KazTEA Teachers Conference 2019 entitiled ‘Educating Global Citizens: Learning Beyond English’ was successfully held in Pavlodar on April 26-27.

Thanks to sponsorship of Regional English Language Office, U.S. Embassy in Nur-Sultan and Oxford University Press 64 presenters from Kazakhstan, Kyrgstan and Uzbekistan were awarded with treavel grants to share  their teaching practices on 9 topics related to current TEFL and CLIL trends in compliance with national curriculum and international needs, particularly tri-lingua education, Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), teaching critical thinking skills with students to discuss successes and challenges in teaching young learners, blended learning at current educational system in the RK.

KazTEA Conference 2019 covered two events: training on organizational management and the conference itself. The training was conducted by

Dr. Rosa Aronson – former executive director of TESOL. Thanks to her extensive experience in running international associations the sessions on organizational leadership and management, strategic planning, membership, fund raising, etc. were supported with vivid examples from her managerial experience that contributed to better comprehension for KazTEA leaders, who are teachers in their major and have volunteer experiences in arranging teacher-training events.

KazTEA 2019 gained success thanks to cooperation with KazTEA Partners: TEA in Pavlodar, Nazarbayev Intellectual School, InterPress Distributions Ltd, Macmillan Education in the RK, InterRess LLtd, Alramin Ltd., Language Academy in Pavlodar on the basis of the Innovation Eurasia University.

As a pre-conference event there was TEDx arranged on the basis of NIS Ch&B in Pavlodar with 4 speakers – teachers of NIS and Access alumnum. The speakers raised the issues related to learner’s mindset, EFL teacher’s phobia and EFL learning that provided hot discussion afterwards.

At the plenary sessions there were 6 key-speakers: Dr. Rosa Aronson – Ph.D., English Language Specialist, the U.S. Department of State and 

Dr. Timmothy G. Collins – RELO at U.S. Embassy in Nur-Sultan, raised the 2 questions related to the role of EFL teacher at current situation in response to interactive and competency-based teaching. Sarah Rogerson – Director of Assessment at Oxford University Press raised the issues related to testing and assessment. Dr. Tatyana Zenkova – Ph.D. at S. Toraighyrov Pavlodar State University, discussed the research in terms of gender stereotypes in education. Assiya Sulkarnayeva – Associate Professor at Kazakhstan Branch of Lomonosov Moscow State University in Nur-Sultan spread on the research related to young learners teaching English. Rob Dean – UK Global Teacher Trainer and Academic Consultant on behalf of Pearson, shared his experience on 21st century skills.

Sarah Rogerson- Director of Assessment, Oxford University Press

Timothy Collins - Regional English Language Office Director

Total number of conference participants was 272 (177 presenters, 91 attendees from Pavlodar oblast, 4 visitors from southern regions) who attended 91 sessions on 9 topics. The most popular topic area among presenters was “Innovative pedagogical theories and strategies in teaching/learning English” with 19 sessions, 4 posters and 1 virtual presentation, which provided the discussion on challenges of differentiated instructions, guided discovery, exposure-clarification-output model, etc.. Another popular topic was ‘Subject and language learning: professional skills for the future’ with 14 session, which presented techniques of gamification (edutainment), multimedia packs, scaffolding to enhance teaching subject content in English

Conference attendance rate is evaluated as high. Thanks to cooperation with Regional Department of Education in Pavlodar there was a good

Semey Team

number of attendees from rural areas. What is more, there was a good number of teachers from eastern Kazakhstan region, Semey, Borodulikha village, Bektoragay village, and from Southern Kazakhstan, representatives of GESchool, which could be treated as a good sign of KazTEA and local TEAs activities. All the feedbacks on the part of attendees and participants are positive. 94% of sessions are assessed as successful according to the feedbacks arranged at the end of the event.

GES teachers, Sayram, Turkestan oblast

It is expected that conference participants and attendees will implement teaching tips on engaging learning, CLIL and competency-based teaching in their classroom settings. Also local teachers as well as their students are expected to take part in the events that are designed to develop their professional skills, leadership potential and enhance EFL language proficiency, in the exchange and post-graduate education programs particularly. KazTEA is expected to strengthen the activity of TEA members and organization in Pavlodar regions and across Kazakhstan; to apply for educational projects and state program on tri-lingual education with national and international agencies.