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Summer Institute faculty and student assistants in Kyiv, waiting to be transported to Vinnytsia. First row, second from right, Summer Institute director Zirka Voronka. had attended training sessions and were using British texts in their classes. There are at least four British Council libraries in other regional centers throughout Ukraine. All of them offer the same services, so the Council’s work is not limited to the capital. Much of the training methodology I observed can be traced to British texts and British Council teacher- training sessions. Both the texts and training stress communicative activities. Although the classes I wit nessed were mostly teacher-centered, the focus of each lesson was on English language for communication, not on grammar. In only one class did I see translation used. For current students, who will have the opportu nities to communicate personally with native speakers of English, these changes are certainly improvements over the translation and grammar-based instruction of the past. However, the almost exclusive use of British texts and the widespread influence of British Council training means that new as well as experienced teachers are still trained in a British variant of English which includes a strong component of British culture. Other Englishes — Australian, Canadian or American, for example — are largely ignored. In some texts, American English is presented, but usually for purposes of contrast. In fact, the general impact of the treatment of American English in some of these texts often strikes native speakers of American English as condescending. They seem to ignore the richness and variety within the Englishes of America (Canada included). American English to the authors of these texts is merely one variant in the vast world of British Englishes. I suspect that the inclusion of exercises related to ’’American” English in British texts is the result of demand on the part of students around the world. While there were some Anglophiles among the Ukrainian students I met, the vast majority were interested in knowing more about American English and American culture. Their British Council trained teachers and the British textbooks do not satisfy this desire. The question seems to be “Why aren’t the United States government and American publishers filling this need?” In Kyiv, the United States Information Service (USIS) maintains America House, a library of American works in many fields, which is open to the public. This library also distributes American English language teaching materials which the agency publishes itself. America House does not involve itself directly in English language training, nor does is serve as a language teachers’ resource center. It has no connection with commercial Svitlana Chuhu of the Vinnytsia Pedgagogical Institute who helped organize the Summer Institute and has recently been elected as president of the newly formed TESOL affiliate in Ukraine. ’’НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, БЕРЕЗЕНЬ 1996 21
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