Laureate English Program

Newsletter/ August, 2011/ Vol. 2 - Issue No. 3

Highlights

Cambridge Consortium-Laureate

English Teaching Competition

Results

Calendar of Events (Do not miss

the next Teacher Training Launch!

News from Our Partners

Product Development News

News from the Network

Meet your LEP Peers

Gordon Lewis

Executive Director Laureate English Program

Letter from the Executive Director

Dear Colleagues,

It is summertime in the northern hemisphere and many of you will be enjoying a well-deserved holiday. In the southern hemisphere you will be gearing up for a new semester. North to South, East to West- LEP now spans the globe. The sun never sets on LEP.

In August, LEP will welcome 6 Brazilian universities to the English language program. Anhembi Morumbi in São Paulo, UnP in Natal, Faculdade dos Guararapes in Recife, Unifacs in Salvador, and UniRitter and Esade in Porto Alegre, will all be launching pilot programs in selected faculties with a goal to moving strongly forward in 2012. These six along with IBMR in Rio, which launched last semester, bring us to 7 universities in Brazil and 30 around the network. With the soccer World Cup and the Olympics on the horizon, English is of huge importance to Brazil and our universities aim to be the market leaders in providing quality English language training.

This summer the LEP teams in Baltimore and Honduras have been busy updating our teacher training modules. This fall we will be launching an exciting new version of the Certificate in English Language Teaching which fully integrates web 2.0 technology and personal learning networks with traditional LMS content. Parallel to this development, a core team of LEP social learning experts will meet in Munich, Germany to put the final touches on the LEP Teacher Community of Practice- a key milestone in linking formal and informal learning.

On the student side, September will see the release of the new version of English Study Skills 1, a lower intermediate level course which focuses on developing core academic skills in English language learners.

Finally, it gives me great pleasure to announce the appointment of Shannon Olson as English Director at Santa Fe University of Art and Design, our flagship immersion program in the USA. Shannon comes with a wealth of experience and has an engaging team of teachers as fun and creative as Santa Fe itself. Over the past year we have had the pleasure of welcoming our first small groups of immersion students and I am not exaggerating when I say that they all loved the experience. We will hold our next immersion sessions in early spring and we will be reaching out to you with new information soon.

This letter comes to you from Hintertux, Austria where I have been mountain climbing. Tired, but with a very clear mind, I look forward to a rich and successful autumn.

Regards,

Gordon Lewis

1-Jonathan Acuña First Award: Two-week residential

Bell teacher development course with accommodation at Homerton

College in Cambridge, U.K.

2-Nesrin Eren Second Award: IATEFL Membership for one year.

Features Laureate English Program 2011 Teaching Competition

Sponsored by Cambridge ESOL, Cambridge University Press, Bell Educational Trust, and Laureate International Universities English Program, the competition opened March 22, 2011 and entries were submitted by May 13, 2011.

1st Award: Jonathan Acuña Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Global Class Project – Students use web 2.0 technologies to interact while honing in on their pronunciation skills. Visit live blog at

http://bin-02.blogspot.com/ Istanbul Bilgi University Global Class Project – Online project connecting students from two universities in the network. Students learn about other students’ cultures and hometowns while practicing English outside of the

classroom. Current project at http://laureate-inc-com.campuspack.net/Groups/GCP

3-Deniz Atesok Third Award: TESOL

Membership for one year.

3rd Award: Deniz Atesok Istanbul Bilgi University Screen Casting Use for Error Correction – Teacher uses screen casting to give feedback with video to students on their writing. See

sample at http://denizatesok.com/2011/02/23/words-of-wisdom-giving-feedback-to-students-written-work/

Congratulations to the selected top entries. Jonathan is attending July 31 to August 13 his selected two week course at Homerton College entitled “Teaching English for Academic Purposes.” Nesrin and Deniz have received their membership and can start benefiting from all the resources available through these important organizations.

Calendar of Events

IATEFL 46th Annual Conference and Exhibition August 29 – Mexico Courses (Dev. Modules 1 to 4) October 2 – Network Courses (Dev. Modules 3 and 4) Directors – Please remember your observations are due by course

end!

Upcoming Laureate English Fall Teacher Training Courses Launch of Dev. Modules – Nominations from Directors due Sept. 12, 2011 Dev. Modules 1 to 4 start Oct. 3, 2011 and end Dec. 23, 2011

IATEFL 46th Annual Conference and Exhibition Scottish Exhibition & Conference Centre, Glasgow, Scotland 19th - 23rd March 2012 (Proposal Deadline - 16th September 2011))

A TESOL Conference on Putting Research into Practice 1 – 3 October 2011 Qatar National Convention Centre Doha, Qatar

News from Our Partners

Bell Quality Assurance and Development (QAD) / Teacher Training Activity April – June 2011 QAD Developments

The period from April to June 2011 has been a busy one for the Bell-Laureate Quality Assurance and Development (QAD) program. A Bell assessor visited the following campuses and introduced them to the QAD program.

UDLA Quito, Ecuador

CIBERTEC Lima, Peru UPC Monterrico Campus Lima, Peru

These initial visits were intended to introduce the universities to the QAD process prior to engaging in the full QAD program. The initial assessments were very useful and the assessor made a number of recommendations prior to a full QAD assessment.

In May, Bell conducted full QAD assessments at UDLA and UNAB in Santiago, Chile. This was the second time Bell assessors visited these campuses and concentrated on the development areas highlighted during the previous visits in 2009.

Looking ahead a visit to Bilgi University in Istanbul will go ahead in the autumn and we hope to see an expansion of the QAD program in 2012 throughout the Laureate network.

Teacher Training Developments

Bell and Laureate are currently in discussions over the best way to offer teacher development opportunities for English language teaching staff. These may include the delivery of CELTA courses at Laureate centers or alternatively a teacher campus experience over two weeks. It is hoped that some of these will be rolled out in 2012.

Recognizing Organizations Now Total Over 12,000

The number of employers, universities and government bodies around the world accepting Cambridge English qualifications has reached 12,000. The language qualifications, developed by the University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations (Cambridge ESOL), are used as proof of English for immigration, university entrance and employment.

http://www.cambridgeesol.org/what-we-do/newsroom/2011/cambridge-english-acceptance-increases.html

Australia Welcomes Students with Cambridge English Advanced certificates

Australian Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Chris Bowen MP, has announced that the Cambridge English Advanced exam (also known as Certificate in Advanced English, CAE) will be recognized for Australian student visas.

http://www.cambridgeesol.org/what-we-do/newsroom/2011/australia-recognition.html

Cambridge English qualifications meet new UK visa requirements

Cambridge English qualifications satisfy the new English language requirements for all categories of visa for immigration to the UK,

including visas for study under the Tier 4 regulations. A full list of Secure English Language Tests (SELTs) published by the UK Border Agency is available at ESOL site.

http://www.cambridgeesol.org/what-we-do/newsroom/2011/cambridge-english-meets-new-visa-requirements.html

Product Development News

Social Network

The Laureate English Program is working on developing a Social Network to connect our English Teachers throughout the institutions in the Laureate Network. We have been experimenting with this in our teacher training courses and will be working in the coming months to set up in larger scale expert groups to connect us among the network through specific interest groups. We look forward to this opportunity to leverage and share our resources and expertise by connecting colleagues across the network.

LEP Online Courses - Update

In 2011 our courses have undergone revisions and fine-tuning. We have continued enrolling participants and even have our first graduate completing all five courses in the series to culminate in the Laureate English Teaching Certificate. Read her comments on the experience in the features section.

Student Courses

English Study Skills 1

English Study Skills 2

English for Academic

Purposes 1

English for Academic

Purposes 2

These blended courses are available for your students in the English Program. How do your students get access to these courses? The English Director assigns a local administrator who requests from us the number of sections needed for each course. We create the sections needed and the local administrations will upload teachers and students to the courses.

Teacher Courses

Spring Graduates

Our spring courses finished June 6, 2011. Congratulations to the teachers below who successfully completed their courses. We have mailed certificates of completion to English Directors.

DM 1 – Teaching Reading & Listening

Ayla Sürmeli (Bilgi) Betty García Toledo (UDLA, Ecuador) Carmen García Acosta (UVM, Mexico) Didem İlter (Bilgi) Enrique Octavio Liñan Saavedra (UPN) Gloria Sebastiani (CIBERTEC) Hector Vazquez (UVM, Mexico) Isabel Janeth López (CIBEREC) Ivan Evetovics (INTI, Malaysia) Ixchel Mejía (UNITEC, Honduras) Kenneth Fine (Bilgi)

DM 2 – Teaching Writing & Speaking

Daniel Lowe (UNITEC, Honduras) Gabriela María López (UVM, Mexico) Hande Gunel (Bilgi) John Oporto Ipanaqué (CIBERTEC) Juana Elizabeth Vázquez (UVM, Mexico) Lisbeth Talledo Gamarra (CIBERTEC) Liu Huying (HIEU) María Albarrán (UVM, Mexico) Nia García del Angel (UVM, Mexico) Olga Sanchez (UVM, Mexico)

DM 3 – Teaching with Technology

Angelina Soto Ruiz (UVM, Mexico) Arminda Valencia (UVM, Mexico) Betül Emgin (Bilgi) Chen Bei (HIEU) Ethel Martinez (CEUTEC) Gabriela Torres (CEUTEC) José Gonzalez (UVM, Mexico) Manuel Elías Jiménez (CIBERTEC) Ruth Castillo Rojas (CIBERTEC)

DM 4 – Teaching Grammar, Vocabulary & Pronunciation

Ana Laura Casillas (UVM, Mexico) Göker Talay (Bilgi) Irais Loya (UVM, Mexico) Juan Manuel Mejía Meléndez (UVM, Mexico) Liliana Montero (UVM, Mexico) Mei Mei Chu Pulido (UVM, Mexico) Zehra Güven Öztürk (Bilgi)

Induction Course

Our induction course is self-paced. Teachers can start the course at any time during the year and complete it within six months of starting. The course consists of 25 hours of online material with topics such as: Understanding the Learner, Managing the Classroom; Using Course books, Planning Lessons, and Correcting & Assessing Learners. To date 372 teachers throughout our network have completed the Induction Course and received their certificate of completion. This is the entrance point to the remaining developmental modules. We encourage teachers to go forth with the remaining courses. Those teachers who have not yet taken advantage of this opportunity can contact their English Director to be nominated.

Ongoing Courses

Our Mexico courses will be coming to an end August 29, 2011 and our network courses will end October 2, 2011. We congratulate those participants for their hard work even during summer time and

encourage them to complete the course. We also remind English Directors that observations must be completed by the course end date.

Future Courses

Our next launch of developmental modules will be October 3, 2011. Nominations from our directors must be sent to Joseline.castanos@laureate.net by September 12, 2011. The courses require that the nominee first complete induction (our 25 hour self-paced fully online course). The developmental modules are moderated and will take place from October 3 to December 23, 2011.

LEP Testing Engine Version

Our LEP Testing Engine is up and running. It contains three versions of the CUP Placement test and our six level tests (CEFR A1 to C2). All our LEP universities are encouraged to sign up with the request form for access to the Testing Engine. Once set up in the system, your university administrator can set up tests, administrators, proctors, and students in the system. We are in great need of additional tests for our second round of norming and would welcome tests for our statistical analysis.

News from the Network

United States Santa Fe University of Art and Design Winter ESL Immersion 2012

Session I: Friday January 13 – Friday February 10 Application Deadline: Friday December 9, 2011

Session II: Monday February 13 – Friday March 9 Application Deadline: Friday January 6, 2012

Where Santa Fe University of Art and Design Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

Who Open enrollment for LIU students Cost 4-week program (Session I or II):

$1750 = $437/week 8-week program (Session I AND II): $3200 = $400/week, if registered for both sessions by Friday December 9, 2011

For more information, please contact englishprogram@santafeuniversity.edu

United States

Director, English Program SFUAD

International Folk Art market

in Santa Fe, NM

Also, please look for program details at https://my.laureate.net/ESL/

New English Director at Santa Fe University of Art & Design (SFUAD): Shannon Olson

Our LEP Testing Engine is up. We are delighted to welcome Shannon Olson to the English Program. Shannon joined us this summer and has been busy getting the summer courses and fall intake off the ground. Shannon comes to SFUAD with over sixteen years of experience in the field of TESOL. She has worked in teaching and administrative positions throughout the world, including Mexico, Indonesia, China, Massachusetts and Illinois. She most recently comes from Loyola University Chicago where she was responsible for university-wide ESL initiatives and had an important role in launching the Vietnam program. Shannon earned her M.A. TESOL at the School for International Training and has presented at regional and international conferences. She has also worked as a peer evaluator for ESL program accreditation and served two years on the executive board of the Illinois TESOL affiliate ITBE. Shannon’s professional interests include experiential education, literacy development and transformational leadership. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, traveling and volunteering for community outreach programs.

Latin America

Mexico

Mexico High School Students Participated in ESL & Digital Arts Immersion Summer 2011 at Santa Fe University of Art and Design. The ESL & Digital Arts Immersion at Santa Fe University of Art and Design (SFUAD) was a three-week summer course designed to create opportunities for developing communicative skills in their English language for High School students from Universidad del Valle de Mexico (UVM) or from any part of the Laureate network. This time eight students from different UVM campuses (such as Torreón, Tuxtla, Mérida, Tlalpán, Querétaro and Hispano) attended and took advantage of this excellent opportunity. Santa Fe University of Art and Design is located in a unique, cultural and artistic site in the United States with numerous galleries, museums, restaurants and shops. It was the perfect place for students to learn English as well as to enjoy a holistically designed experience surrounded by art and creativity. Based on an experiential learning system, the participants had Monday to Friday English classes (three hours), an interactive workshop (a one hour and a half) and three sessions of a digital art class where they could listen, talk, read and write about different cultural issues not only with their teachers but also with different interesting people such as a graffiti artists, a precious stone specialist, a tarot reader, etc.

UVM Students learning about graffiti art.

UVM Students heading out for

field trip, Santa FE, NM.

Dr. Suseela Nair launching INTI English

Week

On weekdays, participants had a very complete and well planned schedule of English classes as well as enjoyed some free time in the fitness center and had some social activities to relax and meet new friends. On weekends students had lots of fun with a variety of activities and excursions off campus. Students visited interesting sites such as Taos Pueblo (a very picturesque Native American reservation) where they could go to an elder´s house of an Indian inhabitant who talked about their traditions and cultural background. Also they had a picnic and walked around the historic downtown district; had a tour around the International Folk Art market where many artisans from different parts of the world come to show and sell their crafts. Students also enjoyed shopping in Albuquerque and Santa Fe malls and outlets. In general, the immersion experience at Santa Fe was a wonderful and enriching experience for the participants who not only learned plenty of interesting things, as well as could be independent and self sufficient in a foreign country, but most importantly, they created long lasting friendships with American and Mexican pals. The staff even created a Facebook page to remain in contact and continue sharing ideas and experiences. As a result of their educational stay at Santa Fe, students created two videos already uploaded to Youtube to show what they learned and how they enjoyed their Immersion course as well as their gratitude to the teachers and staff of Santa Fe who made this an unforgettable life experience for all. You can see the videos at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnvQxWQabrQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT90e6DzV2Q

Brazil

The Laureate English Program is delighted to officially welcome six universities in Brazil to our program for August, 2011. We have been working over the summer with these universities to implement the core components of our program, train teachers, test students and launch the program for semester to begin in August. This brings the total of universities in the Laureate English Program to thirty with a forecast of over 47,000 students for fall.

Welcome aboard!

Escola Superior de Administração Direito e Economia (ESADE) Universidade Salvador (UNIFACS) Universidade Portiguar (UnP) Centro Universitário Ritter dos Reis (UniRitter) Universidade Anhembi Morumbi (UAM)

Choral Reading at INTI English Week

INTI Students during English Week

Interviews

Poster Contest

Betul Emgin English Teacher

Istanbul Bilgi University

Faculdade dos Guararapes (FG) Instituto Brasileiro de Medicina de Reabilitação (IBMR) – (began last

semester)

Asia

English Week at INTI International College Subang

"English Only" was the theme of English Week 2011, the first of many to be held by INTI International College Subang (IICS). At around 10.20 a.m., the crowd gathered at the Concourse of INTI Subang campus anticipating the launch of this event. Dr. Suseela Nair, Director of INTI Language Center was given the honor to launch the opening. In her address, she pointed out the objective of English Week; to enhance the level of English skills of all INTI students. She stressed the importance of English. As it is a language spoken internationally, it is difficult to set foot anywhere without English proficiency. Thus, English Week is proposed to increase the awareness of how essential the English language is. As she highlighted, a degree is not a guaranteed way to achieve success in life. A far more complex and significant factor in successfully accomplishing a career lies in communication. Communication is not merely a tool; it is a practical, hands-on skill that requires lifelong practice. All in all, language is the key to good communication, and as the global leading language, English has become absolutely prominent in shaping our careers for the future. To quote Dr. Suseela: "Speak well, write well, and communicate well." English language plays a big role in our life, and like it or loath it, it's something we have to make the most of. Following the opening, a lively band performed with the trio of Akim, Ashram and Ariff. They gave a wonderful performance, kicking-start the "English Week" campaign with a bang. Then, a very touching duet performance took place. Girls singing an Aerosmith's classic took the crowds' breathe away. Students participated in many activities including charades' game, treasure hunt, general knowledge quiz and poster day. The last day had student performances, and even a drama competition. The ceremony ended with an invitation for everyone to enjoy refreshments. All in all, English Week was awesome! We were proud to see the number of people that took part and the effort being put into making it a total success. English week was a very good way to motivate us to speak English and also to use English. We hope that through this, more students would use English not only in college but also in their daily lives.

Carrie McKinnon (UIC) and Burcu Tezcan (Bilgi) at IATEFL

Meet your LEP Peers

First Graduate of Laureate English Teaching Certificate Program – Betul Emgin

I have been teaching for Istanbul Bilgi University for 2 years. When I started working at Bilgi University which is a member of Laureate International Schools Network, I had not been teaching for a very long time and still needed to put my theoretical knowledge into practice. I took DM1 'How to Teach Writing and Speaking', DM2 'How to Teach Reading and Listening', DM3 'Teaching With Technology', and DM4 'How to Teach Grammar, Vocabulary and Pronunciation' courses prepared by Laureate English Program team. The Developmental Modules prepared for us, teachers, helped me a lot especially to update my theoretical knowledge and transfer it to the practice in the classroom. Pair and group works were helpful to share ideas with teachers from various parts of the world, and it was amazing to see so many different applications of the same topic and I learned a lot from small but very important suggestions to handle possible problems in the classroom environment. Although the socio-economic backgrounds of our students were quite different, it revealed that the process we had been going through was very similar. The online system was encouraging; and forum discussions, blog posts, try out tasks, quizzes, exercises etc. helped me to use the information presented to us, both in the online system with colleagues from different countries, and in the classroom with my students. I want to thank all my colleagues. I have learned a lot from my tutors who have encouraged and motivated me during the process and the Laureate team who has placed this opportunity at our disposition. Betul Emgin

Bilgi University, Turkey IATFL Participation & Networking

Harrogate 2010 was my first time at IATEFL. It was such a rewarding experience that I didn't know why I had never been before, and I was determined to be in Brighton in 2011. IATEFL provides ELT professionals with an incredible experience where they can see researchers talking about their studies or research results on the one hand, and practitioners who share tried and tested practices on the other. My session this year was called Size matters in teaching vocabulary in EFL. I talked about how we scanned the course books we had been using in our prep program and how we analyzed the words in terms of word frequency in order to prioritize our teaching according to frequency. I also mentioned how we prepared supplementary vocabulary materials for our students, and shared the theory behind what we have been doing. For more details you can watch the interview by following this link: Burcu IATEFL Interview.

When I was in Brighton, I was lucky enough to meet a fellow Laureate colleague who is the director of English Language Program in Morocco at Université Internationale de Casablanca - UIC. Carrie MacKinnon and I had a great chat about what we have been doing in our institutions while having a lovely lunch on Brighton sea front. Burcu Tezcan