PRESENTERS

This year’s English Conference featured 26 presenters: 4 American English language fellows from different parts of Asia, 6 English teachers from Hovd University, 4 professionals from the Hovd Aimag Department of Education and Culture, 7 Hovd Aimag secondary school English teachers, the western regional manager of ELI from Bayan Ulgii and 4 Peace Corps volunteers. 

Lynn Mallory received her Bachelor’s of Arts in French and English from the University of Richmond and her Master’s of Education in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Language (TESOL) from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. She has been a classroom teacher for twenty years in public, private, and international schools in Virginia, North Carolina, Kenya, and China. For the last ten years she has taught and mentored students and teachers at Kannapolis Middle School near Charlotte, NC. She holds National Board of Professional Teaching Standards Certification in English as a New Language. Lynn’s special areas of interest include teaching English through content areas, pragmatics acquisition in a second language, and creative teaching methodology in the secondary English classroom. Lynn has just arrived at MUST, where she will be doing English for Specific Purposes (ESP) training for university professors. She recently spent five months conducting teacher training in Changwon, Korea. malloryfour@hotmail.com

Woody Packard is currently teaching English to first and third year students at Khovd University. For ten years he has taught photography, visual communication and design at Alfred University. He has a BA in Sociology, an AAS in Photography, and an MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts. wood@woodypackard.com

James (Jim) Radebaugh joined the English Language Fellow Program through the United States State Department in February 2012 and is working at Shaanxi Normal University in Xi’an, China. Before joining the Fellow Program, he taught academic writing at the Asian University for Women in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Before beginning his teaching career, he worked for seven years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor and for two years as a writer and editor in the marketing department of an American insurance company. He has master’s degrees in Teaching English as a Second Language and English Education and bachelor’s degrees in English and Journalism. Jradeb2@gmail.com

Cosima  Frieden is a Swiss and Italian teacher of English and French. She completed her British A levels in Nepal in 2005, her Bachelor of Arts in Switzerland in 2009 and her Master’s of Arts in the UK in 2010. She is currently teaching English practice to the sophomores and seniors of the English and Chinese department of Khovd University, and planning to finish her second Master’s of Arts in June 2013. She is mostly interested in methodology that encourages creativity from the students, and since she discovered the challenges and rewards of teaching ESOL to students from an entirely other background than hers, in any nice way to get students to talk. cosima.frieden@gmail.com

D. Batnasan (Dawaa) was born in 1976, in Khyargas Soum of Uvs Aimag. In 1995, he graduated from secondary school in Uvs Aimag, From 1995-1999 he attended and graduated from Khovd University as a mathematician. From1999 until 2009, he worked as a math teacher in Tsast Altai complex school. And from 2009-2013 he has been an officer in charge of training technology and methodology of math and computer science. He is married and has 4 children. He did translation of Graph 4.0 from English to Mongolian, and now he is doing translation of Geogebra. These are math education programs. From 2000-2004 he worked as a mentor teacher in the western aimags and in 2004 he participated in international training of Information Computer Technology (ICT) in Korea. batnasan_bagsh@yahoo.com

Devon Lee comes from lovely Los Angeles, California, United States. Sometime between living in India and learning to dance, she earned her Master’s in Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Following graduation, Ms. Lee taught writing courses for English Speakers of Other Languages at Pasadena City College in California. Currently, she is a Community Youth Development Volunteer with the US Peace Corps and works as a social worker at Secondary School Number Six in Khovd. She enjoys running Scouting programs, cutting her hair, and teaching English to fabulous students at the American Center in Khovd. devonclee@gmail.com

Jeremy Ward is a Peace Corps Volunteer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in May 2012, and ten days later boarded a plane for Mongolia. He is currently a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) volunteer at Secondary School Number 2 in Khovd, and has taught grades five, seven – eleven. In addition to his work at School Number 2, Jeremy teaches English to students at the Disabled Children’s Center in Khovd, and has team-taught a TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) preparation course and an essay-writing course. jeremy.ward.1990@gmail.com

N. Tsagaanchuluun (Norov) graduated from Khovd University in 2000 as a teacher of Russian and English. In 2007 she participated in a language training program at the English Language Institute in Totnes, England. She finished her Master’s Degree in Education in 2009 at Khovd University, Mongolia and in Human Sciences in 2012 at Osaka University, Japan. She is currently an instructor in the English Department at Khovd University. tsagana_n@yahoo.com

Z. Amarsanaa (Zundui) was born in Uvs Aimag in 1985 and grew up in Tarialan Soum. He graduated from Khovd University in 2007 as a Russian English language teacher. His wife, Altansarnai, is also an English teacher (she works at School Number 2). They have 2 children. Amarsanaa has been teaching for 6 years; 1 year in his hometown, TarialanSoum, and the last 5 years at Progress School in Khovd Centre. He took the 2nd place in the recent 2013 English Olympics in Khovd. zamarsanaa1@yahoo.com

Josiah (Duke) Harrist was born in the mountains of Colorado in the United States and grew up in Southeast Asia. Having completed his degree in English Writing at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, he came overseas to Laos in 2010 to teach methodology and English to Speakers of Other Languages. He transferred to the English Language Institute (ELI) Mongolia early in 2012, and moved to Bayan Ulgii Aimag in September 2012, where he currently works as Regional Manager. duke.harrist@elic.org

Bryant Harden is from the state of Georgia, USA where he studied Political Science at Mercer University and received a Bachelor’s degree. He is currently a Teacher of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) Peace Corps Volunteer and has worked for almost 2 years teach­ing at the 3rd Secondary School in Khovd, Mongolia. He will return to the United States in June 2013 and then proceed to study for a Master’s degree (MA) of International Relations at the University of Warwick, England this fall. bryantharden@gmail.com

Judy Emerson : During the academic year of 2012-2013, Judy serves as an English Language Fellow for the United States Department of State. In this capacity, she works primarily as an instructor for university students at Khovd University. She earned a Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) through the State University of New York (SUNY) Empire State College.  She has also earned a certificate for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) through Anaheim University, CA. In addition, she has a Bachelor’s degree in History and a Master’s degree in Museum Studies and Business. emermick@frontiernet.net

Z. Buyankhishig (Zunorov) was born in Dorgon Soum, Khovd Aimag in 1979. She graduated from the Khovd branch of the Mongolian State University in 2001 as a Russian English Teacher. She has worked as a teacher for 12 years; 6 years in Dorgon Soum and 6 years at Progress School in Khovd Centre. She recently took the 1st place in the 2013 English Olympics in Khovd. She is married with 4 children. zbuya_79@yahoo.com

Carolyn Wedral  has a Master’s of Education from Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA. She is a Certified New Jersey Teacher of English Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Before this academic year she has been a full time public school teacher in New Jersey, and a part-time teacher at Hudson Community College, also in New Jersey. As con­tractor with the United States State Department, she has been an English Language Fellow at Jilin University in Changchun, China teaching Reading and Writing for Academic Study. cwedral@hotmail.com

G. Amarzaya (Gulgoo) graduated the University of Humanities as a translator of English and Russian languages. She defended her Master’s degree at Khovd Branch of Mongolian National University and she defended her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at the National University of Mongolia. She is currently a professor of Khovd University in the Chinese English Language Department. amarzaya2000@yahoo.com

N. Davaabold (Natsag) graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from Khovd University in 2005 in education. In 2008, he completed his Master’s degree in linguistics. He began working at the University after graduation in the English and Chinese Language Department in 2005. He started his PhD degree in 2011 in Linguistics at the National University of Mongolia. He is currently the Department Head of the English and Chinese Language Department. davaaboldn_100@yahoo.com

S. Ankhjargal (Sidbazar) was born in Uvs in 1977. She graduated from Khovd University in 2005 as an English/Russian teacher. She has been teaching English and Russian at school number 1 for 8 years. She is married with 3 children. ankhaa_2014@yahoo.com

Chuck Emmett graduated from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States in 2009 with a double major in political science and sociology. From March until June of 2010, he worked as a teacher in Green River, Wyoming. From June 2010 until June 2011, he worked in Child Support Services, a private organization and he also worked at Western Wyoming Community College as an instructor of English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) adults. Beginning in June 2011 until the present, he has been the TEFL Peace Corp Volunteer (PCV) in ErdeneburenSoum. He plans to return to the United States and attend graduate school. 9568-4743

N. Munkhtsetseg (Nergui) graduated from Khan Khukhii University in 2000 with a degree in English education and translation. She has been teaching English in Erdeneburen Soum for thirteen years. She is married and has two children. 99254350

B. Enkhbaatar (Byambadorj) was born in Khovd in 1987. He finished secondary school in Khovd in 2006. He graduated from Orkhon University in 2010 with a Bachelor’s in English. He has been teaching English at Tsast-Altai Complex School in Khovd Aimag Centre for 3 years. This year he is teaching 5th, 7th, and 10th grade classes. enkh_baatar1987@yahoo.com

M. Altansuvd (Maidjardav) was born in 1977 in Khovd. She graduated from the Khovd branch of the Mongolian National University in 1999 as a Russian-English teacher. She received her Master’s of Arts in Linguistics. She has traveled to Lipetsk Pedagogical University in Lipetsk, Russia for 6 months and to York University in Toronto, Canada for 6 weeks. Currently, she is the Senior teacher in the Department of Russian-English languages, Khovd University. She has been teaching at this university for 14 years. She is studying for her doctorate at the University of Humanities in Ulaanbaatar. She has a husband and four children. altansuvd_maidarjav@yahoo.com

D. Ankh-erdene (Dambii) was born in 1973. Currently, she lives in Uyench Soum. She started school in 1981 and finished in 1989. She graduated Khovd University in 1998 as an English and Russian teacher. She has worked as an English teacher in Uyenchsoum for 14 years. She is a chief teacher. She has about 400 pupils. Each year she has great success with her pupils at the secondary school. Over the past year, she has successfully prepared students for the universities and colleges entrance exams. She was married in 2002 and has 2 children.

D. Oyuntsetseg (Dorj) was born in Uyench Soum of Khovd in 1963. She entered secondary school in Uyench in 1972 and she graduated in 1980. Then she entered secondary school number 1 of Khovd city in 1980 and graduated in 1982. After secondary school, she entered the University of Russia and graduated in 1988. She worked at the scientific research center of Khovd from 1988 to 1991. She teaches Russian and English at the general education school in Uyench. She studied in the English teacher course in the institute of Khovd from 1993-1994 and studied in the pedagogical institute in 2004. She has worked at her school for 24 years as an English and Russian teacher.

Lynn Mallory

Presentation Title:  Teaching to the Spectrum:  Differentiating Instruction in the Mixed Level Classroom 

English Language Learners span the entire spectrum of communicative competence.  While they are frequently grouped together by skill level, there is often great disparity in their actual abilities. Across the domains, even in upper level classes, we find a wide variety of skill.  How do we avoid “teaching to the middle?”  How can we challenge the students on the upper end, while still supporting those that need a little extra time to excel? What does differentiation of instruction really mean?  And, most importantly, how can we do it without working ourselves to death?  This seminar has some quick, easy-to-implement solutions that will work with any age group of English Language Learners. 

Woody Packard

Title of workshop : High Tech and Low: Simple tools to encourage personal involvement

In this workshop, I introduce some simple ways to use art--drawing, photography and sound to provide both subject material and personal engagement for classroom activities. Increasingly, these recording technologies are available on many common electronic devices, most commonly the mobile telephone and laptop computer. We'll look at ways to use these devices to help gather material for writing and speaking, as well as to record material for providing feedback for lessons in pronunciation and composition.

James (Jim) Radebaugh

Title:   Writing Essays about Songs

            The essay topics that students are asked to write about are often dry and far from engaging.  In this workshop, participants will look closely at an essay-writing lesson that seeks to increase student motivation by asking them to write in depth about a favorite English-language song, one they choose on their own.  In writing about a favorite song, students are able to say what they think about something that matters to them.  What’s more, it gets them engaged in a fundamental academic skill: analyzing and discussing a piece of text.  The lesson goes further, however, emphasizing the logical development of an idea – a skill that in my experience most students need to practice.  To this end, students are asked to write a sufficiently specific thesis sentence that can be supported with evidence from the song. In the workshop, we’ll (1) propose two lesson objectives: to motivate the students to write and to show them how to do so logically; (2) give an overview of the lesson; (3) ask the participants to work together in small groups to write a thesis sentence on the meaning of a song provided by the presenter to uncover the challenges of such a task and to encourage the participants to share their thoughts on teaching it; and (4) to end with a discussion of the tensions between the two objectives and which of the two participants would favor in their classrooms. 

Cosima  Frieden

Title: Poetry

• Creativity is useful in learning English skills
• Communicative process by linking art (poetry) to the process of listening and speaking
• Teachers analyzed a poem (what it tells you and what it means)
• Useful memorization?/meaningful memorization?
• Poetry brings the learner beyond the words … to its intrinsic beauty

We split into two groups for Batnasan's SMARTboard workshop - half of the group spilt into smaller groups for a chance to get to know the native speakers and then we swapped.

Jeremy Ward and Devon Lee

Topic: Planning Your English Essay

Planning an essay is often considered the most important step of essay writing, yet this step is often skipped, especially amongst non-native speakers. Jeremy and Devon would like to do a small 45-minute presentation on the importance of this step and how to do it correctly.  The presentation would include different methods of planning, such as brainstorming, outlining, and others. If time allows, a practice activity will also take place.

N. Tsagaanchuluun

Title : Assessing Vocabulary

As we all, both language teachers and language learners accept, the vocabulary is one of the priority areas in language teaching. When we say teaching vocabulary certainly it includes monitoring learner’s progress and to assess how adequate their vocabulary knowledge is to meet their communication needs.  

Vocabulary assessment seems straightforward in the sense that word lists are readily available to provide a basis for selecting a set of words to be tested. There is a range of well-known test types which are convenient to use for vocabulary testing; multiple choice, completion, translation, matching etc. However, these kinds of tests are designed to assess whether learners have knowledge of particular structural elements of the language: word meanings, word forms, sentence patterns, sound contrasts and so on.

Thus tests need to be based on tasks to stimulate communication activities that the learners are likely to be engaged in outside of the classroom. Good vocabulary knowledge and skills will help test-takers to perform these tasks better, but neither vocabulary nor any other structural component of the language is the primary focus of the assessment. The test-takers are judged on how adequately they meet the overall language demands of the task.  

Z. Amarsanaa

Title : Internet and Lesson Planning

In this presentation share how I use internet and computer. Some teachers are not aware of using internet explorers and how to use them. Also it is useful to teach them how to download videos, songs and other useful activities.

Josiah (Duke) Harrist

Title : Speaking Structures in Classroom Management

 This workshop aims to equip teachers with tools for better practice and conversation using English in the classroom.  The structures are designed to encourage both fun and spontaneous conversation between students in a foreign langauge, and can be applied to grammar, vocabulary and conversation.  These structures are specifically intended to push students to verbally communicate using their English.

Judy Emerson and Bryant Harden

Title: Ten Technological “Must Have Ideas”for the Classroom!

Z. Buyankhishig

Title : Word Formation

It is important to practice word formation exercises because these kind of exercises are common on university entrance exams and other tests and competitions we take part in.  During this workshop we look at several different real exercises from tests and talk about strategies to complete them successfully.

Carolyn Wedral

Title : Conversation in the Classroom
An activity based on the model of the "Living Library," which stimulates student interaction by giving them a chance to share their personal interests with their classmates. Students take the parts of  "books" and "readers" as in a library. The "books" are students who have interests that they want to share with their classmates and the "readers" are the students who choose a topic for which they want to learn more. The activity is engaging and fun. Will do a demonstration in the workshop.

G. Amarzaya

Presentation Title : Reading Strategies in English Teaching and Learning

Reading dominates most college English curricula, Students learn to understand and interpret written materials. It tends to become central task for the college students. But this type of reading rather complicated to learn. So a great deal of research effort has tried to identify a catalogue of strategies that can improve students’ reading, in other words, using the least effort to obtain satisfactory results. Teacher wants his students to use their time and energy to best effect. Therefore the reading strategies are apt to occupy much of our language teachers’ attention. The strategies to be covered are diverse in the course of teaching.

In the presentation we will consider about some misconceptions in teaching reading, the reasons that makes the reading material difficult, the strategies to deal with the difficulty article and the roles can teachers and learners play in the learning process.

In conclusion, reading ability is the main purpose in college English teaching. What a teacher should do is to make a conscious attempt on his part to equip the students to find out what help them to read so that they can adopt successful strategies for the reading. What we can do is to give students techniques for approaching texts of various kinds, to be used for various purposes. We should also keep in mind the teacher’s role and responsibility. We should not do what students should do and try to avoid providing students with the wrong help.

N. Davaabold

 Workshop Title : Speaking : Apples to Apples

Small group game

2. The judge chooses one green card from the top of the stack and reads the adjective aloud and puts it on the table. 

3. All the other players choose one of their pink noun cards they think best fits the adjective and put it facedown on the table.

4. The judge mixes the pink cards and then turns them over one by one and reads the noun and then chooses the one she thinks best fits the adjective. 

5. The player of the chosen pink gets the green adjective card.

6. The player to the left of the judge becomes the next judge and puts out the next green card. 

7.  Players keep the green cards they win and the player with the most green cards at the end of the game win. 

S. Ankhjargal

Title : Phrasal Verbs

There are four main types of phrasal verb.  Types 1, 2 and 3 can be literal or idiomatic.  Type 4 are nearly always idiomatic.

Type 1 : Verb + particle (no object)

Type 2 : Verb + particle + object (separable)

Type 3 : Verb + particle + object (inseparable)

Type 4 : Verb + particle + particle

We looked at different methods for teaching phrasal verbs to our students.

Phrasal verbs are important because phrasal verbs are the most common verb form in spoken English!

N. Munkhtsetseg and Chuck Emmett

Title : Games

When choosing a game for our students it is vital to PLAN well.  We need to consider the class level, the number of students, timing, the lesson topic, the materials we will need and the goals and objectives.  During this workshop we discuss the reasons for using games and what makes a good game and then we play some example games together.

B. Enkhbaatar

Title : Vocabulary Building

1. -Antonyms, synonyms, homonyms, reading texts, root words, homographs, training books vocabulary, idioms and phrasal verbs

M. Altansuvd

Title : Pronunciation is an essential key to good learning

Language is a code through what people communicate to each other. Once the language is a code, we have to give the code correctly to communicate with others. if we give the code incorrectly, we would never talk to each other and understand one another...

... so pronunciation is a very important thing in learning languages.

D. Oyuntsetseg and D. Ankh-erdene

Title : Vocabulary Building

Let's build our vocabulary using suffixes and prefixes.

Registration

Opening Ceremony

- over 100 people took part in our two day conference!

J. Yanjmaa (Jutmann) welcomed us all to the conference.  She has been the Chancellor of Khovd University since February 2013. She completed her degree in UlaanBaatar at 1st Secondary School. In May 2000, she received double Bachelor’s degrees in Business Administration and Applied Mathematics. Her Master’s of Science degree was awarded in Statistics in 2006 at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology at Daejeon, South Korean. She received her Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) in Applied Mathematics, specializing in Probability Theory from the University of North Carolina, North Carolina, United States. She is married and has three children. yanjmaa@gmail.com

Our key note speaker

B. Undrakh (Balaa) is from Jargalant Soum of Khovd Aimag. She graduated in 1990 from ArkangaiAimag Teacher’s College as a primary school teacher. In 1995, she graduated from Khovd University as a biology-geography teacher. She later studied Politics. She has worked as a primary school teacher, biology teacher, training manager, and school director. In 2013 she became the Director of the Department of Education and Culture of Khovd Aimag.

3 KEY PRINCIPLES

1)  PRACTICAL APPLICATION – information, methods, skills and ideas for a real classroom

2)  INTERACTION –

participation to share experiences and explore new ideas together

3) COMPREHENSIVE ABILITIES – developing all 4 skills in ourselves and our students.

M. Berdigul (Minap) addressed all of the secordary school teachers and gave a presentation about University Entrance Exam results since 2008.  She received her first degree as a Russian language teacher from the Russian Language Teachers’ Institute in Ulaanbaatar in 1989. In 2004, she received her Master’s Degree in Linguistics from the Mongolian National University Branch in Khovd. She has worked as a Russian and English language teacher, an Interpreter/Secretary, a Translator, and is currently the Officer in Charge of Training Technology and Methodology of Foreign Languages. berdgul_2006@yahoo.com

500-аас дээш оноо авсан сургуулиуд 2012

Дуут                              666

Прогресс                       596

Дарви                            593

Зэрэг                              583

Мөнххайрхан                566

Алтай                             536

Цаст алтай                    536

Жаргалант -1                523

Булган-1                         516

Манхан                           503

Буянт                              500

We, teachers, used to always concentrate on teaching our students grammar, vocabulary and a little reading so that they could pass their graduation and University Entrance Exams - but nowadays we must encourage them to master all four language skills - reading, writing, speaking and listening - to enable them to use their English in the real world.

Getting to know each other

Coffee break!

Hovd university provided our coffee break drinks and snacks!

Lunch time!

Closing Ceremony

A big THANK YOU to all our presenters. 

You helped make this conference a great success!