On January 16, a pilot accreditation for Foreign Language Teaching (English) was held at Sumgayit State University in the framework of the joint TWİNNİNG project "Support to Strengthening Higher Education in Azerbaijan" by Ministry of Education and the European Commission.

Local and foreign experts took part at the meeting: the expert at the Quality Assurance Agency of the Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research Michelle Houpe, a retired professor at the University of Strasbourg Eckhart Hoetzel, docent of the Department of Foreign Languages of Azerbaijan State University of Economics Sevinj Alakbarzade, the expert of ADA University for quality assurance Sevinj Jafarova, English teacher of Foreign language-oriented Gymnasium Shahla Rahmanova, master student of ADA University Narmin Khalilova, specialist of the Accreditation and Nostrification Department of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan Konul Fatiyeva and coordinator of TWİNNİNG Project in Azerbaijan Lisa Budanova.

Vice-rector for Teaching Organization and Training Technologies docent Natig Talibov greeted the experts and spoke about the university"s activities, structural and educational programs, as well as the work done under the TWİNNING project.

Then a discussion was held of the self-evaluation report of the Foreign Language Teaching (English) curriculum of the Faculty of Philology, which was chosen as a pilot specialty.

Experts conducted interviews with university management, members of self-analysis team, academic staff, students, alumni, employers. They got acquainted with the lecture rooms, auditoriums of the Philology faculty and linguaphone rooms, which have a special place in the preparation of foreign language teachers, reviewed educational resources in the scientific library of the faculty.

In the interviews, the experts were interested in the analysis of the self-analysis report on Foreign Language Teaching (English), the problems encountered by the self-assessment team, and the experience gained. They stated that the self-analysis of the specialty was conducted at a high level, its weaknesses and strengths were investigated and suggestions were made to address the problems. Members of the self-analysis group noted that Sumgayit State University, which began its admission to the Foreign Language Teaching specialty in the 2014-2015 academic year, has been largely focused on the goals and learning outcomes, and the purposeful work done over the past 5 years.

Experts highly appreciated the successful management of the university in strategic areas, the curriculum, research activities, human resources, learning resources, and noted that the students are talented, competent and motivated.

Meeting with alumni and employers was also interesting and made a good impression on the members of the commission. Our alumni and guests said they were proud of the University and supported the drastic changes being made here.

The experts will soon submit a detailed report to the Ministry of Education and the University.