The Teaching Excellence and Achievement (TEA) Program, implemented by IREX and funded by the US Department of States, is a prestigious opportunity for Bangladeshi secondary school teachers of English, social studies, math, science, and special education.
It provides great opportunities to develop expertise in their own field, improve their teaching skills and increase their knowledge about the United States through a six-week training in a US university. The program is offered two times a year as Spring and Fall program.
This year, in the Fall program (September-October), around 150 teachers from 44 countries including five teachers from different schools across Bangladesh have participated and successfully accomplished the program. I am happy to be one of them.
I, with another two Bangladeshi TEA fellows, Ms. Sayeda Fatema from Chottogram and Ms. Nowrin Akter from Sylhet, were placed in Montana State University. Other two fellows from Bangladesh were placed in two other universities. Mr. Hossain Ahmed Arif Elahi was in the University of Nevada and Mr. Abdur Rashed was in Claremont Graduate University.
We learned a wide array of new teaching skills and were introduced to many ideas to teach English effectively through studying in different universities working with US schools and engaging with the local community.
Particularly, I would like to highlight the cultural fair organized both in Washington DC and Bozeman High School, host family experience, international food night, study tours, working experience with a partner teacher in a US school, learning the history of indigenous people, US university education experience, classroom management, educational technology training and educational leadership trainings.
The program started in Washington DC with a wonderful orientation where the representatives from the Bangladesh embassy in Washington, DC were present. Then, we had a Culture Fair which was an exciting platform for me to share my country's education and culture to the people of different countries.
At the same time, I also came to know about many other cultures through their colorful poster presentations which have made me thinking myself as a global citizen. This fair enriched my knowledge about the world and its diversity which will help me to teach more sophisticatedly in my school. The same Culture Fair was organized at Bozeman High School as well when our team moved from Washington, DC to Montana.
We were warmly welcomed by the International Programs Office in this mountainous state with big sky. To know about the US family culture, I was attached to a local family and I practically experienced it. I passed a very pleasant time in the Yellowstone National Park with my host family, Christopher, and Mary.
It was one of the best parts of the TEA Program. I spent almost six weeks very cheerfully having a picnic beside a river, visiting Grizzly Bear zoo, having a long drive, roaming around the city at night and discussing my country's culture and education.
The way they treated me was an enlightening experience about the US family culture and it inspired me to know more about it. We also had our international food night which was an exciting platform to present our cultures through different food items.
The representatives cooked their own food and presented in the fair, which showed how all of our cultures are, how we eat and what we eat. This type of arrangement is a perfect way to know about the food that people eat around the world.
Visiting the Yellowstone National Park is a memory that I will never forget in my life. It is an American national park located in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially Old Faithful geyser, active lava and different types of animals, including grizzly bears.
Another good experience of mine was to teach in a US school for a short time. Getting this opportunity to teach at Chief Joseph School was really an honor for me as I was able to teach some native students, share my country's education, culture, and learn their stories as well.
At the same time, I also learned about their education system in government schools, pedagogy, using technology in the classroom, etc. Working with this new environment enhanced my experience through exchanging my knowledge, ideas, and beliefs.
In terms of learning US history, we attended many conferences where experts talked about different issues from their history. I enjoyed learning about indigenous people and their place in American history. Some people honor them, think about them while some other ignore even.
Like every year, Montana State University celebrated the Indigenous Peoples' Day this year too. I went to the fair and learned more new facts about them.. I was very happy to see their passion to protect their tradition, language, music, and culture. I realized once again that how important it is to save our tradition and culture those are about to be extinguished.
Regarding classes in the university campus, I had a very good time as well. Their teaching methods were really new to me and inspiring. To share an example, on October 15, we were divided into four groups in Dr. Jiona Carjuzaa? class having a ´Hot Topic´ each: At-Risk Students, Censorship, Testing, and Bilingual Education.
Each group presented its thoughts very nicely with a lot of information. My group had to talk about the 'At-Risk Students' around the world. For this, we had to research, discuss and plan a lot before going to present our findings. This project helped us to prepare ourselves for a formal presentation and at the same time, we also had an opportunity to know about the education systems and their challenges around the world.
The technology classes helped me to get many new ideas to teach English. I gathered a lot of resources to share with Bangladeshi teachers that are really helpful to teach English interestingly, like Google classroom, Nearpod, Kahoot, Seesaw, Socrative, Plickers, Padlet, Quizzes, Poleev, PechaKucha, and so on.
The way we learned the educational leadership was another wonderful experience. We learned about the conflict resolution skills in Dr. Deidre Combs´ class which was not only effective for our school teaching, but also for our regular life.
She taught us how we should deal with the unexpected situation happening frequently with family, friends, and relatives. We had a circle discussion and throughout it, we expressed our personal view about the TEA Program. We shared some of our challenges, discomfort and different problems. We even disagreed with each other though we came to a concerted solution at last.
This class helped us to practice how to control our emotion and think about others. We also learned how other people feel about ourselves is more important than how we feel about themselves.All these new learning strategies have made me a new teacher with a lot of enthusiasm and confidence.
I sharpened my knowledge and skills by the effective training at this prestigious alma mater of the US I am not the same teacher as I was before the program. I have developed myself with the new experience, better understanding and a profound development in my professionalism.
The devotion for teaching has become very high when I received a letter of commendation from the White House signed by President Donald Trump. In this way, the TEA program has been developing around 15.6 million people from 3,493 institutions of 120 countries every year and making them ready for a better professional placement in their home countries.
Who can apply?
The teachers teaching English, social studies, math, science, and special education at the secondary schools in Bangladesh and have communicative knowledge about English.
How to apply?
Applicants need to follow the instructions published by the US Embassy website. The program will take place in the spring (February - March) and fall (September - November) 2019. For the spring program, usually, the processing starts from November and for the fall, it starts from March.
The writer is working in Bangladesh International Tutorial Limited as an English language teacher and in English Access Microscholarship Program, Dhaka, Bangladesh as an English faculty
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