Uzbekistan Project background
Project findings
Description of the partners The UK partner in this project was Centre of English Studies, located in London, Oxford, Worthing, Leeds, Harrogate, Edinburgh, Dublin and Toronto. Centre of English Studies (CES) was started in 1979 and now has 42 years’ experience in the English language industry. CES was partnered with the Uzbekistan Teachers of English Association (UTEA), an organisation created in 2020, with 5,000 members.
1. Working in partnership
Key features of the context 1. Variety: UTEA membership includes all settings for education from primary to tertiary 2. Profile raising: UTEA is a new organisation and a key outcome for us was to raise the profile within the country, which meant reaching as many members as possible 3. Language: All interested members of UTEA expressed a desire to develop their English language skills Outline of the course and rationale Due to the high numbers of potential CPs (over 3,000 responded to the initial Google Form placement test), the course was asynchronous with a focus on selfstudy and peer-to-peer collaboration. Self-study lessons were built around the needs analysis outcomes with a focus on both language input and use. In order to assess course success we built three assessment weeks into the course (Appendix 1). Certification for this course was reliant on the participation in these assessments.
The partnership between CES and UTEA has been fruitful and mutually beneficial throughout the whole process in the following ways:
a. Academic cooperation
The identification of linguistic levels and needs of the CPs was achieved through two processes. CES created a general needs analysis assessment for the CPs on Google Forms. This was then analysed with the additional perspective of UTEA on the basis of their understandings of the overall needs of practitioners within the different sectors. These needs were revisited formally during the two mid-course assessment stages and informally in conversations throughout the course itself. This ongoing collaboration between CES and UETA beyond the initial needs analysis was crucial to the success of the course, in my opinion.
b. Comprehension of context
In addition to the linguistic needs of the CPs, collaboration between CES and UTEA allowed for a clear communication of the constraints of the context of work and study of the CPs, which directed the content, structure and mode of the course. A key example of this was identifying that the cohort of CPs who were English teachers wanted the course to incorporate some pedagogical training, which wasn’t in the initial project brief. In response, we included in all sessions an opportunity for the CPs to create a community of reflective practice where they could discuss how they would teach the particular language point in their context The fact that this issue was highlighted and rectified is evidence of a cooperative working relationship between all parties.
Partnered Remote Language Improvement (PRELIM) project report
121
