NETRUZ Champion Teacher: Janar Abuova

My name is Janar Abuova. I have been working as a teacher for 12 years. I am a holder of CELTA and TEFL certificates and MA TESOL graduate from Webster University. Additionally, I have finished the CLIL program by NILE teacher training course and OPEN Teacher Training program provided by US embassy. Currently, I am a Senior Lecturer of English at Yeoju Technical Institute in Tashkent. While working at the institute I was one of the founders of the double degree program for Content and Language teachers in Uzb
ekistan. This program is considered unique for Central Asia and focuses on Educating Future Content and Language teachers in Uzbekistan. After launching English Education faculty, I worked as curriculum developer and syllabus designer. Simultaneously, I work as a material designer for the IT park.

My research interests for NETRUZ project.

As a teacher and a researcher, I am interested in investigating methods that could be beneficial for teaching low-level students in higher education, so they could pass their exams without failing. My topic was devoted to teaching academic writing for low level students by implementing a genre approach. I explored the real level of students and how it corresponds with the syllabus of the subject. I investigated students’ perceptions, expectations, needs and hopes for my classes. Also, I observed my colleagues’ lessons with the same group and listened to their comments regarding their observation of my class. Based on this, I implemented new actions to change the way of teaching and tried a genre approach in writing. The research showed that a genre approach is a successful method for low level students while teaching writing. The main reason is that while teaching you are giving input of all necessary elements of writing that is specific for that genre and learner can easily produce efficient amount of writing by integrating writing for learning into the Academic English.

Reflection on training and exploratory action research

At the beginning I was not really sure, what was the project for and how it could be helpful for me. However, after observing their input sessions and having a couple of meetings with my mentor I could clearly see the reason of the project. It teaches simple teachers to explore even the smallest pitfalls of the class and turn it into the benefits. I personally learned that even global problem and difficult situation could be solved if it is correctly investigated and the reason of the failure is properly treated. Therefore, action research can be key of success for the teachers of remote areas with lack of resources or other difficulties as it enhances critical thinking and makes teachers act in order to have productive classes.