A trip to Virginia

In August I began to work with a new group of boys and girls. I teach them MS Word, Internet, e-mail,Photoshop. They are very interested in computers, optimists and come to IATP center with great enthusiasm.Yesterday we bregistered in Forum and wrote introducions in English. To participate in forums is the new thing for some students and I think it will help them to learn more about the USA, Culture and to find friends among American students.Students can improve their English too.
And of course the participation in forums is the good chance to tell the students of other country about our Turkmenistan and our people.

Well, our 4 TAG finalists and I went to Ashgabat by plane to take part in TAG summer conference. It was held in one of the beautiful hotels of the capital “Rahat”. The conference was 2 weeks long and the goal of it was that all 15 finalists from all regions of Turkmenistan would attend advanced computer and leadership trainings, have meetings with famous women leaders of our country.
The organization was excellent: some trainings were held in hotel, some- in IREX office. Experienced trainers as Zohrab, Serdar, Elena, Jennet and others conducted trainings with girls.
Finalists had trainings on development of leadership skills, journalism, and career development. Trainings such as “Methods of effective trainings”, “Designing community projects”, “How to make a Budget” are useful not only for finalists but for everybody who work with people.
Girls had meetings with strong women leaders such as Irina Velmuradova, the Director of Art Photo studio, Akbabek Taganova, the director of Constructing materials plant and others. All the women told the girls about their work, how they began their career, and about their success as a leader.
The second week began with girls’ internship in international organizations such as OSCE, Counterpart, PAS, Patience, Hope and others. It was a great opportunity for all TAG finalists to apply their computer and leadership skills on a practice. And I must tell you that the girls done it with great enthusiasm, and even some of them led trainings.
I worked there as a counselor and I was responsible for meals, coffee breaks. Together with PCVs Stephanie, Linda, Robin and Amy we were responsible for evening activities for girls. We played many team building games. It was so useful and interesting. And of course there was much fun on a swimming pool!!!
All the girls are pretty ladies with large potential for work; they are responsible, great in computers and leadership. I watched how they became friends with each other, how they solve some problems in our community, and how they became real leaders. And now these 15 girls – little leaders are in 5 regions of our country plan their own projects in their own community.
I am proud that I worked in a summer TAG conference, I am proud for girls- future women leaders of our great country.

My 2007-08 year was very important for my professional career.
After coming from the USA I went on my work in IATP. I involved my students to forum work with high school students of Pennsylvania State. Students share their knowledge of culture, style of life in their countries, history. They made friends, told about hobbies, teen’s life, schools and families. I think forum participation helps our friendship to strengthen. Students develop their computer skills, writing skills and widen their outlook.
We participated in such forums as “My Hometown”, “Share Events» and others.
In February I and some my students Ali, Gulchi, Karina participated in Outreach for TAG- 2008 ( Tech Age Girls) contest. We went to some schools and met with girls, told about the goals of the contest, gave applications. We collected about 50 applications of the girls who wanted to develop their computer and leadership skills. And at the beginning of March we learned that our region had 12 girls-semifinalists of TAG contest.
In March I began to train our semifinalists. There were 7 cool girls in my group: Lachin, Yuliya, Alyona, Maral, Madina, Sabina and Nigara. All they attended trainings on MS Word, Photoshop, Internet and E-mail, Forum Work, Blogging, Web Design and Leadership. The girls created blogs, participated in forums where they shared their project plans and other topics with girls from other regions’ TAG semifinalists. My group created nice web sites about famous women-leaders of Turkmenistan: doctors, teachers and mothers.
And 4 girls from my group Lachin Yulia, Sabina and Nigara became the finalists of TAG contest. 4 brave girls, little leaders of our Lebap region went to Ashgabat to summer TAG conference. I’ll tell you about their success next time.
Have nice day!

I want to share with you of my impressions of one of the US schools. I and my Turkmen collegue Rabiga visited two high schools and elementary school.The first school we were was Fairfax County High School, where Richard Clelland works. He teaches English there. Unfortunatelly, there were no summer classes this year.But he showed us the equipment of his classroom. He has a laptop, a proector and a smartboard . And there is access to Internet. If the teacher needs some material from Inet to his lesson, he can get it at once.
Richard showed us all this process and we could get the info about our country during 2-3 minutes.
Richard Clelland is the creator of the school website. He designed it himself and of course he showed us too. It's a great site!
I shared with my own site too www.iatp.edu.tm/schoolteacher
He advised me how to make it more effective. I'll do it after returning home.

Hi, again!
Today I want to share my excitement of the capital of the USA. It is beautiful city with a lot of original buildings. I really like the architecture of Washington D.C. Girls from IREX were so kind to us, we had lunch in Italian restourant "Bertoluchi". My "losania" was very tasty :)
Then we had a tour in D.C. We visited National Gallery, saw original works of such great artists as Rubens, Mane, Edgar Degar, Mone and others. The gallery has a rich collection of paintings, sculptures and other exibits.
I never imagine before that I could walk near White House and Capitol ! But I did it! We saw a lot of tourists from different countries, Americans waliking there. We had a great opportunity to listen to the orchestra music and opera sitting on the Capitol's stairs: the band of the US Air Force was playing that evening.
We were excited of everything we saw in Washington D.C.

I am happy to be a part of the Clellands'. They are my host family. Both of them - Richard and Alicia are teachers using IT at their classes. I was surprised when I found that it is a family of Nicol, she was the Peace corp. volunteer in my home town -Turkmenabat. Every day we talk about teaching English, using technology at the lessons. We visited some schools and saw how teachers use computers, different soft programs and other technology at school. All schools have great equipment, we visited summer classes in an elementary school, they are teaching 3-12 years old children. I liked Math lesson, it was in the computer lab. The teacher was so attentive to us, told much about her experience and give us some links of free teachers' sites to get useful information for our work. We have plans to visit Fairfax High School once more. Richard showed us his own website which contains all information about his activities with students, their creative works, summer reading etc. It is very useful for us.
We also shared our experience of working at schools of Turkmenistan. Hope that we will have such technology equipment in our country soon. Let's be optimistic !!! :) Read More...

Hi! My name is Zulhiya. I am an English teacher from Turkmenabat, Turkmenistan. This year I had a happy chance to be an exchage IT teacher. And I am in the USA! We are 3 of us-three Turkmen lucky teachers: Elena, Rabiga and me.It is only the 3rd day in the US capital but we have a lot of impressions, interesting infomation to share.
I think it's a great opportunity to go to the English-speaking country for English secondary school teacher to learn more about using IT and new methodology at school, to share your own experience with American collegues, to learn more about Americans without stereotypes, and of course to tell them about my country, our Turkmen culture and traditions.
Tommorow I'll leave Washington DC for Virginia state to live in my American host family. And I am very happy to be a part of the ordinary American teachers' family. I'll tell them about my family, my school and people.
Well, you are welcome to my blog to share our experience!