Programs and Events

First Digital Video Conference at the American Center

English teachers watch DVC at the American Center

The Public Diplomacy Section (PDS) of the U.S. Embassy hosted its first ever Digital Video Conference (DVC) program at the American Center in Vientiane on March 23, 2007 for teachers of English as a second language. Over ninety teachers attended.

Mr. George Wilcox, Regional English Language Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, conducted the training session titled “Teaching of English and Critical Thinking.”

English teachers from both public and private schools and five provincial teacher training colleges attended, including staff from the Ministry of Education. The program included strategies for teaching critical thinking skills, ways to encourage critical thinking in students, problem solving and inventive thinking. Mr. Wilcox also introduced many curriculum suggestions and discussed resources for teaching and critical thinking in his presentation.

The teachers were impressed not only by the substance of the presentation but also by the DVC technology, which is not widely used in Laos. PDS plans to conduct more DVC programs on various topics at the American Center in the future.