This week the U.S. Embassy brought a Specialist (a consultant for English programs sponsored by the State Department). The Specialist specialized in Business English and came to help the business college redesign their curriculum. Since I haven't started teaching yet, I was lucky to attend the sessions. On the first day she taught the group that there is ESP (English for Specific Purposes) and TENOR (teaching English for no obvious reasons). As everyone was laughing, I was thinking to myself, "I'd rather be a TENOR than anything else."
It was fun to have a visitor in Algiers and although it was a bit exhausting, I met a lot of new friends and already have a plan for to return and work with the student association there. After lunch one day they had a concert for us and sang songs in Berber, Arabic, and English. They organized a blood drive on the first day we were there and they have many other activities.
The business college will soon move to a new campus and we had the chance to visit. It's located about 40 kilometers outside of Algiers and there is a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains in every classroom.
There are five amphitheaters, 60 fully equipped classrooms with projectors, and three brand new computer labs. It is amazing. It also showed me how many resources this country has. The government spends 30% of the national budget on education. The Minister of Higher Education proudly explained to me, "While some see education as an expense, we see it as an investment in the future." If only all governments could think that way! In contrast, the U.S. government allocated just 4% of the federal budget to education in 2012.
On the last day of the training, my host institution called and informed me that I will start on Sunday. MachaAllah!
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