Eleanora Menglieva
Eleanora Menglieva created a platform where teachers could help each other and share their experiences and knowledge.
The idea for a knowledge-sharing platform was born after Eleanora Menglieva studied in the UK with the help of the British Council. In 2018, she was awarded the prestigious Hornby Educational Trust grant and enrolled in a Master's programme at the University of Warwick in Coventry.
Menglieva wrote her Master’s dissertation on the topic, “Formative assessment in the universities of Uzbekistan: views and perceptions of English teachers”. Studying algorithms for teaching and assessing English in Uzbekistan, she concluded that Uzbek teachers are generally aware of a variety of approaches to student evaluation but rarely use them in practice. Instead, the primary method continues to be summative assessment, which is not focused on the learning process itself and does not inform about teachers’ techniques and curricula.
“Unfortunately, many teachers prefer summative assessments; that is, they give a grade of 5 or 4 at the end of the semester or give points,” says Menglieva. “At the same time, the very process of studying students' English during the semester means their focus is on learning, and current success is not considered at all.” She says that assessments are based on exam results, but that anxiety around exams can cause problems for otherwise capable students.
As a result, Menglieva began considering how to enable educators to use alternative assessment methods. In January 2020, this goal was realised in a real training programme within the established Network of Researchers of English Language Teachers in Uzbekistan (NETRUZ). The project is supported by the British Council and the Hornby Trust.
The project consists of an online platform and free training sessions, with participants ranging from university lecturers and schoolteachers to those who conduct training courses or teach English to preschoolers. Because of the wide range of participants, an essential part of the project is creating a network of mentors, who then relay their experiences and best practices to others within NETRUZ.
Menglieva believes that assessment should not be used to determine a student's grade but rather it is a means of advancing both students and teachers.
“For me as an educator, a process where students work and submit their projects together is most valuable because it prepares them for the real world, where they also have to work on projects as a team,” she says. “Alternative assessment methods are necessary to better prepare graduates for reality.”
One such alternative method is self-assessment, where the student evaluates their own work. Perhaps surprisingly, students often approach self-assessment even more critically than a teacher. The assessment then ceases to be a method of punishment or encouragement and instead becomes a way of knowing and understanding the goals and teacher’s expectations when assigning a task.
The NETRUZ platform gives teachers the opportunity to improve a number of key skills, including alternative assessment methods, materials development, and research in the classroom, as well as sharing their own best practices.
The research that Menglieva conducted while she was studying at the University of Warwick was the foundation for the initiative, with grant support from the British Council and the Hornby Trust being critical to making that possible. She also had the chance to work with the British Council before then, while studying at the Uzbek State University of World Languages from 2008 to 2012. During that time, she took part in joint seminars organised by the university and the British Council.
In 2016, she began work at the Head Scientific and Methodological Center organising training of pedagogical and management personnel in the higher education system under the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education of Uzbekistan. During that time, she was an assistant to the national project coordinator in a British Council IMEP project called ‘Internationalization and modernization of educational processes in the system of higher education in Uzbekistan’.
It was her commitment to learning new things that led Menglieva to her opportunity with the Hornby grant and on to further research, a Master's degree and now her own project, which she hopes will support other teachers to develop the same curious, caring and open-minded teaching methods that she believes in.
“The support of the British Council and the opportunities to participate in a number of its exciting projects over the years has had a significant impact on my life and professional development,” she says. “Now I’m working to convey what I managed to teach myself to other colleagues and I am glad that it is already happening with a team of like-minded people!”