizer’
If you don’t feel confident yourself to be a blogger (although we think it is easy to do), you can read other bloggers’ posts, leave comments, or forward their entries to your peers through Facebook and Twitter to encourage them. That way, you can make this experience more enjoyable. There will be prizes for the active readers as well.

Have fun!

Dear Colleague,

The Uzbekistan Teachers of English Association is pleased to invite you to the 15th Annual Conference, which will take place from 9th to 10th December 2011 in Tashkent.

The conference aims to promote professional development through a topic “Teaching English for Expanding International Understanding”, and will focus on areas, including, but not limited to:

□ Schools and community
□ Community service projects
□ Globalization and citizenship
□ Developing intercultural and cross cultural competence
□ Sustainable professional development
□ Teaching more than language
□ Distance learning
□ Using literature to teach culture

Key elements of the conference programme will include plenary sessions, workshops, and various social events. As usual, internationally prominent professionals in the field of ELT are invited as keynote speakers and workshop leaders.

We very much look forward to seeing you in Tashkent.

Please email to saida.rashidova@gmail.com in order to get applications and register for the conference.

Best regards,

The Conference Organizing Committee

Short Summer Course on Academic Writing

General information about the course

Westminster International University is organizing a short course on academic writing for UZTEA members in Tashkent. This course is for teachers of English who would like to improve their academic writing skills. The course will last 6 days. The course will be held in July 2011.

By the end of the course participants will be able to:

¨      generate ideas for writing academic essays

¨      paraphrase and quote from different sources

¨      properly reference sources

¨      incorporate their personal opinion and experience in academic writing

¨      revise, edit and proof read their papers

¨      give and receive peer feedback

Assessment

At the end of the course participants will be asked to write an academic essay; they will be given feedback on their work.

Venue

The sessions will be held in Westminster International University in Tashkent.

If you are interested, complete the application form on the next page.

Send the completed application form to writingcourse1@gmail.com by 22 June 2011. In the subject line of the email write Short Course on Academic Writing.

Selected candidates will be notified through email.

Good luck

Course team

Application form for Short Summer Course on Academic Writing

How long have you been working as an English teacher? ___________________________

Please write a short essay (150 words) explaining why you would like to take this course and how it can contribute to your professional development.

UzTEA Forum Conference, June 10-11, 2011

in partnership with Westminster University in Tashkent.

 Teaching English Excellence Award

 CALL FOR PARTICIPATION                              

We are pleased to announce the Uzbekistan Teachers of English Association’s Award for Teaching Excellence 2011. This Award recognizes educators and staff who excel at teaching young people. This opportunity gives remarkable professionals the recognition they deserve.

Who is eligible?

 The Award is open to UzTEA members who are employed by a publicly funded schools, institutes, universities or private language centers.

• Regional branches of UzTEA are requested to select three winners from each educational sector (1.Secondary schools 2.Colleges and lyceums 3. Institutes or universities as well as private language centers) and recommend the winners to the UzTEA Head Office not later than May 1, 2011.
•  Winners of regional contests will be invited to take part in the National Contest. The final step will be held on June 9, 2011 before the UzTEA FORUM Conference 2011.

 Award categories.

 There are three different award categories.

“TEACHER OF THE YEAR” among secondary school teachers

“TEACHER OF THE YEAR” among college and lyceum teachers

“TEACHER OF THE YEAR” among university and private language center teachers

Selection Process:

All participants are requested to fill in the application form. The shortlisted candidates will be invited to conduct a demo lesson with a group of students and pass an interview. Regional applicants ought to be winners of the preliminary stage at respective branches comprising not less than 15 attendees.

The essay, demo lesson and interview will be evaluated on a scale of 10 points for each criterion by a special judging panel.

Criteria for written work:

1. Task respond (Being able to write a clear, accurate and relevant description of the information)

2. Cohesion (Using connective words to link sentences and paragraphs logically)

3. Language accuracy

Criteria for a demo lesson:

1. English language proficiency

2. Giving instructions and interaction with learners

3. Learner-centeredness

4. Cohesion between the activities

5. Time management

6. Visual aids/ use of video/ audio

7. Lesson plan

 Criteria for an interview:

 1. Self-confidence

2. Using academic English

3. Pronunciation

4. Dedication to the profession

5. Commitment to and excellence in academic work and teaching

  Apply. Download the APPLICATION FORM TEA 2011 and send it via email to info@uztea.uz

The Uzbekistan Teachers of English Association (UzTEA)

 FORUM Conference

 UzTEA 15 YEARS: In Quest of Prospective Horizons

  June 10 – 11,  2011

Tashkent, Uzbekistan

 Call for Proposals

FORUM Conference 2011