Understanding America through its Educational System: Practical Applications for Russian EFL

Five Russian teachers of English, including Aida Rodomanchenko as a representative of HSE, were lucky to have been selected for the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) entitled ‘Understanding America through its Educational System: Practical Applications for Russian EFL’, which was administered by Cultural Vistas and conducted from April 11 to 19, 2016.The program aimed at receiving a holistic view of a broader cross-section of American society, understanding what educational opportunities are available to American students from different backgrounds, learning how the U.S. system of life-long learning works, meeting with American curriculum specialists, high school and university teachers of English, and exploring key elements of America.The journey started on April 10, straight after the TESOL Convention, from exploring New Orleans.

Russian IVLP team (Aida Rodomanchenko, Higher School of Economics, Moscow; Inna Anokhina, ITMO, Saint Petersburg; Marina Scherbakova, Krasnoyarsk State University; Elena Tryapitsyna, Federal Arctic University, Arkhangelsk; Alexandra Soboleva, Tomsk State University)  was lucky to be in New Orleans during the French Quarter Festival, a free, annual jazz festival held in early April. A lot of people came to the city to enjoy music and local food ( crawfish, catfish, gumbo, jambalaya, beignets and pralines). We had a splendid opportunity to walk down narrow French Quarter streets and experience the authentic atmosphere of the city immersed in jazz tunes. 

Having spent the weekend exploring the history and culture of New Orleans, we, teachers from five leading Russian Universities, devoted the beginning of the week to meeting people from various institutions and getting acquainted with the system of education.

Firstly,  Sara Delson, U.S. Department of State Program Officer, and Steven Washington, Cultural Vistas Program Officer, welcomed our team to New Orleans and on behalf of U.S. government officially opened the International Visitor Leadership Program 'Understanding America Through Its Educational System: Practical Applications for Russian EFL'.

Our journey into the educational system of the US started with a delicious lunch prepared by young adults undergoing a vocational training at café Reconcile. Later we had a meeting with Marianna Mosquera, Bilingual Counsellor at Jefferson Parish Public School, who introduced us to the idea of the Common Core in education and immerse language programs available to native and non-native English speakers.

Later we visited Delgado Community College. It was a pleasure to meet Marlene Friis, Assistant Professor of English as a Second Language, and be immersed in a positive and encouraging atmosphere of the lesson. 

We also had a chance to talk one-to-one to teachers at the University of New Orleans and share our teaching knowledge and experience with one another. Laura Hawbaker, Teaching Associate, showed Aida Rodomanchenko some Web 2.0 tools which are used with non-native English speakers who wish to improve their English for professional and personal reasons. These were testyourvocab.com, which enables to measure the total vocabulary size virtually of every person; powtoon.com, an easy tool to make animated videos and presentations; and weebly.com, a free drag-and-drop platform for websites creation.

Below you will find some impressions shared by Aida S. Rodomanchenko:

 Visual Report (PDF, 244 Кб)

 Visual Report 2 (PDF, 39 Кб)