Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program for Pakistan

About the Fellowship

The Teaching Excellence and Achievement (TEA) Program for Pakistan provides Pakistani secondary school teachers of English from government and foundation schools with the opportunity to develop expertise in their subject area, enhance their teaching skills and English proficiency, and increase their knowledge about the United States.

Funding for this program is provided by the Regional English Language Office in the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.

Photos from the program

My American Experience

Fellow Nilofer Anwar created the My American Experience blog to detail her time in the program. She writes:

TEA Fellows were a family together! It was wonderful knowing each and every person who came across in TEA fellowship right from Pakistan to Virginia Tech.

Trustees Without Borders

Listen as Andy Morikawa, executive director emeritus of the Community Foundation of the New River Valley, talks with the visiting Pakistanis about their time at Virginia Tech.

Program goals

Strengthen people-to-people ties between the United States and Pakistan through shared information, experiences, exchanges, and/or expertise.
Provide preservice and in-service professional development to enhance teachers' expertise in their teaching disciplines, and equip them with new and best practices in teaching methodology, curriculum development, leadership, and teacher training skills.
Strengthen local institutions to build long-term, self-sustaining relationships and institutional linkages between U.S. and Pakistani organizations.
Enhance community engagement through positive messages and tolerant perspectives that enhance and amplify community-based efforts in a wide range of areas.
Expand media outreach by amplifying U.S. diplomacy activities and programs on social and traditional media platforms.

Program objectives

The TEA program focuses on English language, classroom pedagogy, community engagement, communication, leadership, and teacher training skills, through firsthand academic training, workshops, class observations, and networking with Virginia Tech English language teaching peers.

In particular, the program:

Provides participants with six weeks of an exceptional professional development in English as a second language program to develop their pedagogic expertise in teaching English language and improve their English language proficiency.
Provides opportunities outside the classroom for participants to practice English skills, professional networking, and cultural exploration.
Offers English language classroom observations and support.
Conveys an understanding of U.S. culture through cultural programing and activities in Washington, D.C., and various opportunities to experience life in the U. S., increasing participants’ knowledge about the U.S., its people, and its democratic values.
Provides social and cultural orientation and follow-on activities so participants feel confident becoming teacher trainers and capable of meeting their professional needs.
Prepares future educators, leaders, and activists to engage with the world through InclusiveVT and the Virginia Tech Principles of Community.