ESL Program

Opening the World To Central Asian Women

The purpose of the Armchair ESL (“English as a Second Language”) Program is to increase the English capacity of Central Asian women leaders and future women leaders. By improving their English, the women leaders can more easily reach out to the international community for research, advice, funding, as well as share their experiences with the rest of the world. The ESL classes are long-distance one-on-one lessons between the ESL teacher and student.

The Armchair ESL Program provides both the students and teachers with a unique opportunity to directly meet and learn about women from other cultures. The Alliance uses only experienced ESL teachers as volunteers in this program to ensure that students are getting the best possible education.

The Alliance is currently running the Armchair ESL Program in Afghanistan and Kazakhstan.

The Technology

The Armchair ESL Program uses Skype® (www.Skype.com) to provide two live English conversation classes per week for each student. Skype offers free computer-to-computer phone and “chat” features that allow students and teachers to speak with each other as well as write instant messages at the same time. The ESL classes have a one-to-one student-teacher pairing so that each student gets the optimal amount of practice and attention from her teacher. In between the two live classes, the teachers and students also use e-mail for written assignments.

The Classes

The live classes run from between 45 minutes to one hour per class, depending on the students’ needs and teachers’ availability. At the moment, we do not use one standard curriculum for the project, but instead each teacher tailors her classes for her specific student for an individualized three-month course. Each teacher is an experienced ESL professional who has been screened by the Alliance and we are confident in their skills to provide high-quality lessons to their students.

Student Requirements

In order to participate in the Armchair ESL Program, students must have access to a reliable computer and high-speed internet twice a week. Students also need a headset with a microphone. Students must have at least a beginning/intermediate level of English as the classes are not suitable for complete beginners.

Volunteer Teacher Requirements

Volunteer teacher requirements are as follows:

  • Volunteer teachers must be native English speakers with ESL/EFL certification or teaching experience.
  • Volunteers need to have a reliable computer, high-speed internet, Skype® software (free software is found at www.skype.com), and a headset. We only use Skype’s free computer-to-computer software. We do not use the paid computer-to-phone service. We also do not yet use web cameras because they do not work well in Afghanistan or Kazakhstan.
  • The volunteers will need to be available to teach one student for two 45-minute sessions per week, for a minimum of three months.
  • Class times are generally between the hours of 8:00 -11:00 a.m., noon to 2:00 p.m., or 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. in Afghanistan’s and Kazakhstan’s time zones. Interested applicants should determine if they are available for two 45 minute sessions during these hours by comparing their local time to Afghanistan or Kazakhstan time on the following website: http://www.timezoneconverter.com. For time zone comparisons you may use the city of Kabul for Afghanistan and the city of Almaty for Kazakhstan on the time zone website. We ask that you please determine your availability during the required hours before applying.
  • Although the Alliance welcomes volunteers of both genders in our Kazakhstan program, due to the Afghan culture and for the safety and comfort of our Afghan partners, we are only able to work with women teachers for the Afghanistan ESL Program.

For information on applying to volunteer in our Armchair ESL Program, please see the Apply page.