ESL Reaches Out to Czech Partners From: University Currents Date: March 10, 2000 By: Dawn Fuller Phone: (513) 556-1823 Archive: Campus News, General News Faculty, graduate students and graduates from UC's Center for English as a Second Language are packing up for another trip overseas. Their spring break journey to the Czech Republic will establish yet another partnership that will lead to global opportunities for teaching and research. The partnerships will open a dual career track for graduate students, providing experience for those who want to teach English in the United States to immigrants or international students learning English as their second language (TESL), or for UC graduates who would like to spend some time overseas teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL). According to Mary Benedetti, UC associate professor and director of UC's English as a Second Language (ESL) Center, TESL and TEFL are very different fields. During their travels, UC students and their international colleagues will work together as a task force to develop curricula for the future dual track program, which is expected to be open to students by 2001. The partnerships provide for student exchange programs and an overseas practical teaching experience for at least one academic quarter. The expanding program also will offer a TEFL certificate for people who, without training, would be "back-pack" English teachers graduates that earned a degree in another field but decided to live in Europe and teach English for a short period before establishing a career in the United States. "Many Americans teaching English overseas have no background in the field, and they're not doing any real harm but they're not doing any real good either," says Benedetti. "We want to make these people minimally proficient in second language teaching, which would enable them to find a decent job and live comfortably." Benedetti, along with three UC graduate students, Ann Miller, Camille Bryant and Lisa Bauer, will leave Cincinnati for Brno, Czech Republic, on March 16. Three UC graduates, including Benedetti's husband Gustavo, a teacher at Moeller High School; Arif Altun, a professor who teaches English as a foreign language (TEFL) in Turkey, and his wife, Sadagul Abbaba, a professor of special education, will also be participating in developing the new partnership with Masaryk University. The university is located in the middle part of the Czech Republic in the area of Moravia. Benedetti says Brno is an economically stable city that's just a little smaller than Cincinnati, with a variety of industries, a solid middle class and a passion for the arts. "We'll be working with one university and three high schools there. One is a school for students who are gifted in terms of both languages and music. Another school in Olomouc outside Brno has 1,100 students in an English immersion program and we'll also be working with a school in the village of Ivancice." The UC ESL task force hopes to branch out the program in eastern Europe, possibly in Ukraine and Poland. Partnerships were established in Peru and Colombia last summer, with goals to expand in Latin America.