Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Oaxaca Road Trip: Office of English Language Programs visits UABJO



From May 26th-31st, 2008 the team from the Office of English Language Programs: Regional English Language Officer Dr. Kay Davis, Cultural Affairs Assistant Jose Manuel Villafuerte and Senior English Language Fellow Brigitte Miller went on a road trip to Oaxaca to get in contact with the teachers of the Universidad Autonoma "Benito Juarez" de Oaxaca. On May 27th they went to the UABJO's Centro de Idiomas Tehuantepec Campus where Brigitte gave a workshop to 35 local English teachers, professors and students. What a surprise to find that in this remote outpost at the isthmus in Oaxaca, the English teachers had such a high level of English and such enthusiasm for teaching! The credit for this must be given to veteran English teacher Mauricio Zarate Jarquin and the energetic Facultad de Idiomas director Rufino Vazquez Manuel. The workshop was followed up by a delicious seafood lunch under a palapa in the sweltering isthmus heat. Thanks to Rebecca, Abraham, Ricardo and Omar too for your hospitality!
From Tehuantepec, the OELP team went on to the city of Oaxaca where Kay and Jose Manuel met with the director again and other representatives from the university while Brigitte gave another workshop to the teachers and trainees from the Oaxaca campus. In Oaxaca too, the students and professors were active participants in the workshop. According to the workshop evaluations 100% of the participants found the workshop topics (cooperative and task-based learning) and activities either somewhat or very interesting. Most said they would try to apply these ideas to their teaching especially the strategies, the roles and authentic tasks. In future they would like to learn more classroom activities as well as how to deal with large classes. Some of their comments were:“Very valuable”, “it was amazing”, “I like your way to teach this class – you’re so happy and all could be too” and “I think it was all very useful”.

Thanks Oaxacan teachers. I had a great time too! Hope to visit you again one day! Special thanks to the students for your help around the city!