British Council - Teaching English

In our second series of this ten-part podcast series from the British Council, we try and provide solutions to some of the key questions being asked by English teachers around the world. Each episode explores a specific topic through interviews, a focus on recent developments and reports on British Council initiatives in English language teaching. Practical show notes and transcripts are available to download at the bottom of the page.

When working in a busy and stressful educational environment, it’s important that teachers support and help each other as much as possible. In this episode, we hear from several teacher networks around the world about how they support their members, the projects they are doing, and the impact which they are having. Following this, we speak to Pauline Blake-Johnston, who has a wide range of experience in participating in and managing teacher networks. Her experience ranges from being the chair of NATECLA Scotland (the National Association for Teaching English and other Community Languages to Adults), to vice-chair of the Glasgow ESOL forum, to being a board member for IATEFL’S ESOL special interest group.  

COVID-19 has affected so much of how we deliver education and language teaching. As schools (in some parts of the world) return to something approaching normality, it’s important to consider the mental health impact of the pandemic. Confronted with other challenging issues as well, such as climate anxiety, students are looking to teachers for mental health support more than ever before. In this episode, we’ll look at British Council set of activities created as part of its Connecting Classrooms programme. These materials help teachers promote wellbeing activities for both you and your students. In the second half of the episode, we speak to the teacher trainer, author and researcher Sarah Mercer and discuss how teachers can make their classrooms places where mental wellbeing is maintained, and even improved.For show notes and transcript, visit the page on teachingEnglish

Students’ home languages should be seen assets in the English language classroom – but all too often they are viewed as problematic and detrimental. In this episode, the writers of the British Council publication Using multilingual approaches:moving from theory to practice share activities you can use in your classroom that celebrate the languages your students speak. Following these practical suggestions, academic and researcher Tony Capstick shares his insights into the value and importance of a multilingual approach to learning.Download the shownotes and transcript

We are now into the last decade of the United Nations’ Sustainable Goals, and their emphasis on promoting education, improving health outcomes and eradicating poverty have never been more crucial. Despite their importance, many students around the world know little about them. In this podcast, we hear from three ELT writers who contributed articles to the British Council publication Integrating global issues in the creative English language classroom. We then speak to Margarita Kosior about how these ideas can be effectively contextualised in the classroom, showing that it is possible to meet language goals – and prepare students for examinations – by teaching about the Sustainable Development Goals.Download the show notes and transcript from TeachingEnglish

For decades, the educational dial in northern Nigeria, had barely moved. Low levels of literacy and numeracy prevailed across the state of Kano. Since 2019, the British Council have worked with governmental and non-governmental partners to implement its Kano Literacy and Maths Accelerator (KaLMA) project, the aim of which is to build foundational Maths, Hausa and English literacy skills, using a TaRL (Teaching at the Right Level) approach. In our interview, Mohammed Wais, a coordinator of the NGO “Wave of Hope” at the Nea Kavala refugee camp in northern Greece, shares his experience of teaching English in this challenging context, providing ideas, initiatives and insights into how teachers can be as effective as possible.Download the shownotes and transcript from www.teachingenglish.org.uk/podcast

The last two years have seen a rush to teaching online, driven largely by the COVID-19 pandemic. But whilst some teachers had considerable experience teaching remotely, for others it was a completely new experience. In episode 5, we learn from Plan Ceibal (Ceibal en Inglés), an innovative English teaching project which uses videoconferencing technology to reach 80,000 children in over 550 primary schools across Uruguay. In the second part, digital learning specialist and lecturer in English language teacher Raquel Ribeiro shares her insights into how you can teach online more effectively, whatever your own experience and personal context. Download the show notes, including practical advice for teachers, and the transcript from the British Council's TeachingEnglish website

There are in excess of 85 million displaced people in the world, with children under the age of 18 constituting around half this total. Whether a refugee, migrant or internally-displaced person, developing language skills can play a huge role for these individuals – and the host communities in which they live – to withstand challenges, recover from crisis and overcome barriers. We’ll explore the British Council work on Language for Resilience to understand this further. Following on from this, we’ll speak to teacher and trainer Brian Lally about his work and research in Lebanon with Syrian refugees, and identify some core principles which teachers working in these challenging situations can use.Download the show notes and transcript from the TeachingEnglish website

All children have the right to learn, but often they are not given the opportunity to do so. Even when they are present in the classroom, they are not fully included in the learning. In this episode, teachers involved in the British Council’s innovative Teaching for All programme in South Africa will share approaches which can promote inclusivity, particularly in diverse classrooms communities. Then leading inclusivity expert Anne Margaret Smith will then share her ideas about how these strategies can be adapted and adopted in your teaching context.Download the episode show notes and transcript

Although classrooms are becoming increasingly gender fair, the educational impacts of COVID-19 have affected females more than males. Now, more than ever, teachers need to continue to make their classrooms gender-fair places. In the first part of Episode 2, we learn about a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) recently created by the British Council, in which we explore its three modules, Gender representation in teaching materials, Understanding gender equality in teaching practice and Working with Gender equality in Education. In the second part, gender expert and educator Bhavna Gupta identifies simple ways in which all teachers, whatever their context, can ensure that all students are given equal opportunities.Download the show notes and transcript