UAF educators return to El Salvador

Submitted by Roxanne Creamer
Phone: 474-5406
11/05/04

A team of educators including four from the University of Alaska Fairbanks will return to San Salvador, El Salvador, on Nov. 19 to present a second 15-day intensive workshop to 20 Salvadoran high-school teachers. The first Teacher-to-Teacher workshop was presented in November, 2003. The primary goal of the workshops continues to be to improve the capability of Salvadoran teachers to teach English. The specific objectives are to encourage positive attitudes regarding the use of the English language, improve basic English language skills in usage and pronunciation, and provide methodology and other tools for more effective instruction in their high school English classes.

Representing UAF will be Dianne Coursey and Daphne Hofschulte, adjunct instructors with the UAF School of Education; and Karen Peterson and Tony Gasbarro, program assistant and associate professor emeritus, respectively, of the Cooperative Extension Service. Former FNSBSD teachers Kathy Alton and Leigh Cox complete the team. The team will collaborate with the University of Don Bosco in San Salvador which will provide facilities and one of their own instructors for the project.

"Participants last year indicated that never before had they been given such practical support and assistance for professional development,"? said Hofschulte. "Participants this year are primarily from schools in rural and economically depressed areas. Many of them have received little training in teaching English and have few or no resources or materials available."?

Morning sessions, conducted in Spanish by the faculty of Don Bosco University in San Salvador, will review the methodology of teaching English as a second language. During the afternoons the participants will improve their own English language skills in structured practice sessions in small groups with the Alaska volunteers.

Alaska team members are paying their own travel, lodging and meals during the three-week period. The UAF team has received about $4,300 in grants to cover the cost of materials and provide a small stipend for each Salvadoran teacher for transportation and food. The grants are from the Education Foundation of The Delta Kappa Gamma Society International and the Beta Chapter in Fairbanks.