Affiliate News - May 2021 (Plain Text Version)
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FACING NEW CHALLENGES: ENGLISH TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA (ETAG) AND THE PANDEMIC Manana Rusieshvili, English Teachers' Association of Georgia (ETAG), President of ETAG, Tbilisi, Georgia
English Teachers’ Association of Georgia (ETAG ) was established in 1995. Since then it has been working with American and British partners and developed into a vibrant and active community of English teachers. Our members work in state and private schools and Universities. Since its establishment, ETAG has been working on improving the standard of teaching English as a foreign language in Georgia. We provide professional training, consultancy and introduce contemporary teaching methods and materials. ETAG has 9 branches and unites hundreds of teachers from all over Georgia through the network via its Facebook fan page ETAG in Georgia. The pandemic brought about new challenges to ETAG. However, we have found new ways to cooperate with teachers online. ETAG holds webinars online every second week with Georgian and North American guest speakers. On average, 80 teachers of English participated in each of the webinars. So far four webinars have been held and they are planned to continue until the summer of 2021. Currently, 2 groups are working with ETAG trainers Manana Rusieshvili and Ketevan Kalandadze on a TKT training course. This course was fully reorganized and now is available online. Together with the Regional English Language Office - U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, TESOL-Ukraine, and International Black Sea University, ETAG was an organizer of a very successful conference on Honesty, Trust, Unity: Academic Integrity & Education in a Globalized World which was held online on February 1-4, 2021. Furthermore, ETAG cooperates with the United States Department of State and at the moment two teacher training courses, for school and university teachers, are being held by Dr. Robert Leier. ETAG is also involved in the IATEFL and British Council PRELIM project, where we have been working with a language school from Bath, Languages United, UK. This project started in January 2021 and the participating Georgian teachers are enjoying the course. They are very enthusiastic, have recognized the benefits from the course and their confidence has also improved. Additionally, the teachers have found the tips uploaded in a social group on Facebook (articles to read, videos, etc.) to be very useful. Below are a few insights from the participants, expressing their experience with the course: “The teachers from the UK are helping us improve our listening and speaking skills as well as writing and grammar. This kind of collaboration makes learning more productive and fun. I am sure a lot will change in our life as a result of this course. Thanks for this chance!” “The mentors share such interesting methods and experience; they are so competent and friendly that I feel an urge to be like them. I am glad that I have been given this opportunity to learn about and use new methods and to be part of this group.” Biodata Professor Manana Rusieshvili is Head of the Department of English Philology at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. She is also President of ETAG (English Language Teachers’ Association of Georgia). Manana has published more than 100 works locally and internationally and delivered papers at international conferences worldwide. |
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