The grant proposal submitted by Natalia Mukhina, Senior Lecturer at the MCU’s Department of Teaching English and Business Communication, and Engin Ayvaz, Director of the Intensive English Center at Tennessee State University (TSU) has been selected for funding by American Councils for International Education.
The success rate was around 20% within the grant cycle. MCU has become one of seven Russian universities that have been selected for the program.
Natalia Mukhina and Engin Ayvaz have designed the project “Virtual Collaborative Lesson Planning and Delivery to Promote Reflective Practice in English Language Teaching”. The project is to be carried out between April 2021 and August 2021.
Within the scope of U.S. — Russia Virtual University Partnerships (UniVIP) Small Grants, MCU and TSU aim to achieve the following goals: teachers-in-training in both countries will develop an understanding of the context in which their peers are practising; appreciate their issues, challenges as well as successes and develop lifelong cross-cultural relationships. The purpose of this collaboration is to bring graduate level teachers-in-training from partner institutions for a virtual collaborative experience with the following intended outcomes:
- Create a forum for faculty and students from partner institutions to benefit from each other’s expertise and experience
- Instil a culture of continuous professional development by nurturing reflective practice and experiential learning
- Contribute to the development of intercultural communication and cross-cultural understanding in partnering institutions.