Programs
Regional English Language Office
Mission
Dr. Ruth Petzold is the Regional English Language Officer (RELO) for North Africa. She is based in Rabat and covers Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. The mission of the RELO consists in working with local educational institutions to improve the teaching of English as a foreign language in the private and public sectors.
Activities
The Regional English Language Officer (RELO) consults with host country officials, offers professional guidance, advises teachers’ associations, organizes and participates in conferences. The RELO also encourages and partially funds teachers and university professors’ participation at international conventions, such as the “Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages” (TESOL) convention and the “American Association of Applied Linguistics” (AAAL) convention. The RELO also coordinates with the Public Affairs Section to ensure the successful implementation of Department of State English Language Programs such as the Access Micro scholarship Program, the English Language Fellow program, the English Language Specialist Program and the E-teacher program.
Local Partners
The Regional English Language Officer works in concert with the officials at the Ministries of Education and Higher Education to ensure the implementation of educational that could contribute to the enhancement and development of English language teaching and learning. The RELO also uses U.S. Embassy partners, namely NGOs, Language Centers and Associations to reach out to students and civil society and to educate them of the various educational opportunities that could contribute to their professional development and career enhancement.
Resources
The Regional English Language Office puts at the disposal of educators and learners a variety of English language materials in multiple formats: print, video, audio and online. The RELO assists teachers in getting their articles published in the English teaching Forum magazine, which is a referee journal for classroom teachers. The RELO also encourages the dissemination of State Department copy-right owned teacher training materials such as Shaping the Way We Teach English which focuses on current teaching methodologies.