Uzbekistan

Project background

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.

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.

Project findings

1. Working in partnership

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.

The community of practice of the other PRELIM participants has been a really valuable resource for a number of reasons.

It has been really important to create links with other institutions in the UK who are interested in project work. Getting to know other members of the CoP and to understand their perspectives and expectations in this project is especially helpful in terms of possible future collaboration and cooperation.

In addition, as the project itself began and we w ere all introduced to our respective ETA partners, it was helpful to understand how each project was proceeding, and what considerations, priorities, and expectations had been laid out by all parties. For example, while we were supporting a wide range of CP needs, where cohorts were smaller, more consideration could be given towards individual participant expectations.

There was a period in the middle of the project where communication lulled, as I think that most projects had diversified to such an extent as to make collaboration in many cases not essential. However, as all of the projects began to wind down and we all started to begin pulling the threads of the courses all together into a reporting format, collaboration and communication began again. It may make sense in future to identify small working groups within the greater CoP based on the scale or type of project being undertaken. This may allow the partners to discuss issues with people in a similar boat to them.

From my own personal perspective, there are connections that I have made on this project which will be very valuable to future teaching and training ventures that CES will be involved in.

Initial considerations

The sheer volume of potential participants caused us to internally re-examine the type of course that we thought would be viable to deliver to meet the needs of the teachers in their context. In addition to this anticipated number of participants, we started discussing some of the other potential barriers to the success of this project and it quickly became clear that internet connections and accessibility to synchronous sessions would be a major factor in determining the make-up of the course. With all of these elements considered, it was agreed that the course would be purely asynchronous self-study content with a light-touch tutoring.

We understood that this would mean that we would have a very limited actual relationship with the CPs, which was quite disappointing. However, we tried throughout the course to gather as much feedback data, whether through utilising the comment section on the lessons, or having a feedback week using a Padlet board, or with regular chats with the ETA Committee. Our primary concern was whether the lessons that we were designing were consistently relevant to the needs of the learners. In maintaining some sort of a relationship with the CPs and being able to gather feedback, we gathered that the English teachers would like a methodology aspect included in the lessons, which we added. We also learned that some of the teachers would like a live webinar at some stage during the course, which we duly delivered.

Both internally and in our collaborative relationships, there were a number of key considerations at the outset, as listed below.

a. Expectations

This was where both parties could put forward their general expectations for the project and we had the opportunity to create a clear and unified set of expectations for the project. Actually, as it turned out, we were very much on the same page with the realisation that this type of course was new territory for both of us, so our intended outcomes were quite open. We decided that we would create a course to meet the needs of large cohort of CPs with a wide variety of needs and aim to provide some sort of appropriate language development and aid in self-guided language development. We expected to be able to challenge the CPs and to provide something worthwhile for them to engage with. The feedback we have received in the end-of-course responses shows that this was successful.

Key features

i. This course was hosted on an open

WordPress site (https://cesdirectlearning.com/) with the lessons stored as blog posts. This ensured that even learners with poor internet connections were able to access the course.

No login details necessary ensured that there was limited administration of that aspect of the course.

ii. The lesson itself was delivered in PowerPoint format (which acted as the teacher and whiteboard combination) with the lesson material delivered in a Word document and a

Google Document. These features allowed for easier access, and were successful throughout the course.

iii. Each lesson encouraged the CP to go and to use the language in the comment section, which was then lightly tutored by a CES Trainer. This allowed for a ‘language use and feedback’ section, which would otherwise have been absent from this course. Having a tutor in the background of this course allowed the participants to engage as much as they wanted and get as much feedback as they needed.

iv. The course had three assessment stages for a number of reasons. Chief among these for CES was to gauge level and appropriacy of material, while from the perspective of UTEA it was suggested that in order for the CPs to gain certification from this course, they would have to participate in all of thes assessment stages.

v. The course was timetabled over 11 weeks (with three assessment stages) (see Appendix 1).

Figure 1: Lessons on the courses

5. Course outcomes

The outcomes of this course for us as an organisation are massive, both in terms of a shift in focus of what we can do as an organisation and in terms of a growing awareness of how impactful this type of course can potentially be.

Before engaging in this project, we had looked at growing our online learning offering with a number of ventures and course plans. Some of them were in their infancy and had great potential, while others were never to make it beyond the testing stage. Our engagement with PRELIM was intended to help us collaborate with an external partner in the creation of a viable online course, from which we may be able to gain the expertise and experience to expand our offering. However, the nature of this project was to prove pivotal in the shaping of the type of online offering that we were to look at. We have used the lessons learned from PRELIM to create and launch our own self-guided direct learning platform (https://cesdirectlearning.podia. com/), which includes language development and teacher training courses. PRELIM has taught us that we can create this type of material and there actually is a market for accessible self-study content at an appropriate level.

This has also taught us that the type of expertise that we can put into a platform like this can be impactful to teachers and students who may otherwise not be able to access a quality education, whether through barriers of distance, cost or connectivity. By utilising the lessons learned in the creation of our PRELIM course, we can bring our teaching and training content into areas of the planet which would have been inaccessible before, and would still be quite difficult to reach with a synchronous course.

The course participants

In terms of the outcomes for the course participants, the size of the cohort makes it difficult to gauge how individual teachers progressed on the course, but from feedback collected through mid-course polling, comments on lesson posts, the Padlets for teaching ideas and the end-of-course assessment, it is clear that the teachers greatly appreciated the course. The general theme of most of the feedback was of being grateful to be given access to the course. There was little comment on the quality of the lessons or on issues with level or accessibility, just an expression of thanks to be included on a course which met their language needs on their terms.

As mentioned, we conducted an end-of-course survey with the CPs in order to best help us understand how we can move forward and begin offering a course like this on an ongoing basis. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. The key takeaways for CES came in response to this question:

In your opinion, what would have made this course better?

• Giving more vocabulary and lessons • It would be better if we watch or listen new lessons from international teachers • Giving more tasks • I would like to have Vedio (sic.) lessons, live discussions or talking on Zoom platform in this course content, besides to add more

Listening tracks • I think it would be better if more practical exercises were given to participants related to the topics • It would be better if conducted twice a week

This type of feedback on the course content and schedule will be really helpful for us moving forward. The overall nature of the feedback received in this survey tells us that, although it often felt for us like we were disconnected from the CPs, we were meeting their needs consistently and they felt that we were meeting their needs.