Experts to Present Workshops on English Language in the Classroom at Education City
Doha, Qatar (2 October 2010) – Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) will host a one-day workshop on English language integration and best practice learning methods for university and secondary school instructors on October 9. The workshop program, held each fall, provides an opportunity to discuss, promote, and develop high quality English language and literature teaching in the state of Qatar.
The professional development workshops are being organized by Carnegie Mellon Qatar faculty Erik Helin, Silvia Pessoa, and Dudley Reynolds, and WCMC-Q’s Alan S. Weber. Deborah Short, director of the consulting firm Academic Language Research & Training and a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Linguistics, will be giving the keynote speech and will lead a workshop on the SIOP model (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) of language instruction, which she developed.
Katherine Kiblinger Gottschalk, the Co-Director of the Knight Writing Institute at Cornell University’s main campus in Ithaca, New York, will also be leading a workshop on “Integrating Writing Instruction and Content in Writing Intensive Courses Across the Curriculum.” Writing Across the Curriculum is a philosophy of education that encourages the use of writing techniques in all disciplines of knowledge as a means of discovering new knowledge, organizing ideas, and creating intellectual dialogue, instead of merely transmitting or communicating ideas through the written word.
This year’s workshop program gathers a strong combination of international and local experts. According to Alan Weber, Ph.D, “We are very pleased with our line-up of experts for this year’s ETE-Q conference. Many courses in Qatar are being taught in English to mixed classes including non-native English speakers, and educators have some very practical concerns about teaching English language skills in all areas of knowledge.” Experts from the fields of science, biology, mathematics as well as English language will guide teachers to help students conceptualize knowledge in another language and to build specialized scientific and basic English vocabulary.
Other workshops offered at the half-day event will focus on integrating English language into studies of biological and physical sciences. Organizers stressed that this was a particularly challenging transition for teachers, as students may have originally been familiar with key scientific terms in other languages, but added that this was a major area of focus for both universities over the coming years.
“We hope the second annual ETE-Q will attract as many educators in Qatar as it did last year,” said Silvia Pessoa, Ph.D., assistant teaching professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar. “This is a great opportunity to continue to learn about good practices in addressing the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students to enhance our students’ literacy development.”
The organizers have also announced that in October 2011 Qatar will play host to an international conference on ‘Putting Research into Practice,’ sponsored by the global professional organization, TESOL, as well as a number of the universities across Qatar. Dudley Reynolds, Ph.D., teaching professor of English at Carnegie Mellon, stated that he is “pleased to see these conferences becoming an annual event bringing English teachers in Qatar together.”
The workshops will be held in the Carnegie Mellon Qatar building on Saturday, October 9, 2010 from 9:00 to 2:15. The workshops are open to university and secondary school teachers in Qatar after registration on the workshop website: qatar.cmu.edu/eteq/index.php#