The Foreign Service Journal, June 2010

sions. There might also be team pro- jects every couple of weeks. Plan for Success One of the success stories in online education comes from the annals of the State Department. Years ago, State worked with George Mason University to develop a distance- learning program to train Foreign Service family members (and others) as teachers for overseas schools. FS spouse Liz Covington, for example, received her master’s degree in multicultural education and a license to teach English to speakers of other languages via the FAST TRAIN program at George Mason University (http://fasttrain. gmu.edu/) . The 13-month, intensive program also involves two summer school sessions on campus. “I was in Monterrey during the year of online coursework,” Coving- ton says. “I was on campus for two summers during intensive five-week courses.” She has now been a teacher in Mexico, China and Mongolia. “The best part was getting a master’s degree and teaching license finished in 13 months,” she says, but “it was also challenging for a social person like me not to be on a traditional campus dur- ing most of the year.” Since she was not yet employed by a school, she found it difficult to do some of her required fieldwork. But displaying the resourcefulness charac- teristic of many Foreign Service spous- es, she worked out an agreement to “borrow” students from the local inter- national school to do her research. Covington’s advice to overseas learners? “Know what your goal is. I wanted to get a master’s and a license, and this program provided both at once. I also wanted to study with a variety of classmates, and this pro- gram was about one-third foreigners teaching their native language to for- eigners; one-third Americans teach- ing English overseas; and one-third Foreign Service families, in particular, have new avenues and opportunities for learning, whether for basic education, career development or sheer pleasure. J U N E 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 85 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT Continued from p. 80