SIT Graduate Institute

Teachers from Around the World

by Heather Beard | December 21st, 2011

by Ian Hefele

In this post, I profile Badar Al Shahiri, who teaches Arabic for SIT Graduate Institute’s Language and Culture department. (Earlier this fall, I profiled Beatriz (Bea) Fantini, the director of the department.

Al Shahiri is from Salalah, Oman. Before coming to the US, Al Shahiri received his BA in English Literature and continued studying for a fifth year to earn his teaching diploma. Now, Al Shari is enrolled in SIT’s MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program and teaches Beginners Arabic 1 and Intermediate Arab 2 at SIT.

Al Shahiri has been a teacher since 2007 in and around Salalah, and he learned about SIT through his teaching supervisor in Oman who knew about SIT from the ministry of education at the US Embassy.

While working in Oman, Al Shari applied for a Fulbright Scholarship. He said, “I never believed I would win the scholarship,” but fortunately, he did. Al Shahiri described the application and acceptance process as “long but soon enough, I had a proposal from SIT sent to Oman and I accepted it.” He told me, “For me, SIT is a perfect job. It offers such variety of international experience and is set in such a beautiful part of the country!”

Al Shahiri will be at SIT in Vermont until May 2012 teaching Arabic. When he completes his studies at SIT, said he said, “I look forward to using the valuable techniques I’m learning at SIT. However, I will greatly miss all of the students and staff I have befriended, so far.”

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Return to Fukushima

by Heather Beard | November 15th, 2011

by Amy Cameron

In 1997, I studied in Australia with SIT Study Abroad, and I knew it was the beginning of a lifetime of travels. I loved immersing myself in a new culture and learning through experience. After college, I looked for opportunities to live and work overseas, so I applied for The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program, which matches native English speakers with public schools in Japan. Soon, I would spend two amazing years of my life on the other side of the world, which led to further involvement with SIT – leading an Experiment in International Living (EIL) trip for high school students to Japan in 2002, and completing my SIT MA in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) degree from in 2003. My years in Japan were spent in a rural prefecture north of Tokyo, which at the time most people had never heard of, Fukushima.

Amy Cameron with her former JET Program supervisor

Fast forward to March 11, 2011 in Boston, Massachusetts. That morning, I woke to the sound of text message notifications from my cell phone. Kristin, a friend who had also lived in Fukushima, texted “bad earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima!! :’( very bad!!” In the days that followed, I scrambled to contact friends in and around Nihonmatsu City, my Japanese hometown. Manami, a fellow MAT 34 student at SIT now living in Tokyo, helped to contact my former supervisor and “Japanese Papa” Mr. Tanji. He cried on the phone when he heard that I was thinking of him. The earthquake had not destroyed much in Nihonmatsu, he reported, and they were far enough from the epicenter to be safe from the tsunami. However, as events unfolded, it became clear that radiation from the Daiichi nuclear plant on the coast was becoming a danger. For weeks I alternated between being glued to media reports and trying to avoid them altogether because they were so horrifying. I ached to visit. Gradually, the news slowed.

Then in June, the Japanese government announced a special invitational program for former JET participants who had lived in the affected Tohoku region to return for one week. I applied immediately and was accepted.

My return to Fukushima was incredible. On one hand, I had the amazing experience of stepping back into my former life. I visited schools, team-taught once again in the classroom, and participated in karate class. I caught up with old friends, and it was as if time had not passed at all. And yet, there were constant reminders that so much had changed. There were tumbled gravestones and roofs covered in tarps from earthquake damage, rows and rows of temporary housing units set up for evacuees, daily radiation level reports and children wearing dosimeters. On the coast, there were vast stretches with nothing left by the tsunami but foundations, and fields with large boats scattered about. There was a radiation “hot spot” in the mountains, now a deserted ghost town.

The future is still uncertain for the people of Nihonmatsu, and all of Fukushima. Earthquakes still strike a couple times a week, the economic outlook is grim, and the long-term impact of radiation is still unknown. And yet, somehow, life in the region goes on. My 76-year old conversation partner in Nihonmatsu put it this way,: “Japanese people have survived so many things. We will survive this, too. This is what it means to be human.”

Read more about Amy’s return to Fukushima on her blog here.

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Join us in congratulating the 2011 recipients of the professor emeritus title: professors Beatriz (Bea) Fantini, Claire Halverson, and Patrick (Pat) Moran.

by Heather Beard | October 24th, 2011

Having met the criteria set forth in the SIT Graduate faculty handbook, they were conferred the rank of professor emeritus/a by the World Learning Board of Trustees earlier this year following their nomination by the SIT provost.

We invite you to share your memories and experiences working with and learning from them below.

Collectively, these faculty have devoted more than 100 years of service to the organization. They have made numerous contributions to the curriculum, intellectual capital of the institution, their academic fields, and the organization’s global impact and mission.

Bea Fantini

Bea Fantini
Professor Fantini began working with the Experiment in International Living in 1966 and has been involved in almost every aspect of the institution in the 45 years since, including most significantly, the Experiment, the Master of Arts in Teaching program, and SIT Study Abroad. She has been the director of the Language and Culture Department for more than 20 years.

Fantini has brought visibility to SIT, particularly through her work in developing teaching guides for African and Asian languages and her ability to empower teachers to be creative and trust their own abilities as teachers of their native languages. Fantini has assumed the role of advisor to the president and provides the historical view on our values and traditions. In 2004, she received the World Learning Presidential Medal. Her work has included numerous outside consultancies for the Peace Corps.

Pat Moran

Pat Moran
Professor Moran has made tremendous contributions to both the Master of Arts in Teaching program and Graduate Institute at large throughout his 34 years of service. He has created and updated curriculum, taught multiple courses in different MA in Teaching programs, and participated in reshaping the program as prompted by need and innovation. He has published widely and has presented worldwide on the topic of training teachers and cultural experiences in the classroom.

Moran’s pursuits have included Peace Corps training, global activism, and national and international presentations on teacher training and cross-cultural experience. His work has provided an enriching and dynamic classroom setting for his students. He is considered one of the cornerstones of SIT’s Master of Arts in Teaching program.

Claire Halverson

Claire Halverson
Professor Halverson came to SIT in 1985 and has made significant contributions to SIT’s educational mission and programs. Her accomplishments include the initiation of core courses in the SIT curriculum; helping to frame faculty/administrative participation in the governance of SIT (she served as the first chair of the Faculty Assembly); and initiating the SIT Diversity Committee in the late 1990s. Her work with the Diversity Committee to build templates for diversity goals, objectives, and methods of evaluation raised cultural understanding for the campus as a whole and earned her World Learning’s first Diversity Award.

She is well known for her work at the intersection of human and organizational development and social justice education and for her consulting in the areas of teambuilding, diversity, training of trainers, organizational assessment, and leadership management.

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Sandonana Conference Honors Perspective of ‘Elders’

by Heather Beard | September 8th, 2011

By Jessmaya Morales

 From thousands of feet above the West coast, I reflect on our recent Sandanona Conference at SIT Graduate Institute.  By “we” I mean the 29th class of the Summer Master’s in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) graduate students. Over the course of the summer, we planned a conference together.

While, traditionally, a conference has a keynote (or two), and perhaps a few plenary speakers, in addition to workshops; our class decided we’d like to do something that both reflected us as a group, and honored the fact that many of the people who’d been foundational members of the faculty for the MA in TESOL program would be in Brattleboro over the summer.  We would take some of the essential ingredients of our program and really embody them in our conference: experiential learning, group process, and culture.

We opened the conference with a performance of sorts, each of us entering the crowded auditorium with suitcases and bags, greeting each other and our guests in different languages as we made our way to various places in the room, in which everyone was seated in a circle.  Beginning and ending with a song, each of us shared a few words of welcome and inspiration with our attendees, and then asked everyone to envision what they’d like to take away from our conference.

After the opening, we began our workshops.  The topics were varied and engaging, and each of us brought something totally different. Attending our workshops were current Summer MA in TESOL students, professors, community members, friends, and family.

The highlight of the conference was our diwaniya, a departure from the traditional conference keynote.  It was a gathering we held in which chairs were arranged in a circle, and we asked our SIT ‘elders’ to come and talk about their experiences at SIT, their visions for the future of TESOL, and what they hoped we would take away from our experiences at SIT.   With humor, candor, and thoughtfulness, all of the 13 ‘elders’ in attendance spoke to us and told their stories.

Some of them are published and renowned authors in the TESOL field; others have been key stakeholders and pioneers in the field.  All of them have been co-creators of a master’s program that is world renowned for its perspectives and approaches to teaching and learning language.  What distinguishes this group typifies why teachers don’t get a lot of attention in the press: it is not the long list of famous people they’ve met with, nor their relation to world politics at the macro level.  Instead, they are distinguished by years of work and inquiry in the field, and their unflagging dedication to thinking critically about the micro-politics and dynamics of the classroom, the role of culture in language teaching and learning, and the day-to-day practice of building an incredible program that sends thoughtful, skilled, and reflective teachers out into the world to do amazing work.

Our cohort was excited to bring all of these key people together for a conversation in a manner that has never really happened before. 

Toward the end of the meeting, Leslie Turpin quoted Myles Horton, founder of the Highlander School in the late 1960s, and encouraged us to remember the idea that he expressed when authorities wanted to close the Highlander School down, something to the effect of, ‘you can’t close this school, because this school is not a building, it’s people.’  Leslie encouraged us to take with us the experience of working in relationship to each other, and the legacy our program has created for groups of people working together over many years. 

As I travel at high speeds through cloud clusters over the lakes and peaks and valleys of the Cascade mountain range, I reflect on what I had in my ‘suitcase’ as I came into the Summer MA in TESOL program at SIT.  Gone are the values of individual performance, competitive learning, and traditional testing and assessment I came with.  Upon leaving SIT, I’ve re-packed my suitcase with what I see as the truly revolutionary tools of a teacher.  I’ve got the principals of collaborative group process; the experiential learning cycle; active listening and reflection; and the knowledge that my strength and success as a teacher is dependent upon how I relate to my students, my colleagues, and my cultural context.  I also have the contact information for an extraordinary group of teachers who have done or will do the kind of revolutionary work that changes lives, however quietly at first, and lay groundwork for the networks that change the world.

This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes of Arundhati Roy’s: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

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“Education for Regeneration” – SIT Alumnus Launches School Focused on Environmental and Social Change

by Heather Beard | July 14th, 2011

Matthew Abrams (PIM 69), an alumnus of SIT’s MA in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management degree program, recently founded The Mycelium School, set to break ground outside of Asheville, North Carolina in 2012. The project was recently profiled in The Christian Science Monitor.

The school invites 18-30 year old students to gain an interdisciplinary education based on ecological principles, localization, and social innovation.

Mycelium is the root structure of a mushroom that network with other mycelia to share information and nutrients that support the health of the host ecosystem. The Mycelium School’s educational philosophy is for students to come together and give to their environment and each other, while growing personally and learning skills for the 21st century. The curriculum will be driven by hands-on service-learning projects and a focus on social entrepreneurship.

Initially, Abram expects to have 40 percent international students and by year five, 65 percent.

Abrams asserts that “One of the core tenants of The Mycelium School is that those who are connected to the cultures, challenges and needs of a place are best equipped to become authentic leaders who will discover opportunities and innovate solutions. To foster sustained and regenerative change, we cannot maintain the current co-dependent paradigm of so-called international aid.”

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SIT Alumna Challenges Merits of “Green” Consumption in Forthcoming Book

by Heather Beard | July 1st, 2011

SIT alum Kendra Pierre-Louis (PIM 67) recently finished Green Washed: Why We Can’t Buy Our Way to a Green Planet, scheduled to be released in March 2012 by Ig Publishing. Pierre-Louis is an alumna of SIT’s MA in Sustainable Development program.

Green Washed argues that buying environmentally-friendly products is only one step toward sustainability.

Pierre-Louis writes, “The message that our environment is in peril has filtered from environmental groups to the American consciousness to our shopping carts. Every day, millions of Americans dutifully replace conventional produce with organic, swap Mr. Clean for Seventh Generation, and replace their bottled water with water bottles. Many of us have come to believe that the path to environmental sustainability is paved by shopping green. Although this green consumer movement certainly has many Americans consuming differently, I ask, ‘Is this consumption really any better for the planet?’”

The book examines the greening of our society’s major economic sectors, including infrastructure, consumer goods, food, and energy, to see if they’re ushering in true sustainability or simply assuaging our collective eco-guilt without bringing about the ecological changes that we  need.

Pierre-Louis has worked as a sustainable development editor for Justmeans.com created outreach material for the United Nations Environment Programme’s Convention on Biological Diversity and conducted research for Terrapin Bright Green, an environmental consulting and strategic planning firm.

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SIT Students Organize Successful TEDx Community Event

by Heather Beard | May 20th, 2011

SIT graduate students at TEDxSIT

SIT graduate students recently created and hosted TEDxSIT, the first successful community-run event of its kind in the Brattleboro area, in partnership with SIT faculty, alumni, and 20 community partners and sponsors. Hundreds of people attended the event on May 8, 2011. 

TED (short for technology, education, and design) created a program called TEDx, local, self-organized events where video and live speakers are combined to spark discussion and connection in a small group. SIT graduate students used this format to develop TEDxSIT.

Themed “From Ideas to Action”, Event Director Ria Shroff, a candidate for SIT’s MA in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management degree, explained that the event’s fundamental goal was “to provide a platform where thinkers and visionaries of the Brattleboro community would be inspired and have the opportunity to inspire others.”

Event speakers were: Pedro Ultreras, a 3-time Emmy nominated news reporter for the Spanish television media; Dr. Elke Rechberger, a licensed clinical psychologist and the founder and CEO of Visionary Development Team, Inc.; Tom Grasso, senior advisor with the Environmental Defense Fund; Tatsushi (Tats) Arai, PhD, SIT Associate Professor of Conflict Transformation; Sam Stevens, senior at Brattleboro Union High School; Jo Salas, co-founder of Playback Theatre; Cheryl Eaton, partner and director of strategy at Kelliher Samets Volk.

Artists who performed at the event included: Victoria Vox, singer songwriter; Carl Russell, a candidate for SIT’s MA in Conflict Transformation degree, musician, and educator; Derrik Jordan, recording artist, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist; Hugh Keelan, conductor of the Windham Orchestra; Anthony Trio, a Brattleboro School of Dance troupe; and John Ungerleider, PhD, SIT Professor of Conflict Transformation and musician. Two SIT student performance groups, Spoken Word and Social Movement, also lent their creative talents to the event.

In addition to Shroff, TEDxSIT was organized by the following SIT graduate students: Erin Peot, Marketing/PR Manager; Jason Schlatter, PR/Marketing Manager; Kirstin French, Logistics and Day of Event Coordinator;  Michael “Cabbie” Caban, Technology Committee; Sarah Davitt, Fundraising Committee; Joslin Roderick, Performance Committee; and other student volunteers.

“It was rewarding to connect with SIT faculty and staff at the event,” according to Schlatter. “I think the faculty who attended truly saw us as professionals. One professor told me that it was the proudest day of his life, seeing how, we, as students pulled the community together and led the event.” Schlatter is a candidate for SIT’s MA in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management degree.

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Upcoming Professional Development Opportunity

by Heather Beard | April 28th, 2011

Acquire new tools, knowledge, and training to work more effectively with English language learners by completing a professional development course this June at SIT’s campus in Brattleboro, VT. (Exact dates: June 13 – 17.)

Complete 1 or 2 courses in June while working toward a certificate. Did you know you can obtain a certificate of Teacher Trainer Development after successfully completing six courses through SIT’s Teacher Training and Professional Development Institute, including courses offered online at other times of the year? Courses award 1.5 continuing education units each.

This spring’s offerings include courses to help teachers:

  • Navigate cultural contexts
  • Integrate peace education and conflict resolution into the English language classroom
  • Utilize technology to facilitate language learning more effectively
  • Successfully communicate across cultures

Click here for the complete listing of course offerings.

Space is limited – submit your application now!  Housing is available.

SIT’s Teacher Training and Professional Development Institute provides professional development courses and workshops, which focus on a variety of topics pertinent to language teachers and others working in intercultural contexts. 

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Straying into Discovery

by Heather Beard | April 21st, 2011

“All learning begins with awareness,” said Caleb Gattegno.  How can a professional create awareness for themselves?  How can it be sustained?  After all, the professional’s goal is not only making performance fruitful, but also doing so over time.  Creating awareness for one’s self in thoughtful, conscious ways can lead to enhanced performance, regardless of one’s chosen field. 

Angela Richardson, a current student in SIT’s MA in TESOL, describes the process she recently used with her SIT supervisor, Kevin Giddens, during a period of observation.

- Marshall Brewer, SIT Graduate Admissions Counselor

Angela Richardson

Straying into Discovery

by Angela Richardson

Why are you doing what you’re doing? 

Why is it important? 

What would happen if you didn’t do it? 

What could you do instead?

These were the driving questions posed to me by my SIT supervisor, Kevin Giddens, during our most recent meeting. 

Since Kevin’s visit I’ve been asking myself these questions regularly in my teaching practice and I’ve already noticed a significant improvement in my ability to optimally utilize class time and keep students engaged and on-task throughout the lesson. 

Kevin has recently been embracing the concept of “do-nothing teaching”.

Before his visit, Kevin asked me what was happening in my classroom and what I’d like him to focus on during his observation.  Making optimal use of class time is something I was struggling with and wanted his help with.  On the day of his visit he sat quietly at the back of the class, taking notes.  After class, we went to a restaurant, where he asked me to think about what went well and what didn’t go well.  This was something I already practiced regularly, so I was ready to answer. 

As I talked, he listened intently and asked me the questions above.  Although these were things I’ve thought about on my own, it was quite a different experience to outwardly reflect on my reasoning with another person. I was particularly affected by the question, “What would happen if you didn’t do it or if you did something different?”  Through Kevin’s questions I realized there were a number of things I was doing in class that weren’t really necessary.  I could exclude them, making time for more meaningful tasks!  There it was:  optimal use of class time!  I was grateful for this new awareness.    

Then, Kevin asked me to read his observation notes. Expecting to see comments about my teaching – as I was always given in my CELTA courses – I was surprised that he had written down only what he observed me and my students doing.  At first I was hesitant, because I wanted feedback.  I already knew what had happened in the class, but reading through his notes sparked a good discussion.  It was like having a second pair of completely non-judgmental eyes.   I could use Kevin’s notes to gather data and enhance my reflective observation.  Sometimes it’s difficult to separate the reflective observation stage from the interpretation stage of the experiential learning cycle, but looking solely at the facts of what happened in my classes and talking about why they happened was helpful. 

By the end of our session I appreciated that I had been given the opportunity to talk about my supervisor’s observations, rather than have him dictate the agenda.  Although I had written him a pre-observation plan beforehand, by letting go of the plan and instead exploring the important issues that came up for me the day of my observation, I was able to reach a deeper understanding of myself as a teacher. 

Seeing how helpful Kevin’s “do-nothing teaching” approach was for me has inspired me to attempt it in my own teaching.  Although I don’t usually like straying too far from my lesson plans, I’m starting to observe my students more closely.  I try to identify do-nothing teaching moments and take advantage of them. 

For example, last week my students worked on yes/no questions.  I had planned an activity where they were guided to formulate yes/no questions given the answers, but they weren’t engaging as I had hoped.  One student (out of boredom, I suppose) asked me random questions.  Interested to know about their teacher, other students started asking me questions, too.  Soon enough, the class was engaged in asking me questions, intently trying to figure out who my boyfriend was (he is also a teacher at my school). 

Seeing that they were much more engaged in this interaction, I decided to drop the original activity and allow this one to continue.  I followed this by having pairs of students ask and answer questions about each other.  The activity became much more meaningful and the students were learning and practicing the language structure without even realizing it! It felt great to see the students so engaged in what they were learning, and I’m looking forward to having more experiences like this.

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Ray Clark: An Educational Legacy

by Heather Beard | April 4th, 2011

Ray Clark then...

Ray Clark has taught English to Speakers of Other Languages for over 40 years. Ray worked as a faculty member at SIT Graduate Institute for over 30 years. He also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria in the late 1960s and worked as a teacher trainer for Peace Corps training programs for Iran, India, and Korea, as an ESL teacher, as the Director of SIT’s intensive English program, as a faculty member and director of the Master of Arts in Teaching Program, and as teacher-Director of ESP programs in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Istanbul, Turkey.

Although now retired from full-time teaching, Ray still teaches English linguistics part-time in SIT’s MA in TESOL for Practicing Teachers of English (Summer Program). He is also senior editor and marketing and exhibition coordinator for Pro Lingua, a publishing company in Brattleboro, Vermont, which produces language teaching materials.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Ray about his impressive career and his recent experience teaching English to a group of health professionals from Equatorial Guinea at SIT.

Q: Tell me about your first experience teaching English at SIT.

A:  In the late 1960s, many Latin American students came to SIT to learn English. They were awarded scholarships to attend various U.S. universities because at that time only affluent people in Latin America learned English. Even then, SIT had a commitment to serving students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.

After my first year at SIT, I decided to look for an MA in TESOL degree. There were only a few such programs in the U.S.

Q: Did you attend SIT’s MA in TESOL program?

A.   No, although SIT has an international reputation as one of the oldest successful MA in TESOL programs, it began in 1969, two years after I finished my MA degree at Brown University.

Q: Since then, you became involved with SIT’s MA in TESOL program, didn’t you?

A.   That’s right. I was involved with the program in its first two years and again after 1978. I returned to the MA in TESOL faculty from 1991 until 1998. I continue to work part-time for SIT.

Q: What has changed between then and now?

A: When I first started teaching, there was a focus on learning English by memorization. Now, students are more encouraged to learn by doing and experiencing language within a social context.

Technological changes have also affected ESL teaching and learning. On one hand, online distance learning has allowed more people to study. On the other hand, I believe you must learn with other people. Language is social, and it can be difficult to hear slight tonal inflections and gestures via the Internet, even with video chat.

Q: Tell me about your recent experience teaching the group of Equatorial Guinean students at SIT.

A: I taught a group of 8 health professionals from Equatorial Guinea in SIT’s intensive language programs in January. The students were selected to participate in a nine-month specialized training program in malariology. I really enjoyed working with this group. They were motivated to learn and had a wonderful rapport with each other. They also had a great sense of humor. 

Heather Beard is an Admissions Counselor for the SIT Graduate Institute.

...and Now

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