On a more positive note

Here's a description I just received from the regional office of my program. It gives a little glimpse at what kinds of things I'll be doing next year, and it also helped me feel a lot more positive and optimistic in relation to this assignment.

On March 29-30, 2008, approximately 75 high school and university teachers of English from West Kalimantan participated in a conference on Communicative Language Teaching with the theme, “Teaching English outside the Box.” The event, which was hosted by the Muhammadiyah I High School and the Pontianak Politechnical University, was organized by Fulbright English Teaching Assistant John Zanetti (SMA Muhammadiyah I) and English Language Fellow Susannah Schoff (IAIN Antasari, Banjarmasin), who also led workshops on pair and group work and additional practical teaching techniques. Five other English Language Fellows, including Jeffrey Kealing, Ellen Barrett, Kendra Staley, Anthony Zak, and Alexander Anania, conducted workshops on communicative language teaching topics, such as creating interactive lessons based on student interests, integrating local culture and myths in the classroom, giving feedback to language learners, using newspapers in the classroom, and creating lessons from popular music. The event was supported by funding from the English Language Fellows Program and RELO.
Significance: The collaboration between the English Language Fellows and the Fulbright English Teaching Assistants has significantly helped Indonesian teachers in remote areas gain awareness of current trends in English language teaching, learn more effective ways to teach English to large classes with limited resources, and increase their students’ motivation to learn.