TCLP Alumni Shine in Spotlight

This year TCLP has launched an exciting new feature for alumni to share their accomplishments since their time in the United States. The Alumni Spotlight shares the achievements of TCLP cohorts throughout the history of the program. Enthusiastic alumni across the years and spanning China, Egypt, and worldwide have contributed to the highlights. Below please find the first installment of the Alumni Spotlight for the TCLP Alumni Newsletter.

Please continue to share your updates with your cohort leaders and stay in contact with TCLP via email or social media. TCLP looks forward to continuing to share the outstanding accomplishments of alumni through the newsletter, website, and social media channels.

China 2008–2009 Alumni Cohort:
• Wang Haimin, now working as group leader of the third grade teachers of English, received an award for Excellent Teacher of the Year for her city.
• Yu Meihong, Director of Teachers of English in her school, was also awarded at the end of year for her excellent work.
• Cohort Leader Cai Yifan, teacher of English in Jilin University High School, is now employed as host teacher of a special office which aims at training excellent teachers for the city. In his workshops, there are 50 members, all of whom are from different high schools.
• Su Li is working in Canada as a teacher of Chinese and is still in touch with many colleagues from her TCLP experience.
• Qin Xionbin is now director of the International Department of his school in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province. He has sent hundreds of students to learn in universities in the USA and Canada.
• Other TCLP alumni from 2008-2009 are now group leaders or school leaders and participate in workshops or conferences throughout the country. They share with their colleagues the best practices they learned during their TCLP experience.

Egypt 2009-2010 Alumni Cohort:
• Cohort Leader Bishoy Demian has been promoted at his school. He is the head of the English department and supervises all the elementary and the middle school teachers. He teaches at the international department. He believes the experience he gained from TCLP has helped him in his current work.
• Samir Gibrial has since worked for the University of Delaware and as a teacher of Arabic at Caesar Rodney High School in Camden, Delaware. You can learn more about his classes and Arabic culture club in the following article: http://doverpost.com/article/20150319/NEWS/150319819.
• Khaled Kenawy has been promoted in his school district. He is currently an English supervisor. He supervises ESL teachers in his school district in Alexandria.
• Hossam Sarhan has also received a promotion from his school, where he supervises a group of teachers.
• Moustafa El Besoumi was also promoted at his school. He has worked recently as an ESL teacher in an international school in Malaysia.
• Mohamed El Naggar also received a promotion in his school district and now he works in the training unit of his district.

China 2009-2010 Alumni Cohort:
• Cohort Leader Sun Liang believes TCLP has enriched her professional career. She often has told other colleagues “without participating in TCLP, I could never be what I am now.” She has been a presenter in a wide variety of local and provincial teachers’ orientations in China and she includes all the teaching methods she learned while on TCLP in her presentations.
• Xiang Mei is now in Denver, Colorado and has recently helped at a Chinese New Year celebration. She taught participants how to draw a panda bear with ink and brush.
• Wang Jianfu, along with 42 high school students, recently went to Canada for a winter camp and spent 16 days there.
• Gong Honglin has been admitted to Xianmen University and will pursue a master’s degree for interpreters.
• Zhu Shunmei took some of his students to Seattle to participate in the Chinese Language and Talent Competition.
• Zhang Hong has helped to bring in SACE courses to her school, which makes her school, Zhengzhou 47 Middle school, become the only school to have Australian courses in her region.

Egypt 2010-2011 Alumni Cohort:
• Cohort Leader Ez Eldin Salem, is currently teaching in Saudi Arabia, and is utilizing the methodology he acquired from TCLP in his classes. He has also been teaching Arabic online to his host school Plymouth High School. Additionally, He has written a book for non-Arabic speakers to teach and learn Arabic titled Ostazi: Learn Arabic Effectively. Some U.S. schools are using it as a basic Arabic curriculum for their students.
• Ezzat Gadelmola was chosen as the principal of Bani Mazar Official Distinguished Language School. At the school he started iPadification, an effort to use iPads in the classroom. Under his support and leadership the school musical chorus has come in first place all over Egypt too. He has since been chosen to be the School Deputy of Aloruba International Schools.

China 2010-2011 Alumni Cohort :
• Pan Jiling continued to collaborate with her host school principal Alyson Geary at Hopkinton High School, Massachusetts. In 2013, Ms. Geary, together with 27 students and two other teachers from Hopkinton went to visit Pan’s school Pingxian High School in Pingxiang, Jiangxi, China. In 2016, Joshua Hanna, Assistant principal at Hopkinton, together with 41 students and five other teachers visited Pingxian in April and signed an agreement of cooperation between the two schools. After signing the Sister School agreement, the two schools will develop links, increase mutual understanding between the two schools and share academic resources with each other to strengthen relationships, cultural understanding and appreciation between peoples in China and the U.S. They will also maintain short-term teacher exchange programs and provide the opportunity to study and live in the sister school community if host families and educational opportunities are available.
• Zhu Qingpeng welcomed a group of New Zealand students led by John Hodgson, President of the New Zealand China Friendship Society, to his home school. He was in charge of hosting the group and guiding them on their trip. They observed one of his English classes which was about the benefits and challenges of studying abroad, and they were all invited to speak and share their experiences with his Chinese students. He shared with the group his TCLP experience in the U.S., and how much the program had helped him with his teaching in China. Over the trip they went on a hike and they hope to continue to collaborate in the future.

Egypt 2011-2012 TCLP Alumni Cohort:
• Cohort Leader Mohamed Eldwiny has collaborated on three papers for improving education in Egypt, which included insights from his experience on TCLP. The papers were studied by the High Egyptian Council of Education. He also attended an educational conference held by the Arab Union for Leadership Development in Cairo. He made a presentation at the conference about "Improving Education in Egypt" to an audience that included representatives from the Ministry of Education, professors from Universities, experts in the field of education, principals of schools, and teachers.He shared his observations of differences between the educations systems of Egypt and the U.S. The presentation was later published in a popular journal in Egypt. He was also one of eighteen teachers recently chosen (along with 2014-2015 cohort leader Mohamed Abouraya) by the Supervision of English Language in Damietta to attend a training of trainers about TOEFL, which he successfully completed. The training was under the supervision of the Central Directorate for Education Leadership Development in Cairo and now he will train other teachers in TOEFL.
• Mohamed Hassan was one of twelve teachers that were chosen to attend the Professional Certificate in English Language Teaching program. During the program, he held a session sharing his TCLP experience with his colleagues. He also recently presented at the Third Annual TCLP Virtual Alumni Training Conference where he shared how he developed unique student trainings in Egypt and how he connected his students in Egypt with those in the U.S.
• Salah Ibrahim attends an educational qualification program for teachers in Sohag University in cooperation with Ain Shams University. He is studying educational administration and leadership, strategic planning, and many other educational topics.
• Kamel Gadallah wrote a book that includes short stories; the book will be published very soon.
• Mohammed Abdelsamad is a principal in Tahrir Official Language School. He says, "Motivating my students was an essential part of my job as a school principal. My experience with TCLP provided me with some good motivation techniques."
• Eman Mansour has been a vice principal of a language school in Mahalla, Gharbia since November, 2015. As a master trainer, she has trained teachers of English last month to be TOEFL trainers.
• Heba Houzaien was chosen to teach at Ibn Khaldoun International School in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She says the experience that she gained on TCLP helped her a lot. She is currently teaching kindergarten.
• Ayman Abdelkhalek has finished his preliminary studies for his master’s degree in curriculum and instruction of EFL. He is now working on registering his thesis on EFL instruction. He also attended the first assessment conference in Egypt at the American University in Cairo.