New MA Program for the EL Teacher Training: Design, Piloting and Implementation

Gulnara Makhkamova, Uzbekistan

Gulnara Makhkamova teaches at Uzbekistan State World Languages University. She has participated in three projects for the development of national curricula and course-books. Her research interests are methodology in FLT, intercultural communication, and cultural studies. E-mail: m.gulnara@rambler.ru

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Introduction
New blended learning program
Modules
Piloting of the new MA program
Implementation of the new MA program
Conclusion
References
Government legislations

Introduction

During the recent years, the society of Uzbekistan has been experiencing numerous transformations in the foreign language teacher training. This is mainly due to the educational reforms which have been undertaken due to the change of the curricula, syllabi and FL course-books. Throughout these years, Tempus and Erasmus+ programs have involved many Uzbek specialists of different fields to develop new disciplines and specializations and have upgraded existing educational programs. Without doubt these projects have exerted considerable assistance to the modernization of the higher education in Uzbekistan as well as in its advancement into the international educational space.

Since three years ago Uzbekistan State World Languages University teachers involved in designing the masters’ program joining the TEMPUS PROJECT N° 544161-TEMPUS-1-2013-1-UK-TEMPUS-JPCR (Developing the Teaching of European Languages: Modernising Language Teaching through the development of blended Masters Programmes) to have a more modern program.

The project was launched in 2014 in the partnership with Aston University (UK), Freiburg Pedagogical Institute (Germany), Caen University (France), Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University (Russia), Tyumen State University (Russia), Voronezh State University (Russia), Kyiv National Linguistic University (Ukraine), Mykolayiv State University (Ukraine), Samarkand State Foreign Languages Institute (Uzbekistan) and Uzbekistan State World Languages University (Uzbekistan). The major objectives of the project are to contribute to the strengthening of cooperation between EU and the partner countries in the higher education reforms, to improve and accelerate learning and teaching of the English, French and German languages in different national contexts and finally to develop educational programs for FL teachers training via blended learning at master’s level. The present paper concentrates on this last project.The integration of blended learning into foreign language teacher training serves as a new model for teacher education at this MA level.

Overall, the participation of the Uzbekistan State World Language University (UzSWLU) and Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages (SamSFLI) in this project was initiated to reform the current MA program. This was due to educational reforms in Uzbekistan in recent years. In this project a great emphasis has been given to the creation of a new program in the blended learning format and in correspondence with international standards which can be implemented into different national contexts. Although the blended learning is widely used around the world, it is still a relatively new approach to the education in Uzbekistan.

New blended learning program

In state educational resolutions the following areas are pointed out as important for the further development of education system in Uzbekistan:

• widespread introduction of new educational technologies including ICT;
• creation of a national computerized educational network to cover higher education connected to the Internet;
• development of updated electronic teaching materials and provision thereof to all types of educational establishments;
• skills upgrading of higher educational teaching staff, especially in the field of pedagogical engineering;
• improvement of forms and methods of prospecting the labour market, analysis of demand for specific specialties of higher education.

Therefore, the tendency to expand the use of computers in education has provided a great opportunity for the development of pedagogical programs for training qualified FL teachers. From this perspective, the development of instructional and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) competences of the FL teachers have become the main objectives reflected in the curriculum. Many of today’s students use Internet technologies freely and skilfully and have access to a wide range of resources and information. Thus, the educational program constructed in the blended learning format is very much relevant to the innovative trends and modern educational experience of the world to ameliorate and consolidate foreign language learning under Uzbekistan conditions.

Blended learning is an approach or a form of education where technology-based materials play a supporting role to face-to-face instruction. (Friesen, 2012; Garrison & Vaughan, 2008) Therefore, our MA students are given an opportunity to rotate between online learning and traditional instruction. More precisely, online learning enables students to watch video, read electronic resources, do activities and interact with a tutor via e-mail, chat, forum and so on in the hope that this creates an efficacious learning atmosphere for students.

Modules

The main academic focus area of the new blended MA program is the creation and implementation of professionally-oriented modules for further pedagogical activity. Within this project a range of modules for effective training of FL teachers doing their master’s have been created by the project partner institutions. They include language teaching methodology, age appropriate language pedagogy, course design and evaluation, technology and language teaching, English language improvement, French language improvement and German language improvement.

The specificity of each module design is presented in Table 1, in particular, the approaches, principles and the variety of tasks and activities.

Table 1. Characteristics of module design

Each module is composed of four units, while each unit includes three lessons, totalling 12 lessons. Structurally, each lesson of the module consists of aim, outcomes, spark, input material, follow-up activities, assessment activity, key and further reading. In addition, different sources, articles, books and hand-outs have been uploaded to the file of the blended course, so that students may download them for key and further reading and preparing for face-to-face classes.

The on-line part of the module has been designed in the formats of synchronous and asynchronous interactive activities. The synchronous activities allow students to interact with the group and a tutor through chats and forums, and instant messaging. Asynchronous way presupposes sharing and answering messages by e-mail and discussion board.

Thus, the modules built on the basis of blended learning that combines many of the most efficient elements of face-to-face teaching, allow greater variety and flexibility than traditional classroom set up, and better response to teachers’ and learners’ needs.

Piloting of the new MA program

The piloting of the five modules – English language improvement, course design and evaluation, language teaching methodology, technology and language teaching, age appropriate pedagogy – has been conducted during two academic years (2015-2017) in Uzbekistan, Russia and Ukraine. At the beginning the selection of students for the pilot study was organized on the basis of the following criteria:

• the required level of language proficiency;
• the required level of ICT competence;
• students’ desire and commitment to become school teachers.

Therefore, for the selection of candidates a test was administered to identify the level of knowledge and skills of the applicants prior to the course and to check whether the course syllabus proved useful. The goal of approbation was to reveal the degree of efficacy of the created modules’ contents and multimedia means in the development of the professional competence. At the experimental stage we focused on proving the importance of selected electronic teaching material. Furthermore, it was important for tutors to compare the entry and final indicators to assess the progress in the development of students’ professional competence via blended learning.

Monitoring of the piloting process was organized through the following components: planning  selection of candidates through an entrance exam  teaching  observation and reflection candidates taking an exit exam  Students and teachers filling in a questionnaire about the course  data analysis and discussion.

During evaluating modules via different evaluation tools we tried to reflect on the following questions:

1. Do the modules cover all necessary subject matters?
2. Do the objectives and material of the modules meet students’ needs?
3. Are they relevant for students and teachers?
4. Is there succession between lessons?
5. Are the structure and materials clear and understandable?
6. Are the illustrations clear and relevant to the activities?
7. Are the links to electronic material accessible?
8. Do the activities have learner-centred and practical character? Are they variable?
9. Are the instructions to activities clear and easy to follow?
10. Do the materials contribute to developing professional competence?
11. Are there any guidelines for tutors and students?
12. Are there instructions for on-line interaction?
13. Are there instructions for testing and scoring/marking?

The results of piloting modules highlighted in the Table 2.

Table 2. Students’ and teachers’ evaluation of modules

Percent indicators, revealed with the help of quantitative analysis in the given parameters, demonstrate the efficacy of the new MA program from the point of view of the students and teachers in the pilot phase. They also define the implementation perspectives. Positive outcomes of the blended modules teaching can be summarized as follows:

• The content of each module is informative, significant, learnable and relevant to MA students and for development of their professional skills;
• The teaching material is represented in the logical sequence and reflects all topical problems of the modules.
• Students were satisfied with the suggested proportion of the blended learning (50%- face-to-face and 50 % on-line).
• The material is novel for students; activities are diverse, interactive and learner-centred.

After discussing the piloting results, which showed the efficacy of teaching materials of each module, the content of modules was revised and renewed taking into consideration students and teachers’ offers and critics. The local Moodle platform was also developed to be convenient and accessible all the time to students and teachers.

Thus, using different evaluation tools, collecting data from MA students and teachers contributed to the creation of a more inclusive list of perspectives for wide implementation of the modules.

Implementation of the new MA program

In November 2016 the cascade training of FLT in introducing the new modules into MA teaching curriculum in linguistics faculties was organized. The organizers of the project prepared another questionnaire this time for the lecturers who would be involved in the newly introduced program. The analysis of the questionnaire also confirmed that all teachers were satisfied with module content designed in the blended learning format and were enthusiastic about using it in the practice of training EL teachers. They also believed that the implementation of the Developing the Teaching of European Languages (DeTEL) project modules is a challenging task for lecturers. Several teachers though have had concerns about using blended learning, which shows that they need to improve their level of ICT . But at the same time it is absolutely clear to all teachers in Uzbekistan that one of the main professional requirements is having ICT competence.

In MA faculties the teaching staff at times do not have enough resources and premises to install and maintain a multimedia classroom. It is a challenge for educational establishments to have a multimedia centre or Internet labs to be able to introduce the new MA program.

Despite these minor problems, we have submitted offers for the wide implementation of the new program to the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education. We are very hopeful that they will approve it, because the current governmental executive guidelines for improving teacher education stipulate modernization and internationalization of FL teaching and learning. We believe the blended learning modernizes teaching language by providing flexible material, time, pace and place and by being based on the best international practices.

The present modules have also been submitted to Uzbekistan interconnected institutes and universities who have expertise in the module to assess its quality. The evaluation of quality is a long-term process so the new MA modules should be continuously studied from different angles including the perspectives of the stakeholders.

Conclusion

This new MA program has to be promoted into the practice of FL teachers training at all linguistics and pedagogy universities.

The important advantages of the new MA programs, created in the blended learning format, are reducing classroom hours while increasing and strengthening independent on-line learning; increasing access to reading sources; taking into account modern educational trends; integrative developing of professional and ICT skills: internationalization, optimization and intensification of the process of MA teachers’ training via blended learning format.

The creation of the new MA program in different national settings has been successful at a number of piloting stages. Another powerful point of the new MA program is its wide dissemination among educational establishments. It is perceived as meaningful and relevant to students and teachers. It allows optimizing and intensifying of the FL teachers’ training process and outcomes.

References

Friesen, N. (2012) Report: Defining Blended Learning, Available online at http://learningspaces.org/papers/Defining_Blended_Learning_NF.pdf [Accessed January, 2017]

Garrison, D., & Vaughan, N. (2008) Blended learning in higher education: Framework, principles, and guidelines. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Government legislations

10 December 2012: Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan. No. 1875 ‘On measures for further improvement of the system of teaching foreign languages’.

23 May 2013: Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers. No 143. ‘On measures to accelerate equipping classes of foreign languages of educational institutions in the Republic with modern information-communication equipment, technical means of teaching and tools in 2013-2016’.

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