Teachers of Turkmen universities took part in a regional training seminar on the Pre-Service English Teacher Training Program (PRESETT), held in Tashkent (Republic of Uzbekistan).
The seminar was organized within the framework of the British Council's educational project Accelerating English Language Learning in Central Asia (AELLCA) and is aimed at improving the training of educators, studying international experience and developing regional cooperation in the field of education.
The Turkmen delegation included teachers from the Magtymguly Turkmen State University, the Dovletmammet Azadi Turkmen National Institute of World Languages, and the Seyitnazar Seydi Turkmen State Pedagogical Institute.
Overall, the event brought together 30 national consultants under the PRESETT program from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
During the seminar, representatives of the universities of the participating countries met with the Chief Executive of the British Council, Scott McDonald, and presented the curriculum projects developed at their universities. The meeting was held at the Abdulla Avloniy National Institute of Pedagogical Mastery.
Within the framework of the AELLCA project, national consultants from the five countries worked on modernizing English teacher training programs. The participants discussed the importance of continuous professional development (CPD) of educators, the introduction of reflective and inclusive approaches at all stages of training future teachers, effective methods of assessing pedagogical competencies and the role of national specialists in this work.
At the end of the meeting, the participants briefly spoke about the work in their universities in this direction and the impact of the AELLCA project on reforming the system of Pre-Service English Teacher Training (PRESETT) at the national level.
As was noted, within the framework of the AELLCA project, a new curriculum has been developed at the Dovletmammet Azadi Turkmen National Institute of World Languages and introduced into the educational process starting from the 2026–2027 academic year. It is focused on the practical training of future teachers and provides for updating the learning outcomes, strengthening the methodological component and taking into account the principles of inclusive education.
It was also noted that the advancement of work on teacher training is largely facilitated by the participation of AELLCA partners – specialists of the Norwich Institute for Language Education (NILE), who conduct training events at Turkmen universities to improve the qualifications of national consultants.
