IEEE Technical English Program (TEP) is an exclusive benefit for IEEE student members. The purpose of the program is to increase technical literacy in English, and improve the readability of manuscripts, papers and specification sheets by non-native speakers of English. The TEP tutorial is given at the end of an instruction cycle and is an important milestone for both students and instructors associated with TEP. In 2004, 2006 the tutorial featured Professor Kurt Richterfrom Austria, who spoke about development of leadership skills.

Next IEEE Technical English Program (TEP) Workshop especially for non-English speaking countries was held in Saint-Petersburg Electrotechnical University in October 6-9, 2009. It was attended by 70 participants, including teachers and organizers from eleven sections, including Siberia and Uruguay. This time teachers are Professor Moshe Kam and Research Assistant Ryan Measel from Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA. M.Kam has also served as the 2005-2007 IEEE Vice-President for Educational Activities, and IEEE President in 2008.

The workshop began with preliminary tutorial meeting for teachers and continued with a program for students to practise their skills in technical English. Next day, students were divided into groups with moderators and began solving different problems in English. All participants had the chance to present their own short report to others. Eight hours of discussion and problem-solving let everyone establish technical communication with each other, despite corning from different countries.

The third day concluded with tutorial results and TEP perspectives. Before focusing on the technical subject, Professor Kam spoke about IEEE's history, and about its activities worldwide. He emphasized IEEE activities in countries that exhibit new emerging roles in technology creation and consumption, including China, India and Russia. Kam pointed out that IEEE has a significant potential to grow in Russia. Though Russia is the largest country in the world by territory, and its population is about 140 million, there are now only 800 IEEE members in the whole country. The Russia Northwest Section, where the tutorial was given, has only 200 members, including about 50 student members. It turned out that about half of all the Section's student members were part of TEP and were present that day.

Alexander Mikerov, North-West IEEE Section Vice-chair, told about his experiences in starting TEP in St Petersburg Technical University and developing it into a very successful project.

We are very proud and grateful to the IEEE Region 8 and the IEEE Educational Activity Board for invitation the tutorial.