28 July 2005
South Asian English Instructors Learn U.S. Teaching Methods
Indian, Pakistani teachers explore each other's cultures
Washington – English-language ability is an important tool for social mobility in South Asia, and as the quality of English-language instruction in the region improves, young South Asians will be better equipped to succeed, according to the director of the Office of Press and Public Diplomacy for the State Department’s Bureau of South Asian Affairs, Larry Schwartz.
Schwartz made his observations to a group of 24 Indian and Pakistani English teachers who have been studying techniques for teaching English as a second language in a State Department-sponsored program at the George Washington University. Schwartz met with the teachers on July 28, at the end of their six-week program.
“This program helped us all manage to extend our horizons globally -- India, Pakistan and America all under one roof,” said participant Jasmine P. Jakhar from Chandigarh, India.
During the program, the teachers observed American classrooms, took classes about English education and toured the Washington area to learn about American history. Participants also learned about each other’s cultures and about American culture through what the organizers called “peace education.”
Peace education helped participants recognize “the fears, the biases that we had inside ourselves,” according to Jakhar. The teachers worked to eliminate these within themselves and learned “how we can help the children overcome them,” she added.
Dharam Paul Sharma, a fellow participant from Amritsar, India, said, “It is not only learning English language techniques, but it was also a beautiful exchange of the culture. We could also learn about American culture. There were so many misconceptions about American culture that are absolutely gone.”
The teachers from Pakistan agreed with the Indian participants, sitting alongside them and interacting as colleagues.
Co-principal of the Modernage Public School and College in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Sumeera Wahid, said, “There were a lot of misconceptions in my mind, and this interaction with the Indian teachers and with the American people, it gave me a chance to drive out my misconceptions. On the personal level, I think I’ve been able to talk to many American people, and I’ve found them very welcoming and very warm.”
“As a human being, you can see there’s a difference between the common people and the government. … We have changed our concept about the American people, that all American people would be like the government, but actually it’s not the same. The people roaming inside the streets and the villages, they are quite different [from] the people who are working in the government,” said Fazli Subhan from the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan.
The South Asian teachers also had the opportunity to meet U.S. teachers from across the country while attending seminars at the Teaching English as a Second/Other Language Academy. Jakhar noted, “One thing we realized is that the teacher community is the same everywhere. We think alike, we act alike, and our goals are the same everywhere.”
All of the teachers look forward to returning to their countries and implementing the techniques they have learned during the course of the summer. Wahid said she would like to arrange similar workshops for her colleagues in Pakistan, and other teachers mentioned organizing forums to share ideas and opinions.
Some of the aspects of the U.S. system of education that were highlighted during the program were the emphasis on self-driven learning and the ideas of multiple-intelligences and different learning styles.
Wahid described the system as “how to train students in equipping themselves with the strategies so that they become independent learners” rather than just teaching content.
Subhan also said, “Learning and teaching is fun here,” and all of the teachers agreed with his statement.
Sharma added that implementing such a system in South Asia “will really help to create interest in the learning and teaching of English not only among the teachers, but among the students, and that is the beauty of this program.”
After returning to their home schools, the teachers will be able to remain in touch through an alumni program created by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. They also will be eligible to apply for grants to help fund projects they seek to undertake.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
