Affiliate News - May 2021 (Plain Text Version)
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BOOST SMART LEADERSHIP IN ELTA ALBANIA ASSOCIATION
Introduction ELTA Albania was founded in 2002 by a small group of very dedicated English teachers teaching in elementary and high school in Tirana, the capital of Albania. English is mandatory; thus, it is taught in all the schools of pre-university level throughout Albania. English is taught as a foreign language. Teachers aged between 25 to 60, where the majority are aged between 25-45 have an ardent desire to get trained and updated with the latest insights of teaching English as a foreign language. Therefore, ELTA Albania´s main goal is to train teachers with SMART leadership skills in teaching with ethics, morals, and beliefs in their profession and in instilling humanistic values in their teaching. This goal is mainly achieved through creating the cradle for good professional and leadership skills in course of the teaching and learning process. Since its beginnings, ELTA Albania´s board built up a strategy on how to attract young teachers into the association while maintaining the current members. The development of ELTA Albania´s leadership is based on our partners in and out of the country. A lot of hard work is put into different initiatives to raise awareness of the young teachers to be active in all ELTA Albania achievements. The educational system in Albania Albania is a very small but very beautiful country in the southwest of Europe. It is the oldest country in Europe, but because of being under the dictatorship of the communist regime for more than 45 years it has stayed confined from other places of Europe, though geographically it is in Europe. Therefore, education was under the control of the state and, all the reforms taken by the government were based on the principles and the policy followed by the Communist Party. The political bureau made decisions on what, when, and how to bring changes in the educational system. A teachers association did not exist at that time, nor was there a trade union for teachers to address suggestions for changes in the educational system until 1990 when the communist regime collapsed. Being isolated from the western world Albanian education faced a lot of difficulties especially in understanding the imperative need the education system needed to change in line with the developments of other western – eastern European countries. The Ministry of Education wanted to ensure that the changes in the document reflected their ideologies, thereby delaying the process. Teachers wanted to change but they did not have a real model to follow. So, the American Embassy, the British Council, the European Council in Tirana, Albania, Peace Corps and, other foreign agencies and organizations dealing with the development of the education system in Albania did their best to bring changes in the educational system in Albania. They made possible the foundation of ELTA Albania, which since 2002 is the only association to suggest and bring changes in the educational system in Albania. We worked hard to make teachers aware that their rights and their words were going to be listened to attentively to rid the totalitarian teaching and leadership in the Albanian educational system. Leadership development in ELTA Albania Since its foundation, ELTA Albania has faced a lot of difficulties because of the leadership the association had at the very beginning. The English teachers have been teaching since 1970 and are very much influenced by the communist ideology of the time. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed with all the foreign agencies and organizations to help the association with redesigning the work to help meet the needs of the English teachers and the schools. The first MOU was signed with Peace Corps Albania who appointed one volunteer to help with the legal issues. The ELTA board and a group of young English teachers started to work on the rules and the regulations the board and all the members had to follow in the future, and in 2012 the first legal document was drafted and later launched at the National Conference for all the participants to review to develop the best version ever. After constructive discussions, ELTA Albanian legislation was decreed by a majority of votes in the National Conference in 2012. Everyone is equal in ELTA Association and everyone has rights and obligations. However, what makes ELTA Albania different from other associations is the fact that everyone who becomes an ELTA member has to do volunteer work because the teachers can not afford to pay for their membership as their monthly salaries are not high enough. Another strategy used by ELTA Albania to be recognized abroad is partnerships built with the regional sister counterparts where experiences are exchanged with one another during the national and regional conferences. Last but the most effective strategy for the association has been to work through mutual projects launched by different embassies and foreign organizations. For example in 2014 ELTA Albania won a project launched by the International of House in London, where ELTA Albania was given first prize for being the participant whose work was based on voluntarism to promote change in SMART Leadership in all the Teacher Association´s (TA) in the world. ELTA Albania Magazine “Ultimate Teacher” ELTA Albania has a magazine the “Ultimate Teacher” where teachers of English, ELTA members, affiliates, and researchers on teaching ESL/EFL in the country and abroad are welcomed to contribute with their insights and experience on teaching. The “Ultimate Teacher” has a scientific committee that edits all the articles concerning English teaching and learning. ELTA conferences and webinars ELTA Albania organizes three conferences a year: one National Conference, and two regional conferences which have become movable conferences in different places throughout Albania to train as many teachers as possible that live far from the center. With the extraordinary assistance from Express Publishing and SIDI Education in Albania, ELTA has been able to afford online webinars and workshops for the English teachers in Albania, hosting well-known professionals in the field of teaching EFL/ESL around the world. Conclusion As a result of the global pandemic last year, ELTA Albania has contributed a great deal in helping teachers understand that these are challenging times to teach students. Therefore, ELTA has been organizing online webinars and workshops to get teachers focused on the latest teaching materials and teaching methods. Despite the difficulties, the teachers have had webinars and workshops that have helped them do their best with their online teaching in their schools. ELTA Albania´s next goal is to present articles from the association to the TESOL Journal, thereby sharing and expanding the results of the association´s initiatives. Shpresa Delija Director of National and International Affairs in ELTA Albania, professor of Applied Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Didactics in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Tirana University, Albania. |
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