2004 Activities

The English Language Program (ELP), which includes the Soros Professional English Language program (SPELT), aims to help the countries of the Soros foundations network prepare individuals and groups for a world in which English is increasingly necessary for international communication in professional and academic fields. It also builds local teachers’ capacity so quality language instruction can be sustained without dependence on international expertise.

The program focuses on training local English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers; preparing students for international English language exams; coordinating English for Specific Purposes teacher training projects; developing EFL textbooks that meet education reform requirements; and supporting EFL teachers’ associations.

In 2004, the program continued its scheduled process of concluding or spinning off its activities as independent organizations. ELP activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Uzbekistan concluded in 2004, and the entire program is scheduled for completion at the end of the academic year 2005.

ELP continued to work with OSI’s Scholarship Programs in sponsoring the second Academic Writing Summer School in Kyrgyzstan to improve scholarship recipients’ writing skills before beginning studies at English language universities. Over 60 students attended the school and were taught by seven SPELT teacher trainers who were assisted by local teachers and trainees from ELP’s Central Asian network.

In Azerbaijan, the program focused on teacher development and academic writing. Working with a U.S. State Dept. Senior Fellow at Azerbaijan University, the program’s SPELT trainer designed and implemented a new academic writing and reading curricula. Training for approximately 50 teachers on how to use the new curricula should be complete by the end of 2005. In Kyrgyzstan, Lingua, a Soros EFL school and regional training center, prepared to become a regional host site for the School for International Training’s TESOL Certificate course with the first course starting in January 2005. Teacher training efforts in Tajikistan began to receive support from state institutions, as two state retraining institutes hosted English language teacher training courses run by15 local trainers. For the first time a Tajik English teacher met the criteria to be accepted into the School for International Training’s Summer Master of Arts in Teaching program. Another significant accomplishment during the year included the opening of a Soros funded EFL school in October.

The School for International Training summer master’s program also accepted two ELP-trained teachers from Haiti, where ELP used U.S. State Department funding to organize its third consecutive TESOL methodology course. The School for International Training provided instructors and curricula for the course, which had trained 48 teachers by the end of 2004.

FocusEd, an international association of quality, nonprofit schools language schools established by ELP’s network of over 20 Soros English/foreign language schools, began work on its e-learning project in 2004. The project aims to develop interactive educational multimedia packages for use in multinational English language education and training programs.