From 8 to 27 March 2024, lecturers of the Foreign Languages Department - Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor Olena Bevz, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor Olha Sushkevych, as part of a group of 20 teachers from Higher Pedagogical Education Institutions of Ukraine, are undergoing a professional internship under the Ukraine Teacher Exchange Programme for EFL Faculty members of Pedagogical Universities in Ukraine, administered by the NGO FHI360 with the financial support of the US Embassy in Kyiv.
The professional development takes place at the Michigan State University English Language Centre. The professional development programme, developed and implemented by American educators, includes workshops, panel discussions, roundtables, intensives, and methodological workshops on methods of training future English teachers, in particular
- balancing the use of traditional and modern methods of teaching English (Dustin De Felice, Associate Professor, Director of the Centre);
- organising and conducting internships for future English teachers as a partnership (Debra M. Hardison, Associate Professor, Internship Coordinator);
- overview of modern teaching methods (Paula Winke, Programme Director, Professor of Linguistics, Languages and Cultures);
- directions and tools for teaching writing (Charlene Polio, Professor of Linguistics, Languages and Cultures);
- topical issues of vocabulary teaching (Aline Godfroid, Associate Professor of TESOL and Foreign Language Learning);
- innovations in "Task-based language teaching" (Koen Van Gorp, Associate Professor of TESOL and other foreign languages);
- Trends and innovations in student assessment (Fred Poole, Associate Professor of Foreign Language Teaching).
The active exchange of experience on the mentioned above issues between American colleagues and lecturers of Ukrainian HEIs participating in the exchange programme contributes to the establishment of new international academic relations of the pedagogical community.