Education Institute distributes certificates to 177 teachers

The Education Institute distributed attendance certificates to 177 teachers marking the completion of Phase I of the Academic English Training Programme. The event was attended by Dr. Jan Wilson, director of the Professional Development Office at the Education Institute and Mr. Simon Winetroube, director of the British Council which implements the program.

The program aims at helping science and mathematics teachers in the Independent schools to develop and improve their language capabilities and skills, and therefore reflect on their teaching. Dr. Wilson thanked the trainees/teachers for their commitment and effort to attend the program despite the daily tasks they have at their schools. “We have to be more confident, continue to improve our performance which will consequently reflects on our students. The Education Institute will continue to support teachers, and maintain their right to develop,” she said.

“The British Council highly values our partnership with the Supreme Education Council and we are delighted that we were chosen to deliver this important project,” said Mr. Winetroube. “The Academic Language Support Programme is very important for the British Council because the participants are teachers, whose professional skills and motivation can have such an enormous impact on the lives of so many Qatari school students.”

He continued to add that “teaching is a very tough job and it continues to become tougher by the day. Teaching through the medium of a foreign language must be even tougher, but there are enormous potential benefits for students who can operate effectively in English within their specialist area, when they leave school and enter higher education, further education and the job market”

Completing the first phase of this project is a major milestone and it has received positive feedback from participants. “The 177 teachers who have completed this programme have shown real dedication and professionalism, studying for many hours in their own time, alongside their full-time jobs,” said Mr. Winetroube. “Feedback indicates that they have benefited through much improved English language, greater confidence and new teaching techniques. We are looking forward to seeing further progress in the next phases of the project. We are also constantly listening and learning so that we can improve the programme for the future.”

About the project:
The project addresses the challenges of teaching science and mathematics in the English medium. It offers a range of interventions to assist teachers.

Phase 1: General English improvement for the teachers
Each recruited teacher will receive a course of around 100 hours of general English course delivered by the British Council. As well as directly improving the teachers’ English, this will improve their ability to continue to learn and develop their language and expose them to quality teaching, allowing them to experience modern learner-centred methods.

Phase 2: Teacher Training Workshops
Each teacher will receive three one-week full time intensive teacher-training workshops. Each workshop will be followed by a period back in the classroom with tasks to help them to transfer their learning back to their workplace. The workshops will focus on two areas:

• Specific English Language Improvement for the teachers Teachers will be helped to develop the language that they need as subject teachers; thel language of the classroom and the language of Maths/Science, with particular regard to the Qatar curriculum. They will be become aware of how to express themselves in ways which their pupils can understand, even with limited English.
• The introduction of Content and Language Integrated Learning methodologies

These methods have been developed to help maximise the value of classroom time by teaching a foreign language and a subject simultaneously. They introduce techniques borrowed from foreign language teaching to the subject teachers so that they can help their students to learn their subjects despite their limited language proficiency.

Phase 3: Teacher Development
Trainers will visit their trainees in their schools after the workshop programme has finished, They will observe classes and give feedback, teach demonstration lessons and run remedial workshops to deal with issues which arise

The lead consultant will also produce a 5-year strategic plan for how to move forward in a sustainable way.