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Linking Young Minds Together
        Volume 7 | Issue 03| January 20, 2013 |


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Interview

In Conversation with Dr Christine Coombe

Sunera Saba Khan

DR Christine Coombe, leader in Higher Education and English faculty of Dubai Men's College, visited Dhaka in early December for a collaborative venture with Bangladesh English Teacher Language Teachers Association (BELTA). She led a team of facilitators from TESOL Arabia for conducting an International seminar on “Teacher Effectiveness” for Bangladeshi English teachers. Christine is the former Testing and Measurements Supervisor at UAE University and assessment Coordinator of Zayed University. She has written a number of books on assessment. During her stay, we talked with her and here are some of her thoughts.

SSK: How does it feel to be the President of the largest teachers association in the world - TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)?
CC: Being President of TESOL has been a lifelong dream of mine. It has been an amazing experience and one I've really benefited from, personally and professionally. The responsibility is tremendous though, and learning about different trends in ELT from a worldwide perspective has been a challenge.

SSK: How do you feel about collaborating with BELTA?
CC: To date, TESOL Arabia (the Testing SIG and the Leadership/ Management SIG) and BELTA have collaborated for the past 3 to 4 years on mutually-beneficial projects. We have always been well satisfied with the experience and I hope the feeling is mutual with BELTA.

SSK: What events have you jointly organised with BELTA? Can you please share your experiences with us?
CC: Our first collaboration was a 'Fundamentals of Language Assessment' event in Dhaka where 80+ teachers spent three days together learning about assessment basics. This event took place in 2009. In 2010, the theme of our event was on teacher leadership. This year, we focused on teacher effectiveness. I also did a plenary at the BELTA Conference in 2011 and BELTA officers have done featured sessions at TESOL Arabia in 2012 as well.

SSK: What are the benefits of on-going teacher development?
CC: On-going teacher development is really the only way to develop. We learn a lot during our degree programmes and on our on-the-job training but nothing beats getting together from time to time with like-minded EL professionals and learning about new trends and perspectives in the field.

SSK: What do you see in Bangladeshi EFL teachers, which is different from the teachers you deal with in the Middle East or in the West?
CC: The more I travel and meet other teachers around the world, the more I learn how similar we all are. Having said this, one thing I can say that separates Bangladeshi teachers from those in other countries is their tremendous work ethic and dedication towards the students and the profession.

SSK: What advice would you give to novice teachers or teachers starting out on their professional careers?
CC: I'll give them the same advice that I received as a new teacher. There are many teachers who find themselves in the profession and don't really like it, but they stay there anyway. These unsatisfied teachers spend a lot of time complaining about how hard life is and how much they hate their jobs. Socializing with these individuals at the lunch table or in the coffee room can prove detrimental to a new teacher's motivation. So I would advise new teachers not to spend a lot of time with this group.

SSK: What message do you have for Bangladeshi teachers?
CC: Keep up the good work and never stop learning!


DID YOU KNOW?

 

Samuel Ting

Physicist and Nobel Laureate Samuel Chao Chung Ting was born on January 27, 1936 (turning 77 today), in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Samuel's parents returned to China two months after his birth. Due to the Japanese invasion, Samuel's education was disrupted, and he was mostly home-schooled by his parents. After the war, his parents became professors of engineering and psychology at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan. From 1948, Samuel attended the prestigious Provincial Chien-Kuo High School (now Municipal Taipei Chien-Kuo Senior High School) in Taipei. After high school, he studied one year at National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City. In 1956, Samuel was invited to attend the University of Michigan. There, he studied engineering, mathematics, and physics. In 1959, he was awarded BAs in both mathematics and physics, and in 1962, he earned a doctorate in physics. In 1963, he worked at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which would later become CERN. From 1965, he taught at Columbia University and worked at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Germany. Since 1969, Ting has been a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Ting is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and an academician of Taiwan's Academia Sinica.

 

Source: Internet


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