This highly innovative programme has been initiated and funded by the Qatar Supreme Education Council (the SEC), and is being designed and implemented by the British Council.

Client, stakeholders, partners
The Qatar Supreme Education Council

Focus
To improve the quality of English language medium mathematics and science teaching in Qatar schools.

The project
This highly innovative programme has been initiated and funded by the Qatar Supreme Education Council (the SEC), and is being designed and implemented by the British Council.

Independent schools in Qatar follow a set curriculum in which mathematics and science are taught through English. The limited language proficiency of teachers and pupils in Qatar makes this a great challenge. The project offers a range of interventions to assist the mathematics and science teachers:

• Phase 1 General English improvement for the teachers: Each teacher receives around 100 hours of general English tuition from British Council recruited teachers. 
• Phase 2 Teacher Training Workshops: Each teacher attends three week-long full-time teacher training workshops. Between workshops they complete tasks which help them to transfer their learning back to their classrooms. The workshops focus on two areas:
  
  A) Specific English language improvement for the teachers
  B) The introduction of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) methodologies.
• Phase 3 Teacher Development: Trainers visit the trainees in their schools. They observe classes, give feedback, teach demonstration lessons and run remedial workshops.

The project will also produce a five-year strategic plan, which will ensure that the work can be taken forward in a sustainable way.

Learning a school curriculum subject in a foreign language offers potential benefits, such as:

• The opportunity to develop their language in a context of authentic use, engaging in real tasks with intrinsic value rather than tasks contrived for language learning.
• A pathway which prepares students to function in their specialism in the foreign language in Higher Education or in the workplace.

CLIL methodologies help the subject teachers to help their learners to learn in the foreign language effectively.

What the stakeholders say
At the time of writing the project is just about to launch, but SEC officials have described the design as ground-breaking, a project which will be watched with great interest by everyone involved in the reforms.