BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

BRUNEI Darussalam continues to help enhance English language institutional capacity in the Southeast Asian region under the English as a Foreign Language Fellows Exchange Programme.

Another batch comprising three fellows left the Sultanate yesterday to begin their 10-month assignment and are scheduled to return home in August 2015.

A statement issued by Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) said that Mashuriana Hj Mahali has been assigned to Universitas Airlangga in Surabaya, Indonesia, Hjh Seri Suraziah Hj Sulaiman to National Institute of Education in Cambodia, and Mohd Shahrolnizam Hj Mohd Yakub to Yangon University of Education which was previously known as Yangon Institute of Education in Myanmar.

In early October, their colleague under the third batch of the Fellowship Programme, Abdul Rahim Hj Hamzah, an education officer teaching in Sultan Sharif Ali Secondary School in Brunei-Muara District, was deployed to teach English at Bac Lieu University in Vietnam.

The statement said two other fellows who will leave for their assignments in January 2015 are Nora Hj Mohamad Salleh, who will be going to Suan Dusit and Suan Sunandha Rajabhat Universities in Thailand and Asmalhedayat Hj Abd Samad, who will be going to the Institute of Foreign Affairs in Laos.

The English as a Foreign Language Fellows Exchange Programme is one of several initiatives under the Brunei-US English Language Enrichment Project for ASEAN.

In this programme, Fellows from both Brunei and the United States will undergo a 10-month placement in one of six Associations of Southeast Asian (ASEAN) countries to help strengthen cohesion among the concerned countries by helping to enhance English language institutional capacity in the region.

The assignments are mainly teaching at a university.

However, this may also include stints at government ministries, non-governmental organisations, teacher training centres and schools.

“Through their service in the programme, the fellows will contribute to intercultural understanding in ways that reach far beyond improving the English teaching capacity of the institutions where they are placed,” the statement said.

In addition to their official teaching responsibilities and teacher development activities, Fellows create opportunities for English language conversation and cross-cultural dialogue, it added.

Since January 2013, 11 English Language Fellows have been successfully deployed to their countries of assignment.

Only five were sent in the first year but as of the second year onwards, Myanmar has been included in the list as the sixth country.

Upon their return to Brunei, these Fellows are expected to give back to the community by organising and conducting a series of workshops for other English teachers in Brunei as a way of sharing their experiences, as well as to cascade down the knowledge, skills, and expertise they have acquired during their 10-month stint as a Fellow.

The successful candidate is expected to initiate workshops at least three times within 12 months after coming back.

This workshop acts as a platform for the Fellows to share their invaluable experience and knowledge with their colleagues and the community at large.

This Project entails close working collaboration with other government ministries as well as organisations in Brunei, the nine other ASEAN countries, as well as the United States.

The Brunei Times