Letter From Afghanistan

In the Life
The essays below have been submitted by Afghan women and girls. Most of the articles have been lightly edited to assist with English grammar by Alliance volunteers, but the ideas, thoughts, and sentiments are all directly from the Afghan authors.

Security of Afghanistan

By Robina

Security means freedom, defense of our territory, and security means to keep our nation from enemies. As we know, fighting is going on for 30 years in Afghanistan, which has brought many disasters to our country, such as killing, injuring, destruction and joblessness. These entire problems have influenced the life of poor Afghans.

There are many widows and handicapped people in our country who don't have any ability in their family to solve their economical problems, so it has caused to increase the number of robberies and beggars in our country.

In fact, if we compare the current circumstances with the previous situation, we will understand that current conditions are too bad because in the past there was security or tranquility and there was no corruption and there weren't kidnappings, killing, robbery, suicide attacks, and bomb blasts in the country, unfortunately there were no schools and centers for people but they had rules and laws for every legal and illegal work. For example: If a person killed someone the Taliban would kill the killer.

But in the current situation we have schools, centers and universities, but unfortunately there is no security. The people don’t have peace and unity between themselves. Everywhere there are suicide attacks and bomb blasts. The enemies of the country can do anything they want because they are not afraid of the government.

Today we have people in parliament but they aren't working for the people, they just do the work that have benefits for themselves, Also, many people of Afghanistan are uneducated, they are ignorant, they don’t know about human rights, so the current situation is understandable. The enemies of our country pay money to the jobless people of our community to kill people by firing and exploding mines, however the people are obliged to do any illegal thing even selling their kids to get money to improve their economical condition.

I hope that the day will come that our people will stay together and there will be job opportunities. Also the most important part of the country is security, so I hope that they will train good police to keep good security to prevent all these problems, because without security it's difficult for progress and development of our country.

What Makes Me A Successful Language Teacher?

“I stimulate students to discover what truly inspires them. In an environment that encourages students to trust their own opinions, students can realize their full potential. I strongly feel that if students create their own learning experiences they will not only retain information longer, but they will also become confident in their abilities.”



I believe that a good teacher is someone who can help students draw and discover their hidden source of positive energy on which they will lay foundation of their education. The purpose of education is to discover one's strength of self. A language teacher has to be imaginative and innovative to make students always feel engaged in the learning process. A certain amount of dramatic quality stands good stead, though may not be effective always so far as language production is concerned. As a good teacher I believe it is essential to adhere to the three Ps: purity, patience and perseverance in my language classroom on a daily basis. Just as we strive to develop an inquiry based learning approach in our students learning I too must adhere to this approach as I strive to bring out the right answer; so that I am a good listener and do not lose patience, during my lessons. I believe the most important role of the language teacher is to empower my students through the creation of engaging and authentic learning experiences to develop my students into autonomous lifelong learners.

Biography

For sixteen years I taught in the mainstream classroom in Newcastle, Australia. During this time I actively pursued professional development opportunities to ensure that I was keeping abreast of the latest pedagogical and theoretical practices so that I could integrate engaging and authentic teaching and learning experiences in my classroom.

I was fortunate to always work with a dynamic and collaborative group of educators who were willing to take risks and trial new programs from IWB’s to introducing languages. In Australia, the mainstream teaching is an expert at multi-tasking, and it is vital that we pursue professional development so that we can deliver programs that equip students to be globally responsible 21st century citizens.

In the year 2000, I decided to return to the classroom to embark on a MA Educ. and I too became a lifelong learner as I am still studying today. With a specialization in Sociology and Drama, I wrote and published two children’s musicals and then moved into the field of Sociology and it’s relationship with education.

This lead to further study in “Teaching Asian Studies” and becoming involved with AETA (Asian Education Teachers Association), an organisation run by teachers interested in promoting the inclusion of an Asian perspective in teaching. My interest expanded outside the classroom and led me to take teachers on professional development trip house building with Tabitha in Cambodia. Realizing that I had a passion for global issues and developing countries I decided to embark on a volunteer teacher-training program with Hagar in Cambodia during my summer vacation in 2006. I developed a fascination for language teaching and working with NGO’s even though the hours were tediously long, the resources minimal the rewards and memories are lifelong.

Opportunities do not always present themselves in one’s lifetime but one Sunday lunch I was fortunate to sit next to an acquaintance at lunch who offered me a chance to design and implement an academic writing course for Lao agriculture students with funding from ACIAR a government project that aims to improve the well being of people in developing countries and Australia through international collaboration in research and education. This opportunity allowed me to showcase my creative talents through the publication of a textbook developed from many valuable hours spent in an isolated classroom outside Vientiane.

Returning to my home in Australia after my brief working sojourns in Asia it did not take long for me to realize that I needed to update professionally and move globally. After completing a MAL I took up my first overseas teaching position at Yokohama International School in Japan. Here, at YIS like-minded global educators and students surrounded me all “walking the talk” through their involvement in global projects. At YIS, I had the valuable experience of developing and implementing an EAP programme for high school students.

After two years an opportunity presented itself again and I was fortunate to take on Head of EAL at Sinarmas World Academy in Indonesia. It has been an exciting past year as we working to establish a new department, developing resources for an IT centred learning approach as we equip students to become successful lifelong learners who are inspired through my teaching to make a difference in our every changing world.