Professional Development Program for English Language Teachers from Non-Mainstream Institutes

In collaboration with the Regional English Language Office at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad Peace and Education Foundation built the capacity of 82 Pakistani madrasah English language teachers (male and female) on teaching and communication skills. Two 2-week workshops for the professional development of English language teachers were conducted from December 9-20, 2019 in Ramada hotel, Islamabad. In the first workshop 40 male Madrasah teachers from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, representing diverse Muslim schools of thought participated. Out of 40 male Madrasah teachers from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were 9 Barelvi, 13 Deobandi, 5 Salfi, 9 Shia and 4 Jamati- e Islami. In the second workshop 42 female madrasah teachers from all over Pakistan representing diverse Muslim schools of thought participated. Out of 42 female madrasah teachers from all over Pakistan were 12 Barelvi, 12 Deobandi, 6 Salfi, 7 Shia and 5 Jamati- e Islami.

Two U.S. English Language Specialist Eve Smith and Dr. Christopher Hastings and and Two Pakistani English Language Experts Dr. Akifa Imtiaz and Dr. Safeer Awan teamed up to conduct these two- week training workshops. The workshop was participatory in nature and included integrated lessons with a variety of materials on the most important topics and content about teaching methodology, Interactive activities for all levels covering listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammar were conducted. The participants did microteaching: they prepared and delivered 15-minute mini-lessons. The trainers met one-on-one with the participants to work on lesson plan work/feedback. The participants were also briefed in detail about TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).

This initiative provided professional development opportunity to the teachers, who are educating to the underserved and underprivileged students. The teachers improved their English communication, teaching techniques and improve teaching and pedagogical skills. Our ultimate aim is to equip these teachers in this project to provide quality, modern and impactful English instructions to their students for brighter future. Community of Practice (COP) for both groups was also formed.

Learning Outcomes:

As per participant’s feedback, teachers have:

• Practiced the four skills;
• Learned the structure of Blooms Taxonomy and applied the structure to show an understanding of the need for a variety of tasks in a language lesson;
• Learned where to find materials on the American English website;
• Learned how to use multiple intelligences to plan lessons;
• Used American English materials;
• Planned a student-centered mini-lesson;
• Received feedback on their mini-lesson.

Participants Quotations

The best thing about this training was that, it was not just a training session but the participants were from different Muslim schools of thought. Bringing them to one place and uniting them as a group was the best thing about this training. Secondly, the participants were aged between 23 to 65 years, we not only had the chance to learn from our honorable teachers but also from our fellow participants. PEF has proved that it is not just working for education but for peace long with education. Pirzada Junaid Amin, Participant of the first workshop

I liked the method of teaching both trainers adopted during this training. I enjoyed the activities, group work, cultural visit and cultural night. The training workshop were well-organized, assembled, highly professional and composed and I learned many new teaching techniques. Before attending this training, I had lecture delivering style of teaching but now I will use all of three learning styles i.e. auditory, visionary and kinesthetic.
Effat Naureen, Participant of the Second workshop