Experience Fulbright

Table setting at Loza Art cafe in Tashkent.

Connecting…

My first week back in Tashkent has been a whirlwind. I’ve been able to spend time reconnecting with friends and also setting the groundwork for my data collection. My first full day here I went to the univeristy and met with the Dean of the Foreign Languages department. He welcomed me warmly and offered any support that I needed to conduct my research project. His assistant also introduced me to each of the 2nd year English teachers who had previously been identified as having their classes participate in the project. We had only one misstep, which occured when the assistant brought us to the wrong room for the first class and we were halfway through explaining the project before she realized this was the wrong class. I politely apologized for the mistake and when some of the students expressed their dissappointment about not participating I offered to come back to just visit their class when my schedule allowed.

Once we sorted that out and went to the correct room everything went smoothly. I will be working with 3 sections of 2nd year english students. I will be partnering with their teachers for the Reading & Writing class once a week and their Speaking and Listening class twice a week. That’s 3 meetings a week for 80 minutes each time. I was able to give out the consent forms on this first day and discuss a plan for collecting my pretreatment data with the teachers. Every teacher was again enthususiatic about participating in the project. They were more than happy to accommodate my requests to conduct reading and speaking assessments with the students in classes after they return from the Eid holiday.

After spending the first day meeting with the Dean and faculty and introducing myself to the classes I will be working in, my research assistant (more on him in a later post) and I returned the next day to administer the pre-treatment stress and midnfulness questionaire. We went back yesterday to conduct the reading and speaking assessments. It has been an a busy and exhuasting week but at this point I am feeling really good about where we are at with the project.

A few more observations for those of you unfamilar with what it is like to work here in Uzbekistan as a Westerner. First, one of the challenges is getting information about logistics. Each morning I message the Dean’s assistant and ask her which rooms I need to go to for each class, as they are not always the same each day for each class. This was evident when even she took us to the wrong room at first. Also, I’ve asked the teachers to share with me their lesson plan or topic outline for the next few weeks so that I can work with them to plan activities in class. Generally speaking, they don’t have much of a plan. Yesterday, the first class I went into the teachers (they team teach) had no lesson planned. They just assumed that I would take up the entire 80 minute block. Given all the assessments I needed to conduct it ended up working out fine, but I tried to explain again to them that I am there to help them in class but didn’t intend to teach the entire block myself. I’m not an English teacher.

Another challenge comes from working in a strongly patriarchal system. One of the teachers I’m working with is an older, Russian speaking man, who is a senior faculty member. He told me (yes told, not asked) that today I should come to his 3rd year class in the afternoon because those students were excited to work with me and would be more impressive (yes, impressing people is a thing here) to me given their higher level of English. I inquired as to what time this class met and it directly conflicted with the Speaking class I am working with for my research. I told him that was not possible as I needed to be in the 2nd year Speaking class on Fridays at that time. His response was, “No problem, I will speak with the Dean’s assistant and get your schedule changed so you can come to my 3rd year Reading class instead.” I quite sternly told him NO. I have set a specific schedule for my project and it is not possible for me to change this. I then offered to meet with his other students at a different time that did not conflict with one of the classes that I am conducting my research with. He frowned and told me I was “too serious” today. (Where is the eye roll emoji?). On a better note, the two female Reading and Writing teachers for the other sections are a joy to work with and so responsive and helpful.

Reconnecting…

In the time between prepping materials and being at the university, I’ve been able to reconnect with some of my friends here in Tashkent. I had dinner with my amazing friend Shakhina who has been working with the UNDP Women’s Development program and conducting women’s leaderhip courses for young women through the US Embassy here.

I celebrated Iftar at the home of my friend, Zulfiya. She worked for the Ministry of Public Education back in 2019 and was assigned to work with me as the project coordinator on my Fulbright grant. She is now teaching English to primary students at a recently opened Canadian international school. Uzbeks have a tradition of giving gifts to guests and though I’ve known Zulfiya for years now, she presented me with a beautilful green and gold chapan (see the photo below). I’m planning to wear this to a conference I am presenting at next week.

I was also contacted my a psychology faculty member who attended my active learning workshop in 2021. She invited me to present my work on mindfulness and stress at a conference this week. YES, that’s right, this week. I had only a few days to prepare but that is typical here in Uzbekistan. Luckily for me I know this topic well and could pull slides together from other presentations I’ve given in the past. She picked me up at my apartment and took me to have plov (a traditional rice pilaf…see previous blog post from 2019 for more on plov). After lunch I gave a 20 minute presentation to students and faculty in the psychology and education programs and answered questions for about another 10 minutes. They also presented me with a gift (red and white short chapon and traditional Uzbek jewlery) and a certificate.

Now that I’m settled in and feel like I’m off to a good start, I will try to make a few blog entries a week so you can all follow along with my progress. Stay tuned…