British Council - Teaching English

Looking at the world of ELT from the perspective of fairness, justice, and equity, there is much to admire. However, it is far from perfect, and in this episode we look at some of those areas in which significant improvement could be made. In our field report, we hear from three individuals whose organisations are trying to make ELT a better place in terms of fairness in working conditions, inclusion in the workplace, and gender balance. In our interview, we speak to Rachel Tsateri, who is a prominent advocate for the rights of ‘non-native speaking English teachers’, drawing on her own experience of being discriminated against.

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Building on what we discussed in episode 4 about ‘Academic English’, we take a step back and look at the wider context within which it sits – English for Specific Purposes (ESP). At first, who better than Viviana Cortes – the editor-in-chief of the Journal of English for Specific Purposes – to share with us an overview of ESP, discussing its history, present and its future. In our field report, we investigate some of the particular areas in more detail, with practitioners of Medical English, Aviation English, and English for Islamic Studies telling us about their specialities. We learn about some of the specific lexical, grammatical and stylistic features of each of these specialisms.

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Teacher professional development is a crucial part of being a good teacher. However, we often think that ‘good training’ can only be obtained from ‘expert trainers’ at large conferences or through online workshops. And whilst these can definitely be hugely beneficial, many teachers forget that there is so much that they can learn from their own colleagues in their own contexts. In our interview, we hear from the EVE programme, a ground-breaking initiative which promotes gender equity in ELT conferences. After this, we journey to Romania, to hear from a very active group based in the town of Sibiu who promote peer-led teacher development workshops.

Many parts of the world are currently experiencing significant levels of violence and conflict. The role of education and language learning in these areas is very important, and can provide short and long term benefits for people in these situations. This episode is released on the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and in recognition of this our field report focuses on a British Council programme entitled “Teaching and Learning in Difficult Times”. This programme has, to date, provided training in trauma-sensitive pedagogy to more than 1,000 Ukrainian English language teachers. In our interview, we talk to Diana Abu Zayed, a teacher in Gaza in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who shares with us some of her practical experiences of teaching in a conflict area.

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Wherever you are in the world, and whatever your context, story will almost certainly be an important part of the teaching and learning context. However, what is meant by the word’ story’ may differ from place to place, ranging from the type of traditional tale found in coursebooks, to oral narratives created by students themselves, to digital creations found online. To develop our understanding of these different contexts we first speak to Jamie Keddie, an expert in the way we can use different forms of ‘story’ to teach English. His passion and knowledge of the subject will be sure to stimulate your own classroom practice. After this, we visit the Oasis Centre in Cardiff to learn more about their novel approach to using storytelling to develop their students’ English language skills.

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