English language education for students in mongolia

heimori

Written by Ch.Sumiyabazar

Tuesday, March 22, 2005.

The government of Mongolia has emphasized the importance of English language education for students, and last year, made English the official second language of the nation. Schools throughout Mongolia now offer English language classes from fourth or fifth grade. However, there are significant challenges that many schools in the country face due to lack of resources and qualified teachers. Apart from the official English textbooks, schools or individual teachers are responsible for buying or making all other materials used by their classes. Especially in the countryside, teachers have very little opportunity to expand their curriculums or introduce extra materials to their lessons. The UB Post, Mongolia’s only independent English language newspaper, has published the weekly news since 1996. With an experienced staff of journalists and several foreign, native English speaking Employees and volunteers, the Post is uniquely positioned to help bridge the resource gap in the English language classroom. Newspapers are inherently connected to education, helping to improve reading, grammar, writing, and vocabulary as well as exposing readers to wider issues in their community and world. Several successful newspapers in education projects have been implemented around the world with successful results. For these reasons, the UB Post is planning to make 2006 the first year of our ‘Newspaper in Education’ project. The project’s goal is simply to help English teachers improve the quality and substance of English education by providing a regular resource with methodological information, materials for teachers such as lesson plans, and ready made activities for students that can be photocopied locally at schools. In the first year, the UB Post will seek funding from a partner organization to implement a pilot project in 12 schools both in UB and nearby countryside schools. Based on the results of this pilot, the project will expand widely to include schools across Mongolia.

http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=37&Itemid=88888937